From velour tracksuits to flip phones, the 2000s have plenty of iconic trends that immediately come to mind for anyone who grew up in the era. While Gen Z has become fascinated with the Y2K aesthetic, many were too young to remember the decade firsthand, so they’ve been turning to millennials online to find out what the time was really like.
So, straight from millennials on Reddit, here are the trends, experiences, and memories that actually defined the 2000s:
1. "Fast-food restaurants were much more family-friendly. Anywhere from the design of the seats to full-on indoor playgrounds that put a public park to shame. It's much more of a 'corporate break room' now."
2. "I worked as a waiter and partied. The early 2000s were a blur between house parties, underground raves, punk shows, days at Disneyland, and/or the beach. After I gave up waitressing, it was traveling cross country following bike shows selling corsets…so I remember it being fun."
—u/[deleted]
3. "The early 2000s had good music. Rock, alternative, rap. The mid-2000s music stagnated, and being in the club was the coolest thing ever. I was a club rat. All the music that came out was to be played in 'da club.' Underground rap was great if you know what to look for. But it was hard to market it."
4. "To look things up, we used encyclopedias, Ask Jeeves, and Yahoo. Google was still early but existed. Nobody had their own computer; it was either in the family room or had its own dedicated room."
5. "I'm a 1993 baby, but I remember a lot of good about the early 2000s. I remember toy stores, ordering from catalogs, CD stores, rewinding VHS tapes before returning, and not using the landline while someone browsed the internet. People were present. You'd wait for things to come out — like, the excitement of having to run into the room when a commercial was over. Life was good and so much more gratifying when anything/everything wasn't right at your fingertips 24/7."
"It was a really, really good time. Especially before 9/11. My parents would drive us down to LAX to watch planes land and take off. It was just...better."
6. "It was easier to find a job. Where I grew up, you didn’t need a résumé unless you were applying at an office. Restaurants, construction companies, farms, gas stations, hotels, grocery stores, etc., were all applied to in person with paper applications that requested previous work history and references. That was it."
—u/[deleted]
8. "On the internet, there were chat rooms, forums, blogs. AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) was how I chatted with people. People had live journals in their profile or a buddy profile, which was like a profile where people could write comments or whatever. Websites sucked; I remember playing flash games, and Tribes 2 lol."
—u/[deleted]
9. "I was 8 in 2000, so I remember what was big back then: The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean. There were many reality TV shows, such as Survivor, American Idol, and The Biggest Loser. ... We watched cartoons like Pokémon, Digimon, Dragon Ball Z, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Fairly OddParents, and SpongeBob."
10. "Technology was getting really good and cool — colorful iMacs, iPod, Nokia went wild with phone designs, two-way keyboard phones, Blackberry phones were trendy, and Motorola Razr was super modern."
11. "In terms of social media, we mostly relied on MySpace, but there was this thing called 'Facebook' that showed up in 2004 and ruined everything. Friendster was also allegedly a thing, but I never knew anyone that went on it. I know more people hopelessly signing up for Adult Friend Finder (yes, a real site at the time), although MySpace would put Tinder to shame with how easy it was to find hookups on there."
12. "The skin was orange, the hair was ridiculously bleached, the eyes were lined heavily. I stuffed my bra to get the 'Playboy look.'"
13. "Everyone was still going to the mall. Blockbuster nights were a big thing. Music was free online. High-speed internet was more affordable and getting faster every other year."
14. "Technology was an extension of your real life — it wasn’t your life. It was considered weird to spend long hours on the computer. If you had a cellphone, it was generally completely unrelated to your professional life, and subsequently, there was way more work-life balance. When you left your job, you put all the little things about your job away in a box in your head related to work, and you plugged into your non-work life. Your employer only knew what you told them about yourself."
—u/[deleted]
16. "One word: NEOPETS."
—u/[deleted]
17. "There was an alarming amount of transparent inflatable furniture and decor items. My friend had an inflatable clock???"
18. "Kids walked around or rode their bikes to the park, mall, or 7-Eleven with no supervision. Usually, only one or two of a group of teens had a flip phone; we'd have to call our parents with a pay phone or from a friend's house to tell where we were."
20. "Clothes were significantly better. I bought a tank top a couple of years ago from Gap; I found the exact same one from Merona or Cherokee (Target brand) in my closet from over a decade ago. Hell, Forever 21 back in the day would be on par with today's Gap."
21. "It was the golden age of YouTube. My friends and I would sit around for hours watching all of the goofiest and weirdest stuff without ads."
22. "You could eat like a king at Taco Bell for $5, and it was way better. Tastier, better portions, and they had a lot of menu items that got phased out (RIP Spicy Chicken Burrito 😢)."
—u/[deleted]
23. "The early 2000s had this culture of bragging about your wealth. Giant Hummers and Durangos and SUVs that got 10 mpg, Louis Vuitton and Gucci handbags, grills, etc."
24. "This was around the time Napster emerged, where you could DOWNLOAD MUSIC AND START BURNING YOUR OWN CDs!!! This was absolutely huge. Kids would be walking the halls at school selling burned CDs."
And finally...
25. "It was awesome...in hindsight. Kids still played outside, teens socialized and asked each other out in person, songs on the radio were actually about love... People connected over shared experiences, from hanging out and working in person to watching the same shows at the same time each week to getting news when everyone else got it and discussing it as a nation/world, in person, or through media. There was an 'innocence' there. It was genuinely fun."
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
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