The 2000's Nostalgia

I spent most of my late childhood/early formative years in the 2000s so this really makes me feel old writing this but if you took yourself right now and magically transformed back to any year in the noughties, the world would seem jarringly different.

Here are some events and aspects of life in the 2000s that I remember well then realize how long ago they were:

• The financial recession and the first iPhone are history lessons for incoming high school freshmen.
• The founding of Facebook (2004) and YouTube (2005) are closer in time to before the internet (pre-1991) was released to public than current day.
• At this year's Tokyo Olympics, we had a couple athletes who weren't alive during the 2008 Beijing games, a handful who weren't alive during the 2004 Athens games, and chunks who weren't born during the 2000 Sydney games.
• The span between SARS and COVID is that of a full grown adult (I remember living through both so yea this makes me feel ancient).
• The last episode of Friends (2004, big day in 2000s US television) is closer to the first episode of Seinfeld (1989) and Fresh Prince of Bel Air (1990) than the current day.
• Instagram didn't exist, electric vehicles didn't exist, Snapchat didn't exist, cancel culture didn't exist (good times), Tik Tok was an annoyingly catchy radio tune instead of an app, and online influencers were not a thing.
• Most of us still used flip phones, got our information through traditional cable TV, bought CDs in a time before Spotify, shopped at malls instead of online, and ordered movies from Blockbuster.

Hope I didn't make you feel old there :)