20+ Things That Only People Who Lived in the 2000s Can Understand

Curiosities
year ago

There is a saying that “things were better in the old days.” We may have doubts about it, since having to use the phone to connect to the Internet or paying for every text message we send are not very positive things (and even seem to be from a parallel universe).

At Bright Side, we decided to get a little nostalgic by remembering things from the 2000s that today seem like centuries ago.

“Having to delete text messages because your cell phone could only store 10.”

“Doing schoolwork. First of all, you had to TYPE papers on a typewriter and fix all your mistakes with white-out. And to do research, you had to go to different libraries and look things up and search through books and make copies.”

  • Memory. I have lived through many kinds of data storage, from punch cards, paper tapes, cassette tapes, floppy discs, 3.5-inch disks, and a bunch of different-sized drives that each needed their own compatible-sized reader. I remember discs labeled like 1-16 when you got a new program, and you had to load them each in order. © Botryoid2000 / Reddit
  • A 5-hour drive with nothing to keep you entertained except your parents’ music and highway games like license plate bingo. © siskulous / Reddit

“Trying to play your Gameboy in the car at night and only being able to play when you passed under a street light because it didn’t have a backlit screen.”

  • I found my Gameboy color and Gameboy SP and was so excited explaining to my kids how the SP had a built-in light compared to the color... They all looked at me like I had 4 heads, and my 10-year-old patted me on the head and walked away. Never mind, just leave Mom to play her Pokémon. Leave the light on, please. © Maple3232 / Reddit
  • Memorizing phone numbers. © cantstandlol / Reddit

“Only pizza got delivered, maps were paper, pictures needed to be developed at a drug store, you couldn’t pause TV, and phone calls were a quarter at a booth. Reading this, I could be 40 or 80.”

  • Commercial breaks used to be a great chance to quickly go to the bathroom and grab some snacks. © truthinlies / Reddit
  • Driving without GPS. Here’s a paper map. I hope you know how to read it. Better hope it’s up-to-date. © MikeyPapapacha / Reddit

“Listening to the radio for hours waiting to hit record on a cassette tape when your favorite song comes on.”

  • And then having the DJ talk over the first 30 seconds of the song. © uid_0 / Reddit
  • You wanna know the lyrics to a song? Good luck. If the artist didn’t include them with the album, be ready to go on a marathon of playing and pausing a song dozens of times at various volumes to try to figure them out. © mykreau / Reddit
  • Not to mention dialing the station a hundred times for a contest until it felt like your knuckle was going to snap off. © Schnelt0r / Reddit

“Remembering the classic ’family pc in the kitchen’ of the early 2000s. Yes, that’s me in the picture.”

“You used to call a person and not get an answer. Maybe you wouldn’t hear from someone for days. I would hang out in popular places to meet friends. There was no such thing as calling a cell phone to find out where someone was.”

“I have >160 old VHS tapes with TV shows recorded on them.”

What do you remember from years ago that new generations will never experience?

Preview photo credit the0celot / Reddit, crockalley / Reddit

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