People view the 2000s way too positively!!
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DISCLAIMER!! This is long, and I don't mind who people disagree with me. I actually want to have a conversation about this! I love autocorrect for helping me write as I just started angrily typing
Okay, this one is probably going to sound overly judgmental and kind of nonsensical, but this is the Opinion subreddit,
I’m part of the generation of teens who were either barely there for the late 2000s or not there at all. Me and a lot of people my age obviously don’t feel nostalgia for the late ’90s and early 2000s the way older people do. The accounts that make that era their entire brand have never really sat right with me, even if I sometimes enjoy the content.
To most people, it probably seems harmless and lighthearted, and honestly, it shouldn’t annoy anyone that much, but apparently, it annoys at least one person: me. Hence, this passive-aggressive rant.
I constantly overthink creators like Erin Miller, Jenna Barclay, and Kate Steinberg, and I’ve sat on these thoughts for way too long. Looking at their content now, it almost feels desperate sometimes. It feels like they’re clinging to their younger years harder than they should. I’m not saying people shouldn’t reminisce about the past, but making it your entire online identity feels off to me. It feels like they refuse to move on and want to relive those years just a little longer by acting out skits and responding to videos calling things from 2005 “vintage.”
2005 was 20 years ago.
I think accepting that you’re getting older is healthier than constantly recreating high school memories online. Looking back is fine, but when is your entire content style revolves around “remember being in high school in 2005?” it starts giving “peaked in high school”. People throw that phrase around all the time, but I rarely see it applied to these kinds of creators.
I know this sounds like a rant and like a judgmental teenager rambling, but here’s the part that actually irritates me: it’s started to feel less nostalgic and braggy. Like they’re subtly saying it was somehow better to be young in the 2000s and early 2010s than it is now. They make videos reacting to trends “coming back” and act like the only eras that ever mattered were the 2000s, 2010s, and maybe the late ’90s.
Maybe I overthink things too much, but it’s weird to me how obvious it feels that some of these women peaked in high school, which, for some of them, was over two decades ago. Nobody really talks about it because, yeah, it’s harmless, and most people either enjoy the videos or just scroll past them. I’m one of the few people who usually scroll instead of commenting on things I dislike.
I’m not even on TikTok anymore, honestly. I think staying off it has done wonders for me as a person, but that’s off topic.
I know these creators are extremely popular. It just feels strange that almost nobody points out how tightly some of them grip onto their teenage years. Their content is almost exclusively about being in high school in the 2000s or being a college student in the early 2010s. It feels like they absolutely refuse to move on, and now they literally make a living by constantly reliving the past.
I knew if I didn’t write this down, I’d keep thinking about it for days. What really pushed me into writing this was a video that popped up on my feed about “the first day of senior year in 2005.” Something about watching a grown woman act out teenage experiences from 20 years ago genuinely made me pause. Usually, their videos make me laugh, and I don’t think too hard about them, but this one rubbed me the wrong way. It felt like she hadn’t emotionally left that time period behind and was still reliving a life that’s long gone.
I hope this doesn’t come across like I’m bashing these women for expressing themselves or having nostalgia. That’s not really my point. I just wanted to rant about how it feels to me watching content that seems so deeply rooted in refusing to grow up.
Again, I don’t think looking back is bad. I just think there’s a point where it starts feeling excessive, and I guess my breaking point was watching a reenactment about getting dress coded on the first day of senior year in 2005. I know the acting shouldn’t have made me uncomfortable, but it genuinely did.
And to be clear, I don’t hate nostalgia content in general. I actually like “Remember This?” videos sometimes. The 2000s were genuinely a weird and entertaining time for products, commercials, and random trends. Old infomercials are honestly hilarious to me, and as a teen who likes weird niche stuff, I completely understand the appeal of looking back at them. I also don’t think it’s bad to have an account dedicated to old media or nostalgia. I think it just reaches a certain point where it stops feeling like harmless reminiscing and starts feeling emotionally stuck.
Maybe part of why this content feels strange to me is because I genuinely don’t feel scared of growing up in the same way a lot of people seem to. Change is terrifying, obviously, and the world honestly isn’t doing great right now, so I understand why people romanticize the past. But at the same time, I actually want to get out into the world and become someone. Even if adulthood sucks in a million ways, I still want the experience of growing, changing, and moving forward instead of constantly looking backward.
I’ve always been the type of kid who jumped into adult conversations because I actually had something to contribute. I’ve never really romanticized staying young forever. Honestly, I think some things are just better now. Sure, phones used to have more personality, but I’d still rather have modern technology than go back to carrying around a brick phone or an old flip phone just because it feels nostalgic.
That’s probably why some of these accounts make me uncomfortable. Not because nostalgia itself is bad, but because some creators seem genuinely unwilling to let go of a version of themselves that existed 20 years ago.
Another thing that bothers me is how aggressively people view the past through rose-tinted glasses. The 2000s were not objectively the greatest time to be alive, and sometimes, the way people talk about them feels almost fantasy-like.
A lot of these big nostalgia creators also seem to come from very similar backgrounds suburban Midwestern girls whose biggest teenage problems were things like school drama, getting dress coded, or accidentally frying their hair with Sun-In And honestly? I weirdly like hearing about that stuff. I actually find it comforting. There’s something nice about realizing every generation, when they were young, thought tiny problems were the end of the world.
But that’s exactly why I dislike how romanticized everything becomes afterward. People remember the vibe and erase the reality. We do this constantly now, not just with the 2000s but with every decade. I love history, and I find the past incredibly interesting, but I don’t confuse “interesting” with “better.”
Honestly, learning about the past sometimes comforts me because I wasn’t there. Every era had problems people conveniently leave out when they’re making aesthetic nostalgia content online.
Would it be fun to briefly experience being a teenager in 2005 with nowhere to be except a suburban parking lot, your biggest issue being your CD player not working, and everyone hanging out at the mall? Sure. That sounds fun in the same way any romanticized snapshot of youth sounds fun. But I’m also a teenage girl now, and my life is honestly fine, too. That’s part of why the constant “we had it better” attitude annoys me. It makes the present seem automatically worse just because it’s current, and I don’t really believe that. Every generation thinks their youth was special because they were young during it, not because it was objectively the peak of human existence.
Anyway, that’s it. Thanks for reading, and I’m open to hearing other opinions even though I know most people here just want to read about opinions.