About the Y2K doomsday scare...

Summary:

How popular was it?

About the Y2K doomsday scare...

Carl Clover 22 Jan 2011 04:54

I was young back in the year 2000, and my parents are never ones to believe in doomsday stuff, so I had never heard of this Y2K doomsday until many years later I saw it in an episode of Family Guy.

My question is, how popular was it? Does it's popularity compare to 2012's? Were there woo woos everywhere preaching nonsense about how we were doomed? Were there books sold all over the place about possible theories (aka lies) about a doomsday? I've been a bit curious about this lately for some reason…

Re: About the Y2K doomsday scare...

Lindsay88 22 Jan 2011 06:26

My cousins used Togo to a "church" all about fire and brimstone. My mother told me they actually stocked up on supplies because their preacher believed it was the end. I wonder how they felt January 1 2001 ….. Haha

---

*live*laugh*love*dance*

Re: About the Y2K doomsday scare...

Alene Y 22 Jan 2011 07:28

I wonder what good they thought that supplies were going to do them if the world ended.
I did actually take some precautions in case utility companies hadn't got their computer programs updated. There was a real possibility of that happening, with a resultant loss of power and/or water service. I got some wood for my fireplace and some bottled water. As it turned out, everything was apparently updated so there were no service outages. Of course that was something that actually had a chance of happening.
I tell you this so you'll know that I don't just automatically dismiss things that have any actual possibility of occurring.

Re: About the Y2K doomsday scare...

ThreeFangCat 22 Jan 2011 06:39

I didn't see near the widespread attention (fear) of 2000 as we have about 2012. Sony going viral in its marketing of the 2012 movie really helped the hoaxers. There may be other factors.

Re: About the Y2K doomsday scare...

Emperor Palpatine 22 Jan 2011 07:07

I don't remember much about it really. But my mother told me about how one of our neighbors coming over asking if we had some spare cans of food to spare.

---

Everything is proceeding as I have forseen. Wait… when did that happen?

Re: About the Y2K doomsday scare...

Alene Y 22 Jan 2011 07:34

Yes, the movie and its viral marketing didn't help matters at all. The 2012 questions on Y!A were about quadrupled when the movie came out. They did those despicable ads about the bogus Institute for Human Continuity, pretending it was real. There are still people asking if the events in the movie will happen.

Re: About the Y2K doomsday scare...

Alene Y 22 Jan 2011 07:08

Hi Carl,
No, the Y2k doomsday didn't get nearly the attention this one is getting. For that one there was the actual problem with computer programs only being written to take a 2 digit year. If a lot of people, including me and some others here, hadn't worked for the years leading up to 2000 to get all the programs updated for a 4 digit year, it would have caused a lot of problems.
The other part was the millennialists who thought the world would end because it was the end of another thousand years. The world was also supposed to end at the year 1000.
The widespread access to the internet and the Hysteria Channel doomathons have spread this hoax much wider than any of the previous ones.

Last edited on 22 Jan 2011 19:15 by Alene Y Show more

Re: About the Y2K doomsday scare...

obaeyens 22 Jan 2011 18:00

I only met one preacher preaching the end of the world back then. But people walked around him, I had bad luck I didn't realize that he was a lunatic.
There was no real scare, people were curious but no one really believed it to be true. They were wondering if Nostradamus as right, but boy does that man has a bad prediction track record by now.

I remember that in 1999 they claimed that the world would change for the better. When I look back, I call the last decade the decade of stupidity.

I do remember one guy telling me that the bible said that Paris would be hit by a meteor in 2000.

Last edited on 22 Jan 2011 18:01 by obaeyens Show more

Re: About the Y2K doomsday scare...

Carl Clover 22 Jan 2011 15:53

Hi everyone,
Thanks for answering my question :) I was just curious about Y2K since I'd never really heard of it before.

They did those despicable ads about the bogus Institute for Human Continuity, pretending it was real.

The first time I saw an ad on tv for the IHC I was like "WHOAMG NOOOOOO!!!" until I saw at the bottom of the screen "This film is not yet rated." Bastards.

Re: About the Y2K doomsday scare...

Tomy2011 22 Jan 2011 17:28

Interesting. I never heard that one. Ad on TV? :-S
Creepy!

Last edited on 22 Jan 2011 17:28 by Tomy2011 Show more

Re: About the Y2K doomsday scare...

Alene Y 22 Jan 2011 19:22

They also had a website for this nonexistent institute. That scared a lot of people.

Re: About the Y2K doomsday scare...

Tomy2011 22 Jan 2011 19:30

Yeah, I saw the website before.
Did you know that if I win their sortition, I also win a ticket to Cancun. Cool, huh?

Re: About the Y2K doomsday scare...

Emperor Palpatine 22 Jan 2011 19:35

Was that what the ticket was for? I thought it was for a discount for the movie.

---

Everything is proceeding as I have forseen. Wait… when did that happen?

Re: About the Y2K doomsday scare...

Emperor Palpatine 22 Jan 2011 17:56

Yes, that was what caught my eye when I first saw the commercial.

---

Everything is proceeding as I have forseen. Wait… when did that happen?

Re: About the Y2K doomsday scare...

Marko S 23 Jan 2011 13:25

There was a certain buzz about Y2K in 1999.

Remember that tv show "Millennium", which tried to copy "The X Files"? It was pretty much all about some impending doosmday set in near future, the year 2000 probably. One of the episodes explicitly was about the Y2K bug.

There were also articles on newspapers and tv news about all that computer stuff and how everyone should update their BIOSes (which I did with my old 1996 desktop computer).

Not to mention the music video from Jennifer Lopez, where they are apparently having a New Years eve party, the countdown on the wall hits "2000", there is a short power outage, Jennifer looks vaguely concerned, then the power comes back and the party goes on… :-)

---

One's convictions should be proportional to one's evidence. - Sam Harris