Does anyone else genuinely miss the 2000s?

[Mnutu]

I’ve said for a while now that Pax Americana peaked in the late 1990s and the best time western society will ever experience was between the collapse of the USSR and the 2008 stock market crash.

This is a great post and is a big root cause of why everyone of all stripes is angry and unhappy: the concept an ownership society is quickly dying off. That essentially means there is nothing to aspire to except to consoom the latest content and see their quality of life slowly but steadily degrade. Home prices have shot up so high everywhere that it feels intentional that home prices will always be out of reach. All the trickle down effects of never being able to own a home cascade to thinks like not getting married, no kids, no real long term thinking and planning, etc. A doggo and an apartment in a trendy part of a city will never replicate the house with a white picket fence, a wife and 2.5 kids.

I’ve said it for years, it’s the notion of “experiences not things” twisted and perverted. Any country that bases itself on tourism will eventually crash because novelty is fleeting. People fetishize the bohemian lifestyle, expect everyone to live it, or shit on someone for deciding “I like my home and want to stay” while pining for greener pastures, doing fuck all for their home. Rootlessness is the root of all ruthlessness, if everyone is a “free agent” roaming the world, we’re no better than African nomads. Buy land, fix it up, and fight the fires in your backyard. Don’t go to see greatness around the world, but make greatness in your little sliver, make your home a place worth visiting for stranger and worth living in for your family and friends.

 

[SSj_Ness]

I was still a kid in the '00s technically, and it contained the entirety of my existence as a teenager and some of my early 20's. It was okay, I guess, if only because when you're young nothing is ever really that bad unless you're like, getting raped or something...

I don't miss it nearly as much as the 90's because my childhood was nice, and I miss that time a lot. Still, if I could go back to the '00s I'd do it in a heartbeat, it was good enough, I just didn't realize it.

 

[Pissmaster]

Reality is, things only ever get worse.
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nah, shit very clearly hit the fan when Trump running for office somehow triggered an Invasion of the Bodysnatchers event, and shitloads of people turned into fucking banshees overnight

 

[Chef Hanlon]

I think it's mostly because when you're a child bad events have less significance to you. When I was a kid some pretty bad world events happened (both historically and politically) that could be said to be worse than or equal to events going on today. But they were never that significant to me because I didn't really have an understanding of them as a child until I learned about them as an adult.

 

[Dom Cruise]

nah, shit very clearly hit the fan when Trump running for office somehow triggered an Invasion of the Bodysnatchers event, and shitloads of people turned into fucking banshees overnight

It really is eerie, body snatchers is exactly it, there were so many people I liked, even some I would consider friends, that basically became different people after 2016.

Even if you hated Trump I don't understand why people would let him have that impact on their lives, you hate someone, so you're going to allow them to control who you are as a person? Just insane.

I think it's mostly because when you're a child bad events have less significance to you. When I was a kid some pretty bad world events happened (both historically and politically) that could be said to be worse than or equal to events going on today. But they were never that significant to me because I didn't really have an understanding of them as a child until I learned about them as an adult.

For one thing as a kid you assume that even when something bad happens, adults will know how to handle things and will make everything ok.

After 9/11 being a kid I just assumed we'd make the bad guys that did it pay and everything would be fine, I couldn't have even conceived something like the Afghanistan war going on for 20 years and ending in defeat, America is supposed to be the best at everything, right?

What's sad to think about is considering the damage basically losing the Iraq war did to our national psyche, imagine now what losing another war is going to do.

 

[JamesFargo]

What's sad to think about is considering the damage basically losing the Iraq war did to our national psyche, imagine now what losing another war is going to do.

Vietnam/Iraq haven't registered in the national psyche. Even on Reddit, you'll bump into people who think a war with the Chinese will be a cakewalk.

Are they willing to remain in China for 50 years? From 1945 to 1992, the US stationed no fewer than 200,000 troops in West Germany. And that's not even counting the tens of thousands of British and French troops. To say nothing of the wholesale disarmament of society, the rounding up of fascists and their collaborators into prison camps, etc. Or do they want a super-short and clean war fought on the cheap?

 

[Dom Cruise]

Vietnam/Iraq haven't registered in the national psyche. Even on Reddit, you'll bump into people who think a war with the Chinese will be a cakewalk.

Are they willing to remain in China for 50 years? From 1945 to 1992, the US stationed no fewer than 200,000 troops in West Germany. And that's not even counting the tens of thousands of British and French troops. To say nothing of the wholesale disarmament of society, the rounding up of fascists and their collaborators into prison camps, etc. Or do they want a super-short and clean war fought on the cheap?

To quote Mr Plinkett, "you may not have noticed... but your brain did"

People may not consciously realize it or think about, but I honestly think a big reason why the US is so screwed up today is because of the War on Terror going poorly, for one thing I think a lot of people on the left fundamentally soured on the US because of the Iraq war, that may have went away for a while because of Obama, but it came roaring back with a vengeance under Trump, I remember a lot of leftists under Dubya talking about how the US was fundamentally evil and all that, I guess they secretly held on to those attitudes.

America freaked out when Vietnam poorly and there were long lasting effects throughout the 70s, like America shifting into a more "progressive" culture alongside a general malaise, the 2010s were already like the Neo 70s, now we're about to lose another war, could the 2020s be Neo 70s part 2?

I think Trump had tried to be a Reagan like figure to get the US's groove back like he did, but we saw how well that went.

 

[JamesFargo]

I remember a lot of leftists under Dubya talking about how the US was fundamentally evil and all that, I guess they secretly held on to those attitudes.

It's an exaggeration of the truth.

I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: The US hasn't passed any major legislation in my lifetime apart from the ACA and Patriot Act. All that patriotism turned out to be hollow, unless it's about blowing up someone different than you. When it comes to taking care of your fellow citizens, it ain't worth dick.

 

[Ronnie McNutt]

2000's was amazing, because the internet was not widely accessible to literally everyone on the globe
now that we have the internet people are more connected thus having the shitstorm we see today like the trandemic, sjws, rioting for niggers, all of these could have been prevented if the internet was still not accessible to everybody

 

[StarDreamer2002]

2000's was amazing, because the internet was not widely accessible to literally everyone on the globe
now that we have the internet people are more connected thus having the shitstorm we see today like the trandemic, sjws, rioting for niggers, all of these could have been prevented if the internet was still not accessible to everybody

The internet was ruined by smartphones and corporate monopolies.

 

[celebrityskin]

The internet was ruined by smartphones and corporate monopolies.

I'd say it was around 2013ish when you could pull out a non-smart phone out of your pocket and not be looked at strangely.
I definitely felt the energy shift around that time. It was also when insta, vine, snapchat etc. started coming about.

 

[Ronnie McNutt]

The internet was ruined by smartphones and corporate monopolies.

fucking this, now every website seems to be bloated with 8 mb of js libraries each to display KOOL GLOWING BARRIER EEFETCZZ AND ANIMATNUZ!1!!

 

[Dom Cruise]

I often think of what the best way to sum up the culture of the 2000s.

The best might simply be "shallow but honest"

It wasn't exactly a smart culture, but it was at least a lot more honest and down to Earth, people liked to have a good time, they liked sexy men and women, they liked humor to actually be funny, they liked entertainment to actually be exciting, they liked fashion to actually look cool, everyone just minded their own business and pursued their own happiness, not everything was a zero sum game between the different demographics.

Sure it wasn't perfect, that shallowness and lack of intelligence could sometimes be, make no mistake, incredibly obnoxious and loathsome in it's own way, but everything is just so damn pretentious and full of shit now, I feel like there was an effort to make American culture a little smarter, but it failed and we wound up with something even more obnoxious and loathsome than where we started.

 

[disappointedpeople]

shoot me for the nostalgia glasses
but it definitely was a time pre-alot of things
and personally i enjoyed how primitive the internet was and really was the years they figured out Auto Tune/Pitch Correction was on everything
in terms of the majority you had the last leg of nu metal/rap metal basically on hip hop you were witnessing the bling era and rock and metal was just tuening into emo/the core stuff with alot of clean tones in pop was becoming a hodgepodge of genre crossovers successful or not and CD sales were still a thing now Censorship / Emo Culture / Trap Music pretty much has a chokehold on everything

 

[DerKryptid]

2000's gave us early youtube, non-pozzed newgrounds, un-boomered facebook, a treasure trove of YTMND sites, the birth of surrealist internet humour and a metric fuckton of classic lolcows.

2020's gave us sterilized websites, centralized data schemes, monetized everything, ultrawoke social media addicts, psychopathic shut-ins, unfunny humour and FBI informants up the wazoo.

Never once have I ever felt threatened by 2000's internet, but I'm genuinely worried about the internet that my children will one day inherit. Boomers were right about the internet being a horrifying place, they were just wrong about the time period.

 

[Sandraker]

The best might simply be "shallow but honest"

Thats a good way to put it really.

While the 2000s was somewhat low brow, you can definitely see more people were out here for a good time just figuring things out as technology got more accessible.

You could see people doing all types of home made recordings and amateur editing, but you knew it was a genuine feel to it even if it wasn't deep or that good. It was definitely an unfiltered experience which is fun to reflect on.

Now I can't even imagine a video without someone trying to shill a product, or some painfully generic format meme videos.

Its even stranger that not only is everything so phony now, but it goes by as quickly as it comes. From someone getting canceled to humor to media consumption, nothing sticks for long and if it does it'll be run into the ground in mere days or put in the timepod till its reboot or retrospective time as though it was a flash.

 

[JamesFargo]

Boomers were right about the internet being a horrifying place, they were just wrong about the time period.

The generation who told us "don't believe everything you read on the internet" believes everything they read on the internet.

 

[DerKryptid]

The generation who told us "don't believe everything you read on the internet" believes everything they read on the internet.

I missed the days when the only boomers who used the internet were computer scientists and tech spergs who worked machines back in the 80's

 

[Evil Enchilada]

It's the attitudes, man. Yeah, it's not uncommon to have your pretentious jackoff, but now everyone's perpetually in their "Canadian Healthcare" phase where they have to act like every single opinion they've ever held is the "right" one or else they'll be shamed. Really, it's that everybody's gate keeping everyone else over everything.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

not everything was a zero sum game between the different demographics

Remember when your vaccination status wasn't a political thing?

Kiwi Farms remembers...