Musings over The Noughties

In a couple of weeks we'll be entering a new decade. The Noughties will be over, replaced by "2010-2019". It's been an interesting decade and here are some personal musings over the decade.

* The fall of MTV.
In 2000 I was still watching MTV regularly and I still remember being influenced by them. I picked up on Coldplay by watching their music video of Shiver (this was before Yellow - when the everyone else jumped on that bandwagon). There were some interesting programs. In 2009 I barely watch MTV and last time I accidentally flicked on it a program called "16 and pregnant" was on. Oh how the mighty have fallen! MTV used to be the cool epitome of music and pop culture. A marketing channel for pop stars. A place to listen and see the coolest acts in the world. Now all those have been replaced by MySpace and YouTube and MTV is no longer a music television.

* Social networking
Ten years ago I kept in touch with friends and family by email and the occassional phone call. These days I just look what they are saying on facebook/twitter/koprol and think I know what they are doing. No emails, no phone calls. In many ways I have lost touch with many people, even though they are my facebook friends.

* Global warming
Probably the issue of the decade. Ten years ago nobody batted an eyelid if you flew across the world then got into your Hummer to have some fresh tuna. These days everybody would bat an eyelid if you did.

* iPod
The noughties is also the decade where technology just went crazy. And the case in point is the iPod. The first iPod came out in 2001. A friend of mine got it and it look beautiful. There was a wheel (that actually moved) and some buttons (that were physical buttons) around the wheel. Fast forward 6 years and Apple came out with an iPhone, an evolution of the iPod. Now almost everybody has an iPod or an iPhone. Ten years ago I was still walking around with a chunky CD player. At one point I had a MD player but that only lasted a couple of years.

And not only did Apple revolutionize the way we listen to music, they also revolutionized the way we buy music. Now you can buy songs easily via iTunes. Some of you might say Napster set the revolution, but Napster wasn't about buying music, it was about sharing music. Apple actually made it work, to sell music online. Radiohead then went that extra step further with In Rainbows.

And all that because of the iPod that was invented in 2001.

* The Wire
The best television series ever.