Born in 2010

If you were born in 2010, you arrived in a year of slow recovery and hot politics. The Tea Party movement was reshaping the Republican Party from the ground up, energized by the healthcare debate and a kind of economic fury at the bank bailouts and the stimulus that got confused with the president's identity in ways that were uncomfortable to examine. The midterm elections in November gave Republicans the House in a wave.

The BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in April—the largest marine oil spill in history, two hundred million gallons over eighty-seven days, the Gulf of Mexico stained brown for the summer—was the environmental disaster of the decade, and the live footage of the gushing wellhead playing on the internet every day was maddening. The Affordable Care Act was signed into law in March and the argument about it would continue for years. The first iPad launched in April and the tablet computer joined the smartphone as a device that would reshape attention and behavior.

*The Social Network* came out in October—Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher making Facebook's founding into Greek tragedy—and it was the most talked-about film of the year. *Inception* was the summer spectacle. Kanye West and Taylor Swift were entering their long collision.

Glee was the musical TV event. A gallon of gas was $2.78.

The country was grinding forward, uneasy, contentious, and starting to show its digital seams.