Does anyone else genuinely miss the 2000s?

[Vargerd]

I'm old enough to remember the 80's, I was just a kid in them, and I lived in a pretty decent area, so mileage may vary on this. It was great. My dad was able to work and support my mom, my younger brother, and myself fairly comfortably with no college degree, just 1 year in a technical school, no loans or anything like that. we even had enough money to go on a vacation or two each year.

The 90's was where the majority of my time at school happened. school wasn't a complete dysfunctional cesspit like it is now and I actually learned a thing or two there. I was able to ride my bike to my friends' houses across town without any real fear. My dad was an early adopter of having a home PC and I had a couple friends in a similar situation, playing warcraft 1 over tcp/ip connections was the height of technology.

The 2000's was really my first whole decade as an adult. I moved out of my parent's house into an apartment, got engaged, (didn't get married until 2010 so not part of this decade) and purchased my first house. The internet was still fairly niche, smart phones weren't really a thing as we know them today as online videos and social media were not a thing until the very end of the decade. 9/11 and the draconian over-reaction to it aside, the decade felt pretty free to me, expecially considering what has come after.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

After 2008, everything started sucking ass.

2008 is around the time "smartphones" and "social media" took off.

 

[bliblblblbbllb]

I miss when even cheap restaurants had greeters and servers and it was kinda an event to go out to eat, rather than feeling like a hog approaching the slop trough. If you have the 'pleasure' of going through a McDonalds Drive Thru, the first thing they say now is just, "APP?????"

I know it's a bit of a meme to complain that "oh my grandparents bought their house for two potatoes and had a bajillion dollar pension", but it does make me really angsty inside that my grandparent rose to the top of his field on no higher education, only later in life getting a 2-year degree for free. And my grandmother never got a W-2 job in her life, just raised the kids and took care of the home. To just get the same "entry-level" job now you'd almost certainly need a bachelor's, and it's hard to imagine getting to the position he was in without a graduate degree. And in my own field? Pretty much requires a master's and licensure, if you want a salary position that pays more than you can make in fast food. I'm a firm believer in education, but my experience with uni was it being adult day care and a political machine, not education- the bang for your buck was just abysmal and did not live up to the idea of getting a "universal education" that I believed in my childhood.

Never in a million years would I think in a post-graduate class, would the prof just kick back xir feet, put on Philosophy Tube, and tell everyone to have a three page paper on it on xir desk by Monday using all the latest globohomo terms, but this is an unfortunately real example, at hundreds of dollars per credit hour.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

One may look back at 1980s America with rosy-tinted nostalgia sight. But I think that then and there, being "nerdy" was sorta taboo.

I also think that by the '00s in America, there was this "sweet spot" between "nerd shaming" and "wrongthink shaming" in mainstream.

 

[I (Don't) Have A Gun]

I miss being being 13-23 years younger. Can't say I particularly miss anything about the 2000s specifically.

 

[Never Scored]

One may look back at 1980s America with rosy-tinted nostalgia sight. But I think that then and there, being "nerdy" was sorta taboo.

I also think that by the '00s in America, there was this "sweet spot" between "nerd shaming" and "wrongthink shaming" in mainstream.

In Canada, but I specifically remember a moment being in a EB Games in the late 2000s. I would have been early to mid-20s here. I remember this faggy, nerdy emo kid who looked like he was high school aged ranting about the Devil May Cry series to his big titty emo gf behind me in line and thinking, wow, things have really changed since the 90s. That sort of thing would have been girl repellent in like, 1999.

My point is, being a huge nerd became so much more accepted within like a decade, that moment stands out in my mind because it went against the social norms I had learned in adolescence in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Children's book author who's entire fucking shtick is "MUH HECKIN' SLAVERY".

I imagine she thought of race as a collective, and holy in the case of "marginalized groups".

Now that crazy way of thinking that got Pokemon and DBZ changed is mainstream in Clown World.

My point is, being a huge nerd became so much more accepted within like a decade, that moment stands out in my mind because it went against the social norms I had learned in adolescence in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

If the "endless present" of Current Year America was somehow "set to the '00s", that could've been better than the "endless present" being "set to the late '10s" like it is IRL. I think it was either @Syaoran Li or @Dom Cruise who said that fashion and other Western trends don't seem to be changing much anymore, since Current Year began?

 

[likeacrackado]

Late 90s into the 2000s would've been a great time to be a nerdy teenager. Between video games, movies, the internet, and angsty white people music I would've gone full neet had I experienced my late teens in that period.

 

[DustBuns]

The best thing about the 2000s was that I could mack on goth and emo chicks and not have to worry if they're injecting themselves with testosterone and wanting me to call them They/Them faggots.

 

[Retard of the Month]

I didn't exist until halfway through the decade, but I believe humanity died in 2015 with the release of Undertale. So, in that regard, yes, I do miss the 2000s.

On that note, many of my favorite games came out in that decade (KH2, SSBB, MGS2, DMC3, SA2, Metroid Prime, MegaMan Zero 2, etc.), and so did my two favorite music albums (10000 Days in '06 and The Father of Death in '09). Plus, while most of my favorite anime came out during the '10s and the '20s, the '00s was the final decade before the no-effort isekai boom. And gaming YouTubers tended to have more skits where they were screwing around in the woods wearing crappy Halloween costumes, which were all hilarious.

And I miss userbars.

 

[Geddy Lee's Fee and See]

Late 90s into the 2000s would've been a great time to be a nerdy teenager. Between video games, movies, the internet, and angsty white people music I would've gone full neet had I experienced my late teens in that period.

Really? I would've been in my element had I been born in the early to mid 80s instead of '96 and actually got to be a nerd during that time period. Think about it: you can still be a massive nerd that loves technology, science, math, video games and rock music but still have a nice comfy social circle and there was a good chance that you could get an attractive girl that you could also hang out with. If anything, I would be more socially active during that time just due to that fact alone and social media not phasing out social clubs and face-to-face conversations.

The worst thing about the current year is that there's really no place for the misfit or the nerd. I'm not talking about actual degenerates or consoomers. There's plenty of places for them. There's no place for a classic nerd to really meet new people and talk about their interests on a regular basis outside of college campuses, and even then they are pretty few and far between. Even when nerds were mocked and ridiculed before, there were still places to meet up on a regular basis. Now, you have to take what can get and it's not always good. Same thing with romantic relationships.

 

[PipTheAlchemist]

Late 90s into the 2000s would've been a great time to be a nerdy teenager. Between video games, movies, the internet, and angsty white people music I would've gone full neet had I experienced my late teens in that period.

Yeah, but something something slurs something something nerd culture was not mainstream yet and the heckin' nerdirenos were bullied by the unwholesome jocks.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

I could mack on goth and emo chicks and not have to worry if they're injecting themselves with testosterone and wanting me to call them They/Them faggots.

Nor would you have to worry about being "cancelled" with a "#MeToo" campaign.

(wow Current Year Clown World sucks)

The worst thing about the current year is that there's really no place for the misfit or the nerd.

There could still be a place for the "misfit" and "nerd" outside the West.

But that would require travel beyond the West if one is stuck in the West.

 

[Alex Hogendorp]

I can regard the 2000s as some sort of bliss but those years growing up in that decade was pretty nostalgic for me. I'd literally find pictures from the past and reminiscence about the past then and there especially the places I went to during my childhood. They were simpler times for me especially all these days feeling like the world is ending. There is something so special about living the days during the wild west era of the internet.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

I didn't exist until halfway through the decade

To someone who lived in the world before 9/11, being born that late can seem foreign. Especially if the new millennium or at least the 2010s have been a blur so far.

By the time you were born, realtime 3D vidya that wasn't blocky (unlike N64 or PS1 3DCG) was already a thing, the internet had already largely moved beyond dialup, cellphones were already ubiquitous, and The Simpsons was arguably already getting crappy.

 

[Geddy Lee's Fee and See]

There could still be a place for the "misfit" and "nerd" outside the West.

But that would require travel beyond the West if one is stuck in the West.

Maybe, but I don't want to throw in the towel just yet. I feel there are a lot of places for the misfit in the West, they are just so damn hard to find compared with yesteryear.

I can regard the 2000s as some sort of bliss but those years growing up in that decade was pretty nostalgic for me. I'd literally find pictures from the past and reminiscence about the past then and there especially the places I went to during my childhood. They were simpler times for me especially all these days feeling like the world is ending. There is something so special about living the days during the wild west era of the internet.

Not even just the Internet being the Wild West, but it just feels like people were a lot more optimistic for the future despite 9/11 and the War on Terror going on. People were a lot more socially connected to and the Internet didn't interact much with real life, outside of buying shit on eBay or an online store. It's really mind-boggling how society can do a 180 in less than a decade. I don't think zoomers realize how drastically different the US and most of the world was just 13 years ago at the close of the first decade of the millennium (and I don't blame them for this). Again, this world we currently live in is a fucking joke and I refuse to take anything it throws at me seriously barring the shit I have to do to pay the bills, to function and to have some semblance of joy.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

It's really mind-boggling how society can do a 180 in less than a decade.

Like how "social media" made people go from the '90s way of "don't dox yourself online" to doxing themselves online, even with pics?

 

[Linako 2.0]

Like how "social media" made people go from the '90s way of "don't dox yourself online" to doxing themselves online, even with pics?

It's amazing how we went from "Oh no, my nudes are online for everyone to see, my life is over!" to "My nudes are online and no one's giving me money to help pay rent!"

 

[ToroidalBoat]

What was that "metrosexual" thing in the '00s about, and what became of it?

 

[Linako 2.0]

What was that "metrosexual" thing in the '00s about, and what became of it?

I think it was synthesized with theater kids and that's how the troon subculture was made