more important is what happened after '08: nothing. the future just died. there was a slight delay before knock-on effects went exponential is all

Robin Williams died :(

More serious answer: Only thing I can think is that's around when the current political divide started. It's when earnest fascists in America started figuring themselves out and learning how to articulate what they wanted. There were also a lot of sudden scary disasters that year, like plane crashes and an ebola outbreak. That's also the year Russia annexed Crimea and there was a ton of news coverage about how Armageddon was gonna happen soon because of it

But it's also more likely a delayed effect of the impact of the 08 recession.

Pharrell Williams's song "Happy" came out

It became obvious that the 'recovery' wasn't gonna happen. Also it was the start of the 2016 election drama.

the lego movie

Underlying material conditions further worsened

Everyone had a good birthday party 🎉

That could have been the year that a critical mass of schools started mandatory school shooter "drills" involving the students.

Those have been shown to increase anxiety among the students that participate in them. The biggest company running these "drills" is for-profit and has no incentive to not scare children.

It's Obamna's fault, obviously