The twenty tens have passed, and we are now heading into the twenty twenties. The past decade has shown advances in smartphones, and smartphones. An increase in LGBT rights and gay marriage. However there has also been a number of natural and human made tragedies.
The number of political events of the past decade are staggering.
Around 1,000 people marched through the streets of New York City’s Financial District in September 2011 under an “Occupy Wall Street” banner. The protesters condemned income inequality and the influence of money in politics, and called for an overhaul of what they saw as a failing financial system
In 2013, three black female activists started using the social media hashtag #BlackLivesMatter in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, who shot and killed an unarmed black teen, Trayvon Martin, the previous year. Drawing inspiration from the civil rights and Black Power movements of the 1960s and Occupy Wall Street, the Black Lives Matter movement gained more attention in 2014 and 2015, when rioting followed the deaths of several black men who were killed by police.
In November 2016, one of the most bitterly divided political contests in the nation’s history ended when Republican candidate Donald Trump, a businessman and TV personality, won the election to become the 45th president of the United States. Though his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, former first lady, New York senator and secretary of state and the first female presidential nominee of a major U.S. political party, won the popular vote by more than 2.8 million votes, Trump captured the electoral vote.
In 2018 the Senate Intelligence Committee determined that Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election and yet there was no action taken when this news surfaced. Attorney General William Barr decided not to charge individuals associated with the Trump campaign.
In mid-2016, amid a mass refugee crisis in Europe and furious debate over migration, Britons voted roughly 52 to 48 percent in favor of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union, a.k.a. Brexit. The deadline for withdrawal was extended several times and still hasn’t gone through.
In the fall of 2019, a complaint by a whistleblower within the White House sparked an impeachment inquiry by the Democrat-dominated House of Representatives. Trump became the fourth U.S. president in history to formally face impeachment. After a series of public hearings led by the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, two articles of impeachment were brought against Trump: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. On December 18, the House voted to pass both articles and Trump became the third U.S. president to be impeached.
Then there were a number of destructive natural disasters that occurred over the last decade.
The deadliest natural disaster of the decade happened in the first month of 2010, when a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck the West Indian island of Hispaniola on the afternoon of January 12. Followed by dozens of powerful aftershocks, the quake hit hardest in Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere.
Japan is devastated by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami which wiped entire villages from the island of Japan. It even caused one of their nuclear reactors to malfunction and spread radiation to the surrounding area.
Several massive hurricanes and tropical storms hit the United States in the 2010s, starting in 2012 with Sandy, which unleashed record-setting gales and storm surges in the Northeast. The storm killed more than 230 people and caused some $70 billion in damages. In 2017, three major hurricanes (Harvey, Irma and Maria) struck Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, respectively, over five devastating weeks. A year later, Michael became the first Category 5 hurricane to hit the contiguous United States since 1992, causing more than 50 deaths and $25 billion in damages on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
The 2010 until the end of 2019 also saw the continuation of the fight against terrorism from the 2000’s.
During the second decade following 9/11, the scourge of terrorism continued around the world. There were major attacks at the Boston Marathon; a music venue, cafes and restaurants in Paris, France; on London Bridge and a crowded Barcelona street; a nightclub in Orlando, Florida; and a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, among other places.
U.S. Special Operations forces took down two major leaders of Islamic terrorism, 9/11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden and ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
But terrorism within the United States was on the rise, including an increasing number of attacks driven by racist, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-Muslim and/or anti-Semitic views.
One of the saddest and numerous events of the last decade are the mass shootings, which included an elementary school.
Episodes of gun violence against schoolchildren marred the decade, including attacks at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and dozens of others.
The horrifying spectacle of semi-automatic weapons used in mass school shootings, as well as in similarly brutal attacks in other public venues—from a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, to a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, to a country music festival in Las Vegas, Nevada—led to calls for increased gun legislation after each new tragedy.
The 2010s have indeed had the most shootings in any decade, according data from Mother Jones. In this decade alone, there were 63 mass shootings, defined as “indiscriminate rampages in public places resulting in four or more victims killed by the attacker.”
On a happier note on the last decade was the increase of LGBT rights and the legalization gay marriage, though it wasn’t accepted everywhere.
The decade saw key advances for LGBTQ people around the world, with the legalization of same-sex marriage in 18 countries, including Argentina, France, Great Britain, Australia, Ireland, Germany and the United States (via the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges).
Meanwhile, anti-gay laws passed in Russia and China and there was an ongoing battle in the United States over laws preventing transgender people from using bathrooms matching their gender identity. The Trump administration also reinstated a ban on transgender citizens serving in the U.S. military.
In the last decade, the Royal family in Britain celebrated a number of things which the public happily celebrated with them.
The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II took place in 2012. With Queen Elizabeth II in her seventh decade on the throne, the first monarch to do so.
Prince William, Prince Charles’s eldest son with Princess Diana, married Catherine Middleton in 2011, and by decade’s end they had three children, including Prince George, now third in line to the British throne behind his grandfather and father.
In 2018, William’s younger brother, Prince Harry, wed the biracial, divorced American actress Meghan Markle in a ceremony watched by some 29.2 million TV viewers. Their son, Archie, was born the following year.
The movement against sexual assault and harassment made headlines this past decade. With the #MeToo movement being the most widespread.
Though activist Tarana Burke first coined the phrase #MeToo back in 2006, what’s known as the #MeToo movement exploded in late 2017, after a New York Times article exposed long-rumored accusations of sexual harassment and assault against influential Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein made by dozens of women, including many famous actresses. In the aftermath of these revelations, millions of people came forward to express solidarity with the accusers and shared their own experiences with sexual assault, harassment and sexism in the workplace and beyond. Widespread media coverage of #MeToo led to the resignation or firing of numerous prominent figures accused of misconduct.
A recording of Donald Trump saying he could grab women 'by the p----' leaked a month before the presidential election. Trump called the comment "locker room talk". He still won.
The technological advancements of the past ten years skyrocketed, internet and streaming became even more prominent than the previous decade. It has become the norm in pop culture.
Netflix began its streaming service in 2007, but it didn't start producing its own original content until 2012. Prior to then, your options were binge-watching Friends or scouring the movie section for a title you'd heard of. Now, there are too many new shows on Netflix to keep track of—not to mention Hulu, Amazon Prime, and countless others. With technology like the Amazon Fire Stick, Apple TV, and Google Chromecast, it's never been easier to stream your favorite shows and movies on your TV screen.
"Going viral" was a phrase that took on a different meaning in the 2010s—it's not about getting sick, but rather achieving a high number of views and likes online in a short amount of time. And what went viral over the past decade heavily shaped what the world talked about offline.
In 2015, the term "meme"—a joke, usually in photo or video form, that goes viral—was added to the dictionary and it quickly became a fixture of 2010s culture. There were countless viral memes throughout the decade: Distracted Boyfriend, Salt Bae, Arthur's Fist, Sad Keanu, Grumpy Cat, and Cash Me Ousside are a few among many.
Nowadays, most people only have two types of phones, an iPhone or an Android. Yes, the iPhone made its debut in 2007 and the Android in 2008, but it wasn't until the 2010s that the smartphone really took over. In fact, 2010 was the year that iPhone sales eclipsed BlackBerry's for the first time.
In October 2010, a little photo-sharing app called Instagram launched. The app initially only allowed users to upload square photos with a caption and hashtags. Now the platform is so much more than that, with stories, videos, direct messaging, in-app shopping, video calling, and more.
The rise of Twitter had a surprising effect on politics in the 2010s. The 2012 and 2016 elections where hugely impactful on the platform, but even smaller political issues went viral thanks to Twitter. It turned out to be a useful political tool—and a divisive one, sparking heated online debates, including over whether the president should keep tweeting.
Then in pop culture there were changes of course. What was once unpopular became popular over the past decade.
Since 2010, Marvel Studios and DC Films have released a total of 48 superhero movies—and they have made bank. Just this year, Avengers: Endgame became the highest-grossing movie of all time with a whopping $2.798 billion at the box office.
It was during the 2010s that hip-hop and R&B dethroned rock as the most popular music genre in America for the first time ever. According to Nielsen Music's 2017 year-end report, hip-hop accounted for 24.5 percent of music consumption, and 9 out of 10 of the most consumed songs that year were from the genre.
In the first decade of the 2000s, we were warned about climate change and global warming—Al Gore's; An Inconvenient Truth made its mark—but in the 2010s, it seems the world started listening. Drastic measures have been taken to reduce waste, like the ban of plastic straws, a hazard to the ocean and the environment. According to a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, solar panel installations in the U.S. jumped 485 percent from 2010 to 2013. And people are investing more in hybrid electric cars. The Bureau of Transportation Statistics reports that sales of hybrid electric cars in the U.S. hit an all-time high in 2013, with more than 495,500 units sold. There's still work that needs to be done, but these are steps in the right direction.
A new year, a new decade. Make the most of your horizons ahead by being open to possibilities. This has been a turbulent decade across the world – protest, austerity, populism, mass migration. Changes and accomplishments happened, as well as the tragedies. This new year and the following decade will be sure to create more change and its starts right now.
“Today, carve out a quiet interlude for yourself in which to dream, pen in hand. Only dreams give birth to change.”
— Sarah Ban Breathnach