In March 2020, when the reality of the coronavirus pandemic was beginning to set in in the United States, I noticed a flood of news articles, emails, social media posts, etc. including the construction “____ times” or “____ and ____ times” to describe a year that was becoming increasingly weirder (to use one of the words). I started keeping track of the adjectives used, with some contributions from a friend, in my Notes app on my laptop. By the end of this year, I had 100 words on my list, the 47 unique ones shown below.
At first, I thought this project, like the pandemic, would be short: that the need to recognize the times we were in with every communication would die down. The summer, however, also brought long-needed, widespread racial reckoning while the virus was simultaneously exposing many cracks and inequities in our current system. Later, waves of the virus continued throughout the fall and winter in the U.S. with daily case numbers only increasing from what they were in March.
Through the summer protests, a couple of people used “revolutionary times.” When it felt like there was a new crisis in the news every day, including the fires that struck the west coast, “ever-evolving” popped up. When self-isolating began to feel never ending, “boring.” When debates over pandemic relief and the election were taking place, “partisan” began to appear. Some uses were nominal: “corona times” and “covid times.”
The two most used words were “uncertain” (found 14 times) and “challenging” (found 10 times). During this project, I realized that the words I found the most started to lose their punch, but when looking back, do seem like the most accurate descriptions for the year. The words, however, were all describing the negative parts: “resilient times,” for example, never showed up even though it would have been an equally accurate descriptor.
In the face of challenges and uncertainties, arts organizations were able to adapt in the form of VR operas, drive-in plays, virtual gallery tours, and in many other ways. While it was definitely a difficult year, hopefully we will also remember the strength with which we responded. Here’s to carrying that resilience into the new year and hoping for a less turbulent 2021.