2010s

The 2010s (pronounced "twenty-tens" or "two thousand [and] tens"), variously nicknamed "the '10s" ["the Tens"], "the Tenties", or more rarely "the Teens"), was a decade that began on January 1, 2010, and ended on December 31, 2019.

The decade began with an economic recovery from the Great Recession. Inflation and interest rates stayed low and steady throughout the decade, gross world product grew from 2010 to 2019. Global economic recovery accelerated during the latter half of the decade, fueled by strong economic growth in many countries, robust consumer spending, increased investment in infrastructure, and the emergence of new technologies. However, the recovery developed unevenly. Socioeconomic crises in some countries—particularly in the Arab world—triggered political revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Bahrain as well as civil wars in Libya, Syria, and Yemen in a regional phenomenon that was commonly referred to as the Arab Spring. Meanwhile, Europe had to grapple with a debt crisis that was pronounced early in the decade. Shifting social attitudes saw LGBT rights make substantial progress throughout the decade, particularly in developed countries.

The decade saw the musical and cultural dominance of dance-pop, electronic dance music, hipster culture and electropop. Globalization and an increased demand for variety and personalisation in the face of music streaming services such as Spotify, SoundCloud and Apple Music created many musical subgenres. As the decade progressed, diversity was also seen with the mainstream success of K-pop, Latin music and trap. Superhero films became box office leaders, with Avengers: Endgame becoming the highest-grossing film of all time.^{[note 1]} Cable providers saw a decline in subscribers as cord cutters switched to lower cost online streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and Disney+. The video game industry continued to be dominated by Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft; while indie games became more popular, with Minecraft becoming the best-selling game of all time. Handheld console gaming revenue was overtaken by mobile gaming revenue in 2011. The best-selling book of this decade was Fifty Shades of Grey. Drake was named the top music artist of the decade in the U.S. by Billboard.^{[note 2]}

The United States continued to retain its superpower status while China sought to expand its influence in the South China Sea and in Africa through its economic initiatives and military reforms. It solidified its position as an emerging superpower, despite causing a series of conflicts around its frontiers. Within its border, China enhanced its suppression and control of Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Tibet. These developments led the United States to implement a containment policy and initiate a trade war against China. Elsewhere in Asia, the Koreas improved their relations after a prolonged crisis between the two countries, and the War on Terror continued as a part of the U.S.'s continued military involvement in many parts of the world. The rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant extremist organization in 2014 erased the Syria-Iraq border, resulting in a multinational intervention against it. In Africa, South Sudan broke away from Sudan, and mass protests and various coups d'état saw longtime strongmen deposed. In the U.S., celebrity businessman Donald Trump was elected president amid an international wave of populism and neo-nationalism. The European Union experienced a migrant crisis in the middle of the decade and withdrawal of the United Kingdom as a member state following the historic United Kingdom EU membership referendum. Russia attempted to assert itself in international affairs, annexing Crimea in 2014. In the last months of the decade, the first cases of the Coronavirus pandemic of Sars-Cov2 emerged in Wuhan, China, before affecting the rest of the world.

Information technology progressed, with smartphones becoming widespread and increasingly displacing desktop computers for many users. Internet coverage grew from 29% to 54% of the world population, and also saw advancements in wireless networking devices, mobile telephony, and cloud computing. Advancements in data processing and the rollout of 4G broadband allowed data, metadata, and information to be collected and dispersed among domains at paces never before seen while online resources such as social media facilitated phenomena such as the Me Too movement, the rise of slacktivism, and online cancel culture. WikiLeaks gained international attention for publishing classified information on topics related to Guantánamo Bay, Syria, the Afghan and Iraq wars, and United States diplomacy. Edward Snowden blew the whistle on global surveillance, raising awareness on the role governments and private entities play in global surveillance and information privacy. Baidu (4th), Twitter (6th) and Instagram (8th) emerged to become among the top 10 most visited websites, while Wikipedia went from the 9th to the 5th most popular website, almost sextupling its monthly visits. Yahoo significantly declined in popularity, descending from being the 1st to the 9th most popular site, with monthly visits declining by two-thirds. Google, Facebook, YouTube and Yandex maintained relatively consistent popularity and remained within the top 10 throughout the decade.

Global warming became increasingly noticeable through new record temperatures in different occurrences and extreme weather events on all continents. The CO₂ concentration rose from 390 to 410 PPM over the decade. At the same time, combating pollution and climate change continued to be areas of major concern, as protests, initiatives, and legislation garnered substantial media attention. The Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015, and the global climate youth movement was formed. Major natural disasters included the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, the Nepal earthquake of 2015, the 2018 Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami, the devastating tropical cyclones Bopha (Pablo), Haiyan (Yolanda), and Maria, as well as the 2019 European heat waves.

During the decade, the world population grew from 6.9 to 7.7 billion people. There were approximately 1.4 billion births during the decade (140 million per year), and about 560 million deaths (56 million per year).^[3]

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