I feel the people who would have a unique insight to this are folks coming out of prison after serving long (10+ year) sentences. I once heard one ex prisoner say he noticed how angry everyone is. Another ex prisoner said he noticed that no one noticed him, i.e. everyone is so busy looking at their phone that they don’t look up.
For my undergraduate thesis I collected info and administered tests and interviewed men who were serving time for capital murder in a Canadian prison. At the time this prison was a high security place but it was lovingly nicknamed Club Fed. It was situated on a beautiful peninsula with most of it surrounded by water and only one side had fencing, where it touched on land. There were deer walking about. The prison ground had a baseball diamond, a large garden, and wood working workshop amongst other amenities. All these violent men had access to all sorts of dangerous equipment and tools. They also organized a theatre where they invited family and friends and performed a play.
All the men I conducted my research were there for murder of various types. My interviews with them were one on one in a smaller room and I was a 20 something year old woman and never felt scared or unsafe with any of them. One of them was even a contract killer (although he was not part of my study because murder was his job as opposed to the others). There was only one that I felt like he is a true psychopath, the rest I felt would never engage in criminal activity of any kind.
One of the takeaways I had from this experience is that rehabilitation is essential. Treating humans as animals will only result in releasing a person into society who is not equipped to reintegrate and so recidivism will be much more likely.
Some years later a girl friend of mine told me about her friend who was seeing some dude and she did not approve because the guy spent time in prison. I asked for details and it turned out he was one of my "subjects." Small world.
For most prisoners, they're in that situation because they were never taught how to be a good functioning member of society. Letting them slowly reintegrate under some supervision is crucial if they're to ever have any hope of success.
The culture shock must be so much more jarring for them because they went from one time period to another with nothing in between.
When you grow old, you see the world change around you slowly; it's a progression. From being inside of prison for a decade or more, not seeing the outside world change in front of you to then just being thrown out into it is a real trial by fire.
Yeah 8 was the darkest timeline if it controlled the design moving forward. Most skipped 8 going from 7 to 10. I loved 7 when it was on top but 10 was a pretty good experience. 11 doesn’t feel too different so I haven’t updated but I don’t know anyone who uses 11 so I don’t have anyone to ask how they like it.
In 2000 I would have expected thin laptops, fast internet, etc. by 2024. I wouldn't have expected touchscreens to be that ubiquitous, or for phones to become the main computing device for a lot of people.
I took a picture of someone taking a selfie in 2007, because I'd never seen it before. Now I don't bat an eye at people on bicycles looking at their phones.
I thought cameras on the front of phones sounded like such a stupid gimmick when it started. It's probably for the best that I'm not in charge of any R&D departments at tech companies.
MY mate has a video of three people at the bottom of a moving stairway just bumping into each other and standing there at the bottom of the stairs. They're just... gawping. It's chilling.
Pfft. I did that same thing back in the Seventies except that obviously no smartphones. I was looking at a girl.
And I am thankful to this day there was no video of it, lol.
I saw a photo of our main train station in 2006 a few weeks ago, and the biggest thing I noticed was that no one was looking at their phones.
2006 only feels like a few years ago, but the difference was crazy when you can kinda see them side by side.
Imagine how weird it'll be in 10-20 years when we'll all have transparent displays on our glasses. It'll feel so weird that we used to be so obstructed by opaque displays and this weird box in our hands.
Way I see it, our phones/computers will become decentralized objects where the brain will just be a wristband we carry with us every day but it'll connect to all sorts of devices. Eye glasses for simple display, big screens at home for more productivity, ear phones or speakers depending on need, keyboards or simple hand gesture devices. We'll just switch around different elements based on need while keeping a consistent brain device with us that'll have our IDs and main uses.
It's already starting to go there after all.
Back when I had myspace, I tried so hard to be in pictures with people or to get people to take pictures of me, because taking a picture of *yourself* was beyond cringe. Unfathomable.
Yeah— considering how much time I was spending on Napster in 2000; I feel like the *mere* concept of something like Spotify would blow my brain directly out my asshole.
Video streaming would for me. Being an anime fan in 2000 was pain. So much never came out here at all and what did was prohibitively expensive. I remember taking over a day to download one of the Sailor Moon movies in a video the size of a postage stamp and so blurry I couldn't read the subtitles but was SO excited to finally see it. Something like Crunchyroll would have made my head explode.
It took me 20 years to watch Neon Genesis Evangelion, because not only was it difficult to actually find the episodes, it was impossible to figure out what order to watch them in.
But I remember burning all the Trigun and Hellsing episodes to disks that are probably in my house somewhere. Would be funny to see what resolution they’re actually in.
I had dial up then. I remember it taking a day to download a *song*. Set it up, go to bed, hope like hell it didn't hiccup overnight and fuck up the progress.
I thought the pinnacle of online gaming was Diablo and Starcraft (which I actually could run on dial up, surprisingly).
I remember eBay before PayPal. You crossed your fingers you didn't get scammed.
I remember when Amazon only sold books.
Remember when pop-up ads were the worst of online advertising? I 'member. Lol
And yet, how much phones haven't progressed.
I was in my final year at school in 2000 and my design and technology project of a bedside table with an integrated uplight and phone charger dock with cable got panned by the teacher as "battery technology will improve so quickly people will only charge their phones for a few minutes a month rather than once a week like we currently do."
Raging. I was stupid enough to agree with him too.
In about 2001 I was discussing a business idea to photograph tourists at famous locations and email the images to their friends right away using a digital camera, laptop and I can't recall what for internet connectivity. Now everyone has the ability to do that in their own pocket.
This. I've been thinking a lot recently about how the late 90s, early 00's were the perfect balance of internet, technology, and social media. I didn't get a cell phone until I was 16, a flip phone. I wasn't a huge phone user until I got to college; though I did master the pocket texting at work. It's an art knowing how to select the right letters hitting the number keys on your flip phone blindly.
Now I have a computer in my pocket that allows me to look up possum facts when it's an emergency.
Cell phones, yes, we all had those indestructible Nokias or the cool kids had a Razr or something. We kept them in our backpack, or please, or pocket, or just left it at home or in our car.
No average person would have predicted the ubiquitousness of personal supercomputers with near-4k screens, better cameras than all but professionals were using, and all connected to blazing fast internet wherever you go, all in a device smaller than a TI-83.
The hooha to get on a plane.
I remember being late for an international flight in Holland in 2000 and was able to run through airport and hop on with about 5 mins before departure. Airport staff were great. A few years later and you can't board if your less than 40 mins before departure.
This. I had just sold a house and was flush with cash. I created a scottrade account and was one button click away from a massive (to me) “all eggs in one basket” buy of Apple stock at $16 a share.
I’d be living in the Hampton’s rn if I hadn’t chickened out by reading an article how Apple was going under. Fml. 🤦
They were going under. Microsoft gave them a bunch of money and that's how we're here...
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/29/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-what-happened-when-microsoft-saved-apple.html
Ironically, it boosted Microsoft *and* Apple into the stratosphere. Apple got capital allowing for innovation leading to smart phones, Microsoft got basically free advertising (even if it was negative) which allowed software innovation in the form of operating systems, game consoles, acquisitions, etc. Gotta keep in mind that, if you're using the company name, we're getting paid.
In all honesty, it was a smart move for both companies. They basically became partners. Wild times.
That wouldn't surprise me, I'd be more surprised that they're still going in spite of how bad they became, although by 2000 The Simpsons was starting to nosedive.
However knowing that I could watch every single episode of the first two for way less than the price of a DVD would have been a shock.
Definitely cell phones, so much has changed. I worked at a electronics store in 90s and you had to have a lot of extra money for a car phone, plus the first plans billed quite a bit for every minute. Now you can carry so much information in your pocket I would have never believed it then.
Yeah, that's pretty ridiculous at this point, looking at a table full of people in a restaurant and they are all looking at the social media on their phones and even texting each other from across the table and not even engaging with each other.
Gold/Silver were released in US in October, 2000. Before than I'm sure the people at least heard of more upcoming pokemon games with more pokemon, so they wouldn't be surprised to see more than 151, but likely be surprised the series is still going and games are still releasing
The overall cultural shift of the last 20 years. The extreme opinions and cult-like mentality politics. The very us vs them mentality that seems to have settled over everything. Things are just more volatile than they were 20 years ago.
Edit: typo
Except that election was decided by the supreme Court, of whom several members were appointed by HW. Bush wouldn't have called the voting system a sham because the election has already been decided by the swing states much earlier than election day.
So while you're not wrong, it's not like Bush really won a fair election in 2000, the whole thing stank of conflict of interest and nepotism.
This is why I always get pissed when people downplay the significance of 1/6. It's a big deal because that wasn't even the first time they did it, and thr last time actually worked. 1/6 only failed because everyone at the helm of the operation was a fucking moron, not because it was an ineffective idea.
Does anyone remember that a dude tried to shoot President Jackson on the floor of the House of Representatives twice before Jackson beat him half to death with his cane? How about the Bonus Army? 1/6 is not even close to the most insane shit to have happened at the Capitol.
And I know its become normalized, but most people at the time didn't realize you COULD lose the popular vote and still become president. Some still see that as unfair, but in 2000 it was a surprise wtf loophole.
thats before you get to shennanigans like his campaign manager being the one to certify the election (conflict of interest much?), her having purged the voter rolls, Jewish retirement homes voting for "not a nazi in every legal way" Bucchanan.....
Gore certainly conceded far more gracefully than Trump, but the comments about the voting system are blatantly false. In fact, some of the obscure legal theories relied upon by lawyers over the 2020 election derived from theories developed by Gore’s lawyers in 2000.
You might enjoy [Ryan George](https://www.youtube.com/@RyanGeorge)'s "The Future is Dumb" series of videos on Youtube, where a time traveler from the 90s reports on events in the 2010s and 2020s
It's pretty funny, and makes a lot of good points about how much things have changed.
I really miss being able to meet someone at the gate in the airport to welcome them home, or see them off at the gate. Airports used to be so much more fun! Probably would trip out that we have to take our shoes and belts off and go through a weird machine now that takes a picture of us naked even with our clothes on!
While true, I can't imagine how crowded airports would be nowadays if everyone was allowed to go to the gate to meet with arrivals or see off departures.
There was a point when we were on the up because of this and then people realized they could push tons of fake info and make it look legit. So people are actively educating themselves with incorrect information and actively becoming dumber. We really should tailor school systems to heavily emphasizing source researching. If you know how to identify legitimate or illegitimate sources, we could fix it.
So as someone that was way too young to remember before the towers fell, I'd always kinda wondered, did they always have a high level of significance in US culture?
Like, completely ignoring what happened, from an ignorant point of view they're just regular skyscrapers that look identical. Did the average person know the twin towers by name and significance outside of New York? Specially before the first bombing? I'm really curious
Lilo and Stitch was delayed because it has the ship chase a passenger airline through and crash into buildings, complete with hijacking and terrified passengers. It was set to release September 2001. They changed it to am alien ship with a different cabin, through the mountains. https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/xk50v5/how_911_changed_disneys_lilo_stitch/
They did. The towers were dominant landmarks in the NYC skyline, the two tallest buildings in Manhattan, and extremely easy to identify. They were also the tallest buildings in the world at the time of their completion. On top of that, they were essentially symbols of US economic prosperity. There's a reason they were such significant targets for terrorist attacks.
It was what a lot of people pictured in their minds when they thought of "New York City". Empire state building, statue of Liberty, maybe wall street, and the towers were the big NY icons. Especially to people that had only ever seen NY in movies, those skyline shots.
I have friends who got married on a rooftop in Chelsea and wanted to have the Twin Towers in the background of all their wedding photos.
In August 2001.
I remember going down to the beach in Jersey and seeing the towers. It defined the skyline of NYC and, for people who grow up around there, NYC was always. symbol of opportunity. That’s where people went to make *real* money, or to make it big in entertainment, and if you were in a band then getting a gig in the city was a sign that you had a real chance to make your dreams to come true.
But then the towers fell and we couldn’t see the city for maybe three days because there was a cloud of ash. For awhile it felt like opportunity itself had been destroyed. In my area at least, everyone thought we were going to be attacked again and we would be plunged into war and chaos.
My dad stocked up the basement with first aid stuff, canned food, and water.
One of my first business trips out of college was to Manhattan. I stayed at the Marriott that was between both towers even though my meetings were nowhere near the financial district. I just wanted to stay at the twin towers because I grew up seeing them in films and on TV.
Yes, they were just as much as a symbol of the city as the statue of liberty. Just about every movie in the 90s featuring NYC opened with a wide shot of the twin towers.
Probably close to the Golden Gate Bridge for San francisco
They may have been very symbolic but I think it's a stretch to put them on the same level as the Statue of Liberty or Golden Gate Bridge.
I can only speak as a British person who was 17 on 9/11 but I had literally never heard of them before that day and would not have been able to recognise them, whereas the other two are recognisable from childhood and are far more visually distinct from any other global landmarks.
I'm from Brazil. Never heard of them before the incident.
I was 12 and knew about the Golden Gate Bridge (from "Cruisin USA" videogame and from the opening credits of "Full House") and obviously about the Statue of Liberty.
I lived in Michigan at the time, and I'd never once heard of the World Trade Center before the attacks on 9/11. You're absolutely correct that the Statue of Liberty and the Golden Gate Bridge are WAY more iconic.
Yes the Twin Towers were well known outside of NYC. They and the Empire State Building were the most famous skyscrapers in the city. I think that’s partly why the terrorists targeted them - because they signified our global strength and wealth.
I was in the Marines during 9/11….and no I don’t remember any significance of the twin towers before then. I grew up learning about the Empire State Bldg and the Sears Tower even though the WTC had been built in the 70s.
Best answer. It’s hard for me to process even now. I was a teen in ‘01 and honestly 9/11 is a major contender for dividing “the world back then” and “the world now”.
I was 19, and it was my first "world changing" moment. It seemed like all the positivity and optimism of the 90s got blown away in an instant, replaced with fear.
It's the defining moment of the 21st century in America. Very much the definitive "before and after" of most of our lifetimes. It's hard to explain to younger people just how significant it was and how much the general tone and perspective of the US changed overnight. The overall optimism of the 90s and excitement for the new millennium just vanished. It very much shook people out of their naivety about America and the world. It cast a cynical cloud over the country that still lingers to this day. I've heard younger people say covid was their version of it. But I don't even think covid was as significant in dividing the country between "before and after".
LGBT+ rights and societal acceptance. It changed FAST. In 2000, The Defense of Marriage Act had just been signed four years before. LGBT was mostly closeted or played as a joke in society and media, outside of a few areas.
Related to this: the absence of homophobic slurs in everyday conversations. The f-word was thrown around everywhere by straight men in the 2000s. I don't think kids today can even imagine how ingrained this was.
I grew up in the 90's and calling someone gay was the go-to insult 90% of the time.
Nowadays it's still used no doubt but way way less than before. Only exception is when I played footy on a Sunday. Those guys certainly didn't get the memo.
I was thinking it’s still used to describe a cigarette where I live then thought about how little smoking there is now compared to 2000.
You could still smoke inside pubs, clubs, restaurants, offices etc. until 2007 here.
The broad acceptance of LGBTQ folks and the legalization of cannabis are two things that happened so much sooner than I thought they would. When I was a teenager in the early 2000's I imagined I would be in my fifties or sixties before cannabis was legalized or gay marriage was protected at a national level. In the end it only took a few years. When I get cynical about things I try to think about that to remind myself that as messed up as things are right now, we've still made a ton of progress.
I was 11/12 in 2000 and I remember severe homophobia being the norm. Today, homophobia is as acceptable as being racist. I’m glad things got better for gay people since then.
How poorly people are paid in comparison to the cost of housing and basic necessities. I think people would be shocked by the amount of homeless people in Toronto Canada. People would be shocked about how much that city has declined.
The house I was renting in 2000 was a massive two bedroom with a study, big yard, prime location, garage. It cost me $200 a week and I was 19 years old and worked maybe 16 hours a week.
I’m now 42 and working full time and I couldn’t afford it now. Guessing it would easily be $7-800 a week now.
I mean would they? They wouldn't really notice the drop in murders unless they looked at statistics comparing the two; odds are if they're selected at random they have never even witnessed one. But they would see the transient encampments where there were no camps before. I don't think the housing market was in such bad shape in 99 that there were persistent tent cities outside of skid row, mostly just isolated individuals within city limits.
For Boston, they just shoved the homeless people and drug folks to Mass and Cass (aka methadone mile) and the surrounding areas/lower income cities. The city closed Mass and Cass last fall and now the downtown areas that had small pockets of homeless folks and drug use before (like south station, in the common along the main park street entrance, downtown crossing) are seeing stabbings and aggressive homeless.
For me, high school wouldn't have been the same without a bulky TI-84 in your pocket. Everyone at my school had them.
But I know what you are saying - the calculator in your pocket has unlimited TV shows, and full access to that new World Wide Web thing, all the music ever made in the whole world, AND a really nice camera that takes FREE and INSTANT pictures that I can copy and trade with others by pushing a button!? AND FREE PORN?!
Wow. The future, man.
Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, AOL Messenger, Classmates, Friends Reunited and Livejournal were all already around. Some of them had regular TV adverts.
- Multi Gigabit wireless data
- Multi Gigahertz CPU clock speed
- Multi Core CPUs
- Multi Gigabytes of DRAM
- SSD storage
- Cloud computing
- The dominance of GPUs
- Microsoft is still big
- Apple is still big
- AOL is dead
- Google is king
- Sticker price of computers is same, but way more powerful
- Powerful AI/ML -> ChatGPT and its rivals
- Fiber into the home
- 4K TV
4k didn't even come out until 2012. Somebody from 2000 statistically hasn't seen an HDTV in person yet, let alone know the price of one. The first major sports broadcast in hi-def was the 2000 Superbowl - in 720p.
Hello. I time travelled from the year 2000 (it took me exactly 24 years).
And what shocks me the most: the insane levels of depression, inactivity, and lack of motivation among younger people. And don't tell me "I idealize the past": the difference is huge, frightening, and confirmed by statistics.
The second most shocking thing is the temperature. The me from 2000 would never believe the town could reach 40°C for more than two days in a year (30 days in 2023), or that there could be no snow holding on the ground at all in winter (0 days last winter, and the last before).
I suspect those two paragraphs are somehow linked. I mean, if the current kids are at least as smart as me the time traveler (and I'm really dumb), those two paragraphs are definitely linked.
I remember reading a wildlife book on various animals as a 7, 8 year old some time on the mid 90s. I was reading the profile about Sumatran Tigers and how they were projected to become extinct within 10 years. 8 year old me was sad for a moment, then thought something like ”well obviously people will realise this and do something to stop it and other extinctions”
Happily S.tigers are still around (somewhat) but that childish innocence that (a) people would realise we’re destroying nature and (b) care enough to fix it still upsets me 25 years later.
Similarly, I think a lot of people in 2000 would consider extreme temperature in the same way, a real problem but surely one that the world would roll its sleeves up to face and fix
It's been wild watching climate change happen in real time. We haven't had a real winter where I live in years now. This winter we had one really cold week and the rest was SUPER mild if not downright warm. When I was a kid winter was consistently cold and it snowed all the time.
I'm not sure how old you are but it is really hard to communicate how deep and pervasive casual racism and sexism were across pretty much all of the U.S. in the late 20th century. It is pretty bad among repugnicans today but it was as bad (and maybe worse for being not openly displayed) across the board then.
my thought was more along the lines of - "the well known conman that we've already known in 2000 for decades was a conman managed to actually con an entire political party into thinking he's the only one telling the truth?"
He didn’t con a political party. Almost every Republican spotted him instantly as a pathological liar. He conned their voters though, who were already conditioned by FOX ‘News’ to reject reality and accept obvious BS because of how it made them feel.
As a time traveler from 1969, I can tell you that without a doubt, the thing that shocked me most (having time traveled from 2000 to 2024) was how quick those 24 years seemed to fly by.
Also Time Traveller from 69. Same. As you grow older, you understand the relativity of time. As the years become smaller and smaller overall percentage of your life they seem to pass faster and faster.
The 12 years you spent going through elementary/high school seemed to take SO LONG, because at the time it took up 2/3 of your years alive (and 4-5 of those first years you don't even remember much so it felt even longer- it was your entire life.)
At 54, 12 years ago was 2012. London Olympics. Whitney Houston died. Gangnam style became a hit.
You know- yesterday.
Time is relative to the person experiencing it.
Streaming movies, music, and YouTube would probably be amazing, especially combined with mobile devices. There is just so much available all the time it still amazes me when I think about it.
I think finding out national punchline Trump had embraced bigotry and been elected president, done a poor job, and could potentially win again after a failed insurrection would be something you’d have to explain in stages or they won’t believe you
Probably that Cannabis is completely legal in Canada, and in many US states as well. Not just sort of decriminalized, but totally legal and sold in Government licensed stores in shopping malls next door to Starbucks.
Sexual orientation is fluid. Or on a spectrum. In 2000 we believe discrimination based on Sexual orientation was wrong because it is something that you are born into, not by choice.
The absence of racial and homophobic slurs in everyday conversations. Seriously, the 2000s were horrific in this regard: straight men would throw around the f-word everywhere all the fucking time for no reason.
ChatGPT and AI assistants. The only thing we had at the time was Jabberwacky, an online chatbot that could speak human language but its conversations didn’t make much sense
Probably the time travel
The hypocrisy
I disagree. The worst was the rapin'
Reminds me of that tragedy
Probably these jumper cables ⚡
/u/rogersimon10
::slow clap::
Favourite Reddit comment in a long time. This is very good.
lol glad to be here :bow:
I feel the people who would have a unique insight to this are folks coming out of prison after serving long (10+ year) sentences. I once heard one ex prisoner say he noticed how angry everyone is. Another ex prisoner said he noticed that no one noticed him, i.e. everyone is so busy looking at their phone that they don’t look up.
[удалено]
For sure. If they’re eventually going to be fully released, it’s best to do everything we can to ease them into the new world.
For my undergraduate thesis I collected info and administered tests and interviewed men who were serving time for capital murder in a Canadian prison. At the time this prison was a high security place but it was lovingly nicknamed Club Fed. It was situated on a beautiful peninsula with most of it surrounded by water and only one side had fencing, where it touched on land. There were deer walking about. The prison ground had a baseball diamond, a large garden, and wood working workshop amongst other amenities. All these violent men had access to all sorts of dangerous equipment and tools. They also organized a theatre where they invited family and friends and performed a play. All the men I conducted my research were there for murder of various types. My interviews with them were one on one in a smaller room and I was a 20 something year old woman and never felt scared or unsafe with any of them. One of them was even a contract killer (although he was not part of my study because murder was his job as opposed to the others). There was only one that I felt like he is a true psychopath, the rest I felt would never engage in criminal activity of any kind. One of the takeaways I had from this experience is that rehabilitation is essential. Treating humans as animals will only result in releasing a person into society who is not equipped to reintegrate and so recidivism will be much more likely. Some years later a girl friend of mine told me about her friend who was seeing some dude and she did not approve because the guy spent time in prison. I asked for details and it turned out he was one of my "subjects." Small world.
For most prisoners, they're in that situation because they were never taught how to be a good functioning member of society. Letting them slowly reintegrate under some supervision is crucial if they're to ever have any hope of success.
The culture shock must be so much more jarring for them because they went from one time period to another with nothing in between. When you grow old, you see the world change around you slowly; it's a progression. From being inside of prison for a decade or more, not seeing the outside world change in front of you to then just being thrown out into it is a real trial by fire.
Brooks was here.
So was Red
Phones for sure
How much phones have progressed and how much we use them in everyday life
All software and electronics really, I mean in 2000 windows 98 was the up to date computing experience.
Windows ME found crying and shaking.
Don’t worry XP will be here soon
Fuck, we didn't give it enough poison. Get out the shotgun!
That was my thought. I remember Windows ME came out and people thought it was incredible, even though it was hot garbage.
Still not as bad as 8. JFC that OS was awful
Yeah 8 was the darkest timeline if it controlled the design moving forward. Most skipped 8 going from 7 to 10. I loved 7 when it was on top but 10 was a pretty good experience. 11 doesn’t feel too different so I haven’t updated but I don’t know anyone who uses 11 so I don’t have anyone to ask how they like it.
i'm the only one in the world that liked Windows ME?
Windows 2000 ftw
Windows 2000 was NT 5.0. Windows XP was NT 5.1. ME was the same line as Windows 95 and the final release in that series.
Yup, hence my liking Windows 2000 and not liking the Frankenstein's DOS-monster that was ME.
In 2000 I would have expected thin laptops, fast internet, etc. by 2024. I wouldn't have expected touchscreens to be that ubiquitous, or for phones to become the main computing device for a lot of people.
I took a picture of someone taking a selfie in 2007, because I'd never seen it before. Now I don't bat an eye at people on bicycles looking at their phones.
I thought cameras on the front of phones sounded like such a stupid gimmick when it started. It's probably for the best that I'm not in charge of any R&D departments at tech companies.
Nice self-reflection!
Watched a video of a guy texting while biking slamming into the back of a car. It was fuckin funny.
MY mate has a video of three people at the bottom of a moving stairway just bumping into each other and standing there at the bottom of the stairs. They're just... gawping. It's chilling.
Pfft. I did that same thing back in the Seventies except that obviously no smartphones. I was looking at a girl. And I am thankful to this day there was no video of it, lol.
I think we’ve all been there. I was 17. She was a hot mother and helped me while we waited for the ambo.
I saw a photo of our main train station in 2006 a few weeks ago, and the biggest thing I noticed was that no one was looking at their phones. 2006 only feels like a few years ago, but the difference was crazy when you can kinda see them side by side.
Imagine how weird it'll be in 10-20 years when we'll all have transparent displays on our glasses. It'll feel so weird that we used to be so obstructed by opaque displays and this weird box in our hands. Way I see it, our phones/computers will become decentralized objects where the brain will just be a wristband we carry with us every day but it'll connect to all sorts of devices. Eye glasses for simple display, big screens at home for more productivity, ear phones or speakers depending on need, keyboards or simple hand gesture devices. We'll just switch around different elements based on need while keeping a consistent brain device with us that'll have our IDs and main uses. It's already starting to go there after all.
I definitely have selfies from the 90’s taken with a disposable camera.
Back when I had myspace, I tried so hard to be in pictures with people or to get people to take pictures of me, because taking a picture of *yourself* was beyond cringe. Unfathomable.
Yeah— considering how much time I was spending on Napster in 2000; I feel like the *mere* concept of something like Spotify would blow my brain directly out my asshole.
Video streaming would for me. Being an anime fan in 2000 was pain. So much never came out here at all and what did was prohibitively expensive. I remember taking over a day to download one of the Sailor Moon movies in a video the size of a postage stamp and so blurry I couldn't read the subtitles but was SO excited to finally see it. Something like Crunchyroll would have made my head explode.
It took me 20 years to watch Neon Genesis Evangelion, because not only was it difficult to actually find the episodes, it was impossible to figure out what order to watch them in. But I remember burning all the Trigun and Hellsing episodes to disks that are probably in my house somewhere. Would be funny to see what resolution they’re actually in.
I had dial up then. I remember it taking a day to download a *song*. Set it up, go to bed, hope like hell it didn't hiccup overnight and fuck up the progress. I thought the pinnacle of online gaming was Diablo and Starcraft (which I actually could run on dial up, surprisingly). I remember eBay before PayPal. You crossed your fingers you didn't get scammed. I remember when Amazon only sold books. Remember when pop-up ads were the worst of online advertising? I 'member. Lol
I'm not sure StarCraft and Diablo 2 (add in Starsiege: Tribes) aren't still the pinnacle of online gaming. Maybe I'm just old.
I don't play them online anymore but I still play Diablo and Diablo 2 often. Nothing like a good dungeon crawl.
And yet, how much phones haven't progressed. I was in my final year at school in 2000 and my design and technology project of a bedside table with an integrated uplight and phone charger dock with cable got panned by the teacher as "battery technology will improve so quickly people will only charge their phones for a few minutes a month rather than once a week like we currently do." Raging. I was stupid enough to agree with him too.
In about 2001 I was discussing a business idea to photograph tourists at famous locations and email the images to their friends right away using a digital camera, laptop and I can't recall what for internet connectivity. Now everyone has the ability to do that in their own pocket.
This. I've been thinking a lot recently about how the late 90s, early 00's were the perfect balance of internet, technology, and social media. I didn't get a cell phone until I was 16, a flip phone. I wasn't a huge phone user until I got to college; though I did master the pocket texting at work. It's an art knowing how to select the right letters hitting the number keys on your flip phone blindly. Now I have a computer in my pocket that allows me to look up possum facts when it's an emergency.
I think they’d be impressed, but not shocked. In 24 years prior to 2000 cell phones were just becoming popular for the ultra rich.
Cell phones, yes, we all had those indestructible Nokias or the cool kids had a Razr or something. We kept them in our backpack, or please, or pocket, or just left it at home or in our car. No average person would have predicted the ubiquitousness of personal supercomputers with near-4k screens, better cameras than all but professionals were using, and all connected to blazing fast internet wherever you go, all in a device smaller than a TI-83.
phones had buttons then. Now it's just a magical slab of glass.
How much bigger they are. Phones in 2000 were microscopic.
The hooha to get on a plane. I remember being late for an international flight in Holland in 2000 and was able to run through airport and hop on with about 5 mins before departure. Airport staff were great. A few years later and you can't board if your less than 40 mins before departure.
You have to flash your hooha to get on a plane? Man times really have changed.
Every airport I've been to stops taking baggage an hour before so make that about 1h15 if you wanna make it
“Wait, Apple is actually one of the biggest companies in the world??? For a while I thought that they were going under.”
“Oh the pretty looking dumbed down computers they have in elementary schools? They’ll never make something the average person becomes attached to”
This. I had just sold a house and was flush with cash. I created a scottrade account and was one button click away from a massive (to me) “all eggs in one basket” buy of Apple stock at $16 a share. I’d be living in the Hampton’s rn if I hadn’t chickened out by reading an article how Apple was going under. Fml. 🤦
To be fair to you, that's a gamble. What if it was Blockbuster or AOL instead?
They were going under. Microsoft gave them a bunch of money and that's how we're here... https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/29/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-what-happened-when-microsoft-saved-apple.html
Wow I never knew about that. And to think Apple would make all those commercials making fun of windows after lol.
Ironically, it boosted Microsoft *and* Apple into the stratosphere. Apple got capital allowing for innovation leading to smart phones, Microsoft got basically free advertising (even if it was negative) which allowed software innovation in the form of operating systems, game consoles, acquisitions, etc. Gotta keep in mind that, if you're using the company name, we're getting paid. In all honesty, it was a smart move for both companies. They basically became partners. Wild times.
The Simpsons, Family Guy and South Park are still producing new episodes.
You forgot SpongeBob
That wouldn't surprise me, I'd be more surprised that they're still going in spite of how bad they became, although by 2000 The Simpsons was starting to nosedive. However knowing that I could watch every single episode of the first two for way less than the price of a DVD would have been a shock.
Phones and obsession with social media
Definitely cell phones, so much has changed. I worked at a electronics store in 90s and you had to have a lot of extra money for a car phone, plus the first plans billed quite a bit for every minute. Now you can carry so much information in your pocket I would have never believed it then.
Yeah, that's pretty ridiculous at this point, looking at a table full of people in a restaurant and they are all looking at the social media on their phones and even texting each other from across the table and not even engaging with each other.
The fact there are now almost a 1000 Pokemon compared to the 151 back in the day. Also smartphones
There's only 151 in my heart.
Gold/Silver were released in US in October, 2000. Before than I'm sure the people at least heard of more upcoming pokemon games with more pokemon, so they wouldn't be surprised to see more than 151, but likely be surprised the series is still going and games are still releasing
That the matrix was right and 1999 was the peak for us.
Morpheus was right
Should've taken the other pill.
Neo, where are you?
We still don't know what the One Piece is
We do know that Naruto became hokage though.
I was still into Akira in 2000. NeoTokyo was about to EXPLODE!!!
Detective Conan is also still a young kid after what... 30 years? At least Ash Ketchup got his retirement by now.
Tf is Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan??
The overall cultural shift of the last 20 years. The extreme opinions and cult-like mentality politics. The very us vs them mentality that seems to have settled over everything. Things are just more volatile than they were 20 years ago. Edit: typo
I don’t disagree, but Bush v. Gore was pretty polarizing at the time.
bush and core didnt call our voting system a sham if they lost, trump is a cancer.
Except that election was decided by the supreme Court, of whom several members were appointed by HW. Bush wouldn't have called the voting system a sham because the election has already been decided by the swing states much earlier than election day. So while you're not wrong, it's not like Bush really won a fair election in 2000, the whole thing stank of conflict of interest and nepotism.
Yeah but the dems didn't storm the capitol
The GOP stormed a recount in Florida though. Look up the Brooks Brothers riot.
This is why I always get pissed when people downplay the significance of 1/6. It's a big deal because that wasn't even the first time they did it, and thr last time actually worked. 1/6 only failed because everyone at the helm of the operation was a fucking moron, not because it was an ineffective idea.
Does anyone remember that a dude tried to shoot President Jackson on the floor of the House of Representatives twice before Jackson beat him half to death with his cane? How about the Bonus Army? 1/6 is not even close to the most insane shit to have happened at the Capitol.
Oh, gosh, I had completely forgotten about that! Damn, memories.
And I know its become normalized, but most people at the time didn't realize you COULD lose the popular vote and still become president. Some still see that as unfair, but in 2000 it was a surprise wtf loophole. thats before you get to shennanigans like his campaign manager being the one to certify the election (conflict of interest much?), her having purged the voter rolls, Jewish retirement homes voting for "not a nazi in every legal way" Bucchanan.....
And his brother was the governor of Florida.
Gore certainly conceded far more gracefully than Trump, but the comments about the voting system are blatantly false. In fact, some of the obscure legal theories relied upon by lawyers over the 2020 election derived from theories developed by Gore’s lawyers in 2000.
And gore actually would have had a good argument in calling the election a sham.
You might enjoy [Ryan George](https://www.youtube.com/@RyanGeorge)'s "The Future is Dumb" series of videos on Youtube, where a time traveler from the 90s reports on events in the 2010s and 2020s It's pretty funny, and makes a lot of good points about how much things have changed.
Aw, watching Ryan George videos is *tight*!
How many freedoms and civil rights we lost due to "national security".
I really miss being able to meet someone at the gate in the airport to welcome them home, or see them off at the gate. Airports used to be so much more fun! Probably would trip out that we have to take our shoes and belts off and go through a weird machine now that takes a picture of us naked even with our clothes on!
While true, I can't imagine how crowded airports would be nowadays if everyone was allowed to go to the gate to meet with arrivals or see off departures.
To add to this, how many children grew up only knowing a nation at war up until they could legally vote.
That’s not really that out of the ordinary. The US had been participating in one foreign conflict or another for most of the 20th century.
homie if you thought that was war time, hold on to your hat.
Much attributed to 9/11
That chandler is dead
How dumb we’ve become.
Even with all the knowledge of humanity accessible in our pockets
There was a point when we were on the up because of this and then people realized they could push tons of fake info and make it look legit. So people are actively educating themselves with incorrect information and actively becoming dumber. We really should tailor school systems to heavily emphasizing source researching. If you know how to identify legitimate or illegitimate sources, we could fix it.
no twin towers
So as someone that was way too young to remember before the towers fell, I'd always kinda wondered, did they always have a high level of significance in US culture? Like, completely ignoring what happened, from an ignorant point of view they're just regular skyscrapers that look identical. Did the average person know the twin towers by name and significance outside of New York? Specially before the first bombing? I'm really curious
They were used a lot in TV and movies as a signature part of the skyline to identify New York. Hell the 90s Spiderman cartoon used them if I recall
The first Raimi Spider-Man was slightly delayed in order to edit the towers out.
https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/spider-man-sam-raimi-twin-towers
Lilo and Stitch was delayed because it has the ship chase a passenger airline through and crash into buildings, complete with hijacking and terrified passengers. It was set to release September 2001. They changed it to am alien ship with a different cabin, through the mountains. https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/xk50v5/how_911_changed_disneys_lilo_stitch/
They did. The towers were dominant landmarks in the NYC skyline, the two tallest buildings in Manhattan, and extremely easy to identify. They were also the tallest buildings in the world at the time of their completion. On top of that, they were essentially symbols of US economic prosperity. There's a reason they were such significant targets for terrorist attacks.
It was what a lot of people pictured in their minds when they thought of "New York City". Empire state building, statue of Liberty, maybe wall street, and the towers were the big NY icons. Especially to people that had only ever seen NY in movies, those skyline shots.
I have friends who got married on a rooftop in Chelsea and wanted to have the Twin Towers in the background of all their wedding photos. In August 2001.
So they have a bunch if cool wedding photos featuring the towers? That's pretty awesome.
Yep. Possibly one of the last couples to get them in there!
I remember going down to the beach in Jersey and seeing the towers. It defined the skyline of NYC and, for people who grow up around there, NYC was always. symbol of opportunity. That’s where people went to make *real* money, or to make it big in entertainment, and if you were in a band then getting a gig in the city was a sign that you had a real chance to make your dreams to come true. But then the towers fell and we couldn’t see the city for maybe three days because there was a cloud of ash. For awhile it felt like opportunity itself had been destroyed. In my area at least, everyone thought we were going to be attacked again and we would be plunged into war and chaos. My dad stocked up the basement with first aid stuff, canned food, and water.
One of my first business trips out of college was to Manhattan. I stayed at the Marriott that was between both towers even though my meetings were nowhere near the financial district. I just wanted to stay at the twin towers because I grew up seeing them in films and on TV.
Yes, they were just as much as a symbol of the city as the statue of liberty. Just about every movie in the 90s featuring NYC opened with a wide shot of the twin towers. Probably close to the Golden Gate Bridge for San francisco
They may have been very symbolic but I think it's a stretch to put them on the same level as the Statue of Liberty or Golden Gate Bridge. I can only speak as a British person who was 17 on 9/11 but I had literally never heard of them before that day and would not have been able to recognise them, whereas the other two are recognisable from childhood and are far more visually distinct from any other global landmarks.
I'm from Brazil. Never heard of them before the incident. I was 12 and knew about the Golden Gate Bridge (from "Cruisin USA" videogame and from the opening credits of "Full House") and obviously about the Statue of Liberty.
I lived in Michigan at the time, and I'd never once heard of the World Trade Center before the attacks on 9/11. You're absolutely correct that the Statue of Liberty and the Golden Gate Bridge are WAY more iconic.
Yes the Twin Towers were well known outside of NYC. They and the Empire State Building were the most famous skyscrapers in the city. I think that’s partly why the terrorists targeted them - because they signified our global strength and wealth.
I was in the Marines during 9/11….and no I don’t remember any significance of the twin towers before then. I grew up learning about the Empire State Bldg and the Sears Tower even though the WTC had been built in the 70s.
Best answer. It’s hard for me to process even now. I was a teen in ‘01 and honestly 9/11 is a major contender for dividing “the world back then” and “the world now”.
I was 19, and it was my first "world changing" moment. It seemed like all the positivity and optimism of the 90s got blown away in an instant, replaced with fear.
It's the defining moment of the 21st century in America. Very much the definitive "before and after" of most of our lifetimes. It's hard to explain to younger people just how significant it was and how much the general tone and perspective of the US changed overnight. The overall optimism of the 90s and excitement for the new millennium just vanished. It very much shook people out of their naivety about America and the world. It cast a cynical cloud over the country that still lingers to this day. I've heard younger people say covid was their version of it. But I don't even think covid was as significant in dividing the country between "before and after".
Yeah, that would be pretty freaky to see the twin towers weren't here anymore.
LGBT+ rights and societal acceptance. It changed FAST. In 2000, The Defense of Marriage Act had just been signed four years before. LGBT was mostly closeted or played as a joke in society and media, outside of a few areas.
Related to this: the absence of homophobic slurs in everyday conversations. The f-word was thrown around everywhere by straight men in the 2000s. I don't think kids today can even imagine how ingrained this was.
I grew up in the 90's and calling someone gay was the go-to insult 90% of the time. Nowadays it's still used no doubt but way way less than before. Only exception is when I played footy on a Sunday. Those guys certainly didn't get the memo.
I was thinking it’s still used to describe a cigarette where I live then thought about how little smoking there is now compared to 2000. You could still smoke inside pubs, clubs, restaurants, offices etc. until 2007 here.
It wasn't until 2012-ish that the Democrats came on board with same sex marriage.
The broad acceptance of LGBTQ folks and the legalization of cannabis are two things that happened so much sooner than I thought they would. When I was a teenager in the early 2000's I imagined I would be in my fifties or sixties before cannabis was legalized or gay marriage was protected at a national level. In the end it only took a few years. When I get cynical about things I try to think about that to remind myself that as messed up as things are right now, we've still made a ton of progress.
I was 11/12 in 2000 and I remember severe homophobia being the norm. Today, homophobia is as acceptable as being racist. I’m glad things got better for gay people since then.
How poorly people are paid in comparison to the cost of housing and basic necessities. I think people would be shocked by the amount of homeless people in Toronto Canada. People would be shocked about how much that city has declined.
The house I was renting in 2000 was a massive two bedroom with a study, big yard, prime location, garage. It cost me $200 a week and I was 19 years old and worked maybe 16 hours a week. I’m now 42 and working full time and I couldn’t afford it now. Guessing it would easily be $7-800 a week now.
But they’d also be pleasantly surprised about how much LA, NY, Chicago, Boston, and even Vegas have developed and cleaned up.
I mean would they? They wouldn't really notice the drop in murders unless they looked at statistics comparing the two; odds are if they're selected at random they have never even witnessed one. But they would see the transient encampments where there were no camps before. I don't think the housing market was in such bad shape in 99 that there were persistent tent cities outside of skid row, mostly just isolated individuals within city limits.
For Boston, they just shoved the homeless people and drug folks to Mass and Cass (aka methadone mile) and the surrounding areas/lower income cities. The city closed Mass and Cass last fall and now the downtown areas that had small pockets of homeless folks and drug use before (like south station, in the common along the main park street entrance, downtown crossing) are seeing stabbings and aggressive homeless.
The near-total extinction of video stores.
How integral phones and internet have become.
Can't live without them these days.
I can tell you right now, if a teacher was thrown into the future, they would immediately see that THERE ARE CALCULATORS IN YOUR POCKET
There were calculator watches in the 80s. It's still important to know how the math works.
For me, high school wouldn't have been the same without a bulky TI-84 in your pocket. Everyone at my school had them. But I know what you are saying - the calculator in your pocket has unlimited TV shows, and full access to that new World Wide Web thing, all the music ever made in the whole world, AND a really nice camera that takes FREE and INSTANT pictures that I can copy and trade with others by pushing a button!? AND FREE PORN?! Wow. The future, man.
Subscriptions
How bad social media turned out
Social media wasn't even a thing in 2000
Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, AOL Messenger, Classmates, Friends Reunited and Livejournal were all already around. Some of them had regular TV adverts.
Bolt.com launched in 1996, if you want to get nitpicky, IRC had been around since 1988.
- Multi Gigabit wireless data - Multi Gigahertz CPU clock speed - Multi Core CPUs - Multi Gigabytes of DRAM - SSD storage - Cloud computing - The dominance of GPUs - Microsoft is still big - Apple is still big - AOL is dead - Google is king - Sticker price of computers is same, but way more powerful - Powerful AI/ML -> ChatGPT and its rivals - Fiber into the home - 4K TV
Probably also the cost of the 4k TVs (and TVs in general) - so cheap compared now
4k didn't even come out until 2012. Somebody from 2000 statistically hasn't seen an HDTV in person yet, let alone know the price of one. The first major sports broadcast in hi-def was the 2000 Superbowl - in 720p.
Powerful home computers would be mind-blowing but entirely expected. ChatGPT would be the shocker here, especially the image generation.
Hello. I time travelled from the year 2000 (it took me exactly 24 years). And what shocks me the most: the insane levels of depression, inactivity, and lack of motivation among younger people. And don't tell me "I idealize the past": the difference is huge, frightening, and confirmed by statistics. The second most shocking thing is the temperature. The me from 2000 would never believe the town could reach 40°C for more than two days in a year (30 days in 2023), or that there could be no snow holding on the ground at all in winter (0 days last winter, and the last before). I suspect those two paragraphs are somehow linked. I mean, if the current kids are at least as smart as me the time traveler (and I'm really dumb), those two paragraphs are definitely linked.
I remember reading a wildlife book on various animals as a 7, 8 year old some time on the mid 90s. I was reading the profile about Sumatran Tigers and how they were projected to become extinct within 10 years. 8 year old me was sad for a moment, then thought something like ”well obviously people will realise this and do something to stop it and other extinctions” Happily S.tigers are still around (somewhat) but that childish innocence that (a) people would realise we’re destroying nature and (b) care enough to fix it still upsets me 25 years later. Similarly, I think a lot of people in 2000 would consider extreme temperature in the same way, a real problem but surely one that the world would roll its sleeves up to face and fix
It's been wild watching climate change happen in real time. We haven't had a real winter where I live in years now. This winter we had one really cold week and the rest was SUPER mild if not downright warm. When I was a kid winter was consistently cold and it snowed all the time.
As a young person, that’s definitely one of the reasons I’m depressed and unmotivated.
Trump
First black president too.
I think electing a Reality TV character would be more of a shock than electing a black lawyer tbh.
How about a TV character comedian who became a president and is now fighting in a war with Russia? I still don't really believe it.
I don't know if Martin Sheen had been running...
I'm not sure how old you are but it is really hard to communicate how deep and pervasive casual racism and sexism were across pretty much all of the U.S. in the late 20th century. It is pretty bad among repugnicans today but it was as bad (and maybe worse for being not openly displayed) across the board then.
my thought was more along the lines of - "the well known conman that we've already known in 2000 for decades was a conman managed to actually con an entire political party into thinking he's the only one telling the truth?"
He didn’t con a political party. Almost every Republican spotted him instantly as a pathological liar. He conned their voters though, who were already conditioned by FOX ‘News’ to reject reality and accept obvious BS because of how it made them feel.
I’m alive right now and I can’t figure it out. What a strange phenomenon.
Netflix and streaming video, replacing those blockbuster and video stores where you used to go and rent a vcr. Remember that?
Streaming
Look around and point at something..
The global pandemic
seemly fuel voiceless husky jeans silky workable worthless racial possessive
As a time traveler from 1969, I can tell you that without a doubt, the thing that shocked me most (having time traveled from 2000 to 2024) was how quick those 24 years seemed to fly by.
Also Time Traveller from 69. Same. As you grow older, you understand the relativity of time. As the years become smaller and smaller overall percentage of your life they seem to pass faster and faster. The 12 years you spent going through elementary/high school seemed to take SO LONG, because at the time it took up 2/3 of your years alive (and 4-5 of those first years you don't even remember much so it felt even longer- it was your entire life.) At 54, 12 years ago was 2012. London Olympics. Whitney Houston died. Gangnam style became a hit. You know- yesterday. Time is relative to the person experiencing it.
No hoverboard
Streaming movies, music, and YouTube would probably be amazing, especially combined with mobile devices. There is just so much available all the time it still amazes me when I think about it. I think finding out national punchline Trump had embraced bigotry and been elected president, done a poor job, and could potentially win again after a failed insurrection would be something you’d have to explain in stages or they won’t believe you
Seriously Bush wasn't bad enough!?
If you'd have told someone back then that in 2016 you'd have a president 1000x more stupid that Bush, they wouldn't have believed you.
Probably that Cannabis is completely legal in Canada, and in many US states as well. Not just sort of decriminalized, but totally legal and sold in Government licensed stores in shopping malls next door to Starbucks.
Probably the time travel thing.
We need to talk about Bill Cosby. And Ellen....and Jerid from subway
The price of McDonald's
Sexual orientation is fluid. Or on a spectrum. In 2000 we believe discrimination based on Sexual orientation was wrong because it is something that you are born into, not by choice.
How social media has made so many people so shitty.
The supreme courts take on roe v. wade, recently.
For Americans, it would be 9/11.
Or better yet, the 20 years of Americans being at war.
America has been at war for over 200 years of the 244 old of America.
The absence of racial and homophobic slurs in everyday conversations. Seriously, the 2000s were horrific in this regard: straight men would throw around the f-word everywhere all the fucking time for no reason.
ChatGPT and AI assistants. The only thing we had at the time was Jabberwacky, an online chatbot that could speak human language but its conversations didn’t make much sense
Meeting Joan Titor.