-2007: Inside

Inside 2007, we didn’t know we were living in a prologue. We thought we were just living in the present.

To be “inside” 2007 was to experience a final moment of pre-crash innocence. Optimism still existed, but it was fraying. Technology promised connection but had not yet delivered surveillance capitalism. The world was globalizing, but nationalism was dormant. It was the last full year before the financial crisis, before the iPad, before Instagram, before the Arab Spring, before the world fully realized that the future would be faster, angrier, and more unpredictable. inside -2007

Inside 2007, the tech world was buzzing. Apple had just unveiled the first iPhone in January — a device that seemed magical but was initially met with skepticism. “No physical keyboard?” critics asked. Meanwhile, Facebook was expanding beyond college campuses, Twitter was spinning out of a podcasting company, and YouTube, bought by Google in late 2006, was still a Wild West of grainy, viral videos. We lived inside a world of wired internet, flip phones, and the last gasps of the CD and DVD. Streaming was a distant dream; you still owned your music and movies. Inside 2007, we didn’t know we were living in a prologue