Rec
My younger brother and I grew up playing outside and spending countless hours exploring what the natural world around us had to offer. This was the era of Osiris D3âs, World Industries, Obama â08, playing Flash games on LEGOâs website, playing PokĂŠmon Diamond & Pearl, a game which, upon buying, I immediately cheated using the Action Replay to duplicate Master Balls and obtain multiple Dialgas, Palkias, and a shiny Arceus all before even beating the first gym leader. I remember having an obsession with Zumiez and skateboarding despite being a huge poser. I knew kids who had Bapestas, but as I was too poor to afford those, I was gifted the infamous FUBU Dunks, and instead of Bape hoodies and denim, I had Rocawear hoodies and denim, both of which I used to think of as incredibly cringe, but now I think these may have been the peak of my childhood swagger. It then, should come as no surprise that another massive influence was Kanye Westâs Graduation, which caused a massive cultural snowball for me. The music video for Stronger holds the distinction of being the first YouTube video I ever watched, and first overall exposure to YouTube which in turn exposed me to anime, Akira, Interstella 5555, French house and Daft Punk, and more hip hop music. This would influence me going to car shows and looking at the Scion booth and grabbing their CD Samplers, specifically the Dubstep one and the Stones Throw Records one. I was too young to experience the full indie sleaze era, but was young enough to get the media and clothing that came out of it. Overall, a lot of stuff I have fond memories of til this day.
5d ago
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đ˝Most golden ages are not obvious at the time. I lucked out being in high school in a moment where grunge matured, hip hop got amazing and edm started to rise.
Smells Like Teen Spirit exploded freshman year. The grunge wave got east soon after that. On the other end of the parking lot Wu Tang was played again and again as Biggie and Tupac battled. And the skaters were shifting from punk rock to this new vibe they heard at warehouse raves as techno was escaping from the lab in Dallas and NYC.
The movie Kids catches this time really well. Words donât quite do it justice.
Smells Like Teen Spirit exploded freshman year. The grunge wave got east soon after that. On the other end of the parking lot Wu Tang was played again and again as Biggie and Tupac battled. And the skaters were shifting from punk rock to this new vibe they heard at warehouse raves as techno was escaping from the lab in Dallas and NYC.
The movie Kids catches this time really well. Words donât quite do it justice.
Rec
đI saw somebody else respond in this format so Iâm going to provide my misc memories from being 6-16 in the 2000s:
⢠frying an egg on the sidewalk/asphalt/car hoods with kids from my apartment complex because we were convinced it was that hot out ⢠watching SpongeBob seasons 1-3 on repeat ⢠watching mtv after school and always having a talk show or pbs queued up on the âprevious channelâ button so if my mom came home I could quickly look like I was watching Ellen or Oprah or cyberspace all along (mtv shows were so raunchy) â˘you had to watch vh1 for anything music related ⢠catalogs!!! i would do all my âscrollingâ in limited too catalogs and then dig through racks at tj maxx to find similar things my mom could actually buy â˘teen mags for the quizzes ⢠driving around with my mom listening to her cds while she smoked and ran errands (honestly this still holds up today/ I keep it alive in my own ac-less suv) ⢠beanie babies and being called out if you had fakes ⢠listening to radio Disney on my boom box before bed â˘riding my bike aimlessly when I had nothing else to do â˘walking to the gas station with my $5 allowance and buying Sobe, now n later, tgi Friday potato skins, and cherry vanilla coke â˘I also got in trouble a lot for wandering off or smoking rolled up sticky notes or vandalizing storage units with âbrat girlâ or something so y2k â˘I remember my outfits so wellâŚ. Many cheeky graphic tees, ringer tees, layered tanks, peasant skirts, stripes, capris, platform sneakers, chokers â˘redesigning my MySpace every weekend â˘changing my aim screen name with the seasons â˘being bullied by boys in middle school, over aim or getting prank called â˘when I got a cell phone I never remember charging it, but I do remember trying to break my Nokia brick because I wanted a razr or a chocolate, but it was truly indestructible â˘listening to mix cds in friends cars as they began to drive because nobody had an aux cord or Bluetooth â˘2008-2010 weâre really dark so Iâll spare you more details
⢠frying an egg on the sidewalk/asphalt/car hoods with kids from my apartment complex because we were convinced it was that hot out ⢠watching SpongeBob seasons 1-3 on repeat ⢠watching mtv after school and always having a talk show or pbs queued up on the âprevious channelâ button so if my mom came home I could quickly look like I was watching Ellen or Oprah or cyberspace all along (mtv shows were so raunchy) â˘you had to watch vh1 for anything music related ⢠catalogs!!! i would do all my âscrollingâ in limited too catalogs and then dig through racks at tj maxx to find similar things my mom could actually buy â˘teen mags for the quizzes ⢠driving around with my mom listening to her cds while she smoked and ran errands (honestly this still holds up today/ I keep it alive in my own ac-less suv) ⢠beanie babies and being called out if you had fakes ⢠listening to radio Disney on my boom box before bed â˘riding my bike aimlessly when I had nothing else to do â˘walking to the gas station with my $5 allowance and buying Sobe, now n later, tgi Friday potato skins, and cherry vanilla coke â˘I also got in trouble a lot for wandering off or smoking rolled up sticky notes or vandalizing storage units with âbrat girlâ or something so y2k â˘I remember my outfits so wellâŚ. Many cheeky graphic tees, ringer tees, layered tanks, peasant skirts, stripes, capris, platform sneakers, chokers â˘redesigning my MySpace every weekend â˘changing my aim screen name with the seasons â˘being bullied by boys in middle school, over aim or getting prank called â˘when I got a cell phone I never remember charging it, but I do remember trying to break my Nokia brick because I wanted a razr or a chocolate, but it was truly indestructible â˘listening to mix cds in friends cars as they began to drive because nobody had an aux cord or Bluetooth â˘2008-2010 weâre really dark so Iâll spare you more details
Rec
đEvery new piece of technology was so exciting, because of the monoculture every new release felt like an Event, everything was shiny and glittery and in fun colors. Listening to music for the first time on an iPod was crazy. Getting a portable DVD player to watch Buffy the Vampire slayer DVDs on long road trips made me feel like I lived in the future. Seeing digital cable for the first time where it would display the programming schedule with descriptions blew my mind.Â
I played so many games on CD-ROM on a clunky beige monitor attached to a giant tower running Windows 98âa lot of my parentsâ friends were educators so they were constantly giving me new ones to play. Neopets was my life and I loved exploring new sites. I remember frequenting many websites that were just lists of other sites lol. I did also spend a lot of time playing outside and just imagining things. Everything you see on Buzzfeed 90s kid remember the 2000s articles is accurate. The high of optimism when Obama got elected after eight years of Bush was unparalleled!
That said yeah the forced conformity was incredibly stifling and social groups were still cliquish (though this was starting to dissolve by the time I got into high school). Things that would make you cool now would lead you to be mocked or become an outcast so it was nice that emo kids existed because they were a lot more accepting of idiosyncrasies and quirks. Gender nonconformity was frowned uponâI got my hair cut short in eighth grade and was made fun of by so many people, and my male gym coach called me sir!
The beauty standards were insane and also so narrow. I remember being in a Kohlâs dressing room when I was like 12 and crying as I tried on increasingly larger pants sizes because my butt wouldnât fit into anything I tried on and wondering why I was cursed with this body.
HONESTLY the hardest thing for me was that I needed glasses and the only ones that were really available at my local glasses shops were very ugly and nerdy (or if there were cool ones they were designer and cost like $600) and you couldnât just buy them online so I was walking around looking like Harry Potter for most of my childhood and early adolescence and feeling very insecure about it.
The good thing about personal style, culture, and taste is that i truly had to figure it all out on my own by seeking out and curating sources of inspiration, or by word of mouth from other people, rather than having inspiration algorithmically fed to me.
I remember going trick or treating in the mall after 9/11 because some parents including my mother were very paranoid that something (?) would happen? My mom was very paranoid in general because of her own childhood experiences and seeing all of the news stories about child abductions but I wasnât helicoptered and my parents would let me walk around the neighborhood with my friends as I got older. We spent so much time just walking from strip mall to strip mall and like loitering at Barnes and Noble lol.
So it was a mixed bag really but I wouldnât go back and my nostalgia is usually only in passing. This is controversial but I donât have any fondness for physical media other than vinyl records because I remember just thinking CDs DVDs and VHSs sucked and I hated when they would get damaged. When I realized that I could acquire any digital media I wanted on the internet it felt like the world was my oyster and I never looked back.
You know what though actually I just remembered how much cheaper everything was and I got mad soâŚ
I played so many games on CD-ROM on a clunky beige monitor attached to a giant tower running Windows 98âa lot of my parentsâ friends were educators so they were constantly giving me new ones to play. Neopets was my life and I loved exploring new sites. I remember frequenting many websites that were just lists of other sites lol. I did also spend a lot of time playing outside and just imagining things. Everything you see on Buzzfeed 90s kid remember the 2000s articles is accurate. The high of optimism when Obama got elected after eight years of Bush was unparalleled!
That said yeah the forced conformity was incredibly stifling and social groups were still cliquish (though this was starting to dissolve by the time I got into high school). Things that would make you cool now would lead you to be mocked or become an outcast so it was nice that emo kids existed because they were a lot more accepting of idiosyncrasies and quirks. Gender nonconformity was frowned uponâI got my hair cut short in eighth grade and was made fun of by so many people, and my male gym coach called me sir!
The beauty standards were insane and also so narrow. I remember being in a Kohlâs dressing room when I was like 12 and crying as I tried on increasingly larger pants sizes because my butt wouldnât fit into anything I tried on and wondering why I was cursed with this body.
HONESTLY the hardest thing for me was that I needed glasses and the only ones that were really available at my local glasses shops were very ugly and nerdy (or if there were cool ones they were designer and cost like $600) and you couldnât just buy them online so I was walking around looking like Harry Potter for most of my childhood and early adolescence and feeling very insecure about it.
The good thing about personal style, culture, and taste is that i truly had to figure it all out on my own by seeking out and curating sources of inspiration, or by word of mouth from other people, rather than having inspiration algorithmically fed to me.
I remember going trick or treating in the mall after 9/11 because some parents including my mother were very paranoid that something (?) would happen? My mom was very paranoid in general because of her own childhood experiences and seeing all of the news stories about child abductions but I wasnât helicoptered and my parents would let me walk around the neighborhood with my friends as I got older. We spent so much time just walking from strip mall to strip mall and like loitering at Barnes and Noble lol.
So it was a mixed bag really but I wouldnât go back and my nostalgia is usually only in passing. This is controversial but I donât have any fondness for physical media other than vinyl records because I remember just thinking CDs DVDs and VHSs sucked and I hated when they would get damaged. When I realized that I could acquire any digital media I wanted on the internet it felt like the world was my oyster and I never looked back.
You know what though actually I just remembered how much cheaper everything was and I got mad soâŚ
5d ago
Top Recs from @wakeuplmd
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đŤľI ask myself this a lot and I think you should too.
Jun 18, 2025
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âEverything in your life does not have to be subscription based, and subscription does not equate a service being good. If Iâm paying $24.99 a month to watch Netflix in 4K UHD, I should expect to see what I pay for, not subpar playback latency, low bitrate streams, many app crashes, and overall looking terrible on anything that isnât a 4K display.
Remember when you could buy things and own them, like, forever?
There is a better world out there past Netflix, Hulu, Spotify and Amazon Prime.
Remember when you could buy things and own them, like, forever?
There is a better world out there past Netflix, Hulu, Spotify and Amazon Prime.
Mar 15, 2025
2d ago