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
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"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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Have you guys realized that 2000 was literally TWENTY years ago? There are ADULTS who were not alive in the nineties. That's crazy to me. So they definitely don't remember the frenzy that was Y2K. Here are some stories from the people who lived through it, all those years ago.
u/SongLyricsHere asked: Y2K was 20 years ago. What are you best Y2K stories?
Happy December 32nd!
I was managing the IT department in a state agency, and were under enormous pressure to prevent any Y2K problems. On NY day I went to work before dawn and tested everything before the Exec Director arrived. Relieved that everything was working ok, we went to IHOP For a celebratory breakfast.
The IHOP bill was date/timed stamped 32Dec1999.
DANG.
GiphyMy favorite thing was cemetery headstones that were not Y2K compliant. People had headstones made before they died with the 19 pre-engraved, planning on filling in the next two digits when the time came. Oops, they kept living.
5 or 105?
I think my favorite story I heard about actually happened before 2000, but it was basically the same idea. It was about someone in a northern European country who had turned 105 (born in like 1890) receiving a letter in the mail addressed to "Parents of" and his name. The letter was telling his parents that he was supposed to start school now that he was 5 years old. Of course, this happened because the government used a 2 digit date in the computer system and sent a letter to everyone with a "90" birth year.
Spooky.
I lived overseas and was watching the news with family and friends on the armed forces network, the newscast did the countdown and then at 1 they cut the feed and it went to static. There were several gasps and then about five seconds later the feed came back and the newscast shouted "Just kidding! Happy New Year!"
I thought it was pretty clever.
The Y2K milk cow.
GiphyMy mother was one of those folks that was convinced that everything was going to implode for Y2K. She thought that it would be like a post apocalyptic nightmare - no food at the stores, banks shut down, people rioting - the whole nine yards.
She desperately tried to convince me, my two brothers, and all of our families to come to her place in the country and bunker down for the duration. Of course, none of us were going for that but we did keep in touch so that she didn't worry too much.
I will never forget the phone call where she explained that she had stock piled canned goods, bought a generator, and bought a MILK COW. The cow was so that the kids would have milk since there obviously wouldn't be any at the store after all commerce broke down.
Shm. Her heart was in the right place but really mom?!? A milk cow?? None of the kids were even babies that would need milk.
She ended up selling the cow shortly after nothing happened. We still laugh about the Y2K milk cow.
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We all have a set of beliefs about even the smallest of topics. Like sandwiches should have structural integrity. That's something we can all agree on, right...What a waste.
I worked in IT at one of the Dow Industrial companies' headquarters, and I spent a high percentage of 1999 doing "Y2K tests" on every single computer, server, printer, fax machine and, I'm pretty sure, coffee maker.
No problems, and no signs of problems. That year was a waste of my life.
E12 was first.
I'm a firefighter and was working on the Y2K night. Right at midnight, all of our primary radio and CAD systems failed. It was a huge, system wide failure just like everybody predicted would happen. We were getting dispatched by backup radios and our dispatchers were writing down calls on pieces of paper. The suck is that my engine company had the first call of the year, but we didn't get credit for it because of the confusion. When they put calls into the computer after it was fixed we ended up with call 00013.
F*ck you Engine 3, we were first. Sincerely, E12.
Darn it, dad.
GiphyWe were in high school. Had a huge group of friends 30+ that spent New Years at one my friend's parent's house.
We were doing the countdown. Everyone was nervous from all the hype that computers were not going to be able to calculate the date correctly and revert to 1900, shutting down vital city systems. (Internet and computers were just beginning to take over managing everything. For reference, I had a beeper in high school guys!)
5....4....3....2...1.... The entire house goes completely dark. Silence.
Friend's dad comes upstairs looks at our scared faces and starts his a** off, slapping his legs and doubling over with humor. Can't catch his breath. He flipped the breaker. Lights back come on. Happy Y2K everyone!!
It was perfect.
To be fair, I do this every night.
I got up at 3 am to check if the world had ended. It had not, so I went back to bed.
That's not so bad.
My dad had been paid quite a bit over the previous year, as he was a COBOL programmer 20-30 years before, and it was mostly COBOL programs that people worried about. The panic helped increase his wage. A lot of stuff did end up getting fixed, which is why things didn't go as badly as predicted.
He didn't work at all this century. Part of it was that he had made enough that he could stop working, but I think a large part was that he developed an inflated sense of what his skills were worth, over those few years, and has never been offered anything close since.
New Year's Eve itself I had a very bad cold. I spent most of the night huddled in my bed. At midnight I went across the street for half an hour. Some friends had gotten the key to the roof of the engineering building (the Wallberg building) and we went up there to watch the fireworks.
Remember all that Y2K hype that computers would crash and kill us all? Well it never happened, but many people prepared for it anyway. Given world events, some of us are ready again.
Kawhidoyoucare asked Y2K survivors: What was the most radical action someone you know did to prepare for the "apocalypse?"
Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.