Turn of the Millennium/Analysis: Difference between revisions

In some ways, the [[Turn of the Millennium|The Oughts]] was much like [[The Nineties]] --— however, there were a few key differences that will be highlighted here.

* In '''2003''', America lost its second Space Shuttle with the breakup of ''Columbia'' during reentry. This tragic event pretty much heralded the end of the US manned space program, although sporadic launches would still occur throughout the decade as it wrapped things up. However, thanks to SpaceShipOne and a [[Money, Dear Boy|desperate-for-cash]] Russian space program, space tourism and private space travel took their first faltering steps to being a reality... but only for the super-rich. Dennis Tito was the first tourist in space in 2000. By the end of the decade, this would fall from super-rich to merely really-rich (although the really rich would only make it to the edge of orbit and a few minutes of weightlessness.

* In '''2005''', the Kyoto Protocol came into force (although the protocol itself was adopted earlier), and by now 191 states have signed and ratified the protocol. It is the most famous symbol of world-wide action with the stated aim of reducing climate change.<ref>As of 2012, the world's biggest polluters declined to renew their participation, making the Kyoto Protocol a lame duck. But that's a matter for [[The New Tens]].</ref>

** In spite of conservative opposition, however, the decade was a major tipping point regarding public views of homosexuality. Over the course of the OughtsTurn of the Millennium, especially in more liberal areas and amongst young people, homophobia quickly became on a par with racism in terms of social taboos, and people who opposed gay rights tended to be viewed as religious weirdos. By the end of the decade, words like "fag" and similar epithets required [[N-Word Privileges]] to use, and same-sex marriage, considered unthinkable in the 20th century, was legalized in [[Washington DC]] (in 2009), five US states<ref>Massachusetts in 2004, Connecticut in 2008, and Vermont, Iowa and New Hampshire in 2009 (though NH's law only came into effect at the start of 2010)</ref>, Mexico City, and seven countries on three continents<ref>the Netherlands in 2001, Belgium in 2003, Spain and Canada in 2005, South Africa in 2006, and Norway and Sweden in 2009</ref>. This trend has continued into the 2010s.<br /><br />At the same time, openly gay or bisexual entertainers, such as [[Neil Patrick Harris]], [[Lady Gaga]], [[Glee|Jane Lynch]], [[Anna Paquin]], [[John Barrowman]] and Ellen Degeneres (who hosted a highly successful daytime talk show, in what is traditionally viewed as a rather conservative TV timeslot), achieved substantial popularity when, in prior decades, they would have been shunned by the mainstream. The fact that, by the end of the decade, Lynch and Harris were able to appear on children's programs like ''[[iCarly]]'' and ''[[Sesame Street]]'' without anybody accusing them of "''[[Conspiracy Theorist|recruiting for the gay agenda!]]''" is a major advancement over the prevailing wisdom just five years earlier, when ''[[SpongeBob]]'' and ''[[The Teletubbies]]'' were accused of the same.<br /><br />Of course, a certain amount of backlash against gay marriage (though, notably, not against civil unions) still did occur, most notably in California, whose attempt to legalize gay marriage proved short-lived. It's also fair to say that more traditional attitudes still tended to prevail among certain groups, most notably some ethnic minorities and religious communities, even in otherwise liberal areas.

* The "Big Four" networks were constantly in a state of flux. While [[NBC]] held on at the beginning of the decade, after the end of ''[[Friends]]'', they started to slip towards the bottom. [[CBS]] had a couple of hits in ''[[Everybody Loves Raymond]]'', ''[[CSI]]'' and ''[[NCIS]]'', which propelled them back to the top, where they remained for most of the decade. [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] languished in low ratings in the first half of the decade, then the premieres of ''[[Desperate Housewives]]'' and ''[[Lost]]'' gave them the footing they needed to claw their way out of the basement. Finally, [[FOX]] stumbled upon a little show named ''[[American Idol]]'' that would go on to launch several careers and would become the decade's highest-rated show (it could be expected to pull in about 30 million on a bad night). The other two broadcast networks ([[UPN]] and [[The WB]]) [[The CW|merged]] in the middle of the decade, but [[It Got Worse|that didn't really help either of them]].

* [[Professional Wrestling]] reached heights of popularity unknown since [[The Eighties]], with the [[Darker and Edgier]] "[[Attitude Era]]" passing away and [[World Wrestling Entertainment|the WWE]] (the only wrestling promotion left in North America during the first half of this decade) once again starting to appeal primarily to family audiences and children in what became known as the "[[Lighter and Softer|PG Era]]". [[John Cena]] (who made it officially cool to be [[Pretty Fly for a White Guy]]) was ''the'' wrestling star of the decade, becoming both the most recognizable pro wrestler since [[Hulk Hogan]] and the most controversial one since [[Stone Cold Steve Austin]]. Other ring luminaries of the OughtsTurn of the Millennium included [[John Bradshaw Layfield|John "Bradshaw" Layfield]], [[Brock Lesnar]] (who became the youngest WWE Champion in history before going on to equal success in [[Mixed Martial Arts]]), [[Batista]], and "The Rated-R Superstar," [[Edge]].

* Speaking of [[Mixed Martial Arts]], it too exploded in popularity during the OughtsTurn of the Millennium, emerging as a serious competitor to pro wrestling and boxing. Having spent much of [[The Nineties]] being viewed as a real-life [[Blood Sport]] and banned in 36 states, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (the leading promoter of the sport) implemented new rules and safety regulations that made the sport more respectable in the eyes of its critics, leading to it growing in popularity across the country. By the end of the decade, UFC programming reached five continents, fighters like [[Randy Couture]] and [[Action Girl|Gina Carano]] had become celebrities in the non-sporting world, MMA clothing brands like Tapout and Affliction could be found in the wardrobes of millions of young men, and movies like ''[[Never Back Down]]'' and ''Warrior'' prominently featured the young sport.

* If you had to sum up baseball in one word for the decade, that would be "steroids". If you were a top baseball player in [[Thethe Oughts]]Turn of the Millennium, odds are you had to dodge some accusations that you were juicing. Lots and lots of future first-ballot Hall of Famers (Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Roger Clemens, Mark [[Mc Gwire]], Manny Ramirez, and others) at least got accused of steroid usage during the decade. Some of them were even found guilty.

* The other major controversial application of computer technology to music in the OughtsTurn of the Millennium was [[Auto-Tune]], a pitch correction software first released in 1997 that spread like wildfire through the music industry. Use of Auto-Tune was mainly reserved for its intended purpose until 2005 (with a few exceptions, namely Cher's 1999 song "Believe,") when rapper T-Pain used the technology to distort his voice into a robotic, artificial sound. Countless rappers, pop stars and R&B singers followed suit, to the point where Auto-Tune distortion became the new normal in popular music -- and all the while, other musicians kept using it to remove any imperfections from their singing. Needless to say, both applications are very controversial -- the pitch correction for making every singer sound nearly identical, and the distortion for being [[Follow the Leader|unoriginal]] -- and mere mention of Auto-Tune can start a [[Flame War]].

* [[Genre Motif/Hip Hop|Rap music]], particularly [[Glam Rap]], threw off its violent stigma and became mainstream in the OughtsTurn of the Millennium, led by such artists as T-Pain, [[Lil Jon]], [[Jay Z]] and Pitbull. White people who listened to rap were no longer stereotyped as [[Pretty Fly for a White Guy|disaffected middle-class youth clinging to an alien subculture]], but rather, were viewed in much the same way as fans of any other type of pop music -- possibly a bit conformist, but otherwise normal. Late in the decade, rap musicians were instrumental in the rise of the aforementioned Auto-Tune distortion technique... and also instrumental in [[Jay Z|the backlash]] against Auto-Tune. The rise of glam rap has caused a lot of consternation from hip-hop "purists" and older fans who feel that the genre has abandoned its roots in favor of [[Money, Dear Boy|commercialization]], and that mainstream rappers are squeezing out the underground and making it harder for them to get recognition. A comparison can be made to the cycle that rock music went through in the '70s and '80s, with radio-friendly [[Progressive Rock]] and [[Hair Metal]] versus anti-commercial [[Punk Rock]] and [[Alternative Rock]].

* The dominant strains of popular music for much of the decade were [[Glam Rap]] (see above) and contemporary R&B ([[Beyoncé]] and [[Rihanna]] being among the bigger names). Dance pop spent most of the OughtsTurn of the Millennium out of the spotlight with [[Contractual Purity|an increasingly troubled]] [[Britney Spears]] carrying its torch, until around 2008-09, when [[Lady Gaga]] and [[Ke$ha]] (and a post-[[Career Resurrection]] Britney) revived the genre and put it back on the charts.

* This was the age when geek culture invaded the mainstream, and society's love of technology reached levels not seen since the gee-whiz, "''science!''"-loving '50s. Between the proliferation of comic book movies, the rise of [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] in the West, the critical acclaim received by "genre" series like ''[[Lost]]'' and ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined(2004 TV series)|Battlestar Galactica]]'', the growing mainstream acceptability of video games, and most importantly, the increasing reliance of modern society on computers and the internet, all of a sudden it was acceptable, if not even encouraged, for one to be a geek. Celebrities like [[Rosario Dawson]], [[Vin Diesel]] and [[Kristen Bell]] won fans with [[One of Us|their self-admitted nerdiness]], video game and comics T-shirts were worn with pride, and of course, there's [[TV Tropes]] and [[This Very Wiki]]. Even [[Barack Obama|the President of the United States]] joined in on the action, with his geekiness, computer-savvy and ability to mobilize supporters on the internet playing a key role in his winning the 2008 election. And then there was the film juggernaut that is the [[Marvel Cinematic Universe]], starting with ''[[Iron Man (film)|Iron Man]]'' in 2008.

* [[Friending Network|Friending networks]] were ''hugely'' popular throughout the decade; it would not be uncommon for people to do most of their interaction online by the late '00s. [[Blog|Blogs]]s (particularly [[LiveJournal]]) pioneered the idea of social networking, Friendster and later [[Myspace]] refined it, and [[Facebook]] turned into a massive cash cow. Internet Relay Chat, an older, non-corporate, and decentralised text-based chatting system, was usurped by Twitter.

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