From the NYT “Lens” blog:

No further proof is needed that we’re in the era of the “citizen journalist” than the images coming daily from Tehran. But this gallery reminds us that most of the traumas of the last decade — as well as its triumphs — had public witnesses who were as well-equipped to record the moment as many professionals. The Times asked you to help us document the decade and you responded with some astonishing photographs and essays. Thank you.

There were over 2,360 submissions, and I can see how they settled on 667 for the slideshow — how possibly to pare down this collection? It’s amazing. Here are just a few of the images: A teacher working abroad in China. Bill and Chelsea Clinton in Nashua, New Hampshire during the 2008 primary. A march against the Iraq war. The debris of Hurricane Katrina, and the pieces of lives that were lost; a memorials at Ground Zero; a little girl in Zambia, in the midst of the African AIDS crisis, and a flourishing sex trade; the Blackout; the 35W Minneapolis bridge; Sully’s plane, half-submerged; the Tsunami.

There are more — obviously — including images from Iraq and Israel, of Obama on the rise and as a new president; of people homeless and jobless; and — despite the fact that the NYT dubs it “A Brutal Decade” — even some sweet, uplifting photos.

This is an amazing thing the NYT has put together. I recommend it.

By contrast, this year has been so crazy that just chronicling the madness of 2009 has seemed like more than enough work, let alone reflect on the past decade. But part of the import of a passing decade being so overlooked lies to in how un-unified it seemed. The 90s were a big deal because they were so different from the 80s and so different from the 70s. And when we left the 90s behind, we left them for…what? Sure there was Y2k and The Year 2000 and A New Millennium, but beyond that, who knew what to call it? I certainly didn’t and never really called it anything, and certainly not anything generally-accepted or official-sounding (the Oh-Ohs? No-oh.) . In fact, it wasn’t until I started working with Colby Hall, our managing editor here at Mediaite, that I even heard a term for the decade: The Aughts. Flying in the face of our Gmail generation, Colby’s email address is at “aught.com” which I wondered about, asked about, and subsequently learned was what this decade was supposed to have been called. (Colby registered the domain in the late 90s thinking he was sitting on a gold mine. Aw. Read his account of that decision here.)

It was the decade of September 11th, which really changed everything — but even in a world fraught with the scary realities that were made manifest that day, it was also the decade of that world getting so much smaller.

So – The Aughts. As the decade’s close drew nearer it seemed prudent to actually call it something, and the Oh-Ohs, Double-Os and Two-Thousands frankly sound dumb. “The Aughts” is nice, clean, short, simple and definitive, and also sounds vaguely British which means it’s classy. That is why, here at Mediaite, our end-of-decade retrospective series is called…The Aughts. And you ‘aughta’ call them that too! Ha, ha.

But whatever we call them — and none of us agree, which is actually sort of appropriate for the decade in which everything nichiefied and individual opinion gained primacy — there’s obviously no question that they contained multitudes. The Aughts changed the way we lived, and worked, and thought about the present and the future, and became the future way quicker than ever before (Seriously? Just think about the iPhone. A marvel). It was the decade of September 11th, which really changed everything, but even in a world fraught with the scary realities that were made manifest that day, it was also the decade of that world getting so much smaller. For those of you reading this on the go on a little screen on a device you’re holding in your hand, that you will soon use to make a phone call, watch a video, send an email, self-publish your thoughts in an instant or receive any of the above from someone halfway around the world, you know what that means. You’re living it.

There’s much to grapple with in this decade and we’ve invited our staff, columnists and contributors to think about it from any and every angle — politics, movies, music, TV, technology, religion, demographics, art and architecture, fashion, sports, feminism, human rights, science, ridiculous trends like Crocs — and how all of those categories relate to and can be viewed through the media prism. (We’re also accepting submissions so if you have an idea let me know at rachel@mediaite.com.) Lots has happened since we all held our breath waiting for our computers to implode at midnight on January 1, 2000, and we’re already having fun breaking it down for you. (And when we miss something, please do let us know.)

In the meantime, we’ve got 20 days to go until…the Tens? The Teens? The One-Oh’s? Whatever it’s called, by the end of the next decade what we’ve come to take for granted in this one will be obsolete. So please join us in marking it here, before Richard Branson buys it and sends it into space or Mark Zuckerberg just takes it. Enjoy it while it lasts, folks. If there’s anything the Aughts have taught us, it’s that over the next decade, everything is gonna change.

The Aughts [Mediaite]

Back on New Year’s 2000, Time ran the following blurb attributed to several of the magazine’s writers:

The new decade is upon us, and according to the readers of TIME, this decade will be called the Aughts…or the MMs, depending on your level of skepticism. Last year Notebook conducted an online poll to find out what name should be given the next decade. Of the Zips, Two Thousands, Zeros, Ohs, Double Ohs, 2Ks, MMs, Aughts or Singles, readers clearly put the Aughts ahead, until the last week of polling, when the MMs took the lead–so suddenly (and implausibly–the MMs?!) that it aroused suspicions of a Mars candy campaign. Despite hints of vote tampering, several advertising agencies agreed to create ads to sell the new names to the public. Enjoy yourself in the…whatevers!

That was written as the staff looked ahead at what they could only expect to be a decade full of promise and profits. How quickly that plan went awry. Compare the message of that comment from nearly ten years ago with a portion of the magazine’s cover story in the most recent issue. Reflecting on the decade gone by, writer Andy Serwer says:

Bookended by 9/11 at the start and a financial wipeout at the end, the first 10 years of this century will very likely go down as the most dispiriting and disillusioning decade Americans have lived through in the post–World War II era. We’re still weeks away from the end of ’09, but it’s not too early to pass judgment. Call it the Decade from Hell, or the Reckoning, or the Decade of Broken Dreams, or the Lost Decade. Call it whatever you want — just give thanks that it is nearly over.

And there it is, as clear as night and day. “The Whatevers” started with a looser and more upbeat tone to them and now end with a much different feel. Through terrorism, wars, a severe recession and more, we’ve somehow managed to persevere through “The Whatevers.” During that period, the term’s connotation has changed.

It emerged as a last-resort option to appease everyone who’d rejected all other names. It rejected no offerings as being too stupid or lame because it recognized that all of the proposals were stupid and lame; this strategy made everything – and everyone – acceptable. Over time, though, “whatever” morphed into something else. “Whatever you want, you got” turned into  a less involved, less enthusiastic and less caring “whatever” attitude. Some Americans have adopted a doomsday outlook to cope with a world where bad news never fails to stop piling on. The ‘Whatever” generation rolls its eyes, shakes its head, and talks about how things can’t get any worse. What hurts most is remembering times when things weren’t nearly as bad.

So was this the decade from hell? It very well may have been. But Time‘s first prediction says a lot more about how this decade  impacted Americans emotionally. And as we look ahead at the next decade, one can only hope that fortune will shift to a new era of “Whatever” defined by a more hopeful approach of “Que sera, sera.”

Related:
The ’00s: Goodbye (at Last) to the Decade From Hell [Time]
The Zips Were Robbed [Time, Jan. 1, 2000]