Very small pickaxe?

More or less gradual, continual bubble bursting since the start.

I become media aware in the late 80s and everything was looking up. We were getting over racism and sexism, getting better at including other, especially well established, long-present cultures in TV and movies and at the grocery store. We had thrown away the attitudes of the past and we were going to move forward as a better society, diverse but still uniquely proud of who we all were and the various places we all came from. The Internet was going to give us all access to the sum total of human knowledge to the benefit of all.

You can see how that’s turned out so far.