2022 Tomash Fellow Zachary Loeb Lecture

Thank you to everyone who attended CBI's second annual Tomash Fellow lecture on April 6! We hope you enjoyed our 2021-2022 Tomash Fellow, Zachary Loeb present his paper entitled "Counting Down to Zero Zero: Y2K and the risks of Computerization." A recording of the talk is now available. 

Abstract: While the year 2000 computing crisis (Y2K) is often remembered today as an exaggerated techno-panic spurred by hyperbolic media coverage, the reason we are able to look back at it with such ignominy is thanks to the work that was undertaken by those who realized just how serious a hazard Y2K represented. From professionals in and around the computer sector, to government officials, to a range of concerned citizens—the genuine risks represented by Y2K propelled many to act, even as these disparate groups perceived Y2K’s threats differently. This talk considers Y2K as it was perceived by those preparing for it, and how their perception of the risks of the computerized society informed their stances towards the crisis. That we can look back and joke about Y2K today is thanks to those, at the time, who realized that Y2K was no laughing matter. ​

 

About Zachary Loeb

Zachary completed a BA at Ithaca College, before earning a Master’s in Science and Information Studies at the I-School at University of Texas, Austin, and a MA at New York University’s Media, Culture, and Communication. In 2016, he began pursuing a doctorate, and is now a Ph.D. candidate, in the History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania.

In addition to extensive and prestigious scholarly publications, including “Waiting for Midnight: Risk Perception and the Millennium Bug” in Janet Abbate and Stephanie Dick’s eds., Abstractions and Embodiments: New Histories of Computing and Society (forthcoming, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021), he has impressively contributed to public history and discourse with an insightful essay at Y2K’s 20th anniversary in The Washington Post, and served as a key advisor and on screen expert for a major CNN 8-part series looking back at the Y2K crisis.