Wikipedia

2000s

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This article is about the decade starting at the beginning of 2000 and ending at the end of 2009. For the century or millennium starting in 2000 (or, technically, 2001), see 21st century and 3rd millennium.

The 2000s decade refers to the years from 2000 to 2009, inclusive. Technically, however, the millennium began in 2001 because there is no such thing as the "year zero", but in informal and non technical settings the millennium usually began in 2000. Many individuals do have their own beliefs of when the 2000s decade began. Informally, it can also include a few years at the end of the preceding decade or the beginning of the following decade. Others believe it pop culturally began right on target in 2000 or around 2002[citation needed]. The decade could also begin pop culturally sometimes in the late 1990s, most likely around the year 1998 or 1999. Some also state that the symbolic beginning of the decade (and the 21st Century) was the 9/11 attacks[citation needed], although others find this view pessimistic. Throughout the decade, the conservative George W. Bush presided over the many radical changes in technology and foreign policy in the United States.

File:IPod 4G.jpg
The Apple iPod, a digital music player, is a popular handheld item of the 2000s.

So far, the 2000s has been marked generally with an escalation of the social issues of the 1990s, which included the rise of terrorism, stress, the rapid, exponential expansion of economic globalization on an unprecedented scale [citation needed], the rapid expansion of communications and telecommunications with mobile phones and the Internet and international pop culture.

In North America and the Middle East, most major political developments in the 2000s revolved around the War on Terrorism and the conflict in Iraq. Elsewhere, the major theme has been the rapid development of Asia's economic and political potential, with China, experiencing immense economic growth, moving toward the status of a regional power and billion-consumer market. India, along with many other developing countries, is also growing rapidly, and began integrating itself into the world economy.

Major events relating to the War on Terrorism include the September 11, 2001 Attacks, the Moscow Theatre Siege, the Madrid train bombings, the Beslan school hostage crisis, the 2005 London bombings, and the October 2005 New Delhi bombings. In the news almost daily, the terrorism and Iraq conflicts dominate headlines with controversy regarding their consequences and justifications.

A trend connecting economic and political events in North America, Asia and the Middle East is the rapidly increasing demand for fossil fuels, which, along with fewer new petroleum finds, greater extraction costs and political turmoil, saw the price of gas and oil soar ~500% between 2000 and 2005. In some places, especially in Europe could see $5 a gallon, depending on their currency.

Names of the decade

In contrast to the decades from 1920 to 1999, which are called "The Twenties," "The Thirties" and the like, the '00s have had no universally-accepted name. Some refer to the decade as "The Two Thousands", but many find that usage awkward and incorrect for a number of reasons, most notably the fact that, formally, the "Two Thousands" (that is, years whose spoken name begins with the words "two thousand") will last for a thousand years and not just the ten years of the "00" decade. Written in numeral form, the decade can be written either as the "2000s" or as the "'00s". But looking for a name that has the same "feel" as 'The Nineties' or 'The Fifties' has been problematic, especially in the United States.

In the rest of the English-speaking world "The Noughties" and "The Noughts" have come to be the most widely recognized and accepted terms.[1] The term "Noughties" has been adopted by the BBC,[2] and while the term may not be quite universal, there is no other term so widely recognized. Probably the only reason that the term "Noughties" has not been completely accepted world wide is the fact that, in the United States (where usage of "naught" or "nought" to mean 'zero' has never been ubiquitous), there is some confusion by those who assume erroneously that the term has something to do with the adjective "naughty".

This decade has occasionally been termed, in historical contexts, as the "turn of the century". But this term—just as when it was used in the early 20th century—does not clearly refer to a precise 10-year period, and indeed, originally carried the connotation of being the last years of a century. The somewhat less wan expression, "turn of the millennium", shares this ambiguity of meaning.

Other proposed names have been almost innumerable, and include, "the zeroes", "double-aughts","the aughts", "aughties", "awties", "2K's", "uh-ohs", "zoogs", "ozies", and "abs". But these other suggestions usually represent the wishes of individuals, and do not generally represent any burgeoning consensus.

The United Nations General Assembly declared the decade of 2000-2009 as the "International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World."[3]

War, peace and politics

File:WTC1 on fire.jpg
The World Trade Center ablaze after two airplanes crash into the towers in a terrorist attack
 
Saddam Hussein shortly after his capture

Economics

 
  • Globalization: Transnational companies become more pervasive, and anti-globalization protests occur frequently during meetings of IMF and WTO, especially in the early 2000s.
  • The euro becomes legal tender in twelve European Union countries in 2002. It is the largest monetary union in history. The euro eases trade in the Eurozone.
  • The NASDAQ, the American Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange closed for six days after the September 11th, 2001 attacks the longest close since the Great Depression in 1929.
  • Major downturn in the value of dot-com shares, with occasional exceptions (Google's IPO on August 13, 2004). The Internet itself continues to grow as a business medium, with steady increases in online shopping and banking activities. Other successful firms include Amazon.com and eBay.
  • The US dominance over the world economy continues, but economically rising nations and organizations like China and India show signs of becoming contending world powers.
  • Significant oil price rises. Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline opens on 25 May 2005, potentially removing the dependence of the United States and other Western nations on Middle Eastern oil.
  • Enron and other major accounting and corporate governance scandals prompt reviews of corporate government legislation worldwide (eg Sarbanes-Oxley Act)
  • The 1990s stock market boom ends in Mid-March to Early September of 2000-2001, due to 9/11 and the tech-bubble burst.
  • Post-9/11 Recession from 2001-2002. The Dow Jones average would sink to the 7000 level during July 2002. Continuing stagnation in US and global monthly jobs growth afterwards. A recovery in US GDP growth begins after May 2003, but with continuing weakness on many indicators as of 2006.
  • General Motors and Ford lose market share to Japanese Makes such as Toyota and Honda in the US. This trend of General Motors and Ford losing market share to Honda and Toyota started around 1998 in the US and still continues in 2006.

Technology

File:Tivologo.jpg
TiVo and DVR allow a television viewer to rewind, digitally record, pause, and at times fast-forward a show.
  • A huge jump in broadband internet usage, from 6% of U.S. internet users in June, 2000 to what one study predicts will be 62% by 2010 (although signs now show that broadband internet usage, continuing in its current trend, will be well over 90% by 2010 in the US.
  • Boom in music downloading and the use of data compression to quickly transfer music over the Internet, with a corresponding rise of portable digital audio players typified by Apple Computer's iPod. Digital music sales rise, accounting for 6% of all music sales in 2005.
  • Digital cameras become very popular due to rapid decreases in size and cost while photo resolution steadily increases. Sales of film reel cameras diminish greatly as a result.
  • Google search engine increases trafficability of the internet and "to Google" becomes a verb.
  • Due to an increase in ability to store data, USB flash drives rapidly replace zip disks and 3.5-inch diskettes.
  • Graphic cards become powerful enough to render nearly photo-realistic scenes in real time.
  • Windows XP and Microsoft Office 2003 become the ubiquitous industry standard in personal computer software. Open source and free software continues to be a notable but minority interest, with versions of Linux gaining in popularity, as well as the Mozilla Firefox web browser and the OpenOffice document editor.
  • Flat panel displays begin displacing cathode ray tubes.
  • Major advances in Hybrid vehicles such as the Toyota Prius, Ford Escape, and the Honda Insight.
  • Greater interest in future energy development due to global warming theory and the potential exhaustion of crude oil.
  • Blogs, portals, and wikis become common electronic dissemination methods for professionals, amateurs, and businesses to conduct knowledge management.
  • Wikipedia began and grew rapidly, becoming the largest encyclopedia and most well known wiki in the world.
  • DVDs, and subsequently HD-DVDs and Blu-ray discs, replace VCR technology as the common standard at video stores, but there are an exception to the fact that some VCR technology still appears and various thrift shops and discount stores, along with many other independent markets.
  • Due to the major success of broadband Internet connections, Voice over IP begins to gain popularity as a replacement for traditional telephone lines. Major telecommunications carriers begin converting their networks from TDM to VoIP.
  • Wireless networks are becoming ever more commonplace in homes, education institutes and urban public spaces.
  • Corrective eye surgery becomes popular as costs and potential risk decreases and results further improve.
  • OLED (Organic light-emitting diode) technology revolutionizes display technology, making it possible to "print" screens on everyday objects.
  • GPS (Global Positioning System) becomes very popular especially in the tracking of items or people, and the use in cars. Games that utilize the system, such as geocaching, emerge and become popular.
  • RFID (Radio Frequency ID) becomes widely used in retail giants such as Wal-Mart, as a way to track items and automate stocking and keeping track of items.
  • DVRs (Digital Video Recorders), typified by TiVo, allow consumers to modify content they watch on TV, and to record TV programs and watch them later, leading to problems as consumers can fast-forward through commercials, making them useless and saving TV show for later viewing, causing a downfall of TV viewing.
  • Self-serve kiosks become very widely available, used for all kinds of shopping, airplane boarding passes, hotel check-ins, fast food, banking, and car rental. ATMs become nearly universal in much of the First World and very common even in poorer countries and their rural areas.
  • Internet usage surpasses TV viewing in 2004. Satellite TV loses it ratings as network television ratings gradually increase.
  • Emerging use of robotics, especially telerogsbotics in medicine, particularly for surgery.
  • Many more computers and other technologies incorporated into vehicles such as Xenon HID headlights, GPS, DVD players, self-diagnosing systems, advanced pre-collision safety systems, memory systems for car settings, back-up sensors and cameras, in-car media systems, MP3 player compatibility, USB drive compatibility, keyless start and entry, satellite radio, voice-activation, cellphone connectivity, adaptive headlights, HUD (Head-Up-Display), infrared cameras, and Onstar (on GM models).
  • Peer-to-peer technology use: internet telephony (Skype), file-sharing.
  • The entire videogame industry's profits surpassed the movie industry's in 2004.
  • The tech bubble burst for the most part in late 2000 and after three years of negative growth the market began its rebound in 2003 and has continued to see moderate growth through 2006.
File:Nasdaq 5yr chart.png
  • Videophones are cheap and abundant, yet even by mid-decade, they had not received much attention.
  • Most cellphone carriers offer video viewing services, internet services, and some offer full music downloads, such as Sprint in 2005. This leads to an almost saturation of cell phone ownership among the public and a decline in the use and locations of payphones.
  • Home automation and home robotics advance in North America; iRobot's "Roomba" is the most successful domestic robot and has sold 1.5 million units. (Others of interest include: Robomower, and Scooba as of May 2006)

Science

Culture and religion

  • The rise in religious fundamentalism around the world among all kinds of religions, especially Christianity in America and Islam in the Middle East
  • The vast proliferation of information technology and digital media leads to many cultural paradigm shifts as people grapple with information overload. Millennials (Generation Y) are commonly thought of as adept at, or even socially dependent on, these technological developments.
  • Reality television becomes a well-established sector of the television programming industry for most of the early 2000s, switching to more traditional programming starting in the year 2004. Nightly news broadcasts continue to lose viewership to 24-hour internet and cable news broadcasts. Changing television habits that involve increased use of the internet, telephone, and video games and the preponderance of TiVo make marketers rethink the paradigm of the 30-second TV ad. Viral marketing, and product placement within reality television shows and movies are some increasingly used alternatives. Spam is used as an alternative, irritating many.
  • European, Australian and New Zealand's society continues to become more secular; in contrast, religious groups increase their political influence in the United States and the Middle East.
  • The divisive US presidential election of 2000 leads to commentators describing the country as split between Red States and Blue States.
  • April 2, 2005: Pope John Paul II dies at age 84; succeeded by Pope Benedict XVI on April 19.
  • Same-sex marriage becomes a major cultural issue in developed countries. In 2001, the Netherlands becomes the first country to allow homosexual couples to wed. This is followed by Belgium in 2003, and by Canada, Spain, New Zealand, and South Africa in 2005. Many countries now permit civil unions or a variation of them, which often allow exactly the same rights as marriage. In 2004, homosexual marriage, previously banned throughout the United States (sometimes by explicit mention in statute, other times by ommission in statute), becomes legalized in Massachusetts, the first state to do so. Also, in May 2006, the United States Senate Panel OKs a vote for an admendment banning and not recognising all same-sex marriges in the country.

Other

 
The coronavirus suggested as a causative agent of SARS.

Fashion

Main article: 2000s in fashion
 
Low-rise jeans
 
Britney Spears is credited with popularizing low-rise jeans, crop tops, lower back tattoos, navel piercing, and the whale tail in the early 2000s
  • Fashion becomes less grungy and more excessive, as the wearing of flannel by people under 30 declines.
  • Layered clothing becomes popular, especially with women's shirts; ruffled skirts become a trend as well.
  • The whale tail style (incorporating Hip-hugger jeans, crop tops, and high riding thongs) is popularized by Britney Spears and Anna Kournikova.
  • The "Baggy Jean" craze of the 1990s loses popularity, although it remains commonplace in urban areas. Tighter fitting Low-rise jeans become very popular among younger females.
  • Coinciding with the low-rise jeans trend, cleavage (the exposure of undergarments and the buttocks) becomes fashionable among young women.
  • The center of the lower back becomes a common placement for tattoos among young women.
  • Navel piercing becomes increasingly popular
  • In the United States, long hair for teenage boys and young men becomes very popular. Shoulder-length hair for young males has become much more mainstream, and is no longer considered just a "skater" and "hick" fashion, as evidenced by the hairstyles of young teen heartthrobs like Jesse McCartney and Zac Efron
  • Abercrombie and Fitch and American Eagle clothing among both young men and women
  • For girls, ponchos, peasant blouses, and babydoll tops
  • 1980s fashion revival: For girls and women large/clunky jewerly, originally popular in the 1980s and early 1990s, return to style circa 2002. Upturned collars on tennis shirts become popular among the youth as well. Some boys begin to wear pink, and the mohawk makes a comeback, becoming more mainstream and less of a generic trend, as it was during the 1990s. Wearing high-heeled boots, specifically tucking one's slacks into them, becomes a popular trend among young women -- which was also a popular trend during the '80s.
  • Pinstriped button up shirts, striped polo shirts over T-shirts, blazers, and layers of brightly colored sweaters are popular styles of fashion among young males. The trend was made popular by artists such as Usher and Kanye West in the mid 2000s. This look may be considered being as the "prep" look for some people.
  • Straight hair on women still remains fashionable in the 2000s as it did in the 1990s. Wavy and curly hair becomes more widely accepted, especially in the mid-2000s. However, the shoulder-length hairstyle ala donned Rachel-cut from the TV show Friends that dominated the 1990s is replaced by women growing their hair out to their back section of their body, sometimes as far down as their buttocks, as they did in the 1970s. The "bun" hairstyle of the late 1990s falls out of style style circa 2004 in most urban areas, but in some rural areas it still remains a major fashion trend.
  • Trucker hats, usually made by the Von Dutch company and commonly worn by celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher, become popular in 2003. But the trend quickly falls out of favor around especially in the middle part of 2005.
  • Ugg boots, a boot commonly made with sheepskin in Australia and New Zealand for the last 200 years, become popular and fashionable in 2003 -- a trend first made popular on a movie poster for the film Raising Helen.
  • The "rogue" stereotypes such as the Hip-Hop and Emo subcultures become more or less mainstream and are the major fashion and music trends of the '00s.
  • Wearing baseball caps backwards, common in the 1980s and 1990s, falls out of style in favor of wearing them sideways or forwards until about 2005 when major celebrities, such as the ones on the American Chopper Show bring that trend back into fashion once again.
  • The Bohemian look was popularized with fashion icons like Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson and Lindsay Lohan in the mid 2000s
File:Raising-helen-poster01.jpg
Actress Kate Hudson wearing Ugg boots
  • Fad diets such as Atkins and low carb diets are popular during the early '00s, but fall out of favor circa 2004 in favor of diets heavy in whole grain foods.
  • Slang words and catch phrases used often in 2000s America include "Retarded", "Fugly", "Manufactured" "Chill" "Gay", "Crunk", "Wanksta", "Rad", "Whateva", "That's Hot!", "Totally", "Metro", "Tight", "Ill", "Ditty", "Fetch" "Git-R-Dun","Sick", "Eh-oh", "BOO-YA!", "Pure"," Sweet","Beyotch" , "You're fired", "Pwnage" and "Werd up"/"word up" Many of them have roots from the 1980s and 1990s, such as the word "totally" and "rad". 1990s hip hop slang such as the words "yo", "da bomb", "chill" and "buzz kill" still remains popular in the middle 2000s. Other terms involve the word "Bence".
  • Cell phones become prevalent with teenagers and often a fashion statement as opposed to a preppie toy or a tool primarily for adults and businesspeople. Payphone use and locations decline dramatically because of this.
  • MP3 players, particularly the iPod, become very common as they become more powerful and easier to use. By 2006, over 1 billion had been downloaded by customers onto their iPods.
  • Generation Y supplants Gen X as current youth generation.
  • Interracial dating and relationships become more common in the US. Interracial couples on television and movies in all manner of gender and racial scenarios become fairly common. It also becomes more (though not yet universally) accepted, helped by the emergence of famous children from interracial marriages, such as Mariah Carey, Derek Jeter, Lenny Kravitz and Johnny Damon (Amer-Asian).
  • Poker becomes a craze, as many Americans are enticed by online poker rooms and games with their friends and neighbors. The World Series of Poker aired on ESPN becomes a huge success.
  • Emo goes from being a small subculture in the 1980s, and 1990s, becoming mainstream beginning around 1998 but especially later in the decade.
  • Teenagers with non-heterosexual sexual orientations begin to come out earlier in their lives generally to a far more positive response than previous decades.
  • Former 1980s heartthrob Tom Cruise oddly morphs into something of a joke in the middle of this decade, with people often talking about his rants on Scientology and his peculiar romance with the younger Katie Holmes.
  • Popular brand names amongst teenagers include Aeropostale, Abercrombie and Fitch, Hollister, Hurley, O'Neil, Foxy, Roxy, Billabong, and many other. The most popular is American Eagle and then comes Aeropostale.

Europe

  • In Eastern Germany and other ex-Communist countries was for a short time a growth in nostalgia for former Communist times (Ostalgie)(2002).
  • Because of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the politics of U.S. president George W. Bush, there has been a surge of anti-Americanism, especially in Western Europe.
  • From early in the decade, mobile phones are largely seen as a necessary accessory, even for the majority of children as young as 10 years old. Ownership approaches 100% of the population in most Western European countries.
  • Fashion and cosmetic surgery become more mainstream; an increase in interest is most notable in men, influenced by fashion-conscious "celebrities" such as David Beckham.
  • Chav culture in the United Kingdom becomes a significant fashion/lifestyle choice, especially amongst those in the working class.
  • Formal wear such as sun dresses and evening gowns become more popular amongst the younger generations in Europe, especially in the latter part of the decade.

Music

United States and Canada

File:Kanyeweststripey200.jpg
Kanye West became a Billboard chart topper, at one point reaching #1, with his hit songs Jesus Walks and Golddigger.
File:Greenday americanidiot.png
American Idiot by Green Day, released in 2004, was one of the most popular albums of 2004 and 2005.
 
Fall Out Boy becomes a popular band with their 2005 breakout album From Under the Cork Tree. Their genre is widely disputed, with some people labeling them as emo and others as pop-punk.
  • Hip-Hop is the most popular musical genre with the youth, replacing rock and roll, but it was starting to have a slight backlash in the mid-2000s. Artists such as Kanye West, 50 Cent, Nelly, and Eminem are the dominant hip-hop artists that define the hip-hop genre in this decade thus far. Popular styles include glam rap (50 Cent, P Diddy, Ja Rule) and Crunk (Lil' Jon, Ying Yang Twins).
  • Rock and roll, although it remains hugely popular, is no longer a staple of pop radio in most of the United States, but in the United Kingdom and other countries outside of the United States it is still considered a major genre of music. The most popular style early in the decade (and also during the late 1990s) was nu metal, featuring acts such as Linkin Park, Korn, Papa Roach, and Limp Bizkit. Around 2002 emo and pop-punk (Fall Out Boy, Good Charlotte, Dashboard Confessional, Hawthorne Heights) became popular amidst the waning popularity of nu metal. Around 2004 post-hardcore, metalcore and screamo (From First to Last, Atreyu, Underoath), become popular, along with the Post-punk revival fueled by 1980s nostalgia (Franz Ferdinand, The Killers, Bloc Party, The White Stripes).
  • Some styles of the 1990s remain strong and even trendy, except for a few such as the girl and boy bands/teen pop of the late '90s that declined in popularity during the early part of the '00s. Most of this can be attributed to the criticism of the genre's "fakeness" and "shallowness" and the growing up of its fanbase. Several artists of the era (i.e. Britney Spears) still maintain a strong media presence in the '00s, but make more headlines for their lives rather than their music. The teen pop genre morphes into a more adult-oriented sound. Artists such as Kelly Clarkson gain favor circa 2002. "Disney Channel" artists such as Hilary Duff, Lindsay Lohan, Aly & AJ, The Veronicas, Hope Partlow, Cheetah Girls, B5 and Jesse McCartney who have more of alternative pop-rock sound become popular during the middle part of the decade, arguably keeping the teen pop era alive within the niche of children and teens who watch such networks.
  • Pop R&B continues to be popular. Artist such as Usher, Beyonce, and Alicia Keys are all popular mainstream R&B artist in the 2000s. The style is sometimes fueled by combination with Rap or hip-hop beats. Pop R&B, along with Hip Hop, dominates mainstream music in the earlier part of the mid '00s. Neo-soul is also popular during the early part of the decade.
  • Pop country slips in mainstream popularity in the early 2000s, due partly to the public retirement of Garth Brooks. However, the upper part of the Billboard album charts generally has many country albums, including some that go more than double platinum, indicating that the genre has a strong niche in the music industry. The genre grows during the mid 2000s from artists such as Carrie Underwood, who became the first American Idol winner to go into country instead of Pop or R&B.
  • Adult Contemporary music, by artists such as Michelle Branch, Natasha Bedingfield, Vanessa Carlton, Kelly Clarkson, Nick Lachey, Mariah Carey, Avril Lavigne, Rob Thomas and James Blunt continues to be popular.
  • Dance music (house, techno, trance, drum'n'bass) becomes mainstream in America.
  • Ethnic music, especially in near tropical locations is mainstream for most of the early to mid '00s, especially in the rise of Reggaeton and Reggae artist Sean Paul in the mid-2000s.
  • Sales of CDs in 2005 in the U.S. decline drastically from the teen-pop era of the late 1990s-early 2000s. Some people who grew up listening to 1970s, 1980s, or even 1990s music claim the music industry is going for a younger audience in the 2000s that it has in decades past which might be leading to this drop in record sales. However, music industry executives claim the drop in CD sales is due to mp3 players (such as the iPod), and increasing popularity and access to music online such as the use of Napster.
  • Fashion of this decade includes: bellbottoms, 1940s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s fashion becomes mainstream in America's youth. *New rise of hippy and swing generation, return of the peace necklaces and medallions, tie dye shirts, and the British-American rock band of the 1960s, known as The Beatles, becomes mainstream once more. 1980s fashions and music also becomes largely popular in middle 2000s. 1940s fashion such as evening gowns and wavy hair becomes more popular in the late 2000s.
  • Baggy pants and shirts, as part of the "hipster", "gangster" fad, expierences severe backlash, in the mid to late 2000s. *Dark clothes start to experience slight backlash, and brighter colored shirts and pants start to become more mainstream in America's youth, styles that had been supposedly forgotten or considered to be uncool are considered as "hip". Plaid makes a comeback in late 2000s, as does plaid pants.
  • The "dirty pop scene" peaked in the early 2000s with artists such as Willa Ford, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Nelly and it received major backlash after the Janet Jackson case during the 2004 Super Bowl Halftime Time. Dirty pop did seem to come back in 2006.

Europe

NuPop, a genre of music that combines dance/electronica with alternative pop rock becomes mainstream in Europe for most of the middle part of the decade.

Australia and New Zealand

  • Rock and Hip Hop remain the most popular music genre amongst youth in Australia and New Zealand.
  • Pop and Rock remain the most widely played genre's on mainstream radio stations.

Latin America/Caribbean

Far East

Film

  • In the USA:
    • Movie remakes and sequels hit an all-time high, in contrast to purely original scripts. Also, many movies based on old TV shows and novels become more popular in Hollywood.
    • Depressed ticket sales throughout the decade due to general lack of quality films and decline of the general moviegoing experience, as movie theaters keep ticket prices high and increase the duration of advertisements before movies, in some cases going as long as 30 minutes. Other trends emerge, such as the decreasing cost and increasing size of quality home theater displays along with the availability mail-based movie rental services, most notably Netflix, which offered an unlimited number of DVD rentals for a fixed price per month. Movie executives attempted to place some of the blame on online piracy due to the advent of BitTorrent, however its effect has been disputed, as some claim that those who download these movies would not have paid to see them in the first place.
    • Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, comic book movies, and the new Star Wars movie sagas dominate the box office. The high profitability of these films arguably has much to do with the lack of investment and quality in newer and more original films in the 2000s as opposed to decades like the 1980s and 1990s.
    • The Matrix very influential on special effect styles (ie: 'bullet-time', dramatic effects in slow motion).
    • "R" rated films are released at their lowest prevalence since the 1960s, reflecting a post-Columbine American society which increasingly lacks tolerance of violent films. While certain exceptions such as Kill Bill are made in protest of this development and in tribute to the overly violent kung-fu and action films of the 1970s, most action films of the 2000s are largely bloodless.
    • East Hollywood High School in Utah becomes the first public film-oriented charter high school in the world.
    • X-Men sparks the "Comic Book Movie Age." Many big-budget adaptions of various comic book characters are made, primarily by Marvel Comics and DC comics. Some of these comic-book movies, aside from X-Men, include X2: X-Men United, X-Men: The Last Stand, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, The Fantastic Four, Batman Begins, V for Vendetta, and the upcoming Superman Returns, and Spider-Man 3.
    • Independent films start to emerge as a more popular medium. Major film corporations had or created independent divisions, such as Fox Searchlight and Warner Independent, which saw the popularity of independent (Garden State, Napoleon Dynamite) as well as art-house and foreign film increase.
    • Pixar produces hit movies such as Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Monsters Inc., continuing a trend started in 1995 with Toy Story. Both Finding Nemo and The Incredibles win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
    • DreamWorks Animation has hits with Shrek, Shrek 2 (which becomes the highest-grossing animated movie of all time in North America), Shark Tale, and Madagascar.
    • Disney abandons traditional 2D animation altogether in 2005, with Home on the Range being the last Disney movie with any 2D animation. Disney releases two non-Pixar-produced 3D films (Valiant in the US and Chicken Little) in 2005. Also, in 2006 Pixar became a part of Disney, furthering the company's transition into the 3D era, although a return to two-dimensional animation films may not be out of the question under the studio's new management. In 2009, 2-D animation may be the center for almost all animated features in Disney once again.
    • Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and The Even Stevens Movie become huge hits for Disney live-action movies. Both spawning sequels in the near future.
    • Brokeback Mountain, a movie about two gay shepherds, is considered controversial by some conservative Americans. Director Lee Ang receives Academy Award in 2006. Many parodies appeared on the Internet during early 2006.
    • The Napoleon Dynamite craze starts, with "Vote for Pedro" shirts becoming a hot commonity in 2005 and thousands of items relating to the film being sold rapidly. This is thought to have launched Jon Heder's career as an actor.
    • Several documentaries are given widespread cinema release: examples are Fahrenheit 9/11, Super Size Me, and March of the Penguins.
    • The increasing popularity and affordability of digital video equipment and computer-based editing software contributes to a boom in micro-budget, independent filmmaking. Hit movies like Super-Size Me and Open Water are shot on shoestring budgets with relatively inexpensive digital camcorders.

Internet

  • The Internet becomes a major source of all types of media, from music to movies, thanks to file-sharing P2P programs such as KaZaA and Limewire. The debate continues over the ethics of file-sharing.
  • As people become more used to the Internet during this decade it begins to be spelled lower-cased, called simply "the internet" or "internet" as opposed to "Internet" or "The Internet" which were used almost exclusively during the 1990s
  • The diverse and spontaneous nature of the internet allows an internet culture to form. Online projects such as hamsterdance, YTMND and Homestar Runner become international trends within short periods of time due to word of mouth on and off the web, with little or no promotion required from their creators. Internet phenomena and jokes spread quickly through out mainstream internet and sometimes off-internet culture from sources such as the Something Awful Forums, 4chan, and Albino Blacksheep. (A good example of this would be Chuck Norris Facts.) Some music acts, such as Arctic Monkeys and Posse of Two became well-known almost entirely from the use of the internet.
  • Legal music download services such as iTunes and the re-designed Napster open up a new market of digital downloading. Napster, even its current version, becomes the number one music swapping enterprise of all time.
  • Popular video shorts of the 2000s include Star Wars Gangsta Rap, D.R.A.F.T., and the SNL skit Lazy Sunday, which was controversially removed from YouTube in early 2006.
  • Television and Internet begin to merge as networks start streaming shows online.
  • Craigslist.org, a popular online classified site, saps over 50 million dollars a year from newspaper revenues, with a staff of only 16 people in San Francisco.
  • Cell phones gain the ability to access the Internet.
  • Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol(VoIP) telephones and the Internet slowly begin to merge: Examples are Vonage and Skype.
  • Webcomics by amateur cartoonists begin to surpass the popularity of traditional print comic books and newspaper strips. Flash movies also become popular.
  • Re-cut trailers become popular in the mid-2000s, largely due to the many parody trailers of Brokeback Mountain during the 2005-2006 winter. Popular examples include "Brokeback to the Future", Lazy Brokeback, and the Sleepless in Seattle trailer cut into a horror movie.
  • Social networking programs such as Myspace, Xanga, Facebook, Friendster, and MyYearbook become extremely popular among teens and twenty-somethings inspiring others to share and trade personal information via online. These sites, in particular Myspace skyrocketed in popularity since the late 1990s, especially around the year 1999 and are criticized by many for safety concerns such as their use by pedophiles to exploit the younger generations.
  • Informational and educational web sites abruptly decline as the internet becomes more of a place for advertising and other types of media, such as the use of such chat boards including MySpace.
  • The interactivity of the internet becomes more prominent with websites such as Wikipedia and YouTube where users can become contributors without a specialized knowledge in HTML technology.
  • Pornography gradually declines since its peak in the early 2000, causing many adult viewers that are fans of pornographic magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse to protest. [citation needed]

Video games

 
Halo: Combat Evolved, released in 2001 for the Xbox, instantly became among the most popular video games of the era.
File:WoW Box Art.jpg
World of Warcraft, released in 2004, has become the best-selling and most popular MMORPGs in history.
  • The first batch of "next-generation" home consoles are released at the turn of the new millennium featuring larger production values, more realistic graphics, and consoles with built-in multimedia such as DVD and a hard drive. The Sony Playstation 2 (2000), Nintendo GameCube (2001), and the Microsoft Xbox (2001) are the three main contenders in the sixth-generation console wars.
  • The Sims, released in fall of 1998 and again in the winter of 2000 for PC, along with its expansions and the help from many companies such as Electronic Arts, Maxis, and Disney becomes the best selling PC game of all time. The Sims 2, released in 2004, becomes almost as popular.
  • Sega in 2001 drops out the home console market after the Dreamcast (1999) fails to regain lost marketshare from the 1990s.
  • Nintendo releases the Game Boy Advance (GBA) in 2001, a 32-bit handheld system. A redesign of the GBA dubbed Game Boy Advance SP (GBASP) was released in 2003 introducing flip-top design and a frontlit screen. Another even smaller version of the GBA was released as the Game Boy micro in 2005. The GBA line is still the best selling handheld system to date.
  • Gamers who were kids in the 1980s and 1990s are now adults and continue to play video games. The average age for video game players rises into the mid to late 20s as videogames become mainstream global entertainment.
  • The Grand Theft Auto series sparks a fad of Mature rated videogames based on including gang warfare, drug use, senseless violence and pornography into the gameplay or more commonly just the storyline. The controversy causes mothers, lawmakers and activists (such as Jack Thompson) to push an agenda banning the sale of Mature rated games to minors.
  • MMORPGs, originating in the early 1990s, become a popular PC trend and virtual online worlds become a reality as games such as World of Warcraft, Everquest II, Final Fantasy XI, and Eve Online are released. These worlds come complete with their own economies and social organization as directed by the players as a whole.
  • Console gaming officially hits the Internet with Xbox Live. Introducing widespread use of voice-chat via headset and requiring broadband Internet connection for "no-lag" gameplay.
  • Sequels become the more prominent as popular franchises begin releasing new versions every year along with spin-offs. This flooding of the market is similar to what was happening before the video game crash of 1983.
  • Nintendo releases the Nintendo DS in late 2004 featuring dual screens, a touch screen, and built-in mic and Wi-fi. In 2006 the Nintendo DS lite, a redesign which is smaller with brighter screens, is released.
  • Sony releases the PSP (PlayStation Portable) in early 2005, a handheld gaming console with multimedia features and sharp graphics.
  • During 2005 and 2006 the seventh generation of home consoles arrive: Microsoft's Xbox 360 (2005), the Sony Playstation 3 (expected 2006), and the Nintendo Wii (expected 2006) have sharper HDTV ready graphics, multi-media, wireless controllers, and more integrated online features. The PlayStation 3 will also feature a Blu-Ray disk drive, while the Wii will feature a completely new controller design (see below).
  • Nintendo announces that the Wii will feature a remote control style controller feauturing full motion-sensitivity and a built-in speaker. Sony soon followed by announcing that the PlayStation 3 will have tilt-sensitive capabilities in its controller.
  • Video games like Halo and Half-Life 2 with its Source engine are said to revolutionize the physics aspect of gameplay. They pave the way for other hit first-person shooters, one of which is F.E.A.R..

Television

Main article: Television in the 2000s

Television in the 2000s showed a steady decline in the amount of live sitcoms and dramas and a rapid increase in Reality Television. Traditional network news programs have slowly waned in popularity with the increase of 24 hour cable news stations and internet news. Adult oriented animated programming also began a sharp upturn in popularity with shows like South Park and Family Guy along with the longtime running cartoon The Simpsons. Many successful sitcoms form the 1990s also ended in the 2000s such as Friends (1994-2004) and Frasier (1993-2004).

Sports

Books & Literature

People

World leaders

Template:World Leaders in the 2000s

State leaders by year: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006...

Entertainers

Template:Entertainers in the 2000s

Sports figures

Template:Sports Figures in the 2000s

See also

 
Look up 2000s in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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