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Which happened first?
puzzles & games dept.
How Much of the Decade Do You Actually Remember?
December 10, 2019
Illustration by Amanda Berglund

Culturally speaking, the twenty-tens were an age of abundance—of proliferating streaming services and “peak TV,” of Twitter and Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. And it wasn’t just new media: books are as abundant as ever, the supposed death of print be damned. All of this may test our cultural recall: How can we make sense of an era that we struggle even to remember? Here’s an actual test to get you started. Sift through the rubble of the past ten years, and see if any of it looks familiar.

Which happened first?
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Which TV show premièred first?
“Girls”
(April 15, 2012)
“Game of Thrones”
(April 17, 2011)
“Scandal”
(April 5, 2012)
“Orange Is the New Black”
(July 11, 2013)
By the time HBO’s “Game of Thrones” concluded its eighth and final season, earlier this year, it had amassed tens of millions of viewers—and had taught us not to get too attached to any of its characters, for all men must die.
HBO
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Which TV finale aired first?
“Mad Men”
(May 17, 2015)
“Parks and Recreation”
(February 24, 2015)
“30 Rock”
(January 31, 2013)
“Breaking Bad”
(September 29, 2013)
When “30 Rock” said farewell, and “The Office” finale followed a few months later, it felt like the end of an era. For sitcom lovers, the early twenty-tens turned out to be some of the best days of our flerms.
NBC
3 of 34
Which acquisition happened first?
Yahoo buys Tumblr
(2013)
Facebook buys Instagram
(2012)
Amazon buys Whole Foods
(2017)
Apple buys Beats by Dr. Dre
(2014)
In 2012, Facebook’s purchase of an upstart photo-sharing platform, for a billion dollars, seemed bold; today, Instagram is said to be valued at more than a hundred times that. Facebook, meanwhile, is struggling to keep its user base (and reputation) intact.
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Which product was discontinued first?
Google Goggles
(2018)
Google Plus
(2019)
Google Reader
(2013)
Google Buzz
(2011)
Remember Google Buzz?
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Who was charged first?
Elizabeth Holmes
(June 14, 2018)
Billy McFarland
(June 30, 2017)
Lori Loughlin and her husband
(March 11, 2019)
Anna Sorokin, a.k.a. Anna Delvey
(October 26, 2017)
The summer of 2018 may have been “grifter season,” but the American fraudster is perennial.
Photograph by Mark Lennihan / AP / Shutterstock
Who is this?
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Beyoncé / YouTube
Beyoncé in the video for “Sorry”
Beyoncé in the video for “Formation”
Beyoncé in the video for “Hold Up”
Beyoncé in the video for “Apeshit”
The release of “Lemonade,” in the spring of 2016, was an album drop heard round the world. Not only did it suggest new possibilities of artistry for the “visual album”; it also announced a new persona for Beyoncé—fed up, politicized, and willing to perform her anger.
Beyoncé
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Photograph from Alamy
Keanu Reeves in “John Wick”
Keanu Reeves in “John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum”
Keanu Reeves in “Destination Wedding”
Keanu Reeves in “Keanu”
In early 2010, a photo of Keanu Reeves looking forlorn, eating a sandwich on a park bench, went viral. In 2019, a photo of him looking happy, holding hands with his girlfriend, made the rounds. If nothing else, at least this decade succeeded in cheering up Keanu.
Lionsgate Movies
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Louise Linton
Elizabeth Holmes
Jerry Hall
Tinsley Mortimer
In a decade of countless social-media faux pas, Louise Linton—the wife of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who bragged about her luxury life style against the backdrop of a government jet, then lashed out at a citizen commenter—took the tone-deaf Instagram post to new heights. (Image credit: louiselinton / Instagram)
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Photograph from Collection Christophel / Mike Zoss Productions / Alamy
Channing Tatum in “Magic Mike”
Channing Tatum in “Magic Mike XXL”
Channing Tatum in “Hail, Caesar!”
Channing Tatum in “22 Jump Street”
Though his virtuosity has been on display since the two-thousands, it was in the twenty-tens—when he starred in two “Magic Mike” movies and collaborated with the Coen brothers and Steven Soderbergh—that Channing Tatum truly danced his way into America’s heart.
Hail, Caesar! / Universal Pictures
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Pepsi
Kylie Jenner
Kendall Jenner
Bella Hadid
Gigi Hadid
In Pepsi’s “Live for Now” ad, Kendall Jenner strides through a Black Lives Matter-esque protest, offers a Pepsi to a police officer, and, in so doing, heals the world. Pepsi pulled the ad after just one day, in response to widespread backlash, but its memory lives on.
Pepsi
What work of art does this review describe?
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“Absolutely no quarter is given to the ill-informed; the first scene is set in an undesignated patch of outer space, where some masked moaner yaks on in a rich and threatening baritone.”
“Ad Astra”
“Gravity”
“The Avengers”
“Interstellar”
“If you are not a Marvel fan [...] then watching ‘The Avengers’ will feel like being mugged by a gang of rowdy sociopaths with high muscle tone. Absolutely no quarter is given to the ill-informed; the first scene is set in an undesignated patch of outer space, where some masked moaner yaks on in a rich and threatening baritone.” Read Anthony Lane’s review of the 2012 movie that launched a thousand superhero sequels.
Marvel Entertainment
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“A catalyst and an irritant, funny and kinky and helplessly provocative, it was a tiny show that cast a huge shadow.”
“Girls”
“Transparent”
“Broad City”
“Enlightened”
“...as a phenomenon—as opposed to as a TV show—‘Girls’ has been exhausting. A catalyst and an irritant, funny and kinky and helplessly provocative, it was a tiny show that cast a huge shadow. Once that recedes, it’ll be art again, not an op-ed, a referendum, a manifesto.” Read Emily Nussbaum’s full review of the fittingly imperfect “Girls” finale.
HBO
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“He mines his past, not as a reason to change but as rationalization for his worst behavior.”
“Views,” by Drake
“My Struggle,” by Karl Ove Knausgaard
“Café Society,” directed by Woody Allen
“Yeezus,” by Kanye West
“In recent years, Drake has grown perhaps too comfortable in this perpetual state of self-examination and light sadness—he bleeds onto the page and then admires the pattern he leaves behind. He mines his past, not as a reason to change but as rationalization for his worst behavior.” Read Hua Hsu’s full review of Drake’s inward-facing 2016 album.
Cash Money Records, Republic Records, and Young Money Entertainment
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“The series, for all its good looks and its movie-star charisma, isn’t just using dorm-room deep talk as a come-on: it has fallen for its own sales pitch.”
“House of Cards”
“The Leftovers”
“Mr. Robot”
“True Detective”
“...after years of watching ‘Boardwalk Empire,’ ‘Ray Donovan,’ ‘House of Lies,’ and so on, I’ve turned prickly, and tired of trying to be, in the novelist Gillian Flynn’s useful phrase, the Cool Girl: a good sport when something smells like macho nonsense. And, frankly, ‘True Detective’ reeks of the stuff. The series, for all its good looks and its movie-star charisma, isn’t just using dorm-room deep talk as a come-on: it has fallen for its own sales pitch.” Read Emily Nussbaum’s full review of the 2014 season of HBO’s moody anthology series.
HBO
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“A final irony is coiled in the novel’s title, the biggest reversal, a shift in perspective that has taken a whole novel to effect.”
“Asymmetry,” by Lisa Halliday
“My Brilliant Friend,” by Elena Ferrante
“Mislaid,” by Nell Zink
“Trust Exercise,” by Susan Choi
“A final irony is coiled in the novel’s title, the biggest reversal, a shift in perspective that has taken a whole novel to effect. Before the wedding [...] the two girls briefly discuss Elena’s continued schooling. Lila urges Elena to keep on studying [...] ‘Thanks, but at a certain point school is over,’ Elena says with a nervous, doubtless self-deprecating laugh. ‘Not for you,’ Lila replies ardently, ‘you’re my brilliant friend, you have to be the best of all, boys and girls.’ ” Read James Wood’s full review of the 2011 novel that gave the literary world Ferrante Fever.
Europa Editions
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“In the era of streaming singles, she is the rare young star who still worships at the altar of the album, an old-fashioned instinct that serves her surprisingly well.”
“Reputation,” by Taylor Swift
“Invasion of Privacy,” by Cardi B
“When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?,” by Billie Eilish
“A Seat at the Table,” by Solange
“Swift has not abandoned her ambition, or her perfectionism. In the era of streaming singles, she is the rare young star who still worships at the altar of the album, an old-fashioned instinct that serves her surprisingly well. She is the most consistent singer and songwriter of her generation, and ‘Reputation’ is impressively short on filler.” Read Carrie Battan’s full review of Taylor Swift’s pseudo-confessional 2017 album.
Big Machine Records
Who sang this?
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“Running out of pages in your passport / Hanging with some girls I've never seen before”
Robyn
Solange
Drake
Miguel
“Hotline Bling,” 2015
Drake
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“I said, excuse me you're a hell of a guy / I mean my, my, my, my you're like pelican fly / I mean, you're so shy and I'm loving your tie”
Young M.A
Nicki Minaj
Cardi B
Megan Thee Stallion
“Super Bass,” 2010
Nicki Minaj
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“But everybody's like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece”
Lorde
Miley Cyrus
Future
M.I.A.
“Royals,” 2013
Lorde
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“You gotta go and get angry at all of my honesty”
Kanye West
Katy Perry
Eminem
Justin Bieber
“Sorry,” 2015
Justin Bieber
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“You took my heart and my keys and my patience”
Beyoncé
Rihanna
Charlie Puth
Ariana Grande
“Work,” 2016
Rihanna
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“Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal”
Pitbull
Rebecca Black
One Direction
Black Eyed Peas
“Friday,” 2011
Rebecca Black
Who tweeted this?
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Twitter
Kanye West
Elon Musk
Donald Trump
Dril
After an infamous TMZ interview, in which he suggested that slavery had been a choice for African-Americans, Kanye went on Twitter to defend himself.
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Twitter
Piers Morgan
Sean Spicer
Chuck Grassley
Dril
The future White House press secretary threw down the gauntlet in 2013. (Alas, his lost follower would not have seen the tweet.)
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Twitter
Justin Bieber
Chuck Grassley
Rihanna
Dril
When asked to unpack his tweet, the Iowa senator explained that “u kno what” is a common euphemism for “eating Dairy Queen.”
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Twitter
Stephen Baldwin
Donald Trump
Kanye West
Dril
Donald Trump’s love-hate relationship with Diet Coke—he reportedly consumes a dozen cans each day, despite being concerned about its health effects—dates back to long before his Presidency.
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Twitter
Horse_ebooks
Chuck Grassley
Cher
Dril
Dazzling emojis, all-caps anti-Trump diatribes, and Dadaist fragments like this—which, she clarified in the comments, refers to her having donated a hundred desks to underfunded schools—are the markers of Cher, Twitter auteur.
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Twitter
Lindsey Graham
Megan Amram
Stephen Baldwin
Dril
The comedian has tweeted this every day since May, 2017, an act of performance art that is at once comic and tragic.
Which book cover is this?
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Anchor Books; cover design by Cardon Webb
“The Martian,” by Andy Weir
“Just Kids,” by Patti Smith
“The Flamethrowers,” by Rachel Kushner
“A Little Life,” by Hanya Yanagihara
Read Elif Batuman’s defense of Yanagihara’s polarizing 2015 best-seller.
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Alfred A. Knopf; cover design by Abby Weintraub
“Between the World and Me,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates
“Americanah,” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
“At Last,” by Edward St. Aubyn
“The Argonauts,” by Maggie Nelson
Read Larissa MacFarquhar on Adichie’s acclaimed 2013 novel, and the author’s reckoning with global fame.
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Farrar, Straus and Giroux; cover design by Charlotte Strick
“10:04,” by Ben Lerner
“Station Eleven,” by Emily St. John Mandel
“Annihilation,” by Jeff VanderMeer
“Open City,” by Teju Cole
Read James Wood’s review of Lerner’s 2011 début novel, a prequel of sorts to “10:04” that helped usher in the decade of autofiction.
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Farrar, Straus and Giroux; cover design by Rodrigo Corral; illustration by Matt Buck
“The Underground Railroad,” by Colson Whitehead
“The Bone Clocks,” by David Mitchell
“The Sellout,” by Paul Beatty
“A Visit from the Goon Squad,” by Jennifer Egan
Read Hua Hsu on Paul Beatty’s 2015 novel, which skewers the “post-racial” optimism of the Obama years.
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Henry Holt and Co.; cover design by David Shoemaker
“The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.,” by Adelle Waldman
“Outline,” by Rachel Cusk
“Little Fires Everywhere,” by Celeste Ng
“My Year of Rest and Relaxation,” by Ottessa Moshfegh
Read Sasha Weiss on Adelle Waldman’s 2013 novel of manners, about a literary man behaving badly in (what now feels like a distinctly pre-#MeToo-era) New York.
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Riverhead Books; cover design by Rachel Willey
“Conversations With Friends,” by Sally Rooney
“Crazy Rich Asians,” by Kevin Kwan
“Gold Fame Citrus,” by Claire Vaye Watkins
“Swing Time,” by Zadie Smith
Read Kathryn Schulz on Watkins’s 2015 novel, part of the growing genre of “cli-fi,” which takes place in a futuristic California ravaged by climate change.
You got 0 out of 34 correct!
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