As you may know, tomorrow is the 16th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, it affected America politically and culturally. Today we’ll look at the effect of 9/11 on media and politics, and how it shaped the culture of the 2000s and the new generation of kids growing up in it, Generation Z.

The Effect on Politics

The 9/11 attacks severly impacted the presidency of George W. Bush which was going on at the time, this resulted in the failed presidency of George W. Bush and Barack Obama soon to come in 2009. As Bush, got into messy Middle Eastern foreign policy by getting involved in wars in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan as a way to combat terrorism. The Patriot Act and NSA were introduced in a way to unconstitutionally monitor U.S. citizens through communication devices. Because Bush’s policies were so bad, it was pretty commonplace for people to mock George W. Bush on the Internet.

The Effect on Music

9/11 impacted music as well, because during the early 2000s, the music world went through its last great renaissance featuring a mix of grunge, rock, and punk to take over in the first half of the decade. We saw artists like Green Day and NYSNC rise up, however this renaissance was short lived as the later half of the decade saw the rise of the postmodernist pop music we have today following Michael Jackson’s death in 2009.

The Effect on Animation

Because of the overall new darker tones in media following 9/11, the kind of cartoons that were starting to air changed as well. Back in the 80s and 90s the United States themselves dominated in their animation market. But in the 2000s, that radically changed as many American-made action cartoons and imported Japanese anime started taking over the market. With channels/channel blocks like Toonami, the CW 4Kids, and to an extent the young Internet where people could pirate anime if they so please. There was also an increase in thick-line animation with many of the new western cartoons at the time.

The Effect on Video Games

9/11 had an impact on the video game market as well, so much so that America decided to get back into the video game market with the XBOX and their flagship FPS series Halo, this started a rise in FPS games to fit in with the new darker tone and the IRL wars in the Middle East, examples include Call of Duty and Battlefield. It also impacted the historically cartoonish video game characters like Mario, Zelda, and Sonic which were very colorful in the 80s and 90s but once the 2000s came, we getting started getting darker tones and styles with games like Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Sonic Unleashed.

The Effect on the Internet

Back in the 90s, the Internet was originally just a brand new experiment created by the United States and didn’t offer much, but once 9/11 happened and the darker tone of the new 2000s decade rolled in. The Internet started to change and create its own culture with the birth of sites like 4chan and Reddit and the creation of Internet memes. Forum sites were popping up, YouTube was just coming into existence, and piracy ran wild and free with torrent sites, Megaupload, and The Pirate Bay. This also grew the grassroots for online political opposition to the aforementioned Patriot Act and NSA

The Effect on Sports

9/11 impacted the world of sports as well. Most notably the NFL during the 2001-02 NFL season where fans and players everywhere across the United States would be waving American flags before the start of each regular season game. The NFL got more patriotic to the point where the logo for Super Bowl XXXVI was the continental US with the US flag and in that game, a team called the New England Patriots won the Super Bowl as symbolism for the United States making it through the horrors of 9/11.

Conclusion

In Conclusion, 9/11 was such a tragic event that became so impactful it shaped the culture of an entire decade as well as the new generation kids growing up with it; Generation Z with birthdates ranging from 1995 to 2004, at least parts of Generation Z remember the 9/11 attacks and were affected by the failed presidencies of Bush and Obama and all the other darker media surrounding them as they were preparing to take America back, Generation Z eventually evolved itself to be part of the movement that helped Donald J. Trump to be elected president in 2016 and finally crush the establishment and radical Islamic terrorism.