Oh, the 2000s. People were celebrating that the world didn't end in 1999. Flip phones were all the rage, low-rise jeans were the hottest thing in fashion, and tweens and teens were listening to pop-punk on their MP3 players. Maybe it's just the nostalgia talking, but the British, for example, think life was best in the 2000s.
Although I was a tween in the noughties, I don't really see it. But other millennials would like to argue that this was the case. The people in this thread came to the defense of the '00s, sharing what life was like back then, including the good, the embarrassing, and the bad.
Bored Panda reached out to the person who started this thread, u/1dfk000. They kindly agreed to have a chat with us about the 2000s and what things people will probably miss from the 2020s. Read our conversation below!
#1
I knew the phone number of everyone in my circle off the top of my head.
Image credits: mrsc00b
#2
I was excited for the future. I'm 43 now. I am no longer excited for anything :|.
Image credits: MethGerbil
#3
I can tell you this we had a lot healthier relationship with the internet when it was confined to a single point, the home computer.
#4
It was a simpler time. We hung out at the mall, played video games like Halo and Grand Theft Auto. Social media wasn’t as big, so we actually called our friends on the phone to make plans. Napster and LimeWire were the go-to for downloading music.
Image credits: Wilsonq283v
#5
Music was huge. We had pop-punk bands like Blink-182 and Green Day. TV shows like Friends and The Sopranos were at their peak. We didn’t have YouTube yet, so we’d watch music videos on MTV or VH1. Kids today don’t know the joy of getting a new CD on release day.
Image credits: harris999x5
#6
The 2000’s was a lot of fun. Actually, to be completely honest, all of my life has been fun. I was born in 1981 so I got to experience the 80’s to a degree, the 90’s as a kid and the 2000s as a young adult.
All of those decades had some great things about them. I would not have asked to live in any other period of time. I got to experience the simplicity of life and the nuttiness of current time, both somewhat comfortably. The changes of technology didn’t scare me, and the independence of being a “latch key kid” was also something I got to experience. I don’t think I really answered the question though…but life was fun.
Image credits: SpacemanPete
#7
Internet was a massive web of interconnecting sites for any interest and hobby. You could browse thousands of sites without repeat.
Now it seems like 5 websites filled with screenshots from the other sites and unlimited s****y opinions (including mine) stated as fact from strangers on the Internet.
#8
16/f/cali u?
u/Godzira-r32:
My whole life changed when I experienced MSN Messenger for the first time. And getting the screen name from a girl you had a crush on? Man, there was nothing like it for 13-year-old me.
Image credits: Godzira-r32
#9
A thing I see people rarely mention is that being someone who didn't really use the internet wasn't frowned upon. I knew lots of people who just used their home phone and mail for everything and did fine even. If they needed a computer you could just go to a library.
Image credits: SkimsIsMyName
#10
We had dial-up internet at first, which was super slow. Kids today don’t know the struggle of waiting for a page to load. We used to rent movies from Blockbuster. And if you missed an episode of your favorite show, you’d have to wait for the rerun.
Image credits: pavelgavrilovd7til
#11
You could actually understand what rappers were saying.
#12
Boring. Although we didn't realise at the time that was a luxury.
Image credits: Next_Balance_7681
#13
As someone who has now lived in 4 decades, the 2000s *by far* has had the worst fashion so far. I see you younger generations trying to bring some of it back and you all need to stop it.
Image credits: SPEK2120
#14
Humanity peaked at Windows XP.
#15
I worked at a cellphone store 2006-2008. Was a crazy time as we had like 60 different phone models with like 12 different operating systems. It was actually a difficult job because you had to know a lot about each individual product. Anyone remember BlackBerry? The motorola Razer? Nokias? The TMobile Sidekick? Those hundreds of similar candy bar phones? Ringtones? When low rez camera phones became a thing? T9 texting? I remember texting and driving was more common and actually a lot safer because with T9 it was muscle memory and you wouldn’t have to look at the screen to text.
Image credits: anon
#16
Texting was $0.10 a message.
#17
Touch screen as we know it today was still this sci-fi technology you only saw in movies.
#18
I remember when working from home meant 4 phone lines for me, one for home phone, one for work phone, one for dial up and one for a fax. Hard to believe that faxes are still a thing though.
#19
Pretty awesome as a kid tbh, I have fond memories of spending entire days skating all over town with friends and then going home and playing the original SKATE or Fallout 3 till midnight.
Also, moviegoing was so much better and more fun. Before Marvel picked up its steam, the big blockbuster event that everyone would go to the movies for was Pirates of The Caribbean.
Image credits: Turnbob73
#20
We ranked our friends 1-8 on Myspace, hung out at the mall, wore makeup 3x too dark for our skin tone, we loved the Snooki Poof, anything Abercrombie (or Hot Topic, depending on your vibe), watched a lot of Ebaum's world, used AIM and cryptic away messages, watched TRL, wore low rise jeans, doubled up on polo shirts with popped collars, and spent a lot of time outside.
Image credits: Espionage_21
#21
There was a period of time where "there's nothing on TV" was a real thing. The 2000s brought an end to those limited choices. You went from channel surfing dozens of TV channels, to having access to hundreds, with on-demand programming gaining traction.
The feeling of having things at your fingertips really started to happen in many aspects of everyday life. Cellphones became smart, and mainstream. Media piracy platforms that offered you anything you could imagine with the low cost of potentially destroying the family computer. The music was amazing. The movies were amazing.
Being a teenager in the 00s was pretty awesome. The use of computers was still new enough that we were look to as being experts or computer whiz kids if you had even a basic mastery of them.
The future looked promising. Part of it was just growing up and learning more about the world - but it did seem the carefully crafted "the adults know what they're doing" illusion got ripped away with the dotcom bubble, 9/11, and the housing market crash.
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Image credits: glockops
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