46 Fun Facts About Y2K and 2000s Pop Culture

What did the 'K' in Y2K stand for?

Kilo, meaning a thousand, turns 2K into 2000; few major failures followed the rollover, after an estimated $300 billion had been spent worldwide on fixes.

The Y2K bug arose because many programs stored years as how many digits?

Two digits were all that early programs kept, to save costly memory, so '00' could mean 1900 or 2000; the purest fix was expanding every stored year to four digits.

Bob Bemer, who warned of the year-2000 bug decades early, helped create which standard code for text characters?

ASCII owes its escape and backslash characters to Bob Bemer, who also warned in print in 1971 and 1979 that shortened years would cause trouble.

Which peer-to-peer service, launched by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker in 1999, defined the MP3 era?

Napster was sued by Metallica after an unreleased demo of 'I Disappear' spread on the service and reached radio; court orders forced it offline in July 2001.

Which 'indestructible' phone, launched in 2000 with Snake II built in, sold over 100 million units?

The Nokia 3310 earned a cult following for its toughness and long battery life, strong enough that the name was revived for a new handset in 2017.

Which ultra-thin flip phone, introduced in 2004, became the must-have handset of the mid-2000s?

The Motorola Razr V3 launched as a pricey fashion accessory at about $500, then sold well over 100 million units to become the best-selling flip phone ever.

The 'wiki' in Wikipedia, which launched in January 2001, comes from a Hawaiian word meaning what?

Quick is the meaning of the Hawaiian 'wiki'; programmer Ward Cunningham borrowed it from Honolulu airport's Wiki Wiki Shuttle for WikiWikiWeb, the first wiki, in 1995.

The first iPhone went on sale in the US in June 2007 exclusively on which carrier?

AT&T, which as Cingular had helped Apple develop the phone in secret, kept the iPhone to itself in the US until Verizon began selling it in February 2011.

Which British judge's withering put-downs became the trademark of American Idol from its 2002 debut?

Simon Cowell came over from Britain's Pop Idol; US networks had passed on the format until Rupert Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth, who had seen the British show, urged him to buy it for Fox.

Who finished second to Kelly Clarkson on the first season of American Idol in 2002?

Justin Guarini was beaten in the September 2002 final, then co-starred with the winner in the 2003 film From Justin to Kelly, which earned back less than half of its $12 million budget.

Tina Fey based the 2004 film Mean Girls on which 2002 non-fiction self-help book by Rosalind Wiseman?

Queen Bees and Wannabes is a parenting guide with no plot, so Fey wrote the story from scratch, drawing on her own school days and naming Cady after a college roommate.

Which Fox teen drama, created by Josh Schwartz, ran from 2003 to 2007 and gave the world 'Chrismukkah'?

The O.C., short for Orange County, gave Seth Cohen a Jewish father and a Protestant mother, so he invents Chrismukkah to celebrate both holidays at once.

Which ABC series began on 22 September 2004 with a plane crash and ran 121 episodes over six seasons?

Lost began with the costliest pilot yet made, at more than $10 million; ABC chief Lloyd Braun, whose idea the show was, was forced out shortly after approving it.

Which Disney Channel movie, directed by Kenny Ortega, drew a then-record 7.7 million viewers to its January 2006 premiere?

High School Musical kept a secret: most of Troy's singing was Drew Seeley's voice, because the songs sat too high for Zac Efron, a baritone.

Which 2001 film won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Animated Feature?

Shrek beat Monsters, Inc. to the award; Chris Farley had recorded most of the ogre's lines before he died in 1997, and Mike Myers took over and added the Scottish accent.

Which 2002 song became the first hip-hop track to win the Oscar for Best Original Song?

Lose Yourself won while Eminem was asleep at home, sure he had no chance; he finally sang it at the Oscars as a surprise guest in 2020.

Which 2003 Beyoncé hit takes its horn hook from the Chi-Lites' 1970 song 'Are You My Woman'?

Crazy in Love was almost finished when Jay-Z turned up at the studio around 3 a.m. and improvised his verse in about ten minutes.

Who wrote, produced and performed OutKast's 2003 hit 'Hey Ya!' almost single-handedly?

André 3000 wrote and produced 'Hey Ya!' himself; its line 'shake it like a Polaroid picture' led Polaroid to warn fans that shaking its prints could ruin them.

Which rapper features on Shakira's 2006 hit 'Hips Don't Lie'?

Wyclef Jean rebuilt his own 2004 track 'Dance Like This' into 'Hips Don't Lie' after Shakira's label asked for a remake to revive her album's slow sales.

Which 2008 Danny Boyle film won eight Oscars, including Best Picture?

Slumdog Millionaire has almost a third of its dialogue in Hindi: Boyle told the studio he wanted about 10 per cent translated, got the go-ahead, and went much further.

Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight (2008) earned him a posthumous award in which Oscar category?

Best Supporting Actor made Ledger only the second performer to win an acting Oscar after death, following Peter Finch; his parents and sister went on stage to accept it.

Which publisher bought Guitar Hero's creator RedOctane in 2006 and turned the games into a billion-dollar franchise?

Activision got the brand but not its makers: Harmonix, the studio that developed the first games, was sold to MTV and answered with a rival, Rock Band.

Which online role-playing game, launched in 2004, peaked at about 12 million subscribers in 2010?

World of Warcraft once suffered a real outbreak of a virtual plague: in 2005 an in-game disease called Corrupted Blood spread out of control, and epidemiologists later studied how players reacted.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004) caused a scandal over which hidden mini-game?

The 'Hot Coffee' mod unlocked a hidden sex mini-game left in the game's code, prompting the ESRB to re-rate San Andreas Adults Only until Rockstar shipped a patched version.

The Tamagotchi name combines the Japanese word for 'egg' with which English word?

Watch is the English half, by Bandai's own account: the pet was first conceived as something worn on the wrist, so tamago, Japanese for egg, was joined to 'uotchi'.

Which doll line did MGA Entertainment launch in 2001 with Cloe, Jade, Sasha and Yasmin?

Bratz had about 40 per cent of the fashion-doll market by 2006; Mattel won a 2008 verdict that the designer drew the dolls on its payroll, but an appeal overturned it and a 2011 jury sided with MGA.

Which shoe brand was launched in 2002 by three Colorado friends as a boating shoe?

Crocs did not invent its clog: the founders came across it in 2002, acquired the rights from Quebec maker Foam Creations, and sold out at the Fort Lauderdale boat show.

Which trucker-hat brand of the early 2000s was named after a hot-rod pinstriping artist?

Von Dutch was how Kenny Howard signed his work; after he died in 1992 his daughters let the name go onto clothing, and the hats ended up on Paris Hilton and Ashton Kutcher.

Which brand, founded by Pamela Skaist-Levy and Gela Nash-Taylor, made the velour tracksuit a 2000s status symbol?

Juicy Couture began in 1989 as Travis Jeans, a maternity-wear label; the tracksuit took off in 2001, after the founders had one custom-made for Madonna.

Heelys, the 2000s playground craze, were shoes with what hidden in the sole?

Wheels set into each heel let wearers rock back and glide; the maker urged protective gear, and a paediatrics journal later published a study of the injuries.

Which social network, launched in 2003, dominated before Facebook and had a customisable 'Top 8'?

Myspace was bought by News Corp for $580 million in 2005 and sold six years later for about $35 million, after Facebook had overtaken it.

Which gadget launched in 2001 with the slogan '1,000 songs in your pocket'?

The iPod owes its name to copywriter Vinnie Chieco, who saw the prototype and thought of the line 'Open the pod bay doors, Hal' from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Which HBO drama, running from 1999 to 2007, was the first cable series to win the Outstanding Drama Emmy?

The Sopranos was beaten four times, three of them by The West Wing, before breaking through in 2004; it won again in 2007 for its final season.

Which 2003 reality show sent Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie to live on an Arkansas farm?

The Simple Life drew 13 million viewers to its premiere, but Fox dropped it after three seasons when its stars fell out; E! then picked the show up and kept it going.

Which MTV show, hosted by Ashton Kutcher from 2003, played hidden-camera pranks on celebrities?

Punk'd made its name with an early prank on Justin Timberlake, who was told that government agents were seizing his house and valuables over unpaid taxes and ended up in tears.

Which film trilogy closed in 2003 with an instalment that won all 11 of its Oscar nominations?

The Lord of the Rings was one vast gamble: all three films were shot together in New Zealand before the first came out, and The Return of the King tied the record of 11 wins.

Which 2003 Pixar film cast Ellen DeGeneres as a character who suffers short-term memory loss?

Finding Nemo's forgetful Dory was written for DeGeneres after director Andrew Stanton watched her sitcom character change the subject five times before finishing one sentence.

Johnny Depp modelled Captain Jack Sparrow's swagger on which rock star, who later played the pirate's father?

Keith Richards was the model, and the slurring performance so alarmed Disney chief Michael Eisner that he said Depp was ruining the film; it brought Depp an Oscar nomination instead.

Stephenie Meyer set Twilight in which small, rain-soaked town in Washington state?

Forks got the part through a search engine: Meyer needed somewhere 'ridiculously rainy', looked up the wettest place in the US and found the tiny town on the Olympic Peninsula.

Which 2007 Diablo Cody comedy about a pregnant teenager won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar?

Juno took Diablo Cody seven weeks to write, sitting at the Starbucks counter inside a Target store in suburban Minnesota.

Which band had 2000s hits with 'How You Remind Me' and 'Photograph'?

Nickelback says its name comes from bassist Mike Kroeger's job as a Starbucks cashier, where he kept handing customers a nickel back in change; 'How You Remind Me' was Billboard's top song of 2002.

Which group released 'Survivor' and 'Bootylicious' in 2001?

Destiny's Child wrote 'Survivor' as a retort to a radio station's joke that members kept leaving the group like contestants voted off the reality show of that name.

Justin Timberlake recorded his 2002 solo debut Justified while which boy band was on hiatus?

NSYNC went on hiatus after a 2002 tour; several Justified songs, including 'Rock Your Body', had been written by the Neptunes for Michael Jackson, who turned them down.

What did T-Mobile call the swivel-screen Danger Hiptop keyboard phone of 2002?

The Sidekick was T-Mobile's name for the Hiptop; Danger's co-founder Andy Rubin went on to found Android, which Google bought in 2005.

Which yellow silicone bracelet, launched in May 2004, started the cause-wristband craze?

The Livestrong band was developed by Nike for Lance Armstrong's cancer foundation and sold in the tens of millions; the charity dropped his name in 2012 after his doping ban.

In which 1999 film does the hero spend his working days updating bank software for the year 2000?

Office Space gives Peter Gibbons the dullest job of 1999, patching old bank code for the date change; he and his friends then plant a virus to skim fractions of a cent from the company.