Our childhood never ends. Yes, we get older but the core memories from that time, surrounding everything from the people we hung out with to the places we visited continue to live in our head rent-free, occasionally reminding us about themselves when we least expect them to.
However, not all of them are equally vivid, and some might need a bit more stimuli to come back. And the internet is excellent for this task. There are entire communities where people are actively reminding one another about the good old days. (We've already covered some, like the one dedicated to '80s & '90s memes.)
The Facebook group '2000s Y2K Childhood' is one of them. It currently unites 74,600 members, and whether you grew up during that era too or are just interested in learning more about it, their posts perfectly illustrate it. Here are some of the most popular ones.
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I Loved Those Pens
We Had No Idea
Aside from the few fearmongers threatening the end of the world, the dawn of the new millennium felt, at the time, like entering the future.
Humans marveled at how far technology had advanced in the 20th century. Just under half of all American homes had the internet and were able to Ask Jeeves for the location of the nearest RadioShack and create bad AOL screennames.
The mobile phone was becoming less of a brick, and you could even play 'Snake' on one.
These Speakers
I remeber these always switched on with a satisfying whoomph! That and the urge to put your finger in the hole.... (get out of the gutter pandas!)
New Fresh Play Doh
There weren't any social media apps to scroll through immediately after opening your eyes in the morning (and just before closing them at night).
Even Friendster, the often-mocked social network, didn't exist until 2002, and Facebook wouldn’t appear until two years later.
So how was everyone spending their time?
Nobody Knows
Fighting Over The TV
Petition To Bring This Mcdonalds Back
Seriously though, what happened to McDonald's? I go in there every day to pick up people's Uber orders and it's practically a graveyard of the majestic palace of fun it was in the days of yore. Empty, touch screen kiosks for placing your order, and then a bag is dumped on the counter when it's ready. One manager in the front and a bunch of line cooks in the back. It is extremely sad.
As Allen Kim and Breeanna Hare pointed out for CNN, they waited patiently for the news.
If you weren't reading the newspaper or sitting in front of the TV, you could go hours without knowing the latest crazy thing the president said.
In 2000, daily weekday circulation for newspapers in the US was estimated at nearly 56 million.
Mentally I’m Here
Took me a second to realize that this isn't literally a picture from my old school... wow some things are just universal, huh?
Grandparent's Secret Handshake
Dream 2000s Bedroom Starter Pack
The Most Iconic Four-Way Call To Ever Exist, Prove Me Wrong
In order to document your life, you had to carry around an extra device: an actual camera; the concept of the cameraphone was still a few years away from becoming mainstream.
And Netflix was just getting started: it could recommend movies, give you three DVDs at a time, and let you keep them for as long as you wanted. “The dream 20 years from now,” CEO Reed Hastings said in 2002, “is to have a global entertainment distribution company that provides a unique channel for film producers and studios.”
Damn Not Even The Fast Charger
I Remember Coming Home From School Every Evening To Watch The Best Lineup
I Had One Of These I Was Sad When The Marker Dried Out Though
Do They Think Kids Don’t Use Paper ?
What? Do they now sing 🎵We just got an email, we just got an email, we just got an email, I wonder who it's from?🎵. Because that will hurt me on a personal level
But why do we feel nostalgic for these things? Krystine Batcho, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at LeMoyne College and a licensed psychologist, thinks that this emotional experience allows us to get a better understanding of our own selves.
"It helps to unite our sense of who we are, our self, our identity over time," Batcho said. "Because over time, we change constantly, we change in incredible ways. We're not anywhere near the same as we were when we were three years old, for example. Nostalgia, by motivating us to remember the past in our own life, helps to unite us to that authentic self and remind us of who we have been and then compare that to who we feel we are today."
This also gives us a sense of who we want to become in the future.
Out Rockin My Jeans From 2004 Today!
Having Cell Phones In 2000s
Ooooh Yikes
2000s
"The other way that nostalgia serves an essential psychological function is that it is a highly social emotion. It connects us to other people," Batcho added. "It does that [in] so many beautiful ways. In the beginning, when we're very young, it's part of what bonds us to the most important people in our life, our parents, our siblings, our friends. As we go through life, it can broaden out and extend to a wider sphere of the people we interact with. It's a social connectedness phenomenon and nostalgia is in that sense a very healthy pro-social emotion."
And online communities such as '2000s Y2K Childhood' only back up these words.
Halloween In The Early 2000s
Yasss
The Man Who Had A Piercing On His Thing And Got Electrocuted
Sat on the water filter of a hot tub, formed a seal around his a**s and sucked his intestines out.
The guy who went down a slip and slide and there was a nail sticking through it and it gutted him like a fish 🤯🤢
Dang. I can't keep reading the comments lol. Never seen this show and I guess I'm glad about that. Dang. Fire ants?
Wow.. after reading these comments, I can really say I'm happy I've never watched this show...
The guy who thought he could perform liposuction on himself using a shop vac.
The girl who fell off the acupuncture table and impaled herself with all the tiny needles.
Followed closely by the dipshït who thought escargot was literally LIVE snails, put them in a salad, served them to himself and his girlfriend, and they both died of whatever bacterial disease one gets from eating a living snail.
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Couple having s3x in a giant helium mascot died from lack oxygen.
Also a sex one. The obese woman that passed out from pleasure on top of her partner and smothered him to death.
Load More Replies... The one that stayed with me was this guy got really high in the desert and tried to have sex with a mountain lion thinking it was a furry.
There was a show called "1000 ways to die" & it was just.... Dramatic reenactments of horribly random deaths. Personally I preferred the slightly more upbeat "I shouldn't be alive"
Load More Replies... Slip and slide disembowelment was an insane one. There were also two brothers getting high on their own farts and they died from that. This show was so nutty!!
The person who dressed as a furry to join an orgy and got mauled by animals.
I miss this show so much! I have a book with the same premise, but I don't think I've seen it since I've moved. I guess now I know what I'll be doing today since it's going to bother me until I find it.
The one with the guy trying to smuggle LSD through an airport with a shirt that was laced with a ton of LSD. He got nervous at the airport for possibly getting caught when he saw security. He started sweating and had a massive heart attack
Ohhh!! I remember that one! And also the one with this one naked guy jumping off of a cliff into the ocean and he landed aśs first. The force of water going up his r****m, killed him. And the other one was about this girl who used a rusty razor to shave her legs and lost legs to MRSA
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The puke fetish girl that got a bite of hot dog lodged in her throat
Or the lady who was ~practicing~ on a cucumber & it got stuck 😭
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The lady with the giant tatas who got stuck upsidedown in an exercise thing & suffocated 😭
The kids who snorted fire ants because they thought Ozzy did it...
Making toast in bath bc dude couldnt wait to breakfast after a bath or vise versa...geez.
Its either the 2 people who went into a giant helium balloon and died of asphyxiation or the guy that through himself out a window trying to show how tough the glass was. To his credit the glass didn't break, just popped out of the frame.
I haven't read all the comments, so I'm not sure if these have been mentioned: 1] Lead singer(?) in a band liked to get UP, but ran out of stuff or something. Well, the band was travelling in a camper/RV & dude would huff everyone's poo. He did get how he wanted to be, but one time he did it too much & you know what happened lol. 2] Rich girl liked "white girl" and maybe needed/wanted some? She went to a party, I wanna say it was at a hotel - doesn't matter where I just wanted to add that lol. Someone put some "girl" out and the rich chick had her own gold straw; however, apparently this gold straw wasn't the cut straws people use, she used a regular drink length straw. As she bent over to do her line, someone bumped into her, which made her go even more forward, and the golden stick went up her nose into her brain. I think about these two often for no specific reason lol. I thought I remembered more, but apparently I don't. I think there was one involving a forklift, but idk.
Woman got an infection from cutting herself with a rusty razor. Not because it was gorey or scary or even weird, but now I'm paranoid about shaving my legs.
The exotic dancer that shaved her legs with a skanky razor and developed septic shock and died. Check your razors people.
The girl shaved her legs with a slightly rusty razor, she got an infection & died. Only one I felt sorry for.
The guy high on mushrooms spying on furries getting it on and decided he wanted to join in. He thought he saw someone on their own and made a pass at them. It was a real bear who didn't appreciate the interaction.
I Love Shrek Lol
Who Remembers These Growing Up In The 2000’s
Unpopular opinion, I never liked these because they fit really weird and got stuck in my hair (Edit: I know they're bracelets. I have no idea how they ended up in my hair)
One Fine Day A Woof And A Purr A Baby Was Born And It Caused A Little Stir
I Use To Love This Game!
Yea To Take Her To The Mall To Get Some Food And Leave
Good Ol’ Triangle Club. Where Everybody Knows Your Name
Note: this post originally had 44 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
My God, I feel old now that people are considering the early 2000s nostalgic....
People born after 9/11 can now legally drink in the US. So there's that...ಥ_ಥ
The only interactive toys I had growing up were fuzzy felts, plasticine, etc. Things we could actually touch and feel. No such things as home computers back then.
really? I had a home computer in 1983 so... older than that?
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I'm only 15, how did I remember half the stuff on this list?
I had my first two kids in 2004 & 2005 - so much of this related to them rather than my born in 1982 old self
My God, I feel old now that people are considering the early 2000s nostalgic....
People born after 9/11 can now legally drink in the US. So there's that...ಥ_ಥ
The only interactive toys I had growing up were fuzzy felts, plasticine, etc. Things we could actually touch and feel. No such things as home computers back then.
really? I had a home computer in 1983 so... older than that?
Load More Replies... I'm only 15, how did I remember half the stuff on this list?
I had my first two kids in 2004 & 2005 - so much of this related to them rather than my born in 1982 old self
