While I'm not one to dote on the past, I can't help but think that 2010 has had significant influence on the destiny of man. I think historians will one day look back at 2010 as the year when people began to fully grasp the power of man as creator.
Marshall McLuhan, a well known communication theorist, once stated "the median is the message". If McLuhan were alive today he would tell us that the internet is the median and the message is in real time and based on user-generated content. That message makes us all creators in our own right. We are evolving to a new understanding of the world as we know it, a World 2.0.
World 2.0 is a concept derived from the term web 2.0--meaning communication has evolved to turn users into contributors thus revealing the fourth wall that separates us from the "stage" of life. The average Joe is now the star of his own show and he is doing it himself, armed with a video camera and connection to the World Wide Web. What's more, our Joe can be a scholar, a photographer, a journalist, a producer, almost anything his heart desires just by accessing the information and tools himself.
In 2010, the concept of viral phenomenon gave new meaning to a society living in a state of hyperrealism with increased detachment to the dissemination between truth and fiction.
