Defining the Decades — Part 4: 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s

Here at The Saturday Evening Post, we know a thing or two about documenting big events across the decades. We saw the Civil War and the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. We’ve seen historical milemarkers like emancipation, suffrage, and Obergefell v. Hodges. And each time the calendar turns, we, like all of you, are wondering what will be the next era-defining event. With that in mind, we’re taking a look at the events that have defined each decade in the United States since 1900. You may have your own take, and we encourage you to share and engage in (friendly) debate.

You can read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here.

1990s: Tech Takes Over: Reality TV Breaks Out, Soundscan Completely Changes Music, Texting Takes Off, and the Internet Explodes

The first 10 minutes of the first episode of The Real World (Uploaded to YouTube by MTV Vault)

While it’s true that multiple technological advances changed how we received entertainment in the 1980s, the advances of the 1990s completely changed the culture. The first SMS message, or text, was sent in 1992; by January of 2000, four billion texts had been sent in Europe alone. At the same time, forerunners like ARPANET, an affiliation of local Bulletin Board Systems, commercial networks, and other entities would evolve (thanks to Tim Berners-Lee) into the World Wide Web; going public in 1993, it marked the birth of the modern internet.

On TV, the advances of computer-assisted non-linear video editing made it possible to quickly sift through and edit larger masses of footage into more coherent assemblies. That opened the doors for the likes of Cops, but also enabled shows like 1991’s Nummer 28 in the Netherlands. If you’ve never heard of it, you’ve certainly seen it; the show put strangers together in one place and filmed everything that happened, while also having them comment directly to the cameras in “confessionals.” Before long, the airwaves would be dominated by similar shows, like MTV’s The Real World, Expedition Robinson (the forerunner of Survivor), and Changing Rooms, the UK’s predecessor to Trading Spaces. Essentially every permutation of reality TV (life as it happens, reality competition, and makeover) came out of the 1990s.

But nothing changed overnight in the 1990s quite like music. Nielsen SoundScan began tracking music sales on March 1, 1991. Prior to that, positions on the Billboard charts were determined by reports from individual record stores. In many cases, the reports were what managers thought customers were buying. SoundScan operated on “piece count data,” meaning that the numbers were based on each scanned sale of an album or single. The charts upended almost overnight, demonstrating that hip-hop, alternative rock, and country were much more popular than sales reporters thought. The first artist to have their #1 spot solely determined by SoundScan was R.E.M., whose Out of Time knocked Michael Bolton’s Time, Love, and Tenderness off the top spot.

2000s: 9/11

The Today Show from September 11, 2001, covering events as they happened (Uploaded to YouTube by Mark Davis)

Let’s start with the part that you might not know; the FBI code-name for the investigation of the events of September 11, 2001 was PENTTBOM, which stood for a combination of Pentagon, Twin Towers, and bombing. As for the rest, you know the story. 9/11 launched the “War on Terror,” which resulted in years-long conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other fields of engagement. In addition to the loss of life and the permanent change to the skyline of New York City, the day resulted in long-term changes to travel and our identification documents. Culturally, Americans were forced to deal with trading some personal freedoms in the name of security, while the sudden cessation in air traffic and a downturn in air travel forced the U.S. government to rescue the air industry with a $15 billion bailout. Unfortunately, the background of the 9/11 terrorists fostered an increase in xenophobia, a sentiment that would also bleed over into the 2008 presidential election with unfounded accusations regarding the citizenship of Hawaiian-born Barack Obama.

2010s: Bin Laden Is Killed

President Obama announces the killing of Osama bin Laden (Uploaded to YouTube by CBS)

As a decade, the 2010s were fairly packed with social movements; from #MeToo to MAGA, from Occupy Wall Street to the Arab Spring, from the Ice Bucket Challenge to teens uniting for the March for Our Lives, it was ten years characterized by widespread activism. And yet, even with all of those events, perhaps nothing was as memorable as President Obama cutting into national TV at 11:35 p.m. on Sunday, May 1, to deliver an address than began, “Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.” Response in the United States was considerable, with spontaneous gatherings erupting in major cities and sporting events in progress experiencing celebrations as the word spread by social media (wrestler John Cena even announced the news from the ring at a WWE show in Tampa, Florida). Though bin Laden’s death was inarguably a major blow to Al Qaeda, it did spur the growth and creation of other groups, like the Islamic State.

2020s: COVID

ABC News reports on the first confirmed case of coronavirus in the U.S. on January 22, 2020 (Uploaded to YouTube by ABC News)

We’re only half-way though this decade, but there’s one clear leader. Seismic doesn’t really begin to cover the effect that COVID-19 had in the United States. Based on CDC estimates, around 1.2 million Americans have died from COVID, complications, or co-morbidities. The pandemic had elements of the country coming together, but it also revealed deep divisions in terms of public trust in medical science. Perhaps the back half of the 2020s will present opportunities for a more positive event to ascend to the one that defines the decade. If nothing else, that gives everyone common ground for that very American thing: hope for a better future.