Decade 1

Dec 28, 2009 09:36

I just watched the Y2K episode of Sports Night, in which Jeremy claims that the complete system failure during his Y2K test is "a metaphor for the new millenium ( Read more... )

questions

Leave a comment

temvald December 28 2009, 20:01:05 UTC
Same-sex marriage has already been mentioned, but it's worth saying again. And just generally--in 1999, it was still edgy to have lesbian subtext on TV; now it's pretty much de rigueur to have out gay characters, and nobody bats an eyelash at them.

LiveJournal was founded in 1999, sure, but realistically you can say that online social networking was a product of the aughts. At the end of 1999 you'd be having this discussion via email, or a mailing list, or some other much narrower distribution mechanism than LJ or Facebook or Twitter or what have you.

And then there's.... Erm, well, there's.... Ok, I'll get back to you if I think of anything else.

Reply

in_parentheses December 28 2009, 20:35:36 UTC
I just thought of another! Widespread city smoking bans. It's stupid and tiny, but it has definitely improved city life.

...I'm trying here.

Reply

temvald December 28 2009, 21:34:06 UTC
Oooh. Smoking bans is good. In 1999, reeking of cigarette smoke was an accepted side effect of going to a club or bar. You couldn't go dancing without breathing in secondhand smoke the whole time.

Another one I thought of: media on demand. Napster had just started in 1999. TiVo was introduced in 2000. Now, you can legally stream just about any music you would want for free to your computer, and watch a lot of TV online. And for anything that's not available legally, there's always bittorrent.

Fat acceptance is pretty much a 21st century development too, isn't it?

Reply

in_parentheses December 28 2009, 22:29:21 UTC
Media on demand: hell yes.

I'm not convinced that social networking is a force for the good. I think I got more done before all that shit, love it though I do.

Fat acceptance is pretty much a last-two-years development, as far as I can tell, and still isn't a thing most people have heard of. But we appear to be on a positive trajectory, so I'll give it to you.

Reply

ex_colorwhe December 29 2009, 03:23:31 UTC
Fat acceptance is pretty much a last-two-years development

started in the 1970s. :) but as for how many people had heard of it at what points, i never know how to judge that.

Reply

in_parentheses December 29 2009, 05:06:30 UTC
I stand corrected!

As for its acceptance in the general population, I know I only started hearing it mentioned in places that weren't linked by you or jadelennox within the last couple of years. But that's an unscientific metric at best, and probably more a function of the availability of blogs and what I choose to read than anything else.

(Who's your icon? She looks like she's having a good day. :) )

Reply

ex_colorwhe December 29 2009, 05:22:00 UTC
she's british actress dawn french. i love her in the vicar of dibley.

and yeah, it's really hard to track a political movement in terms of how widely known it is. certainly tons and tons of people have never heard of FA even now. here's a quote about the beginnings though:

"In 1969 William Fabrey founded NAAFA, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (it was originally called the National Association to Aid Fat Americans). NAAFA continues to be a major source of fat advocacy cited in U.S. and international media. It has established a Declaration of Health Rights for Fat People, works to dispel myths about fat people, publishes a newsletter, and holds an annual convention (see http://www.naafa.org). / From 1973 to 1977 in Los Angeles, the Fat Underground group...." (etc, more history) - Introduction, The Fat Studies Reader, 2009

Reply

ex_colorwhe December 29 2009, 03:22:22 UTC
Fat acceptance is pretty much a 21st century development too, isn't it?

actually it started in the 1970s! unless you mean a particular level of how many people in the general population have heard of it? what level?

Reply

in_parentheses December 28 2009, 22:26:59 UTC
I just noticed your icon. I <3 you.

Reply


Leave a comment

Up