The Sun-Herald

Surely the noughties was the decade of too soon to party. We started celebrating the millenium 366 days early. Paris, Britney and Corey are always celebrating something too early. We bought Plasma and digital only to get gazumped by HD everything. Finally we all thought every house was at least worth a million dollars now it's half that.

• by jack johns on February 11, 2008 at 07:57 AM

It is the decade when lower case I "i" became acceptable when used as first person singular

• by A C D on February 11, 2008 at 09:36 AM

You say "The under 30s ... talk via MyFace, YouBook, and SpaceTube. That lower case 'e' is soooo 2002."
That's right, but blogs and videos attract oldies as well as youngies.
Woy Woy's Olive Riley is probably the world's oldest blogger and YouTuber. She was born in 1899, when NSW was a colony ruled by Queen Victoria.
Olive, a feisty 108-year-old with a remarkably clear memory of her childhood in Broken Hill, dictates her blog to her friend Mike Rubbo, an award-winning documentary film maker, who posts it at http://www.allaboutolive.com.au/
BTW, you wrote that there are now 70 million bloggers. Technorati is currently tracking 112.8 million blogs and more than 250 million pieces of tagged social media.

• by Eric Shackle on February 11, 2008 at 10:44 AM

Noughties - the decade of the grammatically challenged.
The decade when we all decided to be 'bored of' Corey and Britney, instead of 'bored with' or 'bored by' them.
The decade when we all started saying 'my bad' instead of 'my mistake'. Cant' we manage words with more than one syllable anymore?
The decade when 'i' became acceptable as a replacement for 'I'.
The decade when 'da' and 'wiv' became the accepted spelling of 'the' and 'with'.
The decade when our governments finally realised that all that texting has produced a generation that cannot write a complete sentence full of real, whole words. Or understand one when they see one.
Actually, Decade of the Moron might cover it all - our poor grammar, our obsession with brain-dead clots like Corey and Paris and our total inability to spend a whole 5 minutes without texting some other mobile-addicted bud.

Tribal Mind replies: Thats not even mentioning the apo'strophe's.

• by meg on February 11, 2008 at 12:55 PM

DD, where do you get the following? "economically, it is The Decade of China, which will replace America as The world superpower by 2009"
By what definition will it replace the US? Not GDP, even deflationary Japan still has a GDP bigger than China.

Tribal Mind replies: You wait and see.

• by downloader on February 11, 2008 at 03:08 PM

by meg on February 11, 2008 at 12:55 PM
You are so right - I cannot stand reading a blog where someone has blogged in text language - I could not be bothered to even try to read it. Surely some boffins out there can come up with a better word than texted - it just sounds so bad. Grumble grumble.
Please TM, you do not want to get me started on apostrophes.... there will be blood.

• by Shoopie on February 11, 2008 at 06:28 PM

A brilliant single word for the decade's major themes - it's interesting to see that most responses have focused more on the egoism and individualism in "I" than on the rise of technology in "i". This is exactly as it should be - to define any period by its technology is a mistake; the cultural effects of technology are a much more important part of our historical self-understanding. Gnothi seauton. That said, I'd mention that the 19th century saw the first major concerns that as the economy gained in importance and complexity, it was distorting the very nature of society, and as people became materially richer they became poorer in every other way. What happened socially then is what's happening semiotically now; as media gain in sophistication the information and messages they're used to convey often become shorter, more opinionated and more vacuous. Don't listen to the bell tolling for Britney; it tolls for thee. We ARE Britney just by blogging on the assumption that our opinions matter. The rising importance of the economy changes the nature of human interaction; the rising speed and quantity of information changes the nature of knowledge. The last eight years have marked the point at which this fact has started to catch up with, and systemically affect, our cultures. iDecade is a perfect summary of this and i can't improve on it. Incidentally, complaints about defining standards in grammar, seriousness and quality have been around since the ancient Greeks. The only societies where people don't complain about this generation's decadence are the ones that actually are declining, and you make me feel really good about Australia's future.

• by Nicholas on February 13, 2008 at 04:58 PM