r/decadeology • u/Timely_Atmosphere_18 • 8d ago
Discussion đđŻď¸ Is it the air or does everyone's attitude carried a magic spell back then?
As a gen z this feeling is something i cannot explain when I look back into the 2000s ..... everyone literally everyone in the classroom looked like they have an exciting and thrilling story ( well it should be like this cause u r the Main character in ur life) The smiles are calm and confident, i believe it was the time when technology and social life was balanced. And yeah I am not cancelling the crimes that happened in the 2000s , some crimes are deadliest. But i think it was one of the times where there is less greed and selfishness compared to today's era. It really feels like a scene that cannot be recreated in a movie......â¨. Edit: guys I am aware that I am seeing only specific clips that scream joy and "all good" vibes. And i am aware that if u r born in a Rich household every era sounds like a dream. i just meant to say the vibes, fashion ,social life and activities are much better and different compared to today's era. I liked that and I shared it . It's fine if u do not like it i respect it . There's a mistake in the title. Sorry that was an auto-correction error
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u/AlarmingAd3031 8d ago
As a milennial I can tell you were not there. I would not say people in the 2000s were less selfish at all, if anything they had a real mean streak and lack of empathy... you're judging over people performing for a camera. I was not calm or confident or happy back then, quite the opposite
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u/Living_Cash1037 8d ago
I feel like people were way meaner back then tbh
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u/bull0143 8d ago
I agree, there was a level of open cruelty that was socially acceptable at the time that isn't now. At the same time, we weren't constantly being recorded to the point that being monitored forced social conformity like teenagers are experiencing now. In some ways I guess knowing who was being an asshole to you was probably preferable to constant anxiety from living in a social panopticon.
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u/zubairhamed 8d ago
its cruelty (then) vs apathy (now)
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u/chubby-checker 8d ago
Idk I feel like people have gone real mean again. There was a period in 2010s when I feel people were nicer. But now people seem like as mean as they were back then but they hide it behind like some weird moral justification.
I go on tiktok and I'm floored by how nasty people are in the comments now. People love piling on people and insulting them and just like basic lack of social etiquette like telling people they look 20 years older than their age is acceptable and has thousands of upvotes.
Idk just really nasty comments from people who treat everyone on their phone like they're not real people
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u/SasukeFireball 8d ago
People are just miserable fucking slobs and take it out on strangers who also sometimes happen to be nice people. Especially celebrities!!
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u/HighestIQInFresno 7d ago
The panopticon cuts both ways. The lack of insight from adults into the social lives and behaviors of teens did allow bullies to get away with loads of stuff. It made the overt cruelty possible. At the same time, the lack of panopticon also allowed for more uninhibited expression. If you were a weird kid/teen (like I was), you might get picked on at school or in the neighborhood, but it was sporadic and balanced out by the love you got from your group. There was no constant harassment from a portable device or online community.
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u/YarbleSwabler 8d ago
It was boomer world.
I was only 7 in 2000, but I remember it. Children were "better seen not heard". There was also a very "lift yourself up from the bootstraps" mentality. Some people would flip the fuck out if you didn't say sir or mam, or addressed them by their last name, and they were just everywhere.
People were more polite, but they were also mean as hell the second things got even slightly informal; which highlighted why being polite was kind of a requirement.... Rates of violence were much higher, people would frequently say things about people breaking fairly minor social etiquette deserving of an ass kicking. People were more confident and confrontational. Schools were much more lenient about student physical violence, while very silly and arbitrary rules were strictly enforced.
People were also meaner to support staff.
Then things got really weird post 9/11, and things tightened up, the word got really sterile. Everything was about risk and liability. The boomers and gen x became paranoid. That never really died off. BUT people cut each other a lot more slack and roll with the punches now, particularly in professional environments.
It's weird watching older sitcoms now. There's a few times I've seen them and I say "ummm,.... Shouldn't there have been a laugh track after that...?" When what they said was unironcic, not a joke, and was just a commonly accepted problematic social trend- typically about work-life balance.
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u/Ihatecoughsyrup 8d ago edited 8d ago
Younger generations are truly seeing the 2000s through rose-colored glasses. I am 39 and I also remember that it was considered almost cool to have a mean streak, the rampant homophobia and fat phobia, the toxic body image promoted by the media.
Oh, and people were dumb, selfish and greedy exactly as today. Social media just opened Pandoraâs box.34
u/rutilated_quartz 8d ago
God I was 5'1 and 120 pounds getting constantly bullied for being fat and any guy who liked me was also bullied for being a "chubby chaser." Also got bullied for liking fucking anime and reading books, god. The homophobia and everyone saying that girls who said they were bisexual were just doing it for attention also fucked me up bc I'm bi and it took me years to accept that about myself. Oh and taking medication/going to therapy was stigmatized so badly I spent a decade suffering from depression and anxiety because I didn't want to be seen as a crazy person. Genuinely fuck the 2000s.
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u/Ihatecoughsyrup 8d ago
I am so sorry, I understand this too well! I was also depressed most of my teenage years and yeah I also didn't go to therapy because it was just for "crazy people". The fat shaming was awful, if you weren't a skeleton you were basically obese. The 2000s were awful on so many levels. Every time I see Gen Z or Gen Alpha trying to romanticize those years I always comment telling how actually things were.
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u/Megz-1989 7d ago
It was tough. I was big in junior high. And I got picked on so much. I lost a lot of weight to make it stop. I was 89 pounds in high school. And it was because of an ED. I really donât get the rose colored glasses. It was hell.
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u/rutilated_quartz 8d ago
Thank you for always reminding them. I think there's a line where you can appreciate old or nostalgic stuff without romanticizing it, like people who like the 50s aesthetic but don't want the fucking racist and social bullshit from that era. It's one thing to like it, wanting it back ain't it.
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u/NotsoGreatsword 7d ago
I remember having a girlfriend with your build and I heard the same shit. It was insane and gross.
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u/Acceptable-Eye-8699 6d ago
fatphobia was insane. Most girls were on some diet coke and apple diet
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u/DadophorosBasillea 5d ago
Iâm terrified for teen girls young women right now because I think itâs worse and I was dog piled in my classroom to be sexually assaulted when the teacher walked out briefly.
Social media and tick tock has made it so all the most violent young men can get together and egg each other on.I saw a girl be hospitalized when she said she didnât want to date a classmate, so he curb stomped her on cement.
There are tick tock vids of boys showing how they will beat the living shit out of a girl for saying no, and they all congregate together trying to one up the other.
Before young men only had their irl social groups and the internet has expanded that to even worse behavior.
The bar has gotten so low I can count myself as lucky they just wanted to grope me not maim me to the point of hospitalization
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u/GoldenW505 2d ago
Reading books?!! Wow I knew people were more bigoted back then but reading books like wtf!? Iâm 22, thatâs just mind boggling to me.
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u/rutilated_quartz 2d ago
I went to school in an area that had really privileged students and very low income students, so the bullying fluctuated based on who was around. If I was in "smart" classes no one gave a shit I was reading, but when I was in standard classes I got bullied because reading was nerdy basically. A lot of people thought I was incredibly weird for reading books instead of socializing, but I was getting bullied when I socialized so of course I wanted to read instead lmao. When I read popular stuff I didn't get bothered as much, like Twilight or Harry Potter, but if it was a book like the Handmaid's Tale I was getting called a nerd
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u/robz9 8d ago
As a 2000s elementary school kid, I can confirm, everyone seemed to appear meaner back then.
I feel like there is a little more empathy today.
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u/Pobueo 8d ago
there is not, they just don't say it in your face. passive bullying is the thing nowadays
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u/Capn26 7d ago
I dunno. I have a ten and nineteen year old. They all seem way cooler about things like the clothes you wear or donât. Sexuality.. I think the bullying is much less now. MUCH.
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u/TapirDrawnChariot 8d ago edited 8d ago
You're 100% correct, except the feeling that the future was going to be better was still tangible.
We (middle class American millennials) really thought things were going to be good for us if we worked hard. The only pattern we had to observe was the boomers. And we didn't know they were slowly ruining everything for the future.
Even on the xenophobia front, the tide was turning slowly by the late 2000s for attitudes about gay rights. And overt racism, though alive and well as always, was mostly taboo and mostly engaged in casually by edgelords and rage baiters. Example: I remember Jewish and black high schoolers doing a Zeig Heil and "Heil Hitler" salute jokingly. It was in bad taste even then, but it was considered absurd to the point of being obvious to everyone at the time they were trolling because actual unironic Nazism was extremely fringe. Unlike now. So while now, you're less likely to hear "f-g" or "ret-rd" than in 2006, you're much more likely to see a real Nazi rally or violence against gay people in 2026, etc, because of fascist social media propaganda in the 2010s and 20s.
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u/Global_Channel1511 8d ago
This is exactly how I feel. I heard a lot of offensive cuss words growing up in 2000s, but it always seemed to me that it was to get attention, not an actual signal of people's beliefs.
Today, in 2026, outright genuinely racist beliefs seems to be much more tolerated and common than before, even if the most offensive language is more policed.
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u/Justalittlesaltyx 7d ago
Try being autistic during that time. Specifically a girl. There was no awareness of it other than we were the âweirdâ kids. The bullying, the body dysmorphia, being âotheredâ even by teachersâŚWhat a rough ass time.Â
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u/Chejex 8d ago
I so agree, this video made my heart race, it made me remember all the mean but popular and extroverted people that just seemed to attract cameras and appeared super charismatic, thankgod all these people now have phones and their attentions are diverted by small screens oh and all the thin perfect eyebrows
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u/LokiStrike 5d ago
Yeah, I think on balance people aren't better or worse. I think the main difference is that before you had a lot positive interactions and some negative interactions with people whereas today there is just very little interaction.
As a teacher with bus duty, it was crazy to see the kids today waiting for the bus. The whole area is dead silent and everyone just stares at their phones. When I was a kid, everyone was standing around in circles talking with their friends, playing hacky sack, Frisbee, tossing a football and making a lot of noise.
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u/Affectionate_Top959 6d ago
I would say not almost cool to but literally cool to have a mean streak.
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u/HadleysPt 5d ago
This video and people drooling over it make me feel like an ingrate for not enjoying it like I should have. That fact is, however, life isnât a montage and it was equally complicated back then
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u/more_magic_mike 4d ago
Yup we werenât being dumb assholes for clicks, we were being dumb assholes for the love of the game
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u/theumph 8d ago
Plus post 9/11, things were not all gravy. There was a lot of internal strife in the country dealing with the Iraq War and economic instability (which led to the 2008 crash). I was in childhood during the 90s and everything seemed so bright. I was a teenager/young adult in the 00s, and it was heavy cynicism with just the smallest amount of hope after the Bush years (which ended up getting squashed by the early 2010s).
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u/jordanpwalsh 7d ago
We ranked our myspace friends lol. Geez there was hell to pay if my girlfriend wasn't first.
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u/Tonio_Akerbeltz 8d ago
People forget how much pressure there was to conform to whatever was mainstream.
People who were into geeky stuff like comic books, anime and computers were intentionally excluded from social events and people treated them like trash
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u/SasukeFireball 8d ago
Yeah I remember when liking anime meant you were a lame nerd & everyone likes it now which is a cool upgrade.
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u/Filledefleur 4d ago
i told my 7th grade friends (in like 2015) that i watched 6 episodes of an anime the year before, and they called me a âweeabooâ all year. into the next school year. i would still say many people consider liking anime âweirdâ or âcringeâ, but it definitely is much more accepted and mainstream than it used to be. i noticed the tides turning around 2018 or so
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u/Agathocles_of_Sicily 6d ago
This is why it's so bizarre this sub is obsessed with 'monoculture".Â
It was not a good thing.Â
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u/TapirDrawnChariot 8d ago
As a fellow millennial, I partly disagree. There really was an air of "the future is bright" for middle class millennials overall.
Millennials had it burned into our brain by Boomers that if we followed "the recipe" (work hard, get good grades, go to college) we'd be well off like them. Not until 2010ish, well into the Recession, did we see the storm clouds, and not until the early 2020s did we realize how fucked over we are as a generation and a species. There were some who saw it earlier ofc.
Gen Z realized this and became more nihilistic much earlier in their lives than the average millennial.
I'm obviously speaking in broad strokes and of middle class millennials in the US like those in the clip.
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u/MonsieurA Party like it's 1999 7d ago
Millennials had it burned into our brain by Boomers that if we followed "the recipe" (work hard, get good grades, go to college) we'd be well off like them.
This has essentially become a mantra for fellow Millennials on the Internet. As someone born in '92, I have to ask: who the hell was telling you guys this story? I only saw this narrative take hold in the 2010s on the Internet.
Yes, we were told going to college was a good idea, but I never, once in my life, got the promise that it would guarantee success. Were you guys not paying any attention in history class? There had been economic crises in the '70s, '80s and '90s. Why in the world did you think you had guaranteed success?
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u/mediumcheese01 7d ago
My parents definitely acted like I would have a shit life if I didn't go to college. I feel like millennials heard a lot of "you wanna be flipping burgers for the rest of your life?"
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u/TheOneAndOnlyABSR4 8d ago
Exactly. I was a kid in the 2000s but this post feels r/lewronggeneration
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u/pickingbrains321 8d ago
My highschool was filled with gang violence, drugs, & suicide. Granted that was the 90s, but my era says the same kind of stuff, like it was all smiles.
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u/pineapplequeeen 8d ago
Yeah when I was in middle school and high school from 2006-2013, I got bullied HARD. I am half Asian so I also got called Asian slurs. This video is romanticizing that time. Vile People have always been and will always be vile lol.
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u/rosieposie319 8d ago
All I see are bullies when I watch stuff like this. Guess itâs my PTSD.
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u/AlarmingAd3031 8d ago
Lol same. I was relentlessly bullied to the point of severe suicidal thoughts during this time and so were anyone I met who was even slightly different from a very narrow norm
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u/Runfasterbitch 8d ago
You have PTSD from bullying? The principals and teachers allowing students to traumatize other students should be in prison.
I had PTSD from severe sexual abuse but that was from a teacher not a bully per se
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u/LeadingTask9790 8d ago
Holy shit Millennials and prior are fucking shaped by the bullying we experienced.
It was a time when awareness â prevention. You could have this fun, magical escapist life at home with games and books and live in actual hell 8 hours a day 5 days a week and faculty would legit do fuck. all.
My heart rate is elevated just typing about it đ
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u/rosieposie319 8d ago
Omg yes you put that into perfect words about how home felt for me. Thankfully my parents were pretty good too.
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u/desertrose0 7d ago
Yes! Thankfully the internet was new in the 90s, so I wasn't bullied online. But teachers regularly told me to "grow a shell", as if I could just buy confidence at K Mart. And, of course, there were no consequences for the bullies.
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u/rosieposie319 8d ago
I think anyone can get PTSD from anything that traumatized them. Albeit what you went through is so much worse than anything I was subjected to and Iâm so sorry you went through that. I hope youâre doing ok now.
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u/AlarmingAd3031 8d ago
My bullying included boys in a secluded room tearing my clothes off and mocking my body so I understand OP. In the 2000s btw
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u/Runfasterbitch 8d ago
Thatâs sexual assault, and a heinous crime. I guess I donât usually think about sex crimes as âbullyingâ
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u/AlarmingAd3031 8d ago
At the time a lot of things were not seen as SA, pedophilia, etc. Is another one of my issues with the 2000s. So I never reported it because bullying in general was not taken seriously. Just like how I would not report adults hitting on me or asking me out as a teen. There is a lot more education now
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u/Lifes-a-lil-foggy 8d ago
Footage like this specifically with the lockers etc just makes me think of early school shooter stuff. Idk why. I guess my friends didnât really film at school but more so at home and outside of school. In school stuff just gives me the heebie jeebs.
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u/abstrusejoker 8d ago
Recently watched the 2014 horror film Unfriended. Its surprisingly decent for its weird film style (the entire film is essentially the screenshare of the main character which is mostly a video chat).
Its a great time capsule of the demeanor of teens in that era. Very fun, socialable, and bacchanalian (itâs really the best word to describe that time) on the surface, but itâs a thin veneer. Nearly every character in that film is judgemental, irresponsible, selfish, and backstabbing.
You get the sense that they were the âcool kidsâ in school, and often those kids were just like this, but even the ânerdsâ of that era had similar bad qualities
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u/Brompy 8d ago
Yea I graduated in 2003 and I remember (some) of my peers being mean as fuck, not at ALL like this video and OP would make it out to be. No social media back then was good, people were more present, but also far less accountability and people said / did awful things with no recourse. Itâs a double-edged sword, for sure.
Say what you will about Gen Z, maybe yâall have impaired cognitive abilities and stunted social skills, but from my experience in teaching and working alongside some of you I have found your generation far more tolerant of different lifestyles, less judgmental, and I would go so far as to say just plain kinder in general.
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u/Sarato88 8d ago
I agree. Back then was when every movie and tv show were mean spirited and such things as Jackass was the norm.Â
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u/BikeProblemGuy 8d ago
Yeah, what this video shows is simply people who aren't videoed very often putting on a nice smile for the camera.
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u/PastlifeloversApt304 8d ago
Yeah, people sucked then too. And yet another example of Gen Z being obsessed with our generation because technology robbed them of an adolescence.
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u/FR23Dust 8d ago
People were so mean. I was bullied relentlessly in middle school. I think some of the effects on my personality persist to this day.
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u/stevemandudeguy 7d ago
There definitely was more of an '"in-crowd" and being unpopular left you with fewer options than now where people are much nicer and sympathetic. I heard "gay" and *f@g" used all the time as insults.
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u/Affectionate_Top959 6d ago
Right. The amount of b**** sk*nk bullies back then đ. Clearly she didn't experiencing this era.
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u/Evening_Scale_5755 2d ago
People are so used to now everyone and everything being recorded and genuine. You didn't just pull out your camcorder and tape your friends randomly the way we do now with phones. Everyone was being performative here even if they aren't meaning to.
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u/you-dont-have-eyes 8d ago
You are seeing a selection of people that were social, wanted to be on camera, and were entertaining enough to stay in this edit after years.
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u/mustachechap 8d ago
Also cameras were a novelty back then, so what you're seeing here might be the only time any of these students are on camera the entire school year.
If you are filmed for 15 seconds one time for an entire school year, of course you're going to look more engaged, excited, whatever. However, when everyone has a camera in their pocket and videos are being made many times a day, it's less of a novelty.
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u/Glittering_Meet3206 8d ago
yeah, so i will also add onto that- we WERE more silly and confident than today's youthes. even if we weren't secure with ourselves, it was exciting and low pressure (slight pressure, but low pressure) to engage like this. it was mostly localized, it was incredibly unlikely to end up on the internet, everyone participating was in on it. today im on edge anytime i see anyone with a camera, whether i know them personally or not
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u/dontfeedthelizards 8d ago
I think the locality of it played a big role. You were part of a local group that wasn't really connected to the outside. Now everything is global all the time.
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u/hidefinitionpissjugs 8d ago
they knew they wouldnât be put on social media by some rage baiting troll
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u/SquareChallenge1878 8d ago
Oh that's right, people actually felt like being filmed was something special, something to look forward to
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u/oknotok2112 8d ago
Confirmation bias. The people getting filmed are the happy sociable kids, the ones who were outcasts, neurodivergent, depressed and/or being bullied weren't included
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u/PaddyMcGeezus 8d ago
I remember thinking in elementary and middle school (80s and early 90s) that these montages with cheesy music are so unrealistic and never happen in real life. The st the end of 8th grade, the whole school went into the auditorium and we watched a student-made montage. With all the popular kids being shown. Boy did that feel horrible for those of us that weren't seen as worthy.
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u/Gold_Illustrator340 8d ago
Oh absolutely. This is clearly just a highlight reel of selective moments that does NOT represent the raw, unfiltered reality of everyday school life back then. Even today you could whip out a camera and press record, then selectively choose which parts of a video that you want to include or add, and boom â itâs a heavily curated and romanticized aesthetic video that only shows the best 5%
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u/GarysCrispLettuce 8d ago
Also the fact that people weren't that used to being filmed back then. Smartphone cameras didn't exist, you had to have some kind of camcorder. People were more excited to be filmed because it was a relative rarity. When someone pointed a camera at you, you didn't have a sense of it being drowned out by millions of other videos.
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u/Global_Channel1511 8d ago
I guess that is a genuinely sad part of today though. Constantly being recorded or taking photos, vs. it being a rare thing.
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u/Erythite2023 8d ago
You definitely have a point
But society still felt friendlier and more connected overall thatâs been lacking since 2016.
But youâre right, no era is truly rosy for everyone
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u/Forward_Motion17 8d ago
That and the being filmed leads to positive reactions, and the cutting of boring or sad footage. Itâs just a highlight reel
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u/FR23Dust 8d ago
Yeah, I graduated high school in 2002 and I was not featured in any of these videos because I was a an awkward, unpopular guy who was considered weird. I just hung out with my buddies and would have avoided being featured in any of these videos and would have probably made fun of the people filming them or something f.
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u/Upset-Elderberry3723 8d ago edited 8d ago
It's less device use in everyday life. People kinda had to be more baseline charismatic and energetic, because there was nothing else to do, and being filmed was much more of a novelty than it is now (meaning, people were even more animated when being filmed).
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u/ezcb 8d ago
I think the difference is the camera. 30 years ago if you saw somebody with a camcorder it was a rare thing and you knew you were being filmed for some special reason.
Today it's somebody pointing a phone at you and God only knows what they're doing with that footage.
It's the difference between being excited that there's a person with a camcorder and wanting to look nice and being icked by being recorded by a rando for whatever degenerate reason.
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u/kridmus 8d ago
What life was like before everyone had a Skinner Box in their pocket at all times and became hyper self-aware
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u/AlchemistApprentice3 8d ago
What does "skinner box" mean here? I assume you mean phone but what's the term mean
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u/Hyperion262 8d ago
Itâs none of these things.
Being on camera was a lot rarer, people are much more used to being on camera now so act a lot differently.
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u/kinetic_cheese 8d ago
A lot of these videos are also from the last day of school
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u/phldirtbag 8d ago
I suspect this might extend to people being more self conscious now, too. It was fun in the 00s whenever someone brought out a bulky camcorder, they were still like silly home videos. Nowadays though? Me personally, I do not wanna be involved in somebody elseâs social media content, period.
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u/sthetic 8d ago
Exactly. Having a camera pointed at you was unusual and special. These people probably went into awkward "WOO! HAPPY!" mode as a defense mechanism/ performance for the camera, then went back to being sullen and angsty.
There was not an expectation that your performance would be immediately live-streamed to your friends, family and strangers. It was more like, "archival footage that someone will view 20 years later to see Life In The 2000s."
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8d ago edited 7d ago
[deleted]
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u/MelpomeneAndCalliope 8d ago
Yeah, we had hope and optimism back then.
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u/PlaneStrawberry6640 7d ago edited 7d ago
Itâs nice to see other people resonate with this sentiment. Iâve actually been thinking about this for a while. I wasnât sure if my optimism as a kid/teen/young adult during the 90s/00s was just due to my age or if it was due to the global circumstances or the state of technology.
I feel like back then things were improving on a geopolitical level, technology was advancing but hadnât taken over our lives and jobs. Peace and safety were (at least in the western world) a goal that seemed to be getting closer. Our parentsâ generation had bought a house and a car on okay-paying jobs and it seemed like if we also worked hard we could achieve that for ourselves. Phones were just becoming a thing and making us more connected!
For me, the financial crisis and then Covid broke the illusion of safety. Nowadays AI is threatening the jobs of most people I know. Unemployment is on the rise but the markets are doing well so weâre not even speaking of a crisis. I wonât even get into the direction politics are taking. I keep on living every day for my family but on a global level, I donât see much to look forward to.
Sorry for the long rant
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u/Charbeel 8d ago
Bullying was rife back then but without social media it stopped at night before resuming the next day.
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u/rosieposie319 8d ago
Glad you had that experience.
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u/Charbeel 8d ago
People never change but technology made it worse
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u/rosieposie319 8d ago
I had a MySpace hate page made about me and the police wouldnât do anything about it.
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u/BobbysueWho 8d ago
This looks exactly like my school. I see people idealizing in the early 2000s dress nowadays and it looks nothing like what actual kids wore. The idealized 2000 fashion is what celebrities were dressed to look like. Looking at this video everybody looks so plain thatâs how people really dressed in the early 2000s.
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u/NeoZeedeater 8d ago
It's likely a very selective glimpse you're seeing. My high school videos have a similar vibe (but with different styles in 1992) but they mostly show the confident popular crowd being happy. It doesn't tell the whole picture. There's a lot more assholery and variety of people off camera.
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u/cheezy_dreams88 8d ago
Itâs because we didnât film stuff all day every day.
Somebody popped out with a camcorder and you perked up and smiled. It happened like once a month or less, so you did a cute wave or a funny face and put a bit of a show on. Or you hid from the camera completely.
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u/Awesomov 8d ago
Nothing about the 2000s was fun in schools, school environments were fucking atrocious back then, and the kids themselves were a big reason why. That part about there being less greed and selfishness couldn't be any further from reality, especially when gaining money and bling were such a big part of pop culture (what did you think McBling was about? Crunk music was huge back then and it was all about greed and selfishness). The 2000s if anything were more regressive and conformist which is saying a lot 'cause even the 90s prior had a lot of cliquiness, but it was extremely easy to become an outcast. I can almost guarantee you all you saw here were bullies and no bullied kids, because if you were a bullied kid you probably weren't being filmed unless it was for a hazing snuff film, or at best a bullied kid might've been among these clips but been a part that's cut out because the kid behind the camera poked fun at them or pulled a prank or something of that nature, regardless this is either all the popular kids or the rest of them were cut out to make the compilation/time period look far better than it actually was. What you see as a dream that should be brought back, many bullied students of the 2000s see as a nightmare they'd rather not relive again. I've a feeling if you did actually somehow bring it back, though, you would probably realize pretty quick how much a nightmare it really is; a case of reality vs idealism, take a guess which one wins nearly every time?
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u/OP90X 8d ago edited 8d ago
One thing to note too: If you were filming in the <2000s, it was a big novelty. We didn't have good video recording capable phones in our pocket. If someone busted out a camcorder, it was like "ayy ayy ayy!", and any extroverted people were drawn to it like moths on a flame.
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u/ManufacturedOlympus 8d ago
Did they skip the emo kids?Â
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u/Tonio_Akerbeltz 8d ago
Emo kids weren't that prevalent yet, and they were considered lame and cringey.
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u/WhiskersPoP 8d ago
These posts about the 2000s always do, and I feel pretty emo that weâre not getting recognition in the decade :â(((((((
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u/Shawn-GT 8d ago
I was in high school during this time. There was gang violence, bullying, classism, ableism, homophobia, racism, xenophobia all on a level magnified by at least 20. Donât let some yearbook club video warp your mind and give you nostalgia for something you never experienced. You were much less able to be who you wanted peacefully back then.
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u/Kevin-Benjamin 8d ago
Life was not as bombarded by social media pressure and hive thought, but cameras we're also not as ubiquitous so people tended to "smile for the camera," which was a very common phrase.
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u/HausOfMajora 8d ago edited 8d ago
I'm from South America, and school here in my country in the 2000s was hell LOL, with the ugly uniforms, all the stupid rules, and the lack of quality of my schools lol. It was giving "pink floyd another brick in the wall". To this day, I mourn the fact that I didn't get to have a good school experience. đ But outside of school, honesty life was bliss and so different, so I try to focus on the good side of it.
Public schools in the States looked like so much fun, as long as you weren't in a school full of bullies. I think kids all around the world were jealous of that cause we watched through movies-tv shows. We glamorized that so much. One of the reasons why High School Musical and so many of those Teen Movies were very succcessful. Watching this video even if i didnt study there. Gets me so emotional.
As a '92 kid-2000 teen, I remember a sort of happy, innocent attitude toward everything even if we were aware of some bad things thanks to the tv news-newspapers, a sense of novelty with everything technological , media....
I think social media introduction and mismanagements ruined everything. Smartphones with internet too
People became way too overly aware of all the bad things going on in every corner of the world-society (if im not wrong thats not natural and there's research how its harmful to the brain), which led to big doomerism-depression. All the ideological wars on social media, politics, algorithms, toxicity... Everyone became way too overly attached to their phones-internet and disconnected from real life. Now, people spend way too much of their lives online, constantly worrying about social engagement and how their posts are performing. Worried if theyre cringe and stuff. No one knows how to socialize anymore and before you were forced to it. Back then people just didnt care. You were allowed to be dumb. No one was recording you or hunting your online past or you were not comparing yourself to others all the time.......... There was this sense of freedom and peace definitely. We need that back.
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u/calihotsauce 8d ago
I promise you nobody was filming the bullying or depressed kids suffering from mental health issues that were not taken seriously at all at the time.
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u/im-dramatic 8d ago
Yes. Life was not amazing back then lol. I remember when people had ADHD or something, they were considered weird. Casual racism was the norm. Therapy was also not the norm for kids so most of us suffered and I remember thinking it was weird to be picked up from school to go to therapy. Like those kids were off somehow. It was still socially acceptable to beat your kids. I do not look fondly on this time at all. It was a toxic time. Life brightened up for me when I went to college.
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u/StrugFug 8d ago
People werenât addicted to their devices and social media. They actually participated in the world around them.
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u/HotSauceSwagBag 8d ago
Class of 05 here. Getting out the camera and filming stuff was an event that you performed for. Now everybody is getting filmed on a phone multiple times a day. Thatâs all it is.
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u/celtic_akuma 8d ago
1) Less worries
2) Hopeful for a better future
3) I'm certaan that some footage could be before 9/11, can somebody please date that video camera?
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u/jittery_raccoon 8d ago
People were straight up socialized better then. It's easier to be confident when you have to socialize in a variety of settings throughout life.
People were also more cool and confident because they were getting in person social responses. People are now more curated for the camera's view
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u/ProperPossibility378 8d ago
I get that vibe too when I look at recordings like this, but then I recall and place myself in actual scenes from my own life at the time and feel like it was just the same shit as now, with some superficial differences.
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u/ResponsibilitySea327 8d ago
It is almost 100% due to lack of any pervasive social media back then.
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u/VisualAdagio 8d ago
People mostly communicated in person so the conversation and mannerism naturally tended to be more relaxed and slow. Now people are constantly on social media so their characters are in tune with algorithms that tend toward more information in less time so we all all became more neurotic.
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u/Medium_Tell8679 8d ago
I dont remember everyone being this happy back then? Maybe this was for yearbook or something. They used to do video yearbooks.
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u/Regular_Point8796 8d ago
Being in front of a camera back then was very rare, and we were taught to always smile for the camera. People hid their problems a lot more back then, too. There wasn't any "trauma posting" so to speak.
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u/Tonio_Akerbeltz 8d ago
That's because you are only seeing the popular extroverted kids.
Anyone else was hiding or getting their shit kicked in
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u/bootseason 8d ago
Mmmm...I definitely had a different experience that most in the comment section lol. This does remind me of high school...like that time before classes start when everyone is arriving and hanging out with your friends, quietly screaming as the cute guy walks by, passing notes ect. It wasn't without moments of conflict, stress, embarrassment, ect, but I do look back with warm memories of all the dumb shit I thought or did. I never want to go back because I enjoy being an adult, but I also would never want to go through that time along with social media.
The great thing about that time is what happened in school pretty much stayed there, and summer felt like a reset. The closest I got to celebrities was magazines and whatever was on MTV. These days with social media, bullying is like a 24/7 rotation, kids are comparing themselves to people who don't even live in the same state, and celebrity/influencer drama is literally on their fyp.
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u/VolesusBarbarus 6d ago
This is just classic rose tinted glasses.
When I was in highschool we viewed the 80s and 90s the same way.
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u/pop_princess05 6d ago
The magic in question is just simply that there scope of the world was limited to just there lives. They didnât learn when they were 13 on a Friday afternoon that there is no hope, that weâre trapped in this system and we will never be able to escape it because the good guys are being outresourced. Ignorance is bliss.
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u/Temporary-Stay-8436 8d ago
You're looking at a curated and edited montage of people from this time period. This is not reflecitve of what was actually happening. This is a montage of all of the best film from the era. You could do the same with the modern day
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u/BlueSnaggleTooth359 1980's fan 8d ago
Somewhat yeah, although the mid-90s and on were already a little bit of a shadow compared to 80s high school vibes. I got a bit of a rougher, meaner, more edgy, angsty in your face vibe late 90s/early 00s, at the least, compared to the 80s (not that the 80s was all puppy dogs and rainbows at high school which is why some then looked back and imagined an even more gentle and light 50s high school era).
And yes, yes of course all these videos show some performing for the camera and leave out the rough moments and so on. But that said pre-smartphones there was more constant direct social interaction.
Also a bit of a different vibe and before all the edge of grunge and gangster came in post 80s and a bit of gentler, lighter and much flashier, bright type vibe and sense of style going on. But of course jerks and bullies and this and that went on and plenty of harsh stuff in the 80s too. Comparing like types to like types though each comparable set felt a touch less edgy, in your face. And when everything is max effort and you have bright colors all around and are not surround by so many nihilistic grungy lyrics and violent, vicious rough gangster ones it does have some effect on overall feel and attitudes. When it's not as focused on avoiding 'cringe' or being 'cheesy' 'corny' and having to mock everything as not being indie enough or too focused on "street cred" etc. it's a touch different feeling.
Anyway, I'd say there is some difference that is real in the vibe that you are picking up. Before online everything/smartphones there was a bit more human scale feel to things. And you'd have it even more if you went back another decade plus.
But also yeah do keep in mind it's not like some magic fairy land past and non-stop wonderful interactions and ever second of the day something going on, etc etc. so don't get tooo overly caught up in a fantasy.
But that also said, people are wrong when they act like there would have been zero difference at all if you went back and especially way way back.
But just don't imagine it was endless magical fun and sweet interactions and winks from girls every few minutes hah and not just lots of humdrum whatever minutes going down or some mean or nasty interactions too.
And don't imagine no selfishness (I wouldn't exactly say 00s were devoid of this hah) and no jerks and no teasing and no stress and so on.
But there was a bit of a magic to the pre-smartphone (and even cellphone if you pre-2000s) world and how people interacted and were more engaged. Something does seem a bit missing now. (although over the last year or two I am seeing more young people leave phones in the pocket a lot more so maybe it's starting to slowly head back to a bit more of a human scale balance world? at least a little)
And there was a bit of a special vibe in the 80s, with that 80s uber energy, to the max, and all the wild fashion and color and upbeat sounding music and so many colorful commercials with catchy jingles and so much light, bright, flashy fun all around you all the time. And virtually no obsessing over finding way to get hurt or offended by every little thing. No fear of school shootings (I mean people could bring in a plastic submachine gun for a Halloween costume and nobody would bat an eye or even conceive of a reason to bat an eye, kids could bring in Chinese throwing stars or nunchucks and whatnot and nobody have a hint of fear or even imagine being able to have a hint of fear over it). Nobody had yet been raised on constant media scare stories.
(As well geek world was largely focused on a sense of magic and wonder and not driven by the internet into toxic ways where everyone just wants to prove how ever sooo brilliant they are by being so 'hip' and above everything and just hating and mocking every movie and show. People don't even realize how twistedly negative it is the way people now race to be first to post "worst episode ever!" "worse season" on youtube reaction videos. That's not normal, that's majorly negative. But society is so far down now that nobody even thinks to imagine that such things are not actually normal. And people used to be more balanced. Like maybe some say didn't like Ewoks, but even most of them, despite Ewoks being in ROTJ a LOT, mostly still liked or loved ROTJ! Today someone in geek world will dig up some 2 minute scene and then declare the whole movie the worst thing in the history of mankind and that the entire franchise has been destroyed and post about it 24-7 across all forums for years on end. All this sneering and mocking. Ironically, sometimes fandoms post around something that is objectively, trivially incorrect, like claiming some scene breaks physics, when anyone with a high school level of physics would realize it does not and is maybe one of the few times the series actually does not break physics LOL but you see endless people cut and pasting the same crap from youtube hater videos everywhere trying to show off how 'brilliant' and above the mainstream they are, etc. Just so toxic and miserable.)
Anyway, here are some videos from even farther back (long videos but like a 20-40 second peek at the time entry points gets the gist across, the 7-11 one though is worth and kind of needs a full viewing) though:
https://youtu.be/gxqjoaQYxnw?si=PhfEW1Y3FTgkVNQG&t=4619s (graduation party, Forever Young/Break Dancing, NJ, early 1989)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYur75DflPU&t=39s (start of 1st day of school, Paramus, NJ, late 1988)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM4tls4P6Gc&t=66s (start of 1st day of school, NJ, tail 1987)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnrnYfPH8ng&t=760s (outdoor lunch break, Anaheim, CA)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VudiTAzv5RU (San Diego State, 1987, COLORFUL!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVgng44o5K4&t=139s (in front of school, Florida)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpsMvCqmX7M&t=345s (various outside school between classes, Southern California, 1985)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC1eKmVccOM&t=190s (metal/rock part of lip sync/air guitar/talent show, NJ, late 1987)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kshE2qqyq90&t=89s (Walk Like An Egyptian, Paramus, NJ, 1987, messing around)
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CaBHkxFSAHw (high school, senior skip day, 1987)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC1eKmVccOM&t=2966s (grad party, Debbie Gibson, NJ)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC1eKmVccOM&t=3346s (graduation party, Dirty Dancing, NJ, early 1988)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxqjoaQYxnw&t=626s (fashion show w. Grease, NJ, 1988, stuff like Grease from 1978 was still so big they were still putting on Grease bits a decade or more later)
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kEnPdrFbPPU (high school, 1980s)
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/nmiRbovs_Ys (high school, 1985)
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YQ1Bc0rMn6Y (high school, 1985)
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/J3C-utbLAh0 (high school, 1980s)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTuYGC0lrPg&t=590s (sports cheerleading, Utah, 1985)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxqjoaQYxnw&t=884s (outdoor lunch break, NJ, lawn darts)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKe3feSumpc&t=1501s (Halloween senior day, Cupertino, CA)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0Mj78BgvLk (high school, TX, 1989-1990)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz-fMBx5JS0&t=404s (Cookeville Mall, TN, 1989)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yiMsKYeeUU&t=286s (" ")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGpoNxduzvk&t=1148s (Jefferson Mall #8, NY, fashion on boat and local NY/NJ region mall girls lip sync contest winners, 1986)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDHqfhyCbbM&t=190s (live footage from the 80s, 80s "fun" hip-hop, break dancing, earlier 80s)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYbe-35_BaA (late night at the 7-11 near Disney World in 1987, shows off real world interactions between young people back then very well)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YMHyzKroj0&t=292s (arcade at the waterpark!, 1983)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MLmNVd5LX4 (Boomer 14 year old jumping cars on bike! in 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2_7hwCyPRI (Gen X kids doing BMX jumps, UK, 1980s)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SeibnBWx2Q (First wave Gen X kid and his bike jump, 1970s)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNMwLsy80-c&t=244s (MTV at Hanover Mall, MA, 1988)
But again not to get too carried away haha, I mean people do actually still laugh and smile and have fun and interact today, parties still happen, people put on skits, ride some bikes, mess around in school, etc.
Although it's not the constant throngs of kids outside all over or the wild multi-story tree forts getting built and so on. But I mean people do seem to still have fun in high school and laugh with friends and talk, etc. It's not so horrible as the internet makes it seem at all. It's more just a little less this or that perhaps.
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u/Timely_Atmosphere_18 8d ago
A huge respect to u bro for putting this much effort. And yeah i do agree with u . "People in this era do have fun, party and laugh with friends". Iam an example for that . I did have fun and did laugh with my friends in my high school days a lot . The thing i spent more time online than offline. I just wanted to say " if I am a teenager with the same financial condition, friend circle ,skills back in those 2000s then the scenario would be different and better". For me It just felt it was the times when the online and offline life is balanced.
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u/saltedsnail2 2d ago
Cell phones really did destroy personal freedom to an extent. It wasn't perfect but it really was simpler. The world seemed smaller. Thanks for the videos.
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u/baldeagle1991 8d ago
Affluent white area with people realising they're on camera in the late 90s and early 00s.....
Yeah they're going to seem different.
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u/DiscoveryZoneHero 8d ago
The thing is these people were all happy middle class kidsâŚ. Social media ruined childhood⌠the GOP tanked the middle claaa
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u/MOREPASTRAMIPLEASE 8d ago
Kids these days are depressed and have no hope for the future. That the difference
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u/Formal_Woodpecker450 8d ago
Being on camera was rare so people tended to smile more, wave, and put on more of a performance...or get embarrassed and want to hide their face.
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u/GreyDuck4077 8d ago
I always describe it as we were participants in our lives and not documentarians. When we would get together someone might have the group pose for a picture or two, but we never saw the results for days or even weeks after until it got developed or printed. It was actual memories being captured. So we would hang out and enjoy eachothers company. We would learn about eachother, bond with eachother and get closer with one another.
Today it seems like everyone attends things a their goal is to capture a picture to prove they were there to their social media followers. It seriously seems to me like kids are living their lives through their phones.
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u/Corran105 8d ago
These are very likely a lot of high school seniors and I did feel a certain vibe you got after being there a few years and now you're the celebrated class and most of the staff knows you. Â
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u/AgitpropForestry 8d ago
Being recorded at the time was a fun rarity, not a suffocating constant as it is today.
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u/waltdidneyworlp 8d ago
The 2000s were cruel as fuck, lmfao. Everything was 'gay'. You had to wear the exact right clothes or else you were a target. Everything was seen as a way to appraise status, including the lunchbox that you brought to school or the pens that you used.
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u/despotidolatry 8d ago
Nah youâre just young and have crap technology and AI slop every time you surf the net. We were just having fun.
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u/Due_Newt9460 8d ago
Its because you can actually see people interacting and being engaged. Not staring a phones looking for a way to fuck over the person next to them. I miss the aughts
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u/fayemoonlight 8d ago
You could do this exact same thing with videos from the 2010s and 2020s. Just slap a filter on it and Everybody Wants To Rule the World and it will have the same effect.
Nostalgia videos rely on cherry picking moments where people are happy and socialising. Theyâre not even slightly representative of what life was like in general.
All generations had fun times and bad. Nostalgia just makes us view things with incredibly rose tinted glasses
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u/Sad-Practice5045 8d ago
I was Class of '01. So same general era as all these people. I can tell some clips are from the late 90's and others from early 2000's. Either way, I lived it and that's exactly how it was back then. I was popular socially because I'm super outgoing and kind of forced myself into all the groups at my school and I had a graduating class of about 600.
Fun times. I remember it clearly. Before the smart phone.
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u/Brian2005l 8d ago
Itâs a lack of stress. The kids above are medium to big fish in a small pond with no broader worries. Kids who were picked on/stressed out werenât like this.
The internet was also like this until algorithm folks learned that making you feel bad was profitable.
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u/LaconicDoggo 8d ago edited 8d ago
Dont listen to the naysayers . This is how it felt sometimes in the worst of times we were having individually. Even if it wasn't being recorded, this is striking a chord of missed time I've never felt before now and i was certainly not a popular or rich person.
Edit: this is reddit so I'm not surprised that every single comment from people that lived this is super negative. A lot of people spend the rest of their life internalizing what their childhood was like and not unpacking it and moving on.
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u/Mister_Baloney 8d ago
Yeah, weird how holding a vortex of bullshit in front of your face that sucks your soul out through your eyes 24/7 has a tendency to dim a person's light.
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u/Kokirochi 8d ago
You are romanticizing "the good old days".
People were weird, annoying and mean just as much as today, as well as uncomfortable, awkward and creepy. Those people are not being filmed by this person.
This is a small scale version of watching something like girls-gone-wild and saying "why were people vacationing so much more beautiful than today?"
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u/megs-benedict 8d ago
There are a fair amount of cool kids here but also we had basic social interaction skills.
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u/Mrw04c 7d ago
A lot of these videos from the early 2000s that Reddit looks back on today seem like they are from either the last day of school or one of the last days - of course everyone is 10x happier knowing school is ending.
People just need to view these videos from those persepective as well.
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u/Thalilalala 7d ago
Fyi, having a camera to film someone wasn't as common back then. Of course you tried to look your best, when someone with one approached and started filming.
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u/S_archdev__ 7d ago
Itâs hope, and also lack of social media homogenization; having a generation of people understand that the world is dying, and that the education theyâre getting is practically useless, will definitely create a shift in the mood and the vibe
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u/ilostallmykarma 7d ago
Tears for Fears really activates some nostalgia trigger for me so I'm gonna say that's what it is. It's kinda like that Donkey Kong Country water level music, it just triggers a feeling.
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u/SeparateSpeaker6682 7d ago
Stiffler and limp Bizkit, and other pop culture icons kind of brainwashed an entire generation of impressionable young men into being assholes who objectify women and treat anyone who's different like shit. Despite how fucking funny it was at the time, it really warped a lot of dudes.
But in all seriousness, I do feel like we were far more social than what I've seen of present generations, but I'm also not in school with these kids. Maybe they're just awkward around me bc I'm 38...
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u/preston0518 7d ago
Go and find some tabloids from the era because while they may not share everyoneâs belief, there were still many people who are racist, bigoted, homophobic, fat shaming etc. like the phrase âthatâs gayâ and used negatively was what I remember in the hallways at school. People were just as mean then as they are now, you just didnât have 24 hour access to peopleâs thoughts like you do with social media now. Hell just study some of the politics of the Bush era as a whole.
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u/Ok-Juggernaut-3389 7d ago
I had my moments but over I hated my adolescence. Some of it had to do with my home life but people were assholes back then just no social media to televise everything but we were the last generation to have some simplicity in our life
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u/DaRealJoeBiden69 7d ago
I was in high school in the 2000s and my vibe was decidedly unpleasant the entire time.
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u/Remarkable-Win-9897 6d ago
I think it is because cameras were way less common so people acted up for them.
That being said, yes we were way cooler, but that's not hard against people that watch a cell phone screen 14 hours a day.
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u/Infamous-Package3982 6d ago
âSmile, youâre on camera!â
Iâm sure as we learn from Hollywood, everything looks better on camera, but behind closed doors, itâs a different story. We have no idea what life was like at that school or at home for those students.
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5d ago
As an elder millennial, one thing for sure I can say that was different is that people def gave far less shits on how their identities would be perceived on a nationwide or global scale, because now we live in a time where one wrong move could go viral and you could be seen worldwide. People only cared about how they were perceived by their immediate tribe or on a local level. I wouldn't call it a lack of self awareness, but its close to that. People just spent far less mental energy managing the perception of themselves. They weren't constantly imagining how their behavior might look to an invisible audience of strangers, or how some isolated moment might be interpreted completely out of context, and there was way less surveillance that modified or altered behavior. It's kind of liberating to not have to spend mental energy on that.
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u/ZestycloseAvocado828 8d ago
Social media made most of us paranoid and miserable. Most people are detached from reality.
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u/David_Summerset 8d ago
Life did feel less stressful.
Presumably this is mostly because I was a child.
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u/CarllSagan 8d ago
This thread is worded so strangely.
The word is happiness.
People were simply happier then and we could imagine a brighter future for ourselves.
It's not like that anymore.
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u/pslush01 8d ago
I'll die on the hill that smartphones ruined basically everything. Of course there were all kinds of problems back then, but the degradation to true dystopia was missing that one catastrophic vector
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u/MaiPhet 8d ago
To be fair, the people who donât want to be seen are actively hiding from the camera. And the people videoing are the social types filming other people that they like.
Just speaking as one of the recluses of that era.