Y2K Turns 15 This Year!

Do you remember the hype that surrounded Y2K? Well, I certainly do. 

To refresh your memory, while Prince had long been inviting us to "party like it's 1999," and that was GOING TO BE HIS YEAR to wear out this song for New Years, instead the entire world went crazy thinking that all of our computers would crash because they hadn't been programmed to differentiate between the year 2000 and the year 1900. (Because, you know "ye old computers of yore" were still alive and kickin' from 1900. I kid - I kid.)

So, instead of typical New Year's celebrations:

We had mass hysteria fueled by media outlets:

And general panic in the streets:

On the up side, nearly everyone learned how to spell millennium correctly. So there's that. Score one for grammar! ;-)

In 1999, two of the three Harris Sisters lived in Greensboro, NC, so we went out to dinner with friends. Of course, since we had an IT guru (Ryan Barrett Walkush) in our midst, he ensured us that the city wasn't going to go dark at midnight. (He was right - the restaurant even managed to bring our checks as per usual, go figure!)

Here we are on that night:

So as you prepare for the night's festivities, if you're thinking about partying like it's 1999, think back to the Y2K scare that happened a whopping 15 years ago, and maybe instead party like all of our technology and social media will work correctly on January 1. Now, THAT's a party!