WeSureKnow Blog

Not dying or having all our computers crash simultaneously New Year’s Day 2000 might have been the only crisis we successfully avoided in the first decade of the 21st century.

While the highly anticipated “Y2K” computer bug and the impending doom of the new millennium started the decade on a semi-somber note, the next 10 years spewed forth a series of events and inventions that would disrupt the world order.

How can you capture the decade’s most momentous moments? In a time capsule, of course! While it might sound abstract to try to gather greatest moments (for public interest or political importance), but it’s not as difficult as you’d think.

Step 1: Grab your voting stub, sticker or ballot book from the 2000 election. If you already tossed these historic documents, print a headline or go to your local library and make a few copies.

Look for newspapers from Nov. 8, 2000, the day after the election. Another key date was Dec. 12, 2000, when the Supreme Court ruling in Bush v. Gore effectively ended the recount in Florida and established George W. Bush as the winner in one of the most contentious presidential elections in U.S. history.

Step 2: Pack a paper from Sept. 11, 12 or 13, 2001, when headlines across the country (and around the world) featured news of the attacks on the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and a third thwarted hijacking that resulted in a plane crash in remote Pennsylvania.

The event was the deadliest attack on American soil and the most effective attack credited to the Taliban, an extremist group of Muslim terrorists based in the mountains of Afghanistan and the bordering state of Pakistan.

Step 3: Plant your ancient iPod, one of the old skool first edition models, in the capsule. Apple’s technology has transformed the way we listen to and interact with music and media.

Released in October of 2001, Apple’s press release described the device as “a breakthrough MP3 music player that packs up to 1,000 CD-quality songs into an ultra-portable, 6.5 ounce design that fits in your pocket.”

Apple’s original brainchild sired a legion of babies that were hipper, brighter and more impressive than their parents. A device that lets you download a “1,000 songs in less than 10 minutes” now seems so, so slow.

When your time capsule is uncovered in the future the original iPod will meet with quizzical looks, blank stares and pity for whoever lived in such technologically dark ages.

Step 4: Fold an “I Love American Idol” T-shirt into your 2000s time capsule. Not the first of the decade’s reality show to garner fan obsession, it is the most popular, drawing more than 30 million viewers for its eighth season premier in 2009, according to guardianuk.com.

Reality shows altered the way network and cable television is produced, making scripted TV all but obsolete and putting professional writers and actors on the chopping blocks in many Hollywood studios.

Fan favorites from a decade of famous and forgettable reality shows include Survivor, Big Brother, America’s Next Top Model, Top Chef, So You Think You Can Dance, My Fair Brady, The Girls Next Door, Fear Factor, Amazing Race, Lockup, To Catch a Predator, Jon and Kate Plus Eight, and of course the show that started it all: The Real World.

Fitting memorabilia or merchandise from any of these shows will get the point across in your time capsule: the 2000s were a decade in which easy access to media and technology made it much easier for nobodies to become somebodies, as least for a few episodes.

Step 5: Print out a brochure from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), place a copy of Spike Lee’s “When the Levees Broke” or slip some Mardi Gras beads into your time capsule along with a newspaper from the days after hurricane Katrina first struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005. Any of these items will commemorate devastation caused by the storm.

The natural disaster that left much of the Louisiana coast under water, and thousands of people from New Orleans’s Ninth Ward stranded on rooftops or herded into the Superdome. Those were the lucky ones; more than a thousand others drowned or died as a result of the flood and lack of coordinated disaster relief by the government.

Step 6: Stick a pin in it. A Virginia Tech black ribbon pin memorializes the worst mass murder to date on American soil. On April 16, 2007, a single shooter, undergrad Seung-Hui Cho, killed 32 students and faculty on the university campus.

The event may not be one we want to remember, but is it was important. The shootings taught lessons about recognizing the signs of mental illness and the need for early intervention for troubled students, as well as for a process to address those considered mentally ill or fanatical within public institutions. A video and a 200-page manifesto produced by Cho indicated that he was mentally unstable, as did later reports by teachers and students.

Alternate VT gear or a paper headlining the massacre on the Blacksburg campus also would suffice to note the incident in your time capsule.

Step 7: Stockpiled political material related to the 2008 presidential campaign or election won’t do justice to the electoral circus that took place in 2008, but will hint at the flavor of the moment.

Slip in a montage of Saturday Night Live’s presidential campaign spoofs (which you can save as an MP3 on that ancient iPod, if it still works), a transcript of the vice presidential debate, bumper stickers or political signs from either side of the aisle.

If you forgot to keep the historic mementos, there are plenty of websites that can help you track down a piece of history. Try 4President.com to get started.

Step 8: Take a shot honoring the election of the Barrack Obama, the first non-white U.S. president, or take a shot to help you forget that your candidate – whether it was John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney or a write-in like Al Sharpton – lost. Then place the commemorative shot glass in the time capsule. Such memorable political trinkets are available all over, but eBay is by far the easiest place to find such items.

Step 9: Place 401K or other financial statements in your time capsule. Accurately capturing the decade can’t happen without documenting the doom and gloom of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Headlines of bank foreclosures or snapshots of streets full of foreclosure signs also provide evidence of the hard times at the end of the decade. Unemployment payments, layoff notices or applications for food stamps also make the point.

Step 10: Lay a copy of Michael Jackson’s obituary, a copy of “Thriller” or a lock of his hair (if you’re a real fan and expert online bidder) in your time capsule.

The King of Pop’s death left the title of World’s Most Bizarre (Alleged) Pedophile wide open, while also casting light on the serious issue of prescription drug abuse among the glitterati and the fallout their recklessness causes for the rest of us.

What, now we’re left with the likes of Chris Brown impersonating MJ? Good thing this decade is over.