Ah, the Y2K scare. I remember my parents buying a whole bunch of things “just in case” and my uncle flipping his shit up ‘cause my cousin and I wanted to play games on their computer and he thought we would end killing the hard drive
My family has thrown New Year’s Eve parties for many, many years- my grandparents started throwing them and eventually my parents took over as the New Year’s party had gotten too big for my grandparents to be able to host it in their home. I have an incredibly large family…so large that when we held our casual yearly Christmas family reunion party, we had to rent the two largest “event rooms” in the community center. Many of the attendees at the Christmas party would find themselves having fun, and so they then turned around and attended the New Year’s gathering as well. The turn of the year- 1999 slipping away and the enigmatic 2000 taking its place- seemed to bring in a great deal more people than was typical. I was 15 in 1999, and I remember the panic so many people were falling victim to quite vividly. Well, my parents didn’t think much of the whole situation and went about setting everything up for the party as per usual. We ended up with a house full of people dancing- or at least undulating to whatever music my father was blaring from the speakers that hung from the ceiling in nearly every room in our house and drinking whatever kind of beer, cocktail, or shot was handed to them. Basically, it was a huge crowd of drunk “country fried” people who were just a bit more susceptible to believing certain things than they would’ve had they been sober. Once midnight was peeking around the corner, my father put on a CD that was loud and had a beat that would get people dancing. Then he, two of my uncles, a cousin of mine, and I went into the walk-in closet in my bedroom. There in the wall of my closet was the breaker box…and in that box was the breaker which would “kill” the power to the entire house. We opened the small door to the breaker box, and we stood there gathered around that large breaker while the music continued to drone on in the background. We froze in place, we listened intently, and we waited for the music to pause. That pause would unknowingly signal to the nerved up group of us that were jammed into my closet that it was time to set the “master plan” in motion. It would also let the sizable cluster of drunkenly swaying people to start counting down the seconds to midnight. We stole furtive glances at one another and chuckled quietly. After what felt like an eternity, the music suddenly cut off and the drunken throng began enthusiastically chanting, “10! 9! 8! 7!…” All of us standing in the closet in my room had various degrees of devious grins on our faces. One of my uncle’s remarked, “You better hope that no one freaks out too badly.” All of us laughed as the crowd thundered, “ZERO! HAP-“ Then my father threw the switch. The whole house fell into complete darkness and total silence seemed to actually hang in the air…but only for a moment. The silence lasted for only a second or two at most. There were shrieks and fearful screams from some of the guests, but, oddly, they were somewhat quiet. It was as if, in those few moments into the new millennium, people were scared of being scared. Looking back, I don’t doubt that people were feeling that very thing. We’d been told that everything was going to continue as per usual, but still the nightly news would air segments that showcased the proper items that would be most needed if in fact the planet did enter into some electronic apocalypse that would leave us trapped…and trapped without even the reruns of Roseanne to at least give our minds something to “help take the edge off the ending of the world”. Had humanity been a coin in that moment we’d have been perched on the edge of the coin- neither heads nor tails. Just some strange almost purgatorial state of indecision. I remember thinking that this whole situation was just some game that we were being forced to play. Well, at least in the brief moments after that switch had been thrown, we were the ones in control in a strange way. We again laughed. And that dystopian feeling melted rapidly away. Then, coming from the living room, was my mother’s voice, “GODDAMN IT, BRYAN! If you don’t turn the electricity back on, I’ll-“ My father flipped the switch on faster than he had turned it off only moments ago. My uncles, cousin, and I laughed hysterically at that moment. It was clear that things in the new millennium weren’t going to be any different than they were before.
LOL I was 15 as well during that time. I remember spending the turn of the millennium at church literally overnight service along with the rest of the community cuz my mom thought the world was going to end LOL
As someone who never witnessed Y2K i kinda feel bad for the people afterwards like the turn of a millennium is a pretty big event and not celebrating it because of fear is kinda sad
one of my favorite parts about the whole y2k scare is that there were news reports listing some of the concerns that would come with it, and one of them was "dog packs". incredibly curious how the destruction of the internet would result in feral dog packs attacking?
Man I remember being 6 years old, my grandpa flew us all to his country because "if we die, we die together". The joy on his face when the countdown hit 0 and nothing else happened besides fireworks...
I still have a vivid memory of going to best buy to upgrade our family computer shortly before y2k. It was a pretty serious conversation had with a sales agent to "make sure you turn your pc off" before the clock turned over. Funny enough I ended up working for best buy from about 2016-2019 and while working with the project team to renovate our store we found some of the y2k stickers they used to place on computers under a base deck. Me and a couple others grabbed a few and I still have them. Great video!
A big reason my family immigrated to the states was because of this. My dad used to be a computer programmer and the US was recruiting people all over the world to help debug computers to prevent what you describe from happening. It’s pretty amazing that my upbringing and life path was heavily reliant on this bug. Great video!
This I totally believe. I know computer programmers were working hard at the highest levels. If you can, thank him for us! He probably had a lot of sleepless nights.
I remember a couple of times when my parents would gloss over this story, they usually say something like “everyone thought that the computers were going to blow up” and left it at that. I never knew there was a reason to why they thought that, and how many people took it very seriously. This video was awesome and I really enjoyed it.
I am 27. I was born in 1996 and still remembering when I was 4, late at night, we were camping, and suddenly my mom saw the news on her phone and rushed me to the supermarket, and to the home again. I think it was like already 10:50 when my mom started leaving the camping site but she made it in time, before 12 AM. As I witnessed, I kept asking my mother: "Mama, what's wrong?" but she never answered, in fact she responded with: "Be quiet." I was terrified. But I knew something was very wrong, but I didn't knew it until like a week later my mom told me: "Sorry for ignoring you. I was preparing for a massive destruction. It didn't happen." I remember having a nightmare getting eaten by a monster that same night, haha.
Lmao I was born in 97 how do you even remember time at that age? I barely remember what I had for supper last week let alone a time from a date 20 yrs ago 😂
How did she see the news on her phone? I know cell phones existed in the 90s but they couldn’t connect to the internet obviously and as far as I know I don’t think cell phones had built in radios? I was born 2003 so i probably don’t know what i am talking about but still I’ve never heard of a phone from the 90s rhat can access the news
Trust me, people like that have had that happen to them several times. They just keep pushing doomsday back indefinitely, cause it's DEFINITELY THIS TIME YOU'LL SEE
The reason Y2K never "happened" is because countless people worked very hard behind the scenes reprogramming various systems, etc. This was a serious problem that would have resulted in many important computer systems shutting down.
Even my then 6 year old Casio digital watch didn't miss a beat. It was highly overblown. We were listening to Auld Lang Syne on my parent's Pentium I and it changed date no problem at all. We had a plan in case the power went out but hardly any programs were affected in reality. Media oversold the threat.
my dad was working in IT at the time, and I honestly think it really sucks how people frame it as a hoax or it was fine, because like in one way it was, a lot of people's concerns were absolutely not going to happen, and a lot of people took advantage, but if everyone did nothing, I think we would've had a major disaster. I don't think nuclear bombs would go off or planes would fall out of the sky, not that I know much about those industries, my dad was working for an accounting firm. But the potential particularly with financial and health records would be really concerning. Probably not dissimilar to the disruptions caused by randsomewear attacks we've seen recently, and sure, we'd work through it but to act like it was completely ridiculous to consider it a risk at all is something I've seen a lot because "nothing happened" when really nothing happened because there was effort to ensure nothing happened.
Actually, a lot of the "very hard work" was mostly unnecessary. Though there were some issues here and there, most of the time you'll find that many systems had either been updated/replaced by that time or had an unintentional ability to rollover and understand 00 as 100 instead of 000. A great example of where this happens outside of the date counters of the 90s is the scoreboards of most arcade video games of the 80s and 90s. When you reach what would normally be the theoretical max score of a game, game would continue adding on to it while visually rolling over to 0. Sometimes you could see this because the higher score would cause graphical glitches and pallet swaps, maybe even changing the tileset used for the score count as is the case with Tetris for NES, but other times it would manifest as a change in behavioral code for the game as it is now reading from the wrong addresses in ROM or RAM. There are times when it would not display any graphical or behavioral change whatsoever, but you would be given the high score position on the leaderboard even though visually your score looks like it's lower than others.
I was a 40 year old Computer Engineer during y2k. It was VERY REAL. Had we not spent years reprogramming and correcting the y2k bugs to prevent a meltdown it could have been a true disaster. As it was, there were still a lot of unforeseen problems that we had to quickly address the first week of Jan 2000. Had I not been involved up to my eyeballs, I would have never even known about the seriousness or those left over problems after the 1st. I would have been just in the dark as the general public was. The media and most uneducated people assumed because the "world didn't come to an end" that y2k was not real. The programmers, techs, and consultants have since been mocked and kicked in the head instead of thanked for literally saving the world from all kinds of disasters.
I was talking to my mum about her experience with y2k, and she explained to me that she went out clubbing with her friends that night and there were only about 6 people there actually celebrating New Years and that everyone else was at home thinking the world would end.
@@FUGP72Touch grass, bud. Just because a lot of clubs were packed doesn't mean her mom's was too. You have no idea where she lived or what club she went to. "6 people" could also be an exaggeration for effect. Stfu about "your mom is lying to you" like you have any fucking clue what you're talking about.
@@KingOfMadnesss Bars are packed or NORMAL New Years. Yes..the bars were pace everywhere with people wanting to "Party like it's 1999!" Look, little worhtless Gen Z child...don't try to comment to things that you admit you know noting about. The word began before you were born, and will continue after you die (which, for a lot of Gen Z'ers, is often by suicide). New Years is by far the biggest day of the year for ALL bars everywhere. And a New Years referenced by a famous Prince song was certainly not going to be an exception.
@@KingOfMadnesss IF you weren't alive then, then why would you think that you would have any idea what you are talking about? ALL BARS are packed for EVERY New Years. If a bar is not packed on New Years, it is not going to survive the rest of the year since that is BY FAR the biggest day of the year. And for the Millennial New Years, which, again, people had been waiting for since Prince sang his song, bars were looking to make more money in ONE NIGHT than they would in the upcoming year combined. Places with no cover charges normally were charging $50 just to get in. (And getting it.) Places that normally had cover charges were charging as much as $250, and getting it. It is VERY clear that the OP is either lying, or is gullible and believed their mom's lies. Clubs were even MORE crowded than regular bars. Clubs in 1999 were crowded on a fucking TUESDAY in the middle of September. And again, I know worthless Gen Z'ers have NO concept of the world before they were born Just one of the many reasons why you are so unprepared for ANY semblance of adulthood...but no. NOBODY was actually afraid of Y2K. The OP's mom was basically testing how stupid their child was, and they found out that they were REALLY stupid.
Good ol' Y2K. I was a homeless punk kid during that whole mess. I fully admit to getting drunk with a couple of my friends and sitting next to an ATM until after midnight just in case it was all true and the thing would spit out a bunch of cash.
Lmao imagine it did though, even if the bug happened I wouldn't think that could happen, likely it could of just shut down along with it's security which can make it easy to steal
My manager remembered that on his previous job, they were offered 5 times their daily salary just to render overtime the whole night of December 31, 1999 until the morning of January 1, 2000. Along with that salary increase, my manager said that his previous employer also gave "survival kits" to those who rendered overtime, like the company gonna be turned into a "survival shelter" just in case "Y2K becomes armaggedon".
One of the few good things of getting old is living through historical events. I was eleven at the time and I remember my father telling me “ remember this moment and the fear around. You will find it hilarious in the future “ he was right 😂 I’m thankful though for all the programmers that fixed so many lines of codes so that actually nothing bad would happen
I just remember seeing my parents computer screen flipping upside down when 2000 came on. It may have been just a trick my dad did on the monitor but it freaked me out a bit.
@@angeldelarosa7975 We were running Windows 95 on a Pentium I. No problem. Computer kept playing Auld Lang Syne mp3 file as we rang in the new year. Reminds me of the old days when we'd change each other's start up screens and stuff for giggles.
I think it used to be an easy keyboard shortcut like ctrl+shift+arrow keys that rotated your screen, I did it by accident once, and it was a pretty common prank. I think they've made it so you have to go into the settings these days.
I was 11 during y2k. I remember watching people panicking on TV, Americans running out and buying guns, people hoarding food and water. We did out usual thing as a family. Ate dinner and played board games untill the countdown all while watching the world make absolute fools of themselves when the clock rolled over and the world didnt end. Keep in mind by the time we hit midnight, several other time zones had already rolled over. If something really was going to happen, we would have already known about it hours before our "midnight". Y2K was funny.
@@RealJackBolt-NITJ Im guessing because they felt that they needed one to protect their families etc since they actually thought all modern tech was going to fail sending us back to the dark ages.
@@RealJackBolt-NITJfor protection people where apparently scars of looters, riots I was born in 2002 but I heard a lot of details from my mom who told me about it so in short people didn’t know what was gonna happen
Another example of the US citizens thinking that the US is the only country on earth😂 I had never even thought about the time zone thing before, but it makes total sense. I’m surprised that more people didn’t realize it. I live 10 hours ahead of the pacific time, and my country is only UTC+2. Apparently UTC+14 is the highest time zone, so technically Y2K would have happened way before people thought
My house was actually purchased as a result of Y2k. The false preachers told the people that lived here before us to sell all of their property (and valuables and such too I think) because the apocalypse was underway. And thus, we got the house roughly around 70 grand cheaper probably. Was great for us but was unfortunately sad for them because they were deceived though. Hope they didn't get too financially and emotionally damaged because of that. :/
I was a QA Tester and Systems Analyst for Y2K in the 90s in Canada. The reason why it didn't happen is yes, many many people were fixing it far beforehand. Banks and Airlines were the first, then other businesses and point of sale devices. The only things that showed up at Y2K, in my area, were a few mom-n-pop shops that did not update their cash registers and other hardware and software. Many of the issues were hard-coded in the chips and those had to be replaced. For others, it was software and that just needed to be updated. By the time Y2K rolled around, it was all 'fixed' and done. Crisis Averted. I am proud to have been part of that era.
Yep, I was involved in fixing that mess as well. The worst part of y2k is that we did such a good job no one even felt a thing, so they thought we were nuts!
My question to you, not to mock your honorable efforts you put into remedying the problem, did charlatans and con-men benefitted from Y2K. I believed they did and the whole debacle was bombastically exaggerated by the corporately owned media. I've visited pulp and paper mills that had old SCADA systems 1980s generation that were still operating as nothing happened. Even if it did, the mill's back-up plan was to operate the paper machine with an old console.
exactly! i too was programming and doing software breakfix at the time for a company that was contracted to do a lot of Y2K updates for offices. someone in the comments is talking about how he and other programmrs saved eveyone from ultimate doom . wtf. most businesse were still using basic registers and landlines then. i literally had a usb drive ( new at the time) with an updater on it that i had to go from terminal to terminal at different businesses to update the date code. took 20 seconds . and even the ones that never got updated typically kept running normally regardless. it was a money grab , and doomsday false flag. but hey.. we saved the world lol
You’d think that the lesson to “think more critically about what you read online” would still be in the minds of people a mere 22 years after, but NOOOOOOOOO. Apparently humans forget things so easily that we don’t even remember the lessons learned from a near apocalyptic scale scare for not even half a quarter of an average lifespan 🤦
When I was growing up, my grandma always told me "when emotions are high, the intelligence is low no matter how smart a person is", even tho it wasn't related to Y2K it applies to it and pretty much everything. Many people today (especially the ones born after that or have been babies in the late 90s) have no idea how scary it was for many people back then and probably think how stupid people were. I was just 9 years old in 1999 and even tho it didn't affected me because I just had no idea about financing, savings, banks etc. I remember how big of a deal was for a lot of grown ups at the time. They didn't think the world will end or something like that but a lot of them were saying to everyone to get all their money from the banks before January 1st 2000 because their money could disappear and there was this huge surge of people in the banks to withdrawal their savings and was genuinely terrifying for most people to lose all their money because of a computer.
I found your channel a little over a year ago and keep coming back to watch your videos on the early days of the internet. I sincerely hope you’ll make more!
I remember Y2K as a child. My dad spent most of his time laughing about it. Having worked on computers during his time with the army he wasn't worried. When New Year's came around my whole family was up late for the countdown and he jokingly said to all of us: "Ready for the world to end?" I told him I was ready to sleep. It was difficult staying up that late.
I remember seeing photos of a huge room full of survival equipment and food that my parents had stocked up during the Y2K scare. Funny how after 22 years later my dad just remade the survival room with one of our old guest rooms. Even last night he brought out an old box full of battery chargers and long lasting candles dating back to 1999.
Keeping in mind all these upgrades companies were making at the time, it's worth noting that our own nuclear missile silos were still operated by vintage computers using 8 inch floppy disks up until a few years ago.
Speaking ad someone who was there for the whole Y2K thing, I must say that this is very well covered here! Most sane people had faith in the world's programmers that they would update everything in time, but still had enough cash/food/supplies on hand to last until everyone could be brought back online if there'd been a glitch, bug, or they just ran out of time before everything was nice and patched. Also, the internet during this time was Gen X's playground, and we're a bunch of trolls! This , no doubt, contributed to the propagation of the fake news. People making shit up, making it look legit as possible, and fooling even seasoned journalists. This was then put out to the general public, panic ensues, and the trolls laugh, not believing people actually bought it. Very little fact-checking was done back then, and everything was anonymous. There were no consequences for what you did on the information superhighway. It was the wild west, and the boomers weren't prepared for it. 😕
@@CrystalRose1111 Instead of harmless, funny trolls, we have... What ever the fuck is going on with those harassments, diss tracks, threats, scammings and much more
I was born in 2000. I never watched the world unfold until now. I just had a normal childhood. My mom was a nurse back then, so I wonder how bad it was when this happened.
I vaguely remember people talking about the world ending in 2000 but I was too young to be on the internet to really read about it from there and I live in small country where it wasn't a common fear. Being a programmer now, the fear of having huge computer errors was absolutely valid and programmers worked hard to stop it. Worldwide chaos like missileheads exploding and the armageddon, no. But the banks being fearful of critical errors was completely valid. What I do remember is watching the new year's celebrations from all over the world on tv and it was amazing.
@@IkinBBfromAnthologyOfTheKiller it took me 2 years to learn programming and idk what u mean by that it's just clicking a bunch of keys you wouldn't normally use in a conversation to cause the computer to do something
@@IkinBBfromAnthologyOfTheKiller well other than some text that might different it's just telling the computer do a thing and the computer doing the thing you told it to do. so yes it's mostly understanding what lots of functions do and how to use them
I was in my last year of high school when going into the year 2000. I remember not worrying about it too much probably because I was a teenager going to school who didn't pay much mind to world events. However, I do remember my mom stocking up on food supplies and getting a tank of water that was kept in the garage just in case. We also didn't go anywhere on New Years because we didn't know what would happen. We lived in Orlando, Florida at the time and I recall really wanting to go to a Disney or Universal park to ring in the new millennium but my mom was afraid that in case something did happen due to the y2k bug that, for example, we might be stranded at the park if there was a power outage or something and might not be able to leave and drive home somehow. Of course, at the stroke of midnight when the new millennium began nothing happened.
I computer pubblici li stanno cambiando solo adesso durante la pandemia che per lo smart working serve roba decente. Per il resto si, l'Italia è sempre stata tecnologicamente arretrata.
@@hello4fghr the error didn't cause all this, it's a lack of fixing something that caused it, humans lazyness caused the issue, they saw it and it took ages for them to actually do something to prevent it from happening. Also it wasn't close to ending the world, if it did happen if might have effected the next 10 years then it would probably be back to normal
I was only a year old when this happened, so it's weird to think all of this was going on while I was a baby. It's still very cool to learn about it and how it affected the world. I can see why people were terrified.
5:52 Most computers back then used BCD for dates, so 4 bits represent a number of 0-9, and one byte could thus represent 0-99. Thus a full date without century would be three bytes. In theory, cutting off the decade from the year, and realizing that a BCD digit actually can represent 0-15, you could fit the whole date in only two bytes (nibbles: DD MY). Although you lose some of the convenience that BCD has. Weird what people back then thought would be a good idea.
I was 12 when this happened, and it was kind of a controlled chaos where I live. People were nervous, but nobody yelled about it. It was always whispers and the general wish of everything going well. I've never lived through another New Year as intense as this one.
Being born in early 2001, I missed the turn to the new millennium by a bit, so I'd asked my parents the other night on New Year's Eve what it'd been like when the year rolled over to 2000, and what had happened with Y2K. They both described that it'd been pretty underwhelming, due to how blown up it'd been as the end of the world, when in actuality New Year's on 2000 ended up being just another day. It's really fascinating to hear and read about Y2K. All of that fear, and then, though a few things had happened, as you described in the video, there was ultimately nothing catastrophic. Great video, very informative! 👍
Also, being a holiday, had there been an issue with a company they would have had at least a day to fix it. And most companies that had issues never let the public know.
The amount of time my mom told me a similar story. She always keeps bringing up the topic every time a new year passes that people in 1999 were actually excited how the the year is gonna turn from 1999 to 2000. Computers back then weren't as advanced as nowadays so this was something unimaginable for them.
Y2K in 1999: A name for the end of the world. Y2K in 2021: an aesthetic based on the 90s-2000s Wow we’ve come a long way Edit: Omg so many likes 👀 Tyyy!
Finally I found someone talk about the y2k problem as an actual problem. I’m so ticking tired of these uneducated shitheads saying that y2k was never a problem and it’s crazy how so many Americans spent so much time worrying about this crap. My friend literally said,and I quote “yeah the y2k thing scared so many people and the crazy thing is that when year 2000 hit nothing happened and everyone was freaking out for nothing. Like the whole thing just fixed itself and it’s crazy to thing that so many humans fell for this conspiracy theory and this was recent too”
Very cool video! Especially the part at 15:40 , where it's clear some had no remorse. This seems very dangerous to me. Like, the wrong lessons being learned here. So i saw "Don't look Up" recently and thought of many similarities here. Maybe someone could make a script and saterical movie about the Y2K bug and fake news?
Bikin content tuh begini, ga teriak teriak, ga banyak sound effect, ga annoying suaranya, ga banyak bahasa slang. Dia ceritain tuh enak, storry telling, bikin orang penasaran, ga kayak podcast juga banyak lempar pertanyaan ke penonton
Imagine putting your life savings into stockpiling supplies and reinforcing your home, putting your family through so much fear & terror, only for nothing to happen..damn
There was a similar bug in 2022 where the number storing the date exceeded the 32 bit integer limit for the first time. No one saw it coming, no one panicked and almost nothing happened because of it.
I was born in 1992 and it was never a thing that was really talked about much to me. We had one teacher who told us that computers would stop working in 2000 because the clocks couldn't count that high, but none of us knew why that would be a bad thing cause we were just kids. I recall my mom saying that people were panicking over nothing, and when New Years was rolling around, we sat at the table solving a jigsaw puzzle with the TV on. We actually saw the clip at 15:15 live on air. It kinda brings back some nostalgia seeing it again.
It's so interesting to watch stuff about Y2K, fully knowing we never learned anything from this are on the edge of an even bigger Y2K problem, one that actually CAN'T be updated... (I'm talking about the IPv4 problem, we're running out of them and the industry doesn't want to switch to IPv6)...
@@maggiethegamer1271 "i HoPe WinDowS sToPs BeINg UsEd By ThEN" 99% of computer programs run on windows. nobody except the hardcore soy windows haters actually gives a shit about linux
i was too young to remember it but my dad says our neighbors built a bunker under their house and like didn't come out until a two days after. My parents were thankfully rational and just assumed everything would be fine lmao
I WAS alive at the time, and as far as I was aware the majority of people did not panic to anything like the degree described in the video, although I don't doubt there was a very small percentage who went to extremes. As far as I can recall the petrol crisis later in the 00s (I don't know if that was just here in the UK, or worldwide?) caused a far larger panic than Y2K ever did, as of course did Covid much later. I do remember the moment we moved into 2000, as where I live fireworks went off in all directions continuously for over an hour, and I hadn't seen anything like it before at previous new years, or for that matter at any other time, so I honestly believe the majority of people back then were viewing the impending arrival of 2000 as an upcoming party like no other party, rather than being increasingly terrified of a possible apocolypse.
This was actually interesting to know and also it makes us realises that theres a possibility that people can hack several computer operated/based systems of nukes or other harmful things which ironically humans themselves created in the name of power or keeps holding it for safety against other countries which can launch it, and the world could end so fast and we wouldn't even know
Well, the servers there are all probably connected through wiring, ethernet, and are most likely quarantined from the rest of the internet, so you would need to break into a government building to hack it
@Aquarium Gravel i see well there can still exist some technology from which they may/can hack it wirelessly its not far from imagination to make such a device. Ty for the info tho.
This is a great video! I was born in 2003 so I wasn't there to experience all this, and I was always a bit confused by how this all occurred. This was really informative.
My father actually worked for a major computer company during the 2000 new year. Had to back over 200,000 or so computers manually because of this whole scare.
I remember my mom telling me about it. She didnt know anything about computers but she knew a lot about history and social studies. She told me everyone completely overreacted due to the fear mongering tactics used by media and caused a drastic shift in the publics trust
My dad is an IT guy and he told my mom multiple times that once the year 2000 came nothing would happen and that’s exactly what happened. Nothing happened. He said that everything will be just fine.
In retrospect it seems silly, but I can attest to how scary it was in the moment. I was 14 when the 1st of 2000 hit, but it was such a big deal even elementary school children at least knew something was up. I remember sitting quietly, alone, waiting to see if something would happen. The power going out was my "sign" to worry. It's not like I could do anything proactive, though. I was a kid and my family was way too broke to horde food and supplies. It was tense, but it was over so quickly the relief was jarring.
I was 7 at the time and I remember my dad worrying about our PC and spending part of Christmas installing fixes for Windows 95 (he didn't like 98). I don't remember much panic around me, but I think that came mainly from the fact that I spent most of my time with my grandparents who had little to no knowledge about computers.
surprised you never talked about 2k38 or UNIX epoch overflow... lemme explain, I promise it's short. UNIX is basically the operating system... for operating systems. There is also, of course, the newer Linux and, if you're going to pull a Microsoft, secret DOS, but modern Windows and MacOS are UNIX-based. As with all genuinely functioning programs(or happy children), they have to have some connection to and knowledge of their parent, which for an operating system would be the real world. These connections for UNIX would have to include: -the time -the date -if the processor is melting The way it checks if the processor is melting is quite self-explanatory, but the way it handles the date and time isn't, and may actually be relevant right now. The date and time are actually stored together as one variable, the UNIX epoch, magically ticking up every second even while the processor is off. But this is a number... on a computer. And occasionally numbers on computers do this funny thing: they forget how to count and go all the way back to 0. (aka overflow) Do you remember how this issue is called the UNIX epoch overflow? I don't feel like I need to explain further, but on January 17, 2038, at ~3:15 AM UTC, it's actually not. It's new years day again, welcome to 1970. Maybe it could be a little bit shorter, just perhaps?
It’s interesting to me that so many business won’t update their tech for 20-30 years but there isn’t one CEO of those companies that would drive a 20-30 year old car.
I think ppl forget that there were tons of ppl working to fix the bug since the late 80s. There was an old magazine article that got recycled around around the mid to late 90s that caused panic. You can find old articles about Y2K before the panic even emerged into mainstream media. The bug still happens today every once in a while. It’s 2023 and I worked some where that still used tech from the 90s, they literally run new software on old tech and it crashes all the time. It’s so frustrating that companies don’t want to update tech because they want to save money & believe me these businesses can afford it too, but companies using old tech & not upgrading /updating it is more common than a lot of ppl realize.
You made my day with you're videos, I couldn't celebrate new years eve this year since a few people in my family were sick but I'm happy I can see interesting videos.
Michael Bolton? Wow! Is that your real name?
Happy new year for 2022 ig lol
Love it!
6th!!!
Happy new year
1900
I was 10 during y2k. I remember my dad telling us kids to be realistic because of course things weren't going to end, so not everyone was panicking
Now you're somewhere around 30. I wish I had that kind of memory
@@thatwardrobeguy Bro u are so good at maths
@@Redmi-wq6eb ?
@@Redmi-wq6eb I genuinely can't tell if this is sarcasm or not
@Android Tablet “around 30” he is 32 so this is accurate lmfao
I was born in 1999 so I never seen the whole thing unfold, but it's always fascinating hearing about this. Reminds a bit of the 2012 panic in a way.
Maybe you did, and best of all you were born in the beginning future.
Woah
DAMN YOU’RE 22??
@@samlong4568 Yes they are, also why are you shocked?
23
Ah, the Y2K scare. I remember my parents buying a whole bunch of things “just in case” and my uncle flipping his shit up ‘cause my cousin and I wanted to play games on their computer and he thought we would end killing the hard drive
I swear, your pfp looks like the picture that is from the fatherless meme a friend sended me on discord..
this shit 💀: th-cam.com/video/xlW3mTndCf8/w-d-xo.html
@@user-rd2on3yg7w ok
@@user-rd2on3yg7w ok
@@user-rd2on3yg7w ok nftbro
My family has thrown New Year’s Eve parties for many, many years- my grandparents started throwing them and eventually my parents took over as the New Year’s party had gotten too big for my grandparents to be able to host it in their home. I have an incredibly large family…so large that when we held our casual yearly Christmas family reunion party, we had to rent the two largest “event rooms” in the community center. Many of the attendees at the Christmas party would find themselves having fun, and so they then turned around and attended the New Year’s gathering as well. The turn of the year- 1999 slipping away and the enigmatic 2000 taking its place- seemed to bring in a great deal more people than was typical.
I was 15 in 1999, and I remember the panic so many people were falling victim to quite vividly. Well, my parents didn’t think much of the whole situation and went about setting everything up for the party as per usual.
We ended up with a house full of people dancing- or at least undulating to whatever music my father was blaring from the speakers that hung from the ceiling in nearly every room in our house and drinking whatever kind of beer, cocktail, or shot was handed to them. Basically, it was a huge crowd of drunk “country fried” people who were just a bit more susceptible to believing certain things than they would’ve had they been sober.
Once midnight was peeking around the corner, my father put on a CD that was loud and had a beat that would get people dancing. Then he, two of my uncles, a cousin of mine, and I went into the walk-in closet in my bedroom.
There in the wall of my closet was the breaker box…and in that box was the breaker which would “kill” the power to the entire house. We opened the small door to the breaker box, and we stood there gathered around that large breaker while the music continued to drone on in the background. We froze in place, we listened intently, and we waited for the music to pause. That pause would unknowingly signal to the nerved up group of us that were jammed into my closet that it was time to set the “master plan” in motion. It would also let the sizable cluster of drunkenly swaying people to start counting down the seconds to midnight. We stole furtive glances at one another and chuckled quietly.
After what felt like an eternity, the music suddenly cut off and the drunken throng began enthusiastically chanting, “10! 9! 8! 7!…” All of us standing in the closet in my room had various degrees of devious grins on our faces. One of my uncle’s remarked, “You better hope that no one freaks out too badly.” All of us laughed as the crowd thundered, “ZERO! HAP-“ Then my father threw the switch.
The whole house fell into complete darkness and total silence seemed to actually hang in the air…but only for a moment. The silence lasted for only a second or two at most. There were shrieks and fearful screams from some of the guests, but, oddly, they were somewhat quiet. It was as if, in those few moments into the new millennium, people were scared of being scared. Looking back, I don’t doubt that people were feeling that very thing. We’d been told that everything was going to continue as per usual, but still the nightly news would air segments that showcased the proper items that would be most needed if in fact the planet did enter into some electronic apocalypse that would leave us trapped…and trapped without even the reruns of Roseanne to at least give our minds something to “help take the edge off the ending of the world”. Had humanity been a coin in that moment we’d have been perched on the edge of the coin- neither heads nor tails. Just some strange almost purgatorial state of indecision. I remember thinking that this whole situation was just some game that we were being forced to play. Well, at least in the brief moments after that switch had been thrown, we were the ones in control in a strange way. We again laughed. And that dystopian feeling melted rapidly away.
Then, coming from the living room, was my mother’s voice, “GODDAMN IT, BRYAN! If you don’t turn the electricity back on, I’ll-“ My father flipped the switch on faster than he had turned it off only moments ago.
My uncles, cousin, and I laughed hysterically at that moment. It was clear that things in the new millennium weren’t going to be any different than they were before.
That would have been an amazing my idea, now imma do that in 2100
Hilarious story man😂
This feels like 1 of those kids 90s movies lol
LOL I was 15 as well during that time. I remember spending the turn of the millennium at church literally overnight service along with the rest of the community cuz my mom thought the world was going to end LOL
As someone who never witnessed Y2K i kinda feel bad for the people afterwards like the turn of a millennium is a pretty big event and not celebrating it because of fear is kinda sad
yeah
A verified person copied your comment with no effort whatsoever.
@@dxl___ Lemme guess,a spam bot?i saw some NSFW bots who do the same things
@@IkinBBfromAnthologyOfTheKiller “verified.” As in the people that buy verified accounts that were abandoned.
In fact the millennium started in 2001
one of my favorite parts about the whole y2k scare is that there were news reports listing some of the concerns that would come with it, and one of them was "dog packs". incredibly curious how the destruction of the internet would result in feral dog packs attacking?
the radio waves frequencies being thrown around would be transmitted into the brains of dogs making them go crazy
@@nan2339 lol
@@nan2339 and make the frogs gay
@@RunehearthCL it'll turn the friggin frogs gay!!!
Ah yes, classic American fear mongering wack job conspiracy
Y2K is so fascinating! I wonder if this debacle will repeat itself in 2038 when the Unix timestamp overflows...
hi there
I wonder if Y3k will happen in the year 3000
I think people would be smarter (at least I hope so)
what? explains 🙁
@@TheGodofPizza ‘what if’.
Man I remember being 6 years old, my grandpa flew us all to his country because "if we die, we die together". The joy on his face when the countdown hit 0 and nothing else happened besides fireworks...
I still have a vivid memory of going to best buy to upgrade our family computer shortly before y2k. It was a pretty serious conversation had with a sales agent to "make sure you turn your pc off" before the clock turned over. Funny enough I ended up working for best buy from about 2016-2019 and while working with the project team to renovate our store we found some of the y2k stickers they used to place on computers under a base deck. Me and a couple others grabbed a few and I still have them. Great video!
Great to see you here friend!! Love to see that you like the channel! More content to come! :)
@@nationsquid hi im your fan
@@nationsquid love your vids man so interesting makes you want to click
@@nationsquid you you you nationsquid you are the nation
@@nationsquid as a new viewer to you ill say im very happy you work real hard on stuff.
A big reason my family immigrated to the states was because of this. My dad used to be a computer programmer and the US was recruiting people all over the world to help debug computers to prevent what you describe from happening. It’s pretty amazing that my upbringing and life path was heavily reliant on this bug. Great video!
awesome
That's so interesting!
Woah
That's really neat!
This I totally believe. I know computer programmers were working hard at the highest levels. If you can, thank him for us! He probably had a lot of sleepless nights.
I remember a couple of times when my parents would gloss over this story, they usually say something like “everyone thought that the computers were going to blow up” and left it at that. I never knew there was a reason to why they thought that, and how many people took it very seriously. This video was awesome and I really enjoyed it.
Same!!! This was a great explanation
I am 27. I was born in 1996 and still remembering when I was 4, late at night, we were camping, and suddenly my mom saw the news on her phone and rushed me to the supermarket, and to the home again. I think it was like already 10:50 when my mom started leaving the camping site but she made it in time, before 12 AM. As I witnessed, I kept asking my mother: "Mama, what's wrong?" but she never answered, in fact she responded with: "Be quiet." I was terrified. But I knew something was very wrong, but I didn't knew it until like a week later my mom told me: "Sorry for ignoring you. I was preparing for a massive destruction. It didn't happen." I remember having a nightmare getting eaten by a monster that same night, haha.
Lmao the last part
bro what mobile phones ion 1996?
Lmao I was born in 97 how do you even remember time at that age? I barely remember what I had for supper last week let alone a time from a date 20 yrs ago 😂
How did she see the news on her phone? I know cell phones existed in the 90s but they couldn’t connect to the internet obviously and as far as I know I don’t think cell phones had built in radios? I was born 2003 so i probably don’t know what i am talking about but still I’ve never heard of a phone from the 90s rhat can access the news
I can only imagine how akward it was when absolutely nothing happened and they've been preparing for months
Trust me, people like that have had that happen to them several times. They just keep pushing doomsday back indefinitely, cause it's DEFINITELY THIS TIME YOU'LL SEE
Some people were preparing for years
I saw another documentary on Y2K and one of the preppers was still eating the food he saved for the event
@Allen Avadonia Honestly I wish he would hurry up.
Because us techies patched a lot of system clocks so they wouldn't reset to 1970.
That was all that was going to happen. lol
The reason Y2K never "happened" is because countless people worked very hard behind the scenes reprogramming various systems, etc. This was a serious problem that would have resulted in many important computer systems shutting down.
Even my then 6 year old Casio digital watch didn't miss a beat. It was highly overblown. We were listening to Auld Lang Syne on my parent's Pentium I and it changed date no problem at all. We had a plan in case the power went out but hardly any programs were affected in reality. Media oversold the threat.
And Indian IT took off.. Thanks to be bug
my dad was working in IT at the time, and I honestly think it really sucks how people frame it as a hoax or it was fine, because like in one way it was, a lot of people's concerns were absolutely not going to happen, and a lot of people took advantage, but if everyone did nothing, I think we would've had a major disaster. I don't think nuclear bombs would go off or planes would fall out of the sky, not that I know much about those industries, my dad was working for an accounting firm. But the potential particularly with financial and health records would be really concerning. Probably not dissimilar to the disruptions caused by randsomewear attacks we've seen recently, and sure, we'd work through it but to act like it was completely ridiculous to consider it a risk at all is something I've seen a lot because "nothing happened" when really nothing happened because there was effort to ensure nothing happened.
Actually, a lot of the "very hard work" was mostly unnecessary. Though there were some issues here and there, most of the time you'll find that many systems had either been updated/replaced by that time or had an unintentional ability to rollover and understand 00 as 100 instead of 000. A great example of where this happens outside of the date counters of the 90s is the scoreboards of most arcade video games of the 80s and 90s. When you reach what would normally be the theoretical max score of a game, game would continue adding on to it while visually rolling over to 0. Sometimes you could see this because the higher score would cause graphical glitches and pallet swaps, maybe even changing the tileset used for the score count as is the case with Tetris for NES, but other times it would manifest as a change in behavioral code for the game as it is now reading from the wrong addresses in ROM or RAM. There are times when it would not display any graphical or behavioral change whatsoever, but you would be given the high score position on the leaderboard even though visually your score looks like it's lower than others.
@@trudycolborne2371 the person you are replying to said they fixed it though
The people who helped fix Y2K deserve more credit. Thankfully we have people who took into account the situation early
i really agree
Yeah our computer we use at ,y school still work one of the screens jut broke so I can’t hear it well with headphones 🎧
my*
I was a 40 year old Computer
Engineer during y2k. It was VERY REAL. Had we not spent years reprogramming and correcting the y2k bugs to prevent a meltdown it could have been a true disaster. As it was, there were still a lot of unforeseen problems that we had to quickly address the first week of Jan 2000. Had I not been involved up to my eyeballs, I would have never even known about the seriousness or those left over problems after the 1st. I would have been just in the dark as the general public was. The media and most uneducated people assumed because the "world didn't come to an end" that y2k was not real. The programmers, techs, and consultants have since been mocked and kicked in the head instead of thanked for literally saving the world from all kinds of disasters.
Your welcome!
I was talking to my mum about her experience with y2k, and she explained to me that she went out clubbing with her friends that night and there were only about 6 people there actually celebrating New Years and that everyone else was at home thinking the world would end.
Your mom is lying to you. Bars were jam packed for the millennial new year. People had been waiting to party like it's 1999 ever since Prince sang it.
@@FUGP72Touch grass, bud. Just because a lot of clubs were packed doesn't mean her mom's was too. You have no idea where she lived or what club she went to. "6 people" could also be an exaggeration for effect. Stfu about "your mom is lying to you" like you have any fucking clue what you're talking about.
@@FUGP72 I wasnt alive during y2k but its obvious this didnt happen everywhere. Yes the bars were probably packed in various places but not everywhere
@@KingOfMadnesss Bars are packed or NORMAL New Years. Yes..the bars were pace everywhere with people wanting to "Party like it's 1999!"
Look, little worhtless Gen Z child...don't try to comment to things that you admit you know noting about. The word began before you were born, and will continue after you die (which, for a lot of Gen Z'ers, is often by suicide). New Years is by far the biggest day of the year for ALL bars everywhere. And a New Years referenced by a famous Prince song was certainly not going to be an exception.
@@KingOfMadnesss IF you weren't alive then, then why would you think that you would have any idea what you are talking about? ALL BARS are packed for EVERY New Years. If a bar is not packed on New Years, it is not going to survive the rest of the year since that is BY FAR the biggest day of the year. And for the Millennial New Years, which, again, people had been waiting for since Prince sang his song, bars were looking to make more money in ONE NIGHT than they would in the upcoming year combined. Places with no cover charges normally were charging $50 just to get in. (And getting it.) Places that normally had cover charges were charging as much as $250, and getting it.
It is VERY clear that the OP is either lying, or is gullible and believed their mom's lies. Clubs were even MORE crowded than regular bars. Clubs in 1999 were crowded on a fucking TUESDAY in the middle of September.
And again, I know worthless Gen Z'ers have NO concept of the world before they were born Just one of the many reasons why you are so unprepared for ANY semblance of adulthood...but no. NOBODY was actually afraid of Y2K. The OP's mom was basically testing how stupid their child was, and they found out that they were REALLY stupid.
Good ol' Y2K. I was a homeless punk kid during that whole mess. I fully admit to getting drunk with a couple of my friends and sitting next to an ATM until after midnight just in case it was all true and the thing would spit out a bunch of cash.
Lmao imagine it did though, even if the bug happened I wouldn't think that could happen, likely it could of just shut down along with it's security which can make it easy to steal
dude
lol
Ha, that's hilarious.
lmao
2000: "I was the largest case of worldwide paranoia and crisis!"
2020: "Hold my beer"
The Old Times: "You Fools..... I HAVE 70 ALT CRISISES"
@@chaoscontrolmyan9374 LMAO
1863: lmfao I killed one third of Europe
2100: don't wait up for me
@@SardineSmoothie go thing most of us won't have to worry about that lmao
My manager remembered that on his previous job, they were offered 5 times their daily salary just to render overtime the whole night of December 31, 1999 until the morning of January 1, 2000. Along with that salary increase, my manager said that his previous employer also gave "survival kits" to those who rendered overtime, like the company gonna be turned into a "survival shelter" just in case "Y2K becomes armaggedon".
ratio
@@ipoopedonmymomsseatbelt3210 L ratio + counter
@@ipoopedonmymomsseatbelt3210 cringe
@@monodragon tfw im just a joke acc lol
@@ecl1pse-idky731 oof, you win.
One of the few good things of getting old is living through historical events. I was eleven at the time and I remember my father telling me “ remember this moment and the fear around. You will find it hilarious in the future “ he was right 😂
I’m thankful though for all the programmers that fixed so many lines of codes so that actually nothing bad would happen
I just remember seeing my parents computer screen flipping upside down when 2000 came on. It may have been just a trick my dad did on the monitor but it freaked me out a bit.
Was your parents computer running DOS or a Windows program? If Windows your dad did it.
@@trudycolborne2371 yea I believe it was Windows 98-99 at the time lol
@@angeldelarosa7975 We were running Windows 95 on a Pentium I. No problem. Computer kept playing Auld Lang Syne mp3 file as we rang in the new year. Reminds me of the old days when we'd change each other's start up screens and stuff for giggles.
@@angeldelarosa7975 there was no windows 99
I think it used to be an easy keyboard shortcut like ctrl+shift+arrow keys that rotated your screen, I did it by accident once, and it was a pretty common prank. I think they've made it so you have to go into the settings these days.
I was 11 during y2k. I remember watching people panicking on TV, Americans running out and buying guns, people hoarding food and water. We did out usual thing as a family. Ate dinner and played board games untill the countdown all while watching the world make absolute fools of themselves when the clock rolled over and the world didnt end. Keep in mind by the time we hit midnight, several other time zones had already rolled over. If something really was going to happen, we would have already known about it hours before our "midnight". Y2K was funny.
I have a genuine question. Why the hell were people buying guns?
@@RealJackBolt-NITJ Im guessing because they felt that they needed one to protect their families etc since they actually thought all modern tech was going to fail sending us back to the dark ages.
@@RealJackBolt-NITJfor protection people where apparently scars of looters, riots I was born in 2002 but I heard a lot of details from my mom who told me about it so in short people didn’t know what was gonna happen
@@randomnesstv7442 ah alright, that makes sense, I guess.
Another example of the US citizens thinking that the US is the only country on earth😂 I had never even thought about the time zone thing before, but it makes total sense. I’m surprised that more people didn’t realize it. I live 10 hours ahead of the pacific time, and my country is only UTC+2. Apparently UTC+14 is the highest time zone, so technically Y2K would have happened way before people thought
My house was actually purchased as a result of Y2k. The false preachers told the people that lived here before us to sell all of their property (and valuables and such too I think) because the apocalypse was underway. And thus, we got the house roughly around 70 grand cheaper probably. Was great for us but was unfortunately sad for them because they were deceived though. Hope they didn't get too financially and emotionally damaged because of that. :/
$70,000 cheaper.... Yeah that definitely did damage
Did they want their house back?
@@dandruff3414 So far as I'm aware, none of them have contacted us since lol so no I guess.
you lucky bastard
@@dandruff3414 he sealed their bunker shut lmao they starved
And 24 years later,it sorta happeneds
Y2K lagged by 24 years XD
@@tjb3171 it’s crowdstrike lol
@@MNIEofficial2009they know that. It’s just that they were similar situations
I was a QA Tester and Systems Analyst for Y2K in the 90s in Canada.
The reason why it didn't happen is yes, many many people were fixing it far beforehand. Banks and Airlines were the first, then other businesses and point of sale devices. The only things that showed up at Y2K, in my area, were a few mom-n-pop shops that did not update their cash registers and other hardware and software. Many of the issues were hard-coded in the chips and those had to be replaced. For others, it was software and that just needed to be updated.
By the time Y2K rolled around, it was all 'fixed' and done. Crisis Averted.
I am proud to have been part of that era.
Yep, I was involved in fixing that mess as well. The worst part of y2k is that we did such a good job no one even felt a thing, so they thought we were nuts!
My question to you, not to mock your honorable efforts you put into remedying the problem, did charlatans and con-men benefitted from Y2K. I believed they did and the whole debacle was bombastically exaggerated by the corporately owned media. I've visited pulp and paper mills that had old SCADA systems 1980s generation that were still operating as nothing happened. Even if it did, the mill's back-up plan was to operate the paper machine with an old console.
exactly! i too was programming and doing software breakfix at the time for a company that was contracted to do a lot of Y2K updates for offices. someone in the comments is talking about how he and other programmrs saved eveyone from ultimate doom . wtf. most businesse were still using basic registers and landlines then. i literally had a usb drive ( new at the time) with an updater on it that i had to go from terminal to terminal at different businesses to update the date code. took 20 seconds . and even the ones that never got updated typically kept running normally regardless. it was a money grab , and doomsday false flag. but hey.. we saved the world lol
A y2k-like event WILL happen for software that uses a 32-bit time system
You’d think that the lesson to “think more critically about what you read online” would still be in the minds of people a mere 22 years after, but NOOOOOOOOO. Apparently humans forget things so easily that we don’t even remember the lessons learned from a near apocalyptic scale scare for not even half a quarter of an average lifespan 🤦
people are animals who always work the same way collectively
i'm an animal
@@Cyanide_Infused I am also a furry
People can't even remember the unfulfilled promises of the politician they voted for
@@Cyanide_Infused I’m a animal rawr :3c
When I was growing up, my grandma always told me "when emotions are high, the intelligence is low no matter how smart a person is", even tho it wasn't related to Y2K it applies to it and pretty much everything. Many people today (especially the ones born after that or have been babies in the late 90s) have no idea how scary it was for many people back then and probably think how stupid people were. I was just 9 years old in 1999 and even tho it didn't affected me because I just had no idea about financing, savings, banks etc. I remember how big of a deal was for a lot of grown ups at the time. They didn't think the world will end or something like that but a lot of them were saying to everyone to get all their money from the banks before January 1st 2000 because their money could disappear and there was this huge surge of people in the banks to withdrawal their savings and was genuinely terrifying for most people to lose all their money because of a computer.
I found your channel a little over a year ago and keep coming back to watch your videos on the early days of the internet. I sincerely hope you’ll make more!
My dad was born in the 70s, he told me about everyone being terrified of 2000.
My dad works in the IT industry since 1999 so he told me too
Same
bro your dad survived 2 millenniums
@@cryptic7312 3 now
@@Polarly 4 now
I remember Y2K as a child. My dad spent most of his time laughing about it. Having worked on computers during his time with the army he wasn't worried. When New Year's came around my whole family was up late for the countdown and he jokingly said to all of us: "Ready for the world to end?"
I told him I was ready to sleep. It was difficult staying up that late.
I remember my grandmother telling me about how this was bound to happen, then it never did, and she lived to see another day.
Lucky grandma
@@Geppaku heh! xD
@@Geppaku waterlemon
@@Geppaku waterlemon
@@Geppaku watermelon 🍉
They had the right idea, they were just off by 24.5 years!
🤬last I checked the world is still here
@@aubreypassey6086It’s called AI
July 20 2024 moment
I remember seeing photos of a huge room full of survival equipment and food that my parents had stocked up during the Y2K scare. Funny how after 22 years later my dad just remade the survival room with one of our old guest rooms. Even last night he brought out an old box full of battery chargers and long lasting candles dating back to 1999.
Keeping in mind all these upgrades companies were making at the time, it's worth noting that our own nuclear missile silos were still operated by vintage computers using 8 inch floppy disks up until a few years ago.
Yes...but it's a lot more difficult to hack into that kind of system.
@@irishjet2687 That is true. It's the juxtaposition of it all that just makes me laugh.
Speaking ad someone who was there for the whole Y2K thing, I must say that this is very well covered here! Most sane people had faith in the world's programmers that they would update everything in time, but still had enough cash/food/supplies on hand to last until everyone could be brought back online if there'd been a glitch, bug, or they just ran out of time before everything was nice and patched.
Also, the internet during this time was Gen X's playground, and we're a bunch of trolls! This , no doubt, contributed to the propagation of the fake news. People making shit up, making it look legit as possible, and fooling even seasoned journalists. This was then put out to the general public, panic ensues, and the trolls laugh, not believing people actually bought it. Very little fact-checking was done back then, and everything was anonymous. There were no consequences for what you did on the information superhighway. It was the wild west, and the boomers weren't prepared for it. 😕
I almost kind of miss this version of the internet.
-"The world is going to end in 2000!!!"
-"OK Xoomer"
@@CrystalRose1111 Instead of harmless, funny trolls, we have...
What ever the fuck is going on with those harassments, diss tracks, threats, scammings and much more
22 years old on NYE 1999. I confirm.
speaking _ad_ someone
I remember seeing a local news story around Y2K where a nearby bank's date on the computers said December 34, 1999. What a strange time to be alive.
I was born in 2000. I never watched the world unfold until now. I just had a normal childhood. My mom was a nurse back then, so I wonder how bad it was when this happened.
Would you mind asking her what that was like if there were any cases involving the Y2K event?
I was also born In 2000.
*Aviation
Wow, ur somewhere around 20.
I was born 1996. And I didn’t even remember shit.
I vaguely remember people talking about the world ending in 2000 but I was too young to be on the internet to really read about it from there and I live in small country where it wasn't a common fear.
Being a programmer now, the fear of having huge computer errors was absolutely valid and programmers worked hard to stop it. Worldwide chaos like missileheads exploding and the armageddon, no. But the banks being fearful of critical errors was completely valid.
What I do remember is watching the new year's celebrations from all over the world on tv and it was amazing.
hey,i wanna be a programmer when i grow up,how is it being one?
@@IkinBBfromAnthologyOfTheKiller it took me 2 years to learn programming and idk what u mean by that it's just clicking a bunch of keys you wouldn't normally use in a conversation to cause the computer to do something
@@modables k then,so i just need to understand what all of this crap means and write it at the right time?
@@IkinBBfromAnthologyOfTheKiller well other than some text that might different it's just telling the computer do a thing and the computer doing the thing you told it to do.
so yes it's mostly understanding what lots of functions do and how to use them
@@aceae4210 Ok then,thanks 👍
I was 8 years old when this was happening and never knew about it until much later in life. It amazes me how I never even heard about it at the time.
Same I remember everyone partying hard and celebrating
@@Yukanhayt-Mhenow Rightfully. Fuck Planet Earth, amirite?
I was in my last year of high school when going into the year 2000. I remember not worrying about it too much probably because I was a teenager going to school who didn't pay much mind to world events. However, I do remember my mom stocking up on food supplies and getting a tank of water that was kept in the garage just in case. We also didn't go anywhere on New Years because we didn't know what would happen. We lived in Orlando, Florida at the time and I recall really wanting to go to a Disney or Universal park to ring in the new millennium but my mom was afraid that in case something did happen due to the y2k bug that, for example, we might be stranded at the park if there was a power outage or something and might not be able to leave and drive home somehow. Of course, at the stroke of midnight when the new millennium began nothing happened.
This is being talked like it's ancient history and it makes me feel so very old.
Because it is.
I will tell you something that will scare you: We are closer to 2040 than to 1990
@@sw1ft573 2050 too
@@sw1ft573 😳
@@sw1ft573 2040: 18 years
1990: 32 years
😰
As an Italian I can assure you that not one cent was spent. We still have extremely outdated systems today, at least in public workplaces.
I computer pubblici li stanno cambiando solo adesso durante la pandemia che per lo smart working serve roba decente. Per il resto si, l'Italia è sempre stata tecnologicamente arretrata.
This just tells us how a single computer error can end the whole world.
That's false...
@@monokuma7746 well, not really
@@hello4fghr the error didn't cause all this, it's a lack of fixing something that caused it, humans lazyness caused the issue, they saw it and it took ages for them to actually do something to prevent it from happening.
Also it wasn't close to ending the world, if it did happen if might have effected the next 10 years then it would probably be back to normal
No it cant
@FBI no they wouldn’t
I was only a year old when this happened, so it's weird to think all of this was going on while I was a baby. It's still very cool to learn about it and how it affected the world. I can see why people were terrified.
Meanwhile I was just a cell in the eggs of my then 21 year old dad (turning 22 in 9 February 2000)
When you realize how easily this could have been avoided back in the 50’s
my favourite year in the 50s, 1999
@@arizonagreenbee lmfao you payed no attention to the video, it was proposed Y2K could be an issue in the 50s.
@@360Turn it's a fucking joke dufe
@@arizonagreenbee I’m aware but you still didn’t understand the video lmfao. The joke was not made with understanding of that he’s talking about.
@@360Turn you sayin you don't like 19950?
5:52 Most computers back then used BCD for dates, so 4 bits represent a number of 0-9, and one byte could thus represent 0-99. Thus a full date without century would be three bytes. In theory, cutting off the decade from the year, and realizing that a BCD digit actually can represent 0-15, you could fit the whole date in only two bytes (nibbles: DD MY). Although you lose some of the convenience that BCD has. Weird what people back then thought would be a good idea.
I was 12 when this happened, and it was kind of a controlled chaos where I live. People were nervous, but nobody yelled about it. It was always whispers and the general wish of everything going well. I've never lived through another New Year as intense as this one.
0:54 actually scared me lol
yA!
This is gonna be good. My favorite videos from this creator are his malware/mystery videos.
Sadly, it isn’t about malware :(
@@Kat_Cit still semi mystery?
Being born in early 2001, I missed the turn to the new millennium by a bit, so I'd asked my parents the other night on New Year's Eve what it'd been like when the year rolled over to 2000, and what had happened with Y2K. They both described that it'd been pretty underwhelming, due to how blown up it'd been as the end of the world, when in actuality New Year's on 2000 ended up being just another day.
It's really fascinating to hear and read about Y2K. All of that fear, and then, though a few things had happened, as you described in the video, there was ultimately nothing catastrophic.
Great video, very informative! 👍
Also, being a holiday, had there been an issue with a company they would have had at least a day to fix it. And most companies that had issues never let the public know.
Same but I’m born in 2003
The amount of time my mom told me a similar story.
She always keeps bringing up the topic every time a new year passes that people in 1999 were actually excited how the the year is gonna turn from 1999 to 2000. Computers back then weren't as advanced as nowadays so this was something unimaginable for them.
The bug didn’t die, it just got delayed by 24 years.
This is going to be a good one. Also, Happy New Year everyone!
Same, happy new year!
Happy new year! :)
Happy new year
happy new year
Ratio
Y2K in 1999: A name for the end of the world.
Y2K in 2021: an aesthetic based on the 90s-2000s
Wow we’ve come a long way
Edit: Omg so many likes 👀 Tyyy!
HELP
why should I help@@vocaloidteto
HELP ME OM DYUNG I CAN T BREATH
@@kyorare
I've never heard of that aesthetic. X.x
2146: Something in a history book
I was not around for Y2K but I was told my dad was making my mom and sister panic and he was calm. And look where we are now
Finally I found someone talk about the y2k problem as an actual problem. I’m so ticking tired of these uneducated shitheads saying that y2k was never a problem and it’s crazy how so many Americans spent so much time worrying about this crap. My friend literally said,and I quote “yeah the y2k thing scared so many people and the crazy thing is that when year 2000 hit nothing happened and everyone was freaking out for nothing. Like the whole thing just fixed itself and it’s crazy to thing that so many humans fell for this conspiracy theory and this was recent too”
Very cool video! Especially the part at 15:40 , where it's clear some had no remorse. This seems very dangerous to me. Like, the wrong lessons being learned here.
So i saw "Don't look Up" recently and thought of many similarities here. Maybe someone could make a script and saterical movie about the Y2K bug and fake news?
Just mentioned Y2K to my father and he laughed and said “oh i remember the first internet craze”
What a great start to new year with your doucmentary!! Thanks for making my day!
Your night*
@@mecre7773 I am in India I saw it at 9.30 am 😑😑😑😑
Bikin content tuh begini, ga teriak teriak, ga banyak sound effect, ga annoying suaranya, ga banyak bahasa slang.
Dia ceritain tuh enak, storry telling, bikin orang penasaran, ga kayak podcast juga banyak lempar pertanyaan ke penonton
2000: Being the most scariest year ever
1939-1945: You sure about that?
Lol
2020 hold my 🍺
I hope 2022 is a better year for us all!
Ok
I can't believe this is the 3rd year we've had covid 19...
Y2k22 😳
@@dechenbloom9639 lmao it was the 2nd year
@@SBerrioww covid started in 2019
Dude I got so excited when I saw the title and realized it was gonna be on Y2K, looking forward to the premiere now
Imagine putting your life savings into stockpiling supplies and reinforcing your home, putting your family through so much fear & terror, only for nothing to happen..damn
There was a similar bug in 2022 where the number storing the date exceeded the 32 bit integer limit for the first time. No one saw it coming, no one panicked and almost nothing happened because of it.
um excuse me, you be talking like 2022 was the past
@@EmbeddedWithin it will be. Just wait. It’ll be like 2023 would be only so much hours away soon.
@@solarichan meme,kw
@@solarichan true :(
My grandparents actually took up canning because of Y2K. On New Years Day my mom called them and asked "How's the end of the world going?"
I remember this time pretty vividly. People were genuinely terrified but it was fun. Wish I could relive the late 90s
I was born in 1992 and it was never a thing that was really talked about much to me. We had one teacher who told us that computers would stop working in 2000 because the clocks couldn't count that high, but none of us knew why that would be a bad thing cause we were just kids. I recall my mom saying that people were panicking over nothing, and when New Years was rolling around, we sat at the table solving a jigsaw puzzle with the TV on. We actually saw the clip at 15:15 live on air. It kinda brings back some nostalgia seeing it again.
It's so interesting to watch stuff about Y2K, fully knowing we never learned anything from this are on the edge of an even bigger Y2K problem, one that actually CAN'T be updated... (I'm talking about the IPv4 problem, we're running out of them and the industry doesn't want to switch to IPv6)...
They'll switch when it gets bad enough, they always do. If people care they can always protest, though I don't know how that would go.
Also the 19 Jan 2038 problem when Unix time hits the 32 bit signed Integer limit
@CatRyBou Afaik it would only be a problem on Windows, as even in 64-bit windows the long datatype is 32-bit
@@FreyrDev i hope Windows stops being used by then. That's a really long time, so it's possible
@@maggiethegamer1271 "i HoPe WinDowS sToPs BeINg UsEd By ThEN" 99% of computer programs run on windows. nobody except the hardcore soy windows haters actually gives a shit about linux
I wasn't alive during y2k but wow, saying they overreacted is a understatement.
i was too young to remember it but my dad says our neighbors built a bunker under their house and like didn't come out until a two days after. My parents were thankfully rational and just assumed everything would be fine lmao
Did you even watch the video? He goes over how at the time we didn’t know much about computers (the general public)
I WAS alive at the time, and as far as I was aware the majority of people did not panic to anything like the degree described in the video, although I don't doubt there was a very small percentage who went to extremes. As far as I can recall the petrol crisis later in the 00s (I don't know if that was just here in the UK, or worldwide?) caused a far larger panic than Y2K ever did, as of course did Covid much later. I do remember the moment we moved into 2000, as where I live fireworks went off in all directions continuously for over an hour, and I hadn't seen anything like it before at previous new years, or for that matter at any other time, so I honestly believe the majority of people back then were viewing the impending arrival of 2000 as an upcoming party like no other party, rather than being increasingly terrified of a possible apocolypse.
How not to get the Y2K virus.
Step 1: Shut down your computer
Step 2: Wait until October 25, 2001
Step 3: Use Windows XP
Profit
@@epicmanpog7846 *profit.*
What if.... you aren't on a Microsoft
Yes :)
@@epicmanpog7846 what the hell…
I was a kid during this and I remember when we had a New Years Eve party, my dad was flicking the lights on and off at midnight to scare us. XD
It's still amazing how removing 2 digits from the year can destroy the world.
I remember hearing this in a diffrent way. The world would just reset back to 1, and people just bought a lot of water.
This
This was actually interesting to know and also it makes us realises that theres a possibility that people can hack several computer operated/based systems of nukes or other harmful things which ironically humans themselves created in the name of power or keeps holding it for safety against other countries which can launch it, and the world could end so fast and we wouldn't even know
Well, the servers there are all probably connected through wiring, ethernet, and are most likely quarantined from the rest of the internet, so you would need to break into a government building to hack it
@Aquarium Gravel i see well there can still exist some technology from which they may/can hack it wirelessly its not far from imagination to make such a device. Ty for the info tho.
seeing this vid appears in my recommendation after having to see some part of the world screwed up by crowdstrike is crazy
I'm actually watching this 10 minutes before 2022. Happy New Year everyone.
Happy New Years guys! Hope everyone’s 2022 is great :)
You too, let’s see if we had a good year. Reply in 2023
@@noahscool9 Ima message myself 45 years later to remind me of the SNAIL 🐌
Yay
u too :)
Reply to me in 2023
This is a great video! I was born in 2003 so I wasn't there to experience all this, and I was always a bit confused by how this all occurred. This was really informative.
Man these release date delays are nuts
My father actually worked for a major computer company during the 2000 new year. Had to back over 200,000 or so computers manually because of this whole scare.
I remember my mom telling me about it. She didnt know anything about computers but she knew a lot about history and social studies. She told me everyone completely overreacted due to the fear mongering tactics used by media and caused a drastic shift in the publics trust
So, your mom's admitted ignorance of computers made her tell you something that wasn't true.
watching videos like these taught me that there's soo much work going behind the scenes so that the internet and now our personal data wont get fucked
My dad is an IT guy and he told my mom multiple times that once the year 2000 came nothing would happen and that’s exactly what happened. Nothing happened. He said that everything will be just fine.
I want this man to be a history teacher
i bet he is lol
2000: I brought the worst sh** since The Great Depression
2020-1: *Finally, a worthy opponent. Our battle will be legendary.*
2020*
2020: Let me in on this!
2022: *_you foolish mortals._*
Lol
2019: hmm
I remember hearing about this back in 1996, when a friend of mine told me that every computer in the world will crash when 2000 comes.
UHHHHH WHAT LMAO
@@vibrantgleam People didn't know what would happen when 2000 rolled around. It may seem ridiculous to us, but back then, it was a very real threat.
@@hongqipiao Y2K is so bizzare to me (idk 22 years ago was probably different)
In retrospect it seems silly, but I can attest to how scary it was in the moment. I was 14 when the 1st of 2000 hit, but it was such a big deal even elementary school children at least knew something was up. I remember sitting quietly, alone, waiting to see if something would happen. The power going out was my "sign" to worry. It's not like I could do anything proactive, though. I was a kid and my family was way too broke to horde food and supplies. It was tense, but it was over so quickly the relief was jarring.
I was 7 at the time and I remember my dad worrying about our PC and spending part of Christmas installing fixes for Windows 95 (he didn't like 98). I don't remember much panic around me, but I think that came mainly from the fact that I spent most of my time with my grandparents who had little to no knowledge about computers.
16:40
"It not only prepared people to be more critical of the things they are told"
I'm not too sure about that
It's amazing how many end of the world's I've lived through so far.
same
Fun fact: Random Minecraft seeds, like many other RNG numbers, are chosen based on your system clock's time in milliseconds.
surprised you never talked about 2k38 or UNIX epoch overflow... lemme explain, I promise it's short.
UNIX is basically the operating system... for operating systems. There is also, of course, the newer Linux and, if you're going to pull a Microsoft, secret DOS, but modern Windows and MacOS are UNIX-based. As with all genuinely functioning programs(or happy children), they have to have some connection to and knowledge of their parent, which for an operating system would be the real world. These connections for UNIX would have to include:
-the time
-the date
-if the processor is melting
The way it checks if the processor is melting is quite self-explanatory, but the way it handles the date and time isn't, and may actually be relevant right now. The date and time are actually stored together as one variable, the UNIX epoch, magically ticking up every second even while the processor is off. But this is a number... on a computer. And occasionally numbers on computers do this funny thing: they forget how to count and go all the way back to 0. (aka overflow) Do you remember how this issue is called the UNIX epoch overflow? I don't feel like I need to explain further, but on January 17, 2038, at ~3:15 AM UTC, it's actually not. It's new years day again, welcome to 1970.
Maybe it could be a little bit shorter, just perhaps?
It’s interesting to me that so many business won’t update their tech for 20-30 years but there isn’t one CEO of those companies that would drive a 20-30 year old car.
I think ppl forget that there were tons of ppl working to fix the bug since the late 80s. There was an old magazine article that got recycled around around the mid to late 90s that caused panic. You can find old articles about Y2K before the panic even emerged into mainstream media. The bug still happens today every once in a while.
It’s 2023 and I worked some where that still used tech from the 90s, they literally run new software on old tech and it crashes all the time. It’s so frustrating that companies don’t want to update tech because they want to save money & believe me these businesses can afford it too, but companies using old tech & not upgrading /updating it is more common than a lot of ppl realize.
8:35 Yes please make a new video about the stock market crash
The most coolest thing to end the year is by seeing Y2K and 2022
You made my day with you're videos, I couldn't celebrate new years eve this year since a few people in my family were sick but I'm happy I can see interesting videos.
So happy to hear that! Have a happy new year! :)
@@nationsquid HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYONE
@@nationsquid I got surprised when. I saw u answers 😮
@@nationsquid but Happy new year to you! I hope you have a good 2022
@@dirtbag1081 I was surprised that he saw my comment
You all know why were here.