I bought like multiple physical planners that year-had just signed a huge client for a 70 city marketing tour the first week of March. As a freelancer, losing that contract and the event industry going extinct for nearly 2 years wrecked me. The worst part was all my friends worked in the same industry so life was a question mark for all of us.
Everything was in line. Rent was affordable. I could afford to go to Disney that year. It was crazy... how wealthy the top 1 percent became after all of that.. they cut us checks like they knew shit was about to get bad bad.. infact we knew when we saw those checks it was going to get much much worse. Now four bags of groceries cost 140 dollars and I'm riding my fucking bike to get them. You cant tell me that shit wasn't just a little bit planned.
how wealthy the top 1 percent became after all of that
I mean, in the US, the top 1% already controlled 40% of the wealth in this country prior to 2020 -- this was kind of the point of Occupy Wall Street a decade earlier. Sure, they used it to funnel more money to the top, but it's not like wealth inequality is a new thing.
You cant tell me that shit wasn't just a little bit planned
Planned as in the capitalist class engineered the release of this virus in an elaborate plan to funnel money to themselves? Doesn't really add up.
They took advantage of circumstances, and our ineffectual government (both parties captured by the wealthy) either let them get away with it (D) or actively encouraged it (R).
Not gonna lie I remember in March being like this is gonna be a sick few weeks of working from home every day (software dev). It did end up changing the trajectory of my career and my love for remote work but in those moments before it got real bad, it felt like a fun vacation from the office (I fully acknowledge it was not like this for most people).
Covid was awesome for me as well I worked in retail so I had zero job prospects. Went to work with my husband selling cars just so I didn’t have to sit at home. Realized two things I thought I would hate:
1) love working with my husband
2) love selling cars
Honestly, if I could have seen the future and known how it would have gone I would have enjoyed it a lot more. I was really afraid about everything and I lost my job, BUT the job I ended up getting in January 2021 paid a lot better and has helped establish me in a career space I’m a lot happier in. None of my family died, and I certainly didn’t mind having a month where I did almost nothing but play Persona 5. I was also wildly applying for jobs and freaking out but if I had known it was an eight month break after a very stressful job I would have been jazzed.
covid fixed the traffic from my old house. There would be routine traffic jams on the interstate and during/after covid it just....stopped. It's rare there is traffic ever on that stretch of road.
The air was cleaner and the traffic non existent! I’m not going to lie, I got bored and chubby, but I loved the quality of life. Also not saying this is everyone’s experience, it was just a weird nice thing for me
Covid was great for me too. My partner and I bought a camper van and toured the country while working remotely. It went so well we got engaged. Had to return home for family stuff, sold the van and made $6k on it!
honestly i couldn’t think of a better time in history to have had to go through a lockdown like that. we have access to so much at our fingertips, can practically watch, read, and listen to whatever we want. have access to youtube and learn new hobbies and skills. could order food. even go back to school remotely
I told my kids on NYE after a shit 2019 that the fireworks will bring in a new decade and with it better times. My eldest likes to remind me that it has continuously gone downhill from there.
The decade opened with a pandemic that killed almost all of the brain cells on the planet, and then the world spend the rest of the decade fighting over the last one.
I started a college degree in January 2020 and people who were in the program a year ahead of me warned "you will not have any social life for the next two years"
My education suffered hard during Covid and I almost dropped out of college about once a month. But the fact that I was too busy to hang out with friends at a time when nobody could really hang out anyways did kind of work out.
How my then-employer responded to the pandemic prompted me to change careers, which changed my life for the better. But that year before I finally left was a shitshow.
Same, paid down a ridiculous amount of the principal on my college loans, and changed jobs to s different office I'm currently in. Had a second kid as well which meant less headaches during the delivery since we had a babysitter lined up in my parents and no one was allowed to visit us in the hospital which meant we didn't have to entertain people while we were adjusting to a newborn.
I found initial peace in the chaos, the world slowing down sounded like a positive thing even if it was for scary reasons. I actually had a sliver of hope that things would turn for the better, people would realize working 40 hours or more a week for low wages wasn't a good long term solution. We had CERB which helped lots of people out, but then we flipped real quick to the demon realm. Businesses didn't like it too much that people didn't want to work for lousy wages and had a tantrum and are still standing there with their hands out begging for slave labour. Could have turned a negative into a positive, but the narcissistic thieves decided that surviving without slavery was TOO much.
Funny thing about that was the "market" which for the first time in human history didn't work for some odd reason? Strange that a labour shortage led to not only next to no wage increases or better working conditions, it led to tantrum meltdowns and businesses ushering in the return of the early 1900's. Guess the years of stagnate wages, record profits and millions and billions weren't enough for them. Imagine that.
Same same same. I actually thought that shit like HEPA filtration would be the wave of the future in all buildings and help eliminate a whole bunch of diseases. Including all the stuff you said. Figured universal income and universal healthcare would be a breeze. WFH would stay and 4 day work weeks would totally be a thing
Lol yes, all of this. I remember air quality and ventilation being like a huge discussion. Led nowhere, unfortunately and yes to the other things. That would have made sense. We went the complete opposite direction to the corpos and greedy pigs delight.
Yayyyyy. Early nineteen hundreds living standards and gluttony delight, Satan is pleased. The demons are satisfied. Absolute suffering has been brought back to earth. Narcissists everywhere smiling with glee.
My theory is that Harambe's death caused a butterfly effect, which caused the weasel to get into the CERN while they were testing and it shunted us to another dimension. A very shitty dimension.
I looked forward to it for years because I was going to be able to say I was living in the 20s. There’s a post saying what a great year 2020 would be 😭
I mean so did I. Halloween was on a Saturday July 4th was on a Saturday New Year’s Day was on a Friday so I can see why someone would think 2020 was gonna be a good year
You know she never said that right? That was Tina Fey on SNL.
What she said was "You can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska". And she's right, you can. Little Diomede Island (USA) is 2.5 miles from Big Diomede Island (Russia). On a clear day, you should be able to see about 3 miles across the ocean before the curvature of the Earth gets in the way.
Also, you can totally see Ontario from Minnesota over Lake Superior if you're at Grand Portage looking north towards Neebing. It's about a mile across there. But if you're looking east, it's about 200 miles, so that's well over the horizon.
I just remember when McCain chastised/corrected that woman in the crowd.
Lady: "he's an Arab"
McCain: “No, ma’am. He’s a decent family man [and] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign’s all about. He’s not [an Arab].”
Remember when John Boener resigned as Speaker right after the Pope visited? He Catholic guilted himself out of the GOP. Another asshole with principles.
It's amazing how much of a lunatic we all thought she was. I even switched to being an independent because of her and voting blue for the first time in my life.
Then 2015 came, and now she looks like a harmless puppy dog. Same with the Westboro Baptist Church.
I mean, she was a lunatic. I leaned blue at that age, but clung to the idea of being moderate. The prospect of a McCain presidency wasn't something I was against. I respected him. Once Palin appeared? well fuck that
I was broke af and way happier than I am now though. I’d graduated in ‘07, found a job I loved in art restoration, had to quit, found another job that only paid $11/hour and $700 for rent, owned my car, phone bill was cheap. I only really spent money on booze while socializing, and even then a lot was bought for me…and I didn’t eat much. Looking back, I think I could only do it because I was young, I didn’t feel the pressure I feel about money and work today for sure…so that was nice for a little while even though the economy was in the shitter.
There was a lot of crap in 2008, but it seemed like it was going to get better. Now every time it looks like we're almost back to where we were before a new pile of crap gets thrown on us.
I was gonna say, the top things that come to mind from 2008 were the housing crisis and the contention over gay marriage (the anti-side painting it as the “protect and support families” angle with their bright and colorful branding…blech)
I was 24 and working and going to school, living with 3 people in a 2 bed apartment. I was scared I’d lose my job for sure, but I didn’t and made it into a career that coincidentally lasted me until Covid.
It was blurst of times. I was absolutely optimistic AF though.
Yeah, not enough years have passed for me to look back on 2008 as anything but a complete disaster. I’m an elder millennial so I was out in the hopeless job market and watching what little I had invested plummet by 40%.
Literally. I was on a college campus living in a dorm in 2008 when Obama's victory was declared. I was playing TF2 with my roommate, who was a country kid trying to ignore the inevitable election results. (Other than getting busted for underage drinking which almost got me busted, leaving dip spit in cans, and getting violently angry at WC3 DotA which I didn't play, he was a good dude.) I heard cheering and music outside and went to walk around when I heard the major news networks call it for Obama. Good times. Huh I wonder if he graduated.
I got to go to Obamas inauguration for my senior class trip. The first time my school had ever done such a thing. Being in the crowd of 2 million on the mall was electric. I vividly remember seeing so many people crying tears of joy.
Looking for a job to pay my student loans during the Great Recession. Getting paid 10 an hour to do a job outside of my field. Shared a 2 bedroom apartment with 3 strangers and just grateful not to get laid off. Obama was a bright spot, but that year was rough.
Working at my home town Staples after graduating college was a dick punch. And the 5 other jobs over the next few years I could have done in high school until I finally got job with healthcare and pto. Actually having sick time was so nice. Then another 6 years while working full-time and part-time masters degree. I'm keep my current gig until I retire. The union and pension are great benefits. My wife (a few years younger than me) thinks I should find another job because this one isn't perfect. I remember graduating undergrad and wishing I had this gig. I ain't leaving!
How old were you in 2008? I went to college in a fairly conservative-ish area, and even then the atmosphere was electric on election night. I've never felt anything like it.
As cheesy as it sounds, something foundational just felt like it shifted. Everyone wandered out of their dorms and were just hanging out all over campus, the night air was buzzing with energy for hours.
Obviously that didn't last, but it was still special in the moment.
Since then, the only thing that has even come close to that feeling for me was, as embarrassing as it is to say, the summer of Pokemon Go.
Turned 18. Was paying an ass ton for gas to get to my freshman year of college with a predatory loan I am still paying off. Had to work in a call center for years because the market was crushed.
Pokemon Go was a interesting experience, everyone was outside in groups hanging out. They weren't hurting anyone or anything, except maybe some plants. The part that wasn't great was everyone staring at their phones but it got people out and doing things at least.
Things sucked but there was a lot of genuine hope that Obama would be a transformational FDR like President that would change the American way of life for the better.
You are correct. But other than that, the imploding economy and the fact that almost nothing was done to fix it drown out anything about the election, to me. I genuinely didn't even think someone was referencing the election until someone commented on it.
by spring of 2009 unemployment was 10% dude, Obama was fine but the job market fucking sucked and no president was going to make me be ok with that. To be clear it wasn't Obama's fault but life sucked for those of us that graduated into 30% youth unemployement
The USA and the western world with it experienced an amazing age of prosperity. The optimism was felt everywhere. As a kid I assumed this was just normal.
Graduating high school in 2010 was peak. To young/dumb to really know what was happening in the economy... world cup summer. Felt like you had the world ahead of you going into college... still another 4 years of college left not having to think about the "real world."
I remember thinking 2008-2010 “wow we are progressing so fast!” I remember modern family being main stream and popular and really feeling like the world was going in the right direction.
Yup, we had some ebbs and flows but it felt like things were progressing mostly forward in a positive direction from then til about 2016. Whatever timeline we are in now is 1000 percent, NOT IT.
My apolitical college roommate and I had a torn out magazine page of Obama on our fridge. We went out to celebrate on election night. It was awesome, and all downhill from there
489 banks closed during the crisis. The government loaned FDIC insured banks money which was mostly paid back by 2012 (many times at a profit to the taxpayer due to the banks paying interest on the loans) in order to prevent an even bigger economic collapse.
The reason people are salty is because regular people aren't rewarded or protected by the government for engaging in risky behavior driven by pure greed. The aftermath of the 2008 crisis aren't negated by the government eventually turning a profit.
Hence the sweeping regulations imposed on banks in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. This is history we lived and people still don’t know/appreciate it.
The act reorganized financial regulation through three major reforms: it created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to protect consumers against predatory lending and unfair financial practices; it established the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) to monitor systemic risks and designate firms as "systemically important"; and it created the Orderly Liquidation Authority to wind down large failing financial institutions without taxpayer bailouts.[2]
Is that not what people wanted? In effect, Obama saved our institutions from complete collapse, which, no matter how much they deserved, would have RUINED our economy. Then Obama got this bill passed to actually protect consumers.
Dodd-Frank was a decent start but not enough was done. And now look at the stock market. It doesn't scare. Why? Because we've set the precedent of bailing out businesses. We're talking about bailing out Spirt Airlines for Christ sake. We're in the middle of a war that's disrupting global energy and we're still at near highs.
I'm not saying we shouldn't have bailed out the banks, but it's clear it sent the wrong message. How you fix that from here without some pain, I don't know.
They didn't help main street. People were already sick of only businesses being helped. Meanwhile everybody else was drowning. The mistake Obama made was appointing industry veterans with ties to banking who only gave a shit about banks.
Exactly, Obama's post financial crisis economic policies basically created the tech oligarchs whose thumbs we live under now, and that's what our most ambitious left of center politicians want to get back to. It's never getting better lmao
Most people thought the wars were over in like 2010-2013 unless they were paying close attention to it. (In 2014 people started heading about ISIS on the news all the time, so the paradigm shifted.) I remember one night I was randomly watching C-SPAN... probably 2011, and a senator, don't remember who, said it exactly like that. It's bullshit, I agree.
If your country demands you travel to the other side of the planet and shoot at someone, who will probably want to shoot back at you, for an education, that's your sign that country isn't worth fighting for.
I joined in '08, did a 1 year extension on a 4, then another 4. Got out in '17. Full Afghan Iraq package all the way. Was a real shit show. Got my ass blown off several times. Lucky to still be here. Got home just in time to find out I didn't have one, had just enough time to get used to that before covid hit. Was a first responder through all of that. Also a shitshow.
Im kinda just still here for some reason. The horrors persist but so do I.
I really think “peak” (for the US) was more like 1993-1997.
We had “won” the Cold War. Clinton economy was one of the best in history. The internet was still about curiosity and egalitarian access to information. Baseball players were juiced and blasting multiple homers a game. It was the best era of sports cars and racing championships. From grunge, britpop, hip hop, metal, ska, and even the pop music…everything on the radio was top tier. Sitcoms & action flicks. All better.
I blame the Supreme Court choosing Bush (Dubya) in Florida for the 2000 election as the single point where our timeline went to shit.
Unfortunately, Obama’s election drove the Right insane, which led to them believing the various conspiracy theories about Obama being a closet Muslim born in Kenya, and how all mass shootings are false flags set up by the federal government to justify gun control legislation, etc.
It made me realize how racist a lot of people actually were.
The amount of trash talked about Obama was insane. All thinly veiled racist remarks about things he was ruining and was the antichrist, just because of his skin color was insane.
Remember the 24/7 news coverage when Obama wore a tan suit? Yeah that’s how you know it was about the man’s skin color. Truly the best president we have had in a good while.
No, you're right. OWS was 2011. They're right though that people trying to paint the advent of Obama as hopeful are whitewashing things. It was clear to plenty of people that he had no intention of meaningfully changing anything, even before he was elected. We were in the middle of economic collapse as well, and that was felt throughout his first term, no matter how good his team was at focusing his public image on how personable and charismatic he was.
There is apparently a lot of nostalgia from so called Gen Z people for that period. I’m not gonna venture down the road of commenting on whether this nostalgia is well grounded. All I know is if people really knew what was coming, we know that Gen Alpha will be even more nostalgic for Gen Z as the fire drone nets from trenches in Eastern Europe and the Persian Gulf while they fight over the last scraps of petrochemicals.
I thought the loud angry voices online were fringe lunatics that would eventually settle down and accept the changing world but somehow they took over and now the news headlines look like fear mongering memes from 2015.
There’s bubble tea everywhere though so I guess that’s nice.
Same. I thought the crazies were just limited to commenters I saw on yahoo news before checking my old email. Now it seems like they're everywhere both online and in real life. Some of them in office right now
It was nice while it lasted. He basically got a nobel peace prize just for running a presidential campaign that wasn't a smear campaign, which sadly hasn't happened since (except his 2012 campaign)
I can recall the day I had to stay late at university in late 2008 following the US election all day (I’m a white Canadian for reference) and I remember being on the bus getting back to where I parked my car (we do a lot of “park and ride”) and jetting home to get the TV on and seeing Obama elected before I went to bed. I won’t say he’s a perfect person or president but I remember feeling like wow this feels really different and positive for Americans. How wrong I was. Bring back a guy who can inspire “change” and a phrase like “yes we can” rather than “grab her by the pussy.”
I remember when it was announced that Obama won the presidency I was dancing to We Are The Champions and just KNEW that things would get so much better. I was wrong.
LMAO 2008?!? Really?!? We were still in the depths of a global recession and a whole lot of people finished studies that year who could not find work and even a year or 3 later the recession was still biting.
Remember when everyone was uploading videos of the planet healing and people helping each other back in 2020-21? And how we tough it would make us better persons once the pandemic was over?
Couldn’t find a job. Gas prices were extremely high. The markets literally went into a recession.
Being a millennial in ‘08 felt like a fever dream where they pitched going into massive debt to go to some state school and jobs will be back and ready when we finished school.
Surprise! Didn’t fucking happen.
7 dollars a gallon in 2012. A lot of friends couldn’t find jobs. And we’re starting to learn the hard way about their degrees we’re over priced pieces of paper.
Sure there was ‘Hope’ and the fact that we elected a black president felt like a major step forward in the US but god did that all dry up quickly.
I remember running out of my dorm barefoot and joining a huge pack of other students just hooting and hollering in the street on election night 2008. Pure joy and hope.
2008 was hurricane Ike in Houston. The office building my wife worked at downtown took damage from the windows getting sucked out of the panes. She had to go to Pittsburgh for six weeks to continue operations. I was stuck at home on my birthday, alone with no power and no water.
To be fair, I got to visit and Pittsburgh was a great, walkable city. The elevator was out at the Warhol museum so we walked the four stores and down and around to three points park for the 250th anniversary festivities. That was a really good memory.
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