People Reflect On The Fads From The Year 2000 That Are Now Completely Passé

If you were around in the 90s, you probably remember the Y2k Bug. Everyone thought that the end of the world was coming because many of our computer programs were set to read the year date with only the last two digits.
People really believe that there would be huge system failures if our software and hardware read the date 00 as 1900 instead of 2000.
Kids born after the year 2000 can't even imagine what the world was like before smart phones became computers in our pockets.
Since there's a whole generation who doesn't remember much of the early 2000s, we thought we might take a trip down memory lane and school these kids on what it was really like. Some aesthetics from the 90s were carried over, some technology never made it past 2003.
Redditor BtownBrelooms asked:
"What is something that was used heavily in the year 2000, but it's almost never used today?"
Here's a great dose of Y2k nostalgia for you.
Devices just for music.
"Any sort of dedicated music-playing device, before that just became a part of your phone."
- Confusionator5000
"RIP my mini disk player."
- Mikebot3000
"RIP Zune."
- Redditor
"RIP Creative Zen Touch. You were a wonderful green brick."
- HELLOhappyshop
"I kinda miss my iPod shuffle. The small thin brick one that literally had no buttons."
- Peng_win
"For me, that was portable CD players which replaced portable cassette players (mainly, the Sony Walkman). MP3 players came almost immediately afterward."
- CriminalSpiritX
The file sharing, social networking software.
"LimeWire."
- FRB2992
"Giving me flashbacks of desperately trying to hear the preview of the song while it downloaded to make sure it was the actual song and not 'my fellow Americans.'"
- Legitimate-mistak3
"Or the Dj yelling in the background."
- Vapirate04
Re-writable CDs.
"Re-writable CDs. I used to burn so many mix CDs after downloading from Napster, BearShare, LimeWire, FrostWire. Then my mother would call, disconnecting the internet and I would have to start the download all over again. Except one file wasn't an mp3, but a virus. I would just reinstall windows before my mom got home as we saved every picture and document on a zip drive.....then those fancy Jaz drives."
"Also Adobe without a subscription."
- Sh*ttinwithmykitten
"And the praying to the 'buffer overrun' gods during every burn..."
- iguana-pr
"I would borrow CDs from my Library and then burn a copy to keep."
- tootsie404
Long processing times for downloads.
"Download Managers."
"Start the download right after Mom goes to bed, wake up before her to pause the download and disconnect the dial-up connection, resume tomorrow night. Repeat..."
"A week later, you're playing Counter-Strike."
- Laserwulf
"And now you can download the torrent in like 2 min."
- ZarafFaraz
"The perspective is staggering. A 1080p 30fps video using old 2000 codecs like MPEG-1 at high quality is like 40mbps instead of modern h.264/265 being like 8."
"A YouTube video of that quality takes like 2 minutes today at that quality. In 2000 on dial up using contemporary codecs would have require 165 hours."
- Shandlar
Spiker Colorz.
"Colored spikey hair gel."
- AdamoclesYT
"Bro, I am still waiting for the day frosted tips make a comeback."
- ShowMeYourTorts
"Honestly man the kids these days look straight outta the 90's, though most of them seem to think it's original. Wouldn't surprise me if frosted tips are next."
- thricetheory
AIM messenger.
"AIM and msn messenger."
"Bringing back even more memories of the late 90’s early 2000’s rushing home to fire up the dial up and start chatting with the same friends I’d already spent hours talking to that day."
- Boodagga
"'Wanna Cyber?' God. We were awful."
- icanbeafrick
"A/s/l."
- levi_verzyden
And ICQ.
"ICQ."
- DamnedMonkey
"Couple of years ago, I had a number come into my head. Recognized it but didn’t know where from. For over a year it kept bugging me. Was it my college enrolment/password? Number for someone I worked with when I worked overseas? Not a clue for the longest time."
"Random convo with a friend about old memes and things we miss about the early internet days, and I just blurted out “its my f*cking ICQ number!” with no context…"
- Squallypie
Giant, rear projection TV.
"If you had a big screen TV it was probably a ridiculously thick rear projection TV."
- ParoxysmAttack
"My parents can’t get it out of the house."
- CristyTango
"My Dad Busted it apart to get it out of the house."
- And1mistaketour
The sound of Dial-Up.
"Dial-Up."
"weeeeeeeee WOOOOOO_OOOOOO_"
E E E E E E E EEEEEeeeeee
"eee"
"eee URRRRRRRRR""BEDULUDOLEDULUDOLEEPEEPEEP"
"R R R R R R R R R R R R RUMMMMMMMMMMMM"- Martini_Man_
"Is it sad that I miss this sound? Reminds me of logging on age 15. Midnight till 6am was my ISPs off-peak and was the only time I could get my internet fix."
- trev2600
Websites had a specific aesthetic.
"Spinning under construction gifs on websites."
- starkiller_bass
"Remember when most websites had a hit counter on them?"
- starkiller_bass
- emtag
These Low Effort Jobs Have Surprisingly High Salaries | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Have you ever worked one of those jobs that paid you to kinda sit there? If you have, you know the joy that comes with watching the entirety of Breaking Bad ...Computer mice with a ball.
"Computer mice with a ball:"
"My friend had one of the first Microsoft IntelliMouse , which did not use a ball."
"As I recall, it was the first laser mouse without a ball that was commercialized in a popular way. It was released in October 1999. So in 2000, most mice were with a ball, and slowly faded away."
- fmaz008
"Remember having to clean the ball? Who even knows how that much gunk got in there in a relatively short time."
- FloydEGag
Oh, Blockbuster. How we miss you.
"Blockbuster card."
- larrythetarry
"I live a half-hour away from one. Granted, it's the last one, but still..."
- zippyslug31
"It’s surreal walking around that store. Closest thing to time traveling I’ll ever get to do."
- pegleg_1979
"Damn. I miss blockbuster."
- NOTZawp
Geocities.
"Geocities, neopets, livejournal, kazaa."
- papaweir
"Geocities was so powerful for the time. I used to build my website there, steal the html and use it for my own domain. This was pre-social media. If you wanted to share your weird goth poetry and fuzzy webcam selfies, you had to have your own website. Using the steeling html method for years eventually taught me how to write it."
"Also, for a cross over episode, I stole the html from the pet 'painting' page from Neopets, uploaded it on my geocities, tinkered with the code and was able to log in and paint all my pets for free. Baby h4x0r. Those were the days."
- j-u-n-i
"For those of you who miss the old days, neocities is a free hosting service where you can put up simple websites. Nothing fancy, but still very awesome."
- MarqueeSmyth
And Neopets.
"Neopets don’t die though, I logged in after a long time and my Neopet was starving, so I fed it a piece of the omelette and he said 'yuck I don’t like omelettes' so I logged off and let the sassy little bat starve for another 10 years."
- goblinsexologist
"Neopets was the reason my dad buckled and got us DSL internet... because I once spent the entire Saturday on Neopets and he wasn't happy with the phone bill that month."
- GingerBeardicus86
Blue eye shadow was in.
"Blue eyeshadow. You could always tell when a junior high school aged girl finally got the okay from her parents to start wearing makeup. She'd show up at school everyday for the next month looking like a blue panda."
- blickyjayy
"Butterfly hair clips and I believe the white eyeliner were huge then too."
- HotIronCakes
"Kids today with thousands of YouTube make up tutorials at their disposal don't know how we suffered."
- 44morejumperspls
Smoking inside.
"Indoor smoking. My young-ish kids marvel at the fact that people used to sit in restaurants and smoke."
- TurdFergDSF
"I remember gold foil disposable ashtrays at burger king."
- J_Hitler_Christ
"I remember going to friendly’s as a kid for breakfast or dinner and they asked if we wanted smoking or non-smoking with ceiling fans blowing everything everywhere."
- soline
VHS tapes.
"VCRs."
- Murtamatt
"Tape rewinders!!"
"BE KIND, REWIND!"
"I liked the ones that had the form of a sports car."
- xtracto
There was no GPS.
"Maps or Mapquest."
- Ocean927
"My wife calls Google maps MapQuest if we need directions she'll tell me to MapQuest it on my phone."
- deadlymoogle
"Printed Mapquest instructions!"
- surlycanon
"World Wide Web."
"The term 'World Wide Web.'"
- No-Sheepherder-2896
“'Visit us at h t t p colon slash slash w w w dot p b s dot o r g.'"
- Bilbo_nubbins
"Information Superhighway."
- wagu666
Generation Z will probably never fully understand the struggles and joys of the budding technology and wacky fashion of that time.
Though, before you know it, these kids are going to be saying the same thing about the next generation.
And the cycle continues.
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We all make mistakes.
It's simply human nature.
But that doesn't mean we don't often find ourselves frustrated when other people make mistakes.
Particularly if these other people are our colleagues, resulting in having to clean up the mess they created.
Redditor xk543x was curious to hear about some of the worst, or most inane mistakes made by unreliable co-workers, leading them to ask:
"What's the dumbest mistake you've seen an incompetent co worker make?"
There's a reason we keep the boys away from the girls
"At a Petco all the Guinea pigs were in a big plexiglass enclosure with a center divider."
"Boys on one side and girls on the other."
"An employee decided that all the long haired Guinea pigs should be on one side and short haired on the other."
"It took forever to sort them out and all the females were pregnant."- PumpkinsDad
Dangerously negligent
"Social worker here."
"We’re supposed to see clients who live with families once a year."
"A mom of a kid kept calling her worker but got no answer."
"Mom called the on call worker who discovered the assigned worker had logged the visits in and made thorough notes."
"The mom said she never saw her in two years."
"This led to her whole caseload being audited and then they found she had logged a visit with a client who’d been dead for months."
"While being audited, her supervisor decided to do a surprise visit to the client she was supposed to see."
"She never showed up and logged in the visit the next day."- ShiroHachiRoku
Slow and steady... gets you fired
"Had a guy take a cover off the base of a radar unit which had like 40 bolts holding it on."
"Gave him a ratchet wrench to do it."
"Half hour later I go check on him, only had about 10 off. "
"Watched him a bit."
"He would take it off each time to move it for the next turn!
"Showed him how a ratchet works."
"Never assume people know stuff." - User Deleted
Old Faithful!
"Tried to cool down hot oil, in a chute, all ready to be emptied, with a nice big bucket of water."
"I heard 'THOMAS NO' only to turn around and see a GEYSER of hot oil shooting towards the ceiling before it hit and splashed down around him."
"Nobody was hurt some f*cking how."
"The chute that the oil was in was on wheels and had a wooden handle, it absolutely didn’t need to be cooled lol."- Ohiolongboard
How to make a bad situation even worse
"I worked on a golf course during the summer."
"Area with lots of poison ivy."
"Two of my coworkers were instructed to weedy a river edge area."
"If we encounter poison ivy, we either stop what we are doing or go get full suit protection with respirators."
"These dumba**es were weed whacking in the thickest poison ivy I had ever seen."
"No protective suit or glasses or respirator."
"I roll up and notice what the hell they're doing and point out all the poison ivy everywhere."
"They were aerosolizing the oil."
"They both ended up in the hospital on steroid to prevent their death because of the oils they inhaled."- Onwisconsin42
"30 days has September..."
"The designer, creative director and head of production all missed that there was an eight day week on a calendar."
"We sent 10000 copies of a useless calendar to a client."
"Rightly so, they refused to pay for it."- atot806
Isn't that why they call it long division?
"Not a mistake necessarily, but I once witnessed our chief accounting officer, and our only accountant; it was a small company, type in values into two Excel cells, pull out a calculator, add the two numbers together in the calculator, and then type the answer in a third cell."
"She had apparently been doing this for years, with sheets consisting of thousands of rows."
"I explained how to use formulas and copy them but she apparently forgot because I saw her doing the same thing again months later."- zachm26
Isn't that what these pockets are for?
"When I worked construction, there was a guy who showed up with nothing in his tool belt except a small bag of peanuts in one pocket."
"He didn't stay around too long."- Incredible_mango
Maybe a little guidance and help was all it took to put these colleagues on a better path forward.
But one imagines the only path these less-than-star employees found themselves on was right out the door.
There's nothing more embarrassing than laughing at a story someone just told, or a question someone just asked, under the assumption that they were joking.
Only to realize a few seconds later that they weren't joking.
It happens to the best of us.
In some cases, these can be bizarre stories which we might laugh about months or years down the road.
Though more often than not, we immediately feel a foot slamming into our mouth with a vengeance.
Redditor tatemalia was eager to hear the wildest, most embarrassing of these unfortunate moments, leading them to ask:
"What's your 'Oh..You're not joking' moment?"
Oh, bless your heart.
"Had an old lady ask me when her dog would grow its leg back after an amputation."- Moctor_Drignall
Don't mind if I do
"I was eating ice cream and an old guy walking into the ice cream parlor said, 'Oh, that looks good! I'm gonna get a spoon'."
"I smiled and laughed awkwardly, until his damn spoon was in my ice cream."- KnittingTrekkie
Feedback is greatly appreciated
"It was when I met up with an online friend for the first time."
"It was surprisingly more fun than I thought it would be."
"By the end of the night, as we were waiting to get served at a restaurant, she looked at me and asked how I thought our outing went."
"I told her that I had a great time."
"But that didn't seem to do it for her."
"She proceeded to tell me about how she does this thing, at the end of every outing with her friends, where she rates and gives feedback on how well it went, what didn't go so well, and what could do with some improvement for next time."
"I laughed it off, thinking she was joking."
"It all felt too robotic and school-like for me to take seriously."
"But she definitely was serious."
"I told her to go first so I could get an idea of what she wanted and, I kid you not, she whipped out her phone and started drafting up multiple paragraphs for about 7 minutes or so."
"I felt so awkward because it was also 7 minutes of pure silence and deep concentration."
"Thankfully, I had to leave mid-way because I was needed elsewhere."
"I told her to just text me her thoughts when she was done but she insisted that that wasn't the way to do it, and it HAD to be done in person."
"I still can't believe this is something her and her friends regularly do."- reigndrops17
We'll take the house, no need for a bag.
"Working in a catalog store in the UK."
"You pick from the catalog, we bring it out from the warehouse."
"Lady comes in and orders the single largest thing we keep in store."
"A shed. "
"Not a particularly big shed as sheds go, but still a shed."
"'Ok madam if you give me your vehicle's registration number I'll tell the security guys to let you round the back of the store'."
"'Park in bay five and we'll load it for you'."
"'What are you talking about?'"
"'You have to park around back so we can load it into your vehicle'."
"'I don't have a vehicle'."
"'Oh, well, we have the numbers for some white van men and taxi services if you'd like to...'"
"'No just bring it up, Keith can carry it'."
"She indicates a portly man of around 50 across the room'."
"We got it into the lift diagonally, though it trapped a man behind it, and when it came up she said 'what on earth is that?'"
"'That's your shed, madam'."
"'My Keith can't carry that!'"
"'Yeah no sh*t, would you like me to call a van service for you?'"
"She actually just got a refund and left."- reverendmalerik
That's not yours, its mine!
"I work at a hotel."
"We have this regular who comes, but usually makes reservations ahead of time, and she has her 'favorite' room she tries to get."
"Well one day she walked in, asking for a room."
"I had rooms available, but not the one she wanted, and she replied 'oh, call the guests in that room and tell them to move out so I can have it'."
"I seriously thought that was a joke and I played along, saying 'I'll get right on that,' as I was getting her info in the computer."
"All of a sudden she said, 'aren't you going to call them?'"
"'Call who?'"
"'Those guests in that room so I can have it'."
"'Oh, you really weren't joking'."
"I told her that we don't do that, if she wanted that room she needed to call ahead."
"'I have a room, I know it's not your preferred room but it's all I've got, and you can take it or leave it, but I'm not moving a guest out'."
"She seemed almost taken aback by that, but I told her that if she didn't take the room I had she wouldn't get anything."
"She calls ahead now, but I was mortified and shocked she actually tried this stunt, and actually meant it."- llcucf80
What is the meaning of this?!
"Used to work at a big bank that bought out another, somewhat smaller but still pretty big bank about 10 years ago."
"Some guy came in all pissed off because we didn't send him a new debit card with the new bank's logo on it."
"They intentionally made it so the old ones would continue working until they were originally set to expire."
Said it was "'embarrassing'."
"'I can't be the only person who's gotten upset over this, right?'"
"Yeah homie, you were."- giantgoose
It's easy to understand how these poor people thought what they had just heard was a joke.
One imagines, going forward, they might wait to laugh until after the people they were talking to start laughing.
Being cheated on is a horrible feeling.
And some would say that cheating on your significant other is inexcusable.
Perhaps that's why when partners come up with excuses and reasons as to why they cheated often make these situations so much worse.
But in some cases, these excuses might end up lightening the situation, owing to the sheer idiocy of these justifications.
Redditor tall_boizz was curious to hear the lamest, most ludicrous excuses people were given from their unfaithful partners, leading them to ask:
"What is the dumbest explanation you've heard from someone who cheated?"
I saw you yesterday!
"I missed you."
"I was on a short vacation."- haynb03
It's not me, it's you
"'If you had confidence in yourself, none of this would have happened'."- marques33
Well, you did
"'I didn't want to hurt you'"
"Way to go, dude."- taalnerd
It was out of grief
“'My grandmother died'.”
"I didn’t realize cheating on your girlfriend is the standard grieving method." - User Deleted
I'm only monogamous in the city I'm in.
“'When you said you wanted to be exclusive I thought you meant exclusive here'."
"'You never even asked if I had a boyfriend'.”
"I had been 'dating' this girl for 3 months in college when she admitted that she had been in a long distance relationship with her boyfriend from high school the entire time and she had slept with him each time she visited her parents, which was at least once a month."- dring157
Um, what?
"'You deleted your Facebook, and my friend and I thought that was fishy'."
"I don't even know where to start with that kind of rationality."- RandylVlarsh
We were just too perfect
"'We never have any fights'."
"So you decide to cheat so I can get mad at you?"- somerandomredditor18
Hypocrite!
“'I wanted to try something new'.”
"He cheated on me with his ex."- meeez80
Quid Pro Quo... OOPS!
"‘I thought you were doing it too!’ "
"F*ck him!"- mawo77
I had to compartmentalize
"A friend in a long-distrance relationship who only saw his GF on weekends because she was at an army posting at the other end of the country during the week."
"He found out she was cheating on him with some guy."
"Her explanation?"
"'Well, for me the army and my private life are two different lives, so it makes sense I have two different boyfriends'."
"For context, I'm from Germany, this was the German army, and 'the other end of the country' was about six hours by train, the train being free for soldiers."
When people need to dig up excuses as laughable as these, it's often because they are well aware they were in the wrong.
Hopefully, the unlucky partners of this unfaithful, motley crew can take solace in the fact that they are now much better off.
Usain Bolt's 9.58 second 100-meter dash at the 2009 IAAF World Championships.
2,019 people performing "mattress dominoes" in Rio De Janeiro in 2019.
Audra McDonald's six Tony award wins and being the only actor to win in all four acting categories.
These are only a few of the most notable, and unusual world records that have yet to be beaten.
Records some even think might never be beaten.
Redditor badblackguy7 was curious to hear what other world records people think will never be broken, leading them to ask:
"What is a record, sports or otherwise, that will likely never be broken?"
Let's hope so!
"FDR being elected US president 4 times."- holyhellnothingworks
Unbroken thanks to modern technology
"The Lion King as the highest VHS sales of all time."- Fawqueue
Once in a lifetime
"Jacque Villeneuve, Michel Schumacher and Heinz Harald Frentzen set the exact same time in qualifying in the 1997 European grand Prix."
"To the THOUSANDTH of a second."- DaBi5cu1t
Do NOT try this at home
"Oh I know this one."
"When I was a kid, we had a Guinness book of records lying around that we liked to browse in while bored."
"There was this one guy in it who held a record for most bikes eaten."
"No, you did read that right."
"He ground up a bike and slowly consumed it over I don't know how long a time."
"The record was accompanied by a note that no further records of bike eating would be accepted, as it was deemed too dangerous."- Picajosan
They made sure this will never happen again
"The longest professional tennis match of all time."
" John Isner vs Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon 2010."
"It lasted 11 hours 5 minutes, spanning 3 days of play, with a final score of 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6, 70-68"
"It was already nearly twice as long as the previous record holder."
"The reason it will likely never be broken is that every professional tournament except for one, Roland-Garros, now has tiebreaker rules that limit the number of games that can be played in final sets."
"Although it’s hypothetically possible at RG, clay court tennis is not at all conducive to the serve-and-volley style of play that led to the insanely long 5th set of Isner-Mahut."- MSims2992
"California here I come..."
"The current record for the Cannonball Run, a drive from NY to LA, is about 25.5 hours."
"It was set in May of 2020, and the drivers were able to make use of the lack of traffic due to the pandemic to break the record."
"Barring another similar world changing event, traffic conditions will probably never be what they were when that record was set."- SexyNeanderthal
Any other challengers?
"Aleksandr Karelin."
"Greco-Roman wrestler."
"887 wins to 2 losses."
"Entered 9 world championships and never lost a bout in them."- minorboozer
Winning is just showing up.
"Glenn Hall played 502 consecutive games as an NHL goalie."
"Zero chance that will ever be broken, goalies these days rarely play more than 3/4 of an 82-game season, let alone numerous seasons without a night off."- ButtholeQuiver
Whoosh!
"Surprised no one mentioned the unlimited water speed record."
"The current unlimited record is 511.11 km/h (317.59 mph)."
"Achieved by Australian Ken Warby in the Spirit of Australia in 1978."
"It hasn’t been broken to this day due to how dangerous it is to go at those sort of speeds on the surface and plenty of people have passed away trying."- Sliiated
"I'll be waiting, waiting for you..."
"The longest non consecutive billboard 200 album streak belongs to none other than, The Dark Side Of the Moon by Pink Floyd."
"It currently has been on the chart for 962 weeks."
"Second in line is Legend, by Bob Marley and the Wailers, at 733 weeks, meaning Marley and the wailers would need almost 4.5 years of time on the charts, with Floyd being absent, in order to take the number one spot."- Floyd-Van-Zeppelin
There is a likely chance that these records will never, in fact, never be broken.
But one has little doubt that people will continue to try.
And power to anyone attempting to sell more video cassettes than The Lion King.