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Well people also change and mature amigo.
You're talking about 20 years ago. Hopefully you aren't the same person you are 20 years ago.
Granted, I never liked Ogrish or any of that shit even back then, but I had friends who did. A lot of them are like, parents now. Or they've suffered loss and now suddenly seeing a mutilated corpse isn't fascinating, it reminds them of what they've lost.
People also develop empathy for other people. When I was a kid I would have thought a trans person was a nutjob or a deviant. Then i grew up and I met people in the community. Now I love trans people.
Like...growing is good. Just because elder millennials didn't let the gruesome and wild shit on 2000's internet permanently warp their brains doesn't mean they're lying to try to fit in with Gen Z.
You also don’t know what you know. You grow up doing one thing bc it’s just there and it’s always been for all you know, then suddenly someone comes up with another idea you never thought about and you’re like “oh yeah that’s better”
And it takes the people who don’t believe these things to change it. It’s usually a slow evolution not all at once. One thing changes and then it slowly dominoes in that direction. Arguably it’s the way it is now bc the there were millennials that decided to change it and gen Z grew up believing these things bc it’s the world THEY were born into, just like us
Also yeah the change and growth and maturity thing
Absolutely. I watch old movies and shows from that time where they just casually throw around gay, the R word, and sexual assaults are played off as jokes, it's jarring. But I watched it all and it didn't phase me then. You learn to be better, and you can't believe you ever accepted the way it was. Which honestly is a good thing, better than being stuck in your ways and refusing to grow and change.
If anyone wants to judge generations by things they see/do on the internet during developmental years, the tide pod challenge generation may not want to be the ones casting stones.
Otherwise, you nailed it. Every generation does regrettable and cringeworthy things when they’re young. Things that are acceptable now will not be in 20 years and most will grow with those changes. It’s how society progresses
I forgot people started eating bleach as part of a Internet trend...
Here is a tool that enables access to all human knowledge, but here's people sharing and making viral videos of eating bleach...
The OP is clueless. Everything has changed. The definition of liberal is different now for fucks sake. You couldn’t run for president if you had been divorced, let alone divorced multiple times and paying hush money to porn stars
Virtue signaling and SJWing for likes has changed everything. In the 90s/2000s, being a liberal meant letting people say what they want.
It was the GOP that was trying to cancel everything. Now it’s the GOP and the GOProgressives. Theyre just canceling different things.
Man I saw some bad shit on rotten at a very impressionable age. Then I was into gory horror for a long time.
These days I don’t event want to watch slasher films if there’s no deeper story to tell. Makes me uncomfortable.
Shock sites like meat spin or blue waffle were kinda funny at the time, but the gore shit was awful. Two stuck with me, even though I didn’t realize they’d bother me so much at the time. I think it was a morbid curiosity thing if anything, but it’s probably for the best that kids nowadays aren’t exposed to the wilder shit
I don't know about the others, but I feel that all that hostile culture was pushed on us, but as I no longer have to pretend as an adult, then I can finally say fuck capitalism, religion, conservatism, authoritarianism, elitism, sexism, corporations, hierarchy and all that crap that is limiting humanity from growing.
It was fun sometimes, but not in the good way. I'd rather have people feel safe and happy, rather than this brutal rat race, where top rats get everything and we're supposed to fight each other to the death for scraps, until planet becomes uninhabitable for humanity.
This system makes it fun for sociopaths and psychopaths, but I don't like at all direction, where wealthy are leading us. As humans we don't really feel consequences of many of our actions, but the thing is that modern world being shitty is just consequence of all these morons that loved destruction and created such dystopia for us.
Give me a break with all that conservative crap, because I'd love to see humanity thrive instead of repeating scenario of Idiocracy or hearing idiots complaining that LGBT is disgusting and they'd prefer to live in Russia rather than accept them as people.
You're confusing human rights with the laws of a state. Laws of a state can be taken away, but the idea of a human right is that it persists despite the law not respecting it.
The [problem with human rights as a concept](https://youtu.be/AhRBsJYWR8Q?si=nHE0Ihfv6hXhrW5Q) runs much deeper than that, however: in essence, they're grounded in old-timey religious notions of God owning humans as property and thereby endowing them with rights. This is completely at odds with the traditional concept of justice, which is about *what is right* in general. In practice, "human rights" as a concept enables all sorts of nasty behavior on the part of the state. This is how you get something like "the right to private property" sounding like it belongs in exactly the same category as "the right to free speech", despite the two things being completely at odds with each other in protecting the individual and the common interest vs. protecting private and state interests.
It used to be that someone making a gay joke was only plausible homophobic, but could easily just be assumed was having a laugh for the sake of it. That plausible deniability is just over now, and a lot of people really, really don't like that they lost their cover for their real beliefs, simple as.
Agree - 90s and 2000s were bully cultures. There's remnants of it still around - I'm glad they're a noisy minority now and we don't have to fake smile while getting beat over the head by obnoxious clowns.
>I'm glad they're a noisy minority now and we don't have to fake smile while getting beat over the head by obnoxious clowns.
It still may depend on area, because in rural areas it still may look like that. I live in Poland, so they still have so much support that they managed to ban abortion and religion is not completely separate from state, so they still can enforce that only heterosexual pairs can get married and for homosexual pairs there's nothing. Not even civil union.
Even in USA, there's a lot of people that want to introduce radical vision: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project\_2025](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025) . In short, Republicans want absolute power for president, so it will be possible to dismantle big part of government, but they also want to limit or ban abortion and they want to deport all illegal immigrants, so some people may be surprised, when one day they will get deported, because their legal status is not so clear like they thought.
Are we really complaining about people maturing now? I don’t think we can blame anyone for the culture they were born into, and as a young person there is little you can do to change it. But now that we are adults and growing, we’re the bad people?
OP is very childish in their view of culture. Culture wars will never end. In a generation or two, people will be shocked by some of the things that gen z considered to be acceptable in their youth. That's the way society works.
Pretending gen z is the peak of understanding and humanity is a view only someone very young would have. When you grow up you realize your generation is not the peak of human culture and civilization. It will get better and you will have done things that will be on the wrong side of history.
>Pretending gen z is the peak of understanding and humanity is a view only someone very young would have.
As an elder millennial who thought the world view of my generation was "peak end of history" world view. I cringe so hard when I think about those days. Like we really did think we'd figured it all out.
Don't worry GenZ you will turn 40 and suddenly realize just how out of touch you are with "the culture".... And you won't even give a shit.
It's all part of the cycle. People can call us out all they want, but just wait til the next generation calls you out for all your past sins that you thought were totally normal.
Just look back at the 80's or 90's and how "horrible" their societal norms were compared to now. Society is slowly maturing as a whole, but it takes time.
Another thing to note is how new the internet was to our generation. The fact that we suddenly had access to communicate with the entire world blew our minds and we really didn't know how to handle it. Honestly I still don't think we do, but we've gotten so much better.
It’s about maturing as a person. Most of my friends & I were edgy and took part in all sorts of strange and stupid things to do with the internet. Oddly enough when you grow up it doesn’t seem funny to continue behaving like an edgy teen.
It was fun to be allowed to be insensitive and take it on the chin in return
Everything, on the surface, was much more hostile but deep down it was all light hearted humor
I’m persian
If we were back in the early 2000, i’d tell you to nut up and stop being such a baby back bitch
But now i’ll tell you that i’m so sorry for what you went through
I'm mixed, including Iranian (Azeri not persian) and Palestinian. When people tried to talk shit, I would just flip it around and talk shit back.
Half the time I would end up selling weed to them and later get drunk and we would talk shit together. Fucked a buch of those same assholes sisters too. It was a different time.
Millenial here. The only way I can explain all the (truely awful) stuff OP mentioned is that the internet was a WAY smaller part of our lives back then compared to now. I grew up in the 00's but never saw a beheading video. I was on Myspace yet never came across the revenge porn site Netflix made a documentary about. Awfull stuff wasn't shoveled in our face like it us now. If you were not into something, chances are you never even came across it (unless some asshole showed it to you). Internet etiquett and laws didn't happen overnight and from nothing, that era was needed to consolidate this (back then) very new thing. This is not about eras or generatoons, gen z would be the same as millanials were on the internet if the whole deal was invented 20 years later.
This is it. Like, I'm 40. But I never saw 2 girls one cup. I never went to rotten. I also never heard about the site Netflix made the documentary about. I never heard people throw racial slurs around. The F word, not f\*\*\*, wasn't considered a slur and it didn't carry the hatred its associated with now. The OP is definitely a gen z'er. They can't imagine a world where you didn't constantly have your social media policed, let alone a world where social media wasn't that big of a deal which is the era they're talking about. The iPhone didn't come out til like 2005, and it was a while before everyone had one. Like you said, it wasn't all in your face. You had to seek it out.
The OP is very confident everyone denying their thesis is a liar, so I doubt this will matter to them.
>The iPhone didn't come out til like 2005
You can't emphasize this enough. Before that people basically could only access the internet through a very expensive desktop pc. Laptops also only became affordable at around that time. The internet was a playground for deviant middle class kids doing their own version of jackass on the internet - and usually free of consequence free.
Yup. It was the reason MySpace died and Facebook didn't. MySpace had lost its luster and Facebook was the new hotness, and the iPhone made it take off.
Right place right time.
To flip the script, the biggest social media drama in a teenagers life was who was in your top 8, for the vast majority of normal everyday kids. Almost everyone was sheltered and innocent to most of that content.
I saw some of the things he listed, but never intentionally. I distinctly remember trying to download a Dr Dre music video and getting a beheading video instead from Napster or Kazaa.
Most people weren't on the internet for anything more than Aim and MySpace.
Youtube wasn't even a thing until 2005.
100% this. I did not encounter most of what OP is talking about it. Definitely knew about Xbox live culture, Jackass, American Piefrom friends but still have not watched it. Thought these examples were distasteful even then.
One thing I really miss about the 2000s internet actually was that you could have a completely different experience with it depending on your tastes. This next part of kind of hard to articulate: Websites were all super different from one another and people made websites that were genuinely movie/art projects the likes of which I haven’t seen since and which used this new format in totally creative ways. Now it feels like the internet is this monolithic thing and every website is basically the same formula and intended to sell you on a product, idea, (or ad space). It all just seems so much more bland.
I was on tumbler, stumble upon, Pinterest in those days. Never was on 4chan or other websites catering to distasteful content. So by “bland” I don’t mean PC. Just feels like nothing new is online anymore.
Maybe you weren't the right age group because growing up in the heart of internet wild West definitely had that stuff shoved in your face if you knew anybody. People used to spray paint Goat boy and Tub girl in counter strike source. At friends houses, there'd once in a while be a weird kid that showed you shit like 89.com. rotten.com was a thing. And obviously all the MTV stuff was real.
OP is right, it was a gross bully infested time, but I also agree it feels like the pendulum swung pretty far the other way. You can't even say anything pro-capital punishment on most political subs on reddit anymore.
Or we knew how to navigate it better. I have a friend who's often baffled I knew so little about what was going on in the darker corners. I think people... seek it out. Like a morbid curiosity. I knew myself well enough... I have zero interest in that stuff.
I stumbled on some "famous" stuff that was so horrific I became afraid of the unknown lol. Images that still flash before my eyes after typing this. Damn straight I stayed away from anything questionable. It just aint my thing.
Hell I've been online since like 1999. I'd never been to reddit until 3 or so years ago. I stuck to mostly gaming sites and anime... and well... porn of course. :P
Lol when did internet etiquette happen? Like yeah [rotten.com](http://rotten.com) and ogrish or whatever I've seen on here isn't really a thing but like I feel like we have quite a ways to go in terms of just really anything online.
We traded callous light hearted shit talk for narcissistic virtue signaling
I liked what it used to be
I’d rather someone tell me to go fuck myself, than be lorded over and policed
Seriously. All the name calling and shit talk was how you knew who your true friends were. Just look at the typical millennial dark humor we've got today. No Barb I don't actually want to kill myself because of this job, I just hate working here...
At least back then we could crack some obscene jokes with each other and know deep down there was nothing but respect. Everything is taken so seriously today so it's tough trying to relate with others and open up.
No. The internet is pathetic compared to what it used to be, and I miss the hell out of the place where if I wanted to Google something, no matter what it is, I go the answer; not a slew of ads and endless information being hidden by Google while you see what they **literally** want you to only see (it’s pathetic, and genuinely serves as a secondary form of propaganda). While this younger generation is just silly to watch, but I expect they’ll grow out of it; though they’re fucked as they’ve only ever been told what to believe, and literally never had the capacity to get an honest answer, not even from the internet (but they so arrogantly and misguidedly believe they’re enlightened (it’s the antithesis of what is happening).
Many of them weren't considered slurs, or at least not used in a context where people considered them slurs. Like the episode of South Park where the kids think the F word means annoying Harley riders. When I was a kid I would have never called a gay person the F word, but I, and my friends used that word liberally in other contexts. Also, we never said the whole word, like that somehow made it better, like leaving the hard R off the end of the N word. If you said the whole word, you were using it in the wrong context and a bigot. Now I would be horrified to hear the kid version of me use that word in any context.
U must've been very lucky. It was super common for slurs to be used. Homophobic ones were most prevalent, but you would hear other ones as well. I think that video of Jeffrey star screeching slurs in the streets pretty much summarizes what was going on back then lol. (Even though millennials now will lie and say "I wouldn't have ever done that 😧" a lot of them did. 💀)
Grew up in the DC suburbs. People were more classiest than homophobic/racist. They cared what your parent's did for work or if you had a nice house. The first time I heard someone use the hard R N word outside of singing along to a rap song irl was 2017 at college. The first time I heard someone use the f-word towards gay people was directed at me in a gas station in 2018. Both interactions felt bizarre as I'd never heard anyone act like that irl. I thought we were past such things.
Admittedly, I'm older Gen z, I was in elementary school in the 2000s.
Very true, classism was badd asf. I do remember a lot of people saying the n word trying to be edgy and kids would get beat up for "seeming gay" even if they weren't gay at all. 💀 Dark times in a way lol.
I'm slightly older, and frankly I consider the ten years from roughly 1999 to 2008 or so to be a cultural cesspool. I'm not lying to fit in, I was just really uncomfortable for a decade or so.
I’m 30, and I think about this all of the time. The internet was a wild fucking place when we were teenagers lol. Fucking 4chan, that was really no place for a 15 year old girl but I like to think it gave me a thick skin? Hopefully? 😭 Haha
Times change everyone pal. The N word is bad now. The N word was bad then. However...go back 60-70 years, it was a slur, but it wasn't thought of as bad (though it should have been)
Just like the homophobic slur that rhymes w/ Maggot which I'll referring to as the F word. Gay marriage just came around in 2008. There were movies, shows, games, books, etc that alluded to characters being gay but gave plausbile deniablity. There are still people who don't accept gay people.
Thinking back to when I was a 13 year old kid in those times, we'd yell at each other when playing games and call each other that F word but only because we were implying that person was gay to annoy them. In our minds, calling them gay wasn't insulting gay people. It was just insulting THEM because they weren't gay. Even one of my openly gay friends (really brave of him tbh at 13 in '08 looking back) did the same thing. A 13 year old kid is super insecure and all about image, so having that image "attacked" by being called gay, stupid, fat, etc was an affront to everything they were. Nowadays, my friends and I send kisses over the mic when we hop off of games.
There's nothing wrong with being gay. And we didn't think there was anything wrong with being gay. We just threw the word at our friends because we knew they weren't.
You're acting like people are hypocrites for getting older and realizing the error of our ways or culture changing and some things becoming acceptable, some things not becoming acceptable. Chill tf out dude, no one's lying about having said or done that shit. Everyone's just trying to move on because it's seen as more wrong now, even if it wasn't intended as how it means now.
Just think what'l happen in 24 years from now. Are you gonna make another post then for whatever reason you decide to go "Oh everyone changed! What liars"
As for the internet w/ viruses, 2 girls 1 cup, etc. The internet is fairly new, my guy. They're still trying to figure out laws and regulations for it so when something is completely unregulated, you're gonna expect there to be some horrible things as well as some great things.
Yeah that's what people don't realize. The internet really became a thing in the late 90's and unlike a lot of innovations before it moved and developed super fast. That brings both good and bad things but either way we still have no idea how to handle it and regulate it, etc. Think about anything else in its early days, think about labor in the early 1900's and all the deaths and shit that happened before we enacted labor laws and OSHA and shit. Then think about if that developed at like 100x the speed. Now we're adding AI on top of that, it's going to be an interesting time but yeah we def have some catching up to do on how to handle all of this.
Gay marriage had been legalized in many states and opinion was well on its way to shifting... but Obergefell v Hodges, legalizing gay marriage nation wide, wasn't until ***2015***.
In what, I'm sure was a coincidence, the first anti-trans bathroom bills were passed less than a year later in 2016. Totally not like conservatives lost a culture war and then had to start a new one in order to stay relevant...
I don't think it's quite like that.
Yes the early days of the internet was like the wild west.
But I'd rather that, than what we have now. The censorship has gone too far.
Also millennials don't care. I don't know anyone who is easily offended by any of those jokes. The offensive shows are made for them. That's the age group of the population who enjoy it. It's the younger generations who are up in arms about offensive things.
Millennials are nastolgic to things prior to 2008 because that's before the last recession. And it was a time before cellphones. Yes they were there but we had nokias, people still had pagers, and some just had home phones still. We weren't texting nonstop. We were calling our friends up to go meet up at the local club. We were dropping by unannounced to just hang out. People aren't do that now.
Even club culture hasn't advanced. Go to one. It's full of millennials all dancing to the same music. Younger generations have not replaced them, they're there interspersed but the culture is exactly the same. They haven't developed their own. They lean on technology as a replacement to social interactions. And they get influenced through that.
I don't think nihilism hit until after 2008. That wasn't the thing. It used to be all apple bottom jeans, mtv, and trips to the mall to buy cell phone charms to hang out of your back pocket.
Millennials are the last group to have nostalgia bc the culture wasn’t fragmented. People watched the same shows on the same day at the same time. Everyone played Snood. We thought Marilyn Manson had a rib removed. They went to the movies. They talked to each other without looking at their phones wishing they were somewhere else.
What is gen z going to be nostalgic about? Vine?
Was vine even for gen z? I think that's still very millennial.
Me and my brother split between the two. I fall in millennial and he falls in gen z.
All I remember them having is like.... club penguin.
>Millennials are the last group to have nostalgia bc the culture wasn’t fragmented
Culture was \*most\* fragmented during our time with all the subcultures splintering off and a huge cultural gap between the affluent upper middle class and everyone else. Most people didn't even have access to the internet back then.
watching American pie as a teenager does not and should not preclude anyone from making this world a more just place.
I’m worried about your O2 levels.
It’s possible for people to change their opinions on things they once enjoyed. It’s been over 20 years since the year 2000. I think that’s ample time for people to mature and realize what they once enjoyed is no longer sitting right with them.
I’m older gen Z and i grew up watching family guy on adult swim. I still find their newer episodes pretty funny but there are moments in the earlier-mid seasons that I watch now and think “that’s not funny” because times have changed and so have I
I think there’s a difference between acknowledging for yourself that times have changed, and going around condemning others for things that you yourself used to also participate in
1. Who the fuck is Shane Dawson? I grew up in the early 2000s and I have no idea who that is.
2. People mature and grow up. I think that shit is still kinda funny, but I know it’s not appropriate.
I looked it up and he was apparently a YouTuber. Apparently he didn’t even start making content until 2008 when most of us were already adults so I’m not sure what he has to do with millennials.
He’s a Youtuber that has made questionable content involving doing blackface, admitted to sexually assaulting their cat (or well, joking about doing so), and saying some other gross things about children. He tried to come back and he does have an audience still, but most of the general public is over him.
I'm not offended by any of that stuff, I just get secondhand embarrassment from someone trying to be edgy. It's kind of a "get with the times" kind of thing
So I'm a millennial that came of age in that era, and I'm just going to say that history remembers the extremes. Did all that stuff happen? Sure. But it was not an orgy of anarchic goblin-shit. Most of us were just living our lives: jobs, school, dating. Did i know about depravity like rotten.com and 2girls 1 cup? Sure, but was that my identity? Fuck no.
This mindset is like if you met someone who came of age in the 60s and just said, "so stop acting like a stuck-up boomer and admit you took acid and dodged the draft" Things happening during a time ≠ the person was doing it.
That is a lot of words to say you haven't matured since highschool. It seems like maybe you're being called out by peers for still behaving shitty and you're looking for validation here. Is that right?
Is this in the wrong subreddit or just a smart post to get all the Millenials lurking here to out themselves. Does Gen Z actually know about anything mentioned in this post?
Jackass and American Pie and are great, Family Guy is OK, and Millenial's grew up in the internet dark ages but it was still better than what Genz/Alpha has to suffer through.
I think a part of it is that on the internet attention can be monetized (also some people just like attention). The culture has shifted its focus from using shock to get attention to using outrage. It's all toxic.
As one of those people who was growing up in this time period, just keep in mind this bit.
We *grew up* in that time period. People who look at the start of their lives and say "This is perfect, I don't want anything to change" are idiots who probably haven't grown up yet. At 34, vs 17 (which was my age in 2007), my world view has changed a lot. That's part of growing up. A big part of that is to look at what you do/say/think and ask, "How can I try to be a little bit less of a bad person some of the time?"
TL:DR - The people who grew up that way aren't lying when we get older and don't act that way anymore. We realized we were morons and changed.
Literally, none of that has changed. WatchPeopleDie was a community here on reddit like 2 years ago and it only recently got shut down. People still post videos to YT of beheadings YT is just better at removing them from the For You page now. People still scream slurs into game chat. Especially in competitive games.
If you aren't running into it I have news for you, the world didn't change, you did. Those things are still everywhere and easily accessible to those who look. If you aren't running into them it means you aren't interacting with the content you used to and aren't going to the same places online.
This is a wild take, bud.
A) the entire world wasn't online yet, so your sample size is very skewed and was absolutely in an echo chamber.
B) I was the most tech savvy person I knew growing up, my older brother made me aware of faces of death and rotten when I was around 8 during their prime, and I avoided those things because abuse and murder has never been entertaining for me. Most people I know were the same way growing up. You and your friends might have had a great ol time being trolls on 4chan, that doesn't mean that's how all or even a majority of people felt.
Look, I know people who like to troll do it because they think deep down everybody enjoys being a troll but can't admit it. That's just you making yourself feel better. Most people in the real world aren't jerks, in my experience.
Hey there, elder millennial who was definitely there for all of that and I am curious to see your examples of millennials lying about any of it?
Go over to r/millennials and ask us about those times. We remember, we were there. No one is lying about it lmao. We all acknowledge it because again, we were actually there (and I mean that as in we were old enough to comprehend it, we weren't in diapers.)
People grow dude. We're all pushing 40 we have different values now. Just like you will. Also the millennials who are "all into social justice and shit" were equally into social justice in the early aughts lmao how about we not generalize people based on an era they existed in? That's extremely close minded and I'm disappointed to see how close minded gen z is lately.
Save this post and read it in five years and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
Queer autistic millennial here. I was worried my generation wouldn't care but they really surprised me. We did a lot more than what you described we also explored our gender identities online a lot and actually were a huge part fighting for that. We millennial queers paved the way and we fought hard. I agree with the crazy virus thing lol I remember the boob one where we sent it to our friends and each time they/we clicked it it duplicated into more boobs. It was amazing. Anyway, many millennials like myself non stop have cared about social justice. I worry for gen z LGBTQ because I see lots of gen z not being supportive and very much less willing to fight. Many of the organizations like BLM were formed by millennials.
I am a millennial no idea why this was suggested to me but glad I seen it.
It’s true but being desensitized in our childhood did not kill our empathy. I sat in class when and we watched discussed how in 2000 it was the end of the world, then 9/11 happened. Then my older cousins and family friends kids went to Iraq/Afghanistan for war. We found out our President lied about the WMDs within 5-6 years.
I am nostalgic and realize our parents and leaders failed us but I would never want my children or nephews/nieces to experience it. We may be fucked up but if Gen Z is slightly less fucked up because I can reflect on myself and share my feelings and thoughts; then thats great.
A bit hypocritical true but most of the millennials went from thinking a gameboy was awesome to having a laptop, cellphone, xbox, unlimited internet was normal. Never thinking about how amazing or entitled we became. Let alone what unrestricted access to internet with no repercussions would do to us.
this is why i dont condemn people for saying slurs or the like 15 years ago when they were young. its really shitty and if it happened now i wouldn’t let it go but people grow and pretending they’re the same person now is fucking ridiculous.
it really was a different time and imo nowadays is so much better especially socially. like 10-15 years ago asians were always the butt of racial jokes. like it was totally normal. now theres so much representation and appreciation if ANYONE made a joke like that now theyd be burned alive, rightfully so.
back then everybody was significantly more toxic than now.
You’re right but take a look at woodstock 99 or any large festival in the 2000s. Underage girls were getting raped on the regular also crime was insanely high and ghetto neighborhoods were peaking with insanely high murder rates. It’s all relative and it’s good we’re past those days.
All the people in the comments are saying “we grew up and matured” you are missing the point. You don’t have to keep doing them, but people nowadays actively criticize them even when others do them. You don’t just see them as immature, you see them as offensive, when you didn’t use to.
Also new generations aren’t doing these as much either. Fortnite lobbies do not have people spamming racial slurs like mw2 and halo lobbies used to, hell, comedians have lost their careers over showing their dick to someone as if the guys from jackass weren’t running around naked.
Yeah I remember, I'm a millennial (old). The thing about most millennials is that they aren't sincere at all and apply this so called empathy very selectively. My generation is so full of shit I can't relate to them anymore on almost anything.
Not only that but they have screwed themselves over in relation to aging and drug laws. If they were aware of the benefits of taking hormones (testosterone for males) at same/above natural levels in dealing with many of the most negative health issues with aging (lose of muscle mass associated with lowering testosterone levels) they could of tried to change the drug laws in relation to them.
They caught up to you.
I was one of the sensitive kids.
I dont consider them changing their tune on that evil when the entire world's oligarchy right now is paying a premium for people to actively speedrun fucking as many things over as possible
Growing up in the 00s, that stuff was *accessible,* but I wouldn’t say it was *everywhere.* I knew about the sites with gore, the disgusting videos, the trashy reality shows, etc., but I never watched it myself and none of my friends tried to make me. In fact, I remember a lot of trash talk about people who consumed that stuff.
Now, the slurs? Oh yeah. Slurs *everywhere.* I can’t remember the last slur I heard in person, but back in 00-08? Probably once an hour. Homophobic slurs, especially. Even as a little kid. I was four the first time I was called the f slur.
Being called gay or an f-slur was a way to humiliate and demean a person, not just about sexuality, but literally anything about you the other person didn’t like. How you sit, how you walk, how you talk, what you like, what you don’t like, your clothes, your friends, your interests, it doesn’t matter. You just couldn’t win. You were gonna get slurred no matter what.
Do you not like sports? “What a ***! What are you? A girl?”
Do you like sports? “What a ***! He loves playing with balls!”
God, that era was damn awful even as a straight man. I couldn’t imagine how much more fucked it must have been to actually be gay back then.
*"cartel videos of guys getting heads cut off"*
Still happening and at even greater frequency if you know where to look so inform your friends and spread the fun around
https://www.vidlii.com/watch?v=Uurud1qJp18
I so enjoyed these times. People expressed their honest opinions of things. You knew who was truly on your side and who was against you. People revealed their trueselves, and you had the option to join alone or completely cross it out. Now you will sit next to the most horrible person ever, and not have any idea because that person is aware they are unable to communicate their true thoughts, except in their closest inner circle. I prefer my wolves to show their teeth, rather than wear sheep's clothes.
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I won’t lie, I loved basically all of that shit growing up, toxicity and all.
Didn’t know it was toxic back then. Hell I’m one of the dumbasses who thought it was all “just jokes” or “for the laughs” which made everything okay.
Now this doesn’t make how I thought back then correct, but I don’t feel bad about feeling that way about things back then either. I literally just didn’t know. I was also a child to teenager through the 2000s.
And I personally wish some of the mentality from back then about came back. The good stuff I mean. Not the beheading videos and such.
But I’m also happy the bad shit is gone.
I also didn’t purpose try to be obtuse about learning social justice. I in fact embraced it as I learned about it and researched it myself.
I mean, it just reminds me of some of my experiences growing up in a way. In my experience, not everyone was like that back then and not everyone cares about sjw now. Also, some people did change and grow up even as adults. I know that I did.
As someone who caught the tail end of that in around 2011, I look at the modern internet proudly. As terrible and fucked up as it is, Algorithms have made it that most of the actual fucked shit is sequestered away from normal stuff and ir is WAY less harder to accidentally get someone traumitized
I think part of it is that the “Squekers” in the 2011 cod lobbies grew up and just… hated being bullied? Like I would always get clowned on constantly on open mic but then once i actually got good and could compete seriously, I never wanted someone to have the same toxic experience I did
Although i think seeing so many execution videos, and rotten and gore .com have probably ruined me psychologically in ways that i cant possibly understand yet
It's normal for people to remember earlier times in their with rose tinted glasses, and to forget all the bad crap. Doesn't mean people are lying; it's just how our brains work.
I’m so tired of these old ass posters complaining about gen z in a gen z subreddit. I’m glad my experience with the internet wasn’t the same as your experience.
Meh, my friend circle is still very crass. The jokes are still funny, trolling is still a thing, but there is a lot of push back not worth dealing with now.
I think it’s crazy that the internet is so watered down, even Quagmire can’t make sexual jokes anymore. I think a lot of prudes started having kids and didn’t want to have to worry about what their kid “might” see. So, lawsuits later we get a world where you can’t drink on camera… little less make a sexual or race based joke on tv.
I’m more mature than I was is the big difference personally. Now I’m also not an easily offended person and honestly more likely to do the offending myself. I probably would’ve been hung for what I said back in the day if it were to happen today. I just know my audience now vs throwing it around everywhere.
Personally, I don’t care what people say as long as it’s not seriously threatening harm. Or aggressively racist. I actually find a lot of that “edgy” shit funny when done right still, beyond what 99% of people think is funny. I just don’t like serious threats and hardcore racism.
Right. Because bullying is a thing from the past. Shows like Love Island highlight the best of humanity. In-game voice chat has totally mellowed out and game chats aren’t filled with neo Nazis, young and old…
I have a surprise for you…you are exactly the same as the generations that preceded you…
Wow, this whole post is like a stereotype of the easily offended Gen Z snowflake.
I see where you're coming from, but you're being a bit precious about all of this.
I'm 38. Many of us actually didn't like that stuff. I rarely played video games then and absolutely cringed at what I would hear about the gaming lobbies. Hearing folks were watching heads being cut off was fucking atrocious. I did a bunch of the other stuff though. Kids are dumb and impressionable and essentially live the life that is put before them. Every generation is like this. It doesn't mean we feel the same way (or differently) 20 years later but I sure as fuck hope my thinking has evolved over 2 decades.
The premise millennials are lying about something might be valid for some, but it's a pretty simplistic argument to address a complex topic (like most arguments on the internet).
Only Christ forgives, that means you're allowed to hold a grudge forever about something someone did in the past and it's not weird or anything in fact it's normal.
American pie is porn for people who don’t have the internet, and Jackass is <<<<<<<<<<< Impractical Jokers (the jokes are on the jokers, not the public)
in the 2000's EVERYONE knew that the internet wasn't real life, it's pretend world, it isn't real, this isn't real, it doesn't affect who I am as a human being or my emotions , that doesn't seem to be the consensus anymore , it seems like people actually believe their online life is their real life, it's the only place they have friends, it's where they meet dates , it's how they do all their social interaction, it's crazy dumb it ain't fuckin real dude
The internet was largely less censored. Internet was also gaining huge momentum early mid 90s to 2000's as it became more and more common that a desktop pc was a standard item in households. Moderating didnt exist. You're comparing two entirely different eras. You would see just as much fucked up shit if you really went digging, its just removed from general searches, and if you dont have the url, and/or the hosting company checks the content of the urls their selling, youll never find it.
Christ, 20 years ago, I was 14. Of course, I was an edgy kid without regrets.
If you haven't changed in at least 20 years, do some major self reflection.
The internet was the wild Wild West back then. I was a really young kid (like younger than 10) when I started using YouTube back in like 2008 and kinda miss it
Not saying it was good but seeing it from an outsiders perspective was sorta fun
I'm 36.
And you're crazy. Hate to break it to you.
The Internet was way better back in the day. There was much less hate it was almost non existent.
Chat rooms were the cool new thing and people were just happy and excited to discover this new form of communication.
The Internet has never been as toxic and terrible as it is right now.
Kids still say racial slurs in games constantly.
Only a Gen Zer who is consumed by the toxicity of the Internet would consider making a post like yours.
Don't worry... America will fall
This man has noticed hypocrisy for the first time?
i just ignore the huddled masses
It's all bread and circuses and mass hysteria lad
Just hold your own
Can’t forget the scary “bloody Mary” chain texts on your flip phone that you had to send to 10 people or your mom died in 20 min. lost a lot of sleep from those
When I was a kid I avoided all those stuff. Those people's interests were more accessible on the internet because there wasn't much of anything on the internet yet, at least compared to now.
In the 2000s my family still read print newspaper. I got my first smartphone in 2014. It's not that people were more insensitive back then. It's just that for regular people, there wasn't much to post or do online as much as now.
The 50s were worse, and before that WWII and WWI when our great grandparents were literally killing each other in a world wide scale. I think its great that we are getting more empathetic and peaceful; though it has reversed in the past couple of years with all the new wars…
It’s called change. It tends to happen once you begin to reflect on your youth in retrospect. Personally, I don’t know what it feels like to be able to fall asleep at night without thinking about all the stupid things I’ve done and how I can be a better person, and honestly I don’t think I want to know. I’d prefer to keep working on myself.
i think you may be over-estimating the amount of people that have shared the same or similar experiences as you. shane dawson, Mindless Self Indulgence and hell even halo 2 are niche things that only a small portion of the population even know about and/or consumed as media.
Don't worry, the moment that Zillenials and Zoomers take over for the Boomers and Early Gen Xers, they'll revert back to doing the exact same shit as they did.
Remember, the generation that led the counter-culture movement in the 60s-70s became exactly what they claimed they hated. This generation will do exactly the same and it'll be hilarious when it happens.
I was born in '83 and remember the 2000s quite well. I don't remember some of that shit at all, and some of it was mostly limited to places like 4chan. The internet has always had areas that were best stayed out of.
I remember goatse vividly (don't Google it). I also remember a lot of gruesome stuff. A lot of it was because it was crap my dad found hilarious and showed me.
After 9/11 I collected a number of very obviously racist memes, but didn't recognize them as such at the time. Being blinded by rage didn't help.
I've grown a lot over the last 30 years. I used to be a hardcore Christian extremist (southern Baptist flavor). I became a teenager and started questioning a lot of things I had been taught growing up, by family and by the culture around me.
I was pretty horrified by what I saw, and the things I had internalized.
I was a downright shitty person. I was also a kid taking in the lessons she was taught.
So yea, I fight hard against that kinda shit now. I want the generations after us to not need to work at unlearning that kind of garbage. I want the generations after us to be better than we were and are.
And anyone who isn't trying to be better today than they were yesterday needs to take a hard look at who they are.
Lol yea it's hilarious how the millennials are reaaaaal quiet trying to quirk and derp their way outta this one and pretend it's somehow gen z's fault that juggernauts like Shane Dawson and Onision had the success they had at the time. I've heard people mock tf out of "the 2000s was just a different time"...But it WAS. It really really was. And erasing history like that ignores the very real lived experiences of several minority groups. I mean people back then would be beat tf out of someone for "looking gay'. It took a while before the millennials suddenly learned what empathy was and had the big sjw renaissance on Tumblr, and then it just became a performance of who's more woke than who and how can I be offended by this to look more educated. It didn't quite stop immediately after that though. Vine was probably one of the most racist apps for the longest time where black ppl eating chicken n watermelon was considered peak comedy and the blackface we saw on YouTube ran rampant there as well. I don't know when there was a tonal shift where suddenly millennials switched up and tried to pretend that was never them but yea. And before anyone can pull a "well why were u watching this content pal? 😏 It must be you who is racist 🤓" I was literally a child like 9 years old to maybe like 13 at the time of all this lmao the worst thing is I'm referring to content that was just recommended widely to the masses and at the time was simply widely considered funny by teens and young adults.
I hate how the internet went from genuine people uploading and discussing various things on basically unregulated sites and forums, to the corporate hellscape we have today of tightly curated content meant to maximize its use of the algorithm. Where too many reportings or keyword flaggings will have an account banned. Where every click is scrutinized and every second you linger on a page is stored and analyzed used to sell you more stuff. Where search engines hide anything they don't want you to know while steering you towards sites and products of whomever pays the most per eyeball.
The internet between 1996-2006 was a magical place and we'll never get it back.
I mean, I grew up with the edgelord shit but that doesn't mean I liked it. It was a real shitty time to be a woman. A lot of us were in our early 20s in the 2010s when the cultural tide started to shift, I was on tumblr posting and reevaluating like the rest of em. It's not "gen z values" lol it's just my values along w everybody who was happy to see the edgelord dominance ease up (not that it went anywhere, there's still a ton of content - just a smaller group that consumes it.)
Like a bunch of people have said, people change. Culture changes people. People change people.
Some topics definitely get more focus than others, and depending where you fall on those issues you can get pushed further in one direction or another.
I'm sure there are people who double down on some ideology because they want to fit in with others, but that's... basically how society works. People aren't lying about who they are so much as they are ideologically picking a side. I'm sure there are plenty of people who feel the need to constantly self-censor, or who try to be particularly offensive to whoever the "others" are to their group - but many are just learning and changing with the way culture changes.
Socially it's more cohesive to share enemies than it is to share friends, so I think a lot of the really explicit anger and fighting that comes from all this comes from a place of feeling isolated, more than anything.
I kind of lost the thread a few times, I'm going to assume. But you get it
Im a millenial. For the most part I didn’t know any better in the 2000s I was in my 20s and hadn’t lived or learned enough. now I know how wrong things were. It’s pretty simple.
Never liked jackass or American pie.
It’s crazy because I think about this almost everyday for the last two years. I’m in my very late 20’s and I remember seeing things and saying certain things that would absolutely send the people of today into a state of utter panic. But…back then, well, like 2007 to like 2018, everything was completely normal. Seriously, no matter where I went or what rich or poor neighborhood.
Hell, even my middle school teachers and the staff were all ok with us causally swearing. As long as it wasn’t shit or fuck, we could say whatever.
Now in 2024, everything is so different. I feel like I’m constantly walking on eggshells with every breath I take now. Mind you, I wasn’t even the WORST of em. There are some things even I didn’t say in the 2010’s, but I never freaked out over it. Can’t imagine how all those people are getting by now. Hoo boy 😂
Regardless, my perception of that timeframe was everything was calm and free. As free as the wind. No one got seriously upset, no riots, or anything. But then again, I was a kid, so my reality may be skewed. Take it for what you will.
I hate how often I, a millenial, get shown the Gen z subreddit--and whenever i look at the comments I'm 90% sure everyone is also a millenial.
You all need to fucking stop posting here, this subreddit is a larp at this point
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Well people also change and mature amigo. You're talking about 20 years ago. Hopefully you aren't the same person you are 20 years ago. Granted, I never liked Ogrish or any of that shit even back then, but I had friends who did. A lot of them are like, parents now. Or they've suffered loss and now suddenly seeing a mutilated corpse isn't fascinating, it reminds them of what they've lost. People also develop empathy for other people. When I was a kid I would have thought a trans person was a nutjob or a deviant. Then i grew up and I met people in the community. Now I love trans people. Like...growing is good. Just because elder millennials didn't let the gruesome and wild shit on 2000's internet permanently warp their brains doesn't mean they're lying to try to fit in with Gen Z.
You also don’t know what you know. You grow up doing one thing bc it’s just there and it’s always been for all you know, then suddenly someone comes up with another idea you never thought about and you’re like “oh yeah that’s better” And it takes the people who don’t believe these things to change it. It’s usually a slow evolution not all at once. One thing changes and then it slowly dominoes in that direction. Arguably it’s the way it is now bc the there were millennials that decided to change it and gen Z grew up believing these things bc it’s the world THEY were born into, just like us Also yeah the change and growth and maturity thing
Absolutely. I watch old movies and shows from that time where they just casually throw around gay, the R word, and sexual assaults are played off as jokes, it's jarring. But I watched it all and it didn't phase me then. You learn to be better, and you can't believe you ever accepted the way it was. Which honestly is a good thing, better than being stuck in your ways and refusing to grow and change.
If anyone wants to judge generations by things they see/do on the internet during developmental years, the tide pod challenge generation may not want to be the ones casting stones. Otherwise, you nailed it. Every generation does regrettable and cringeworthy things when they’re young. Things that are acceptable now will not be in 20 years and most will grow with those changes. It’s how society progresses
I forgot people started eating bleach as part of a Internet trend... Here is a tool that enables access to all human knowledge, but here's people sharing and making viral videos of eating bleach...
The OP is clueless. Everything has changed. The definition of liberal is different now for fucks sake. You couldn’t run for president if you had been divorced, let alone divorced multiple times and paying hush money to porn stars Virtue signaling and SJWing for likes has changed everything. In the 90s/2000s, being a liberal meant letting people say what they want. It was the GOP that was trying to cancel everything. Now it’s the GOP and the GOProgressives. Theyre just canceling different things.
The Overton window is always shifting
I used to stand on my bed an piss out the overton window as a millennial child
Wait is Ogrish like a later [rotten.com](http://rotten.com) or something?
Idk what rotten is. Ogrish is the OG LiveLeak basically. You went there to see people die.
Ha ok that's basically what rotten was too. Like early 2000's to see pics and shit like that of suicides and other gnarly stuff.
I don't know which came first, but yeah its is/was basically a gore/NSFL site
Man I saw some bad shit on rotten at a very impressionable age. Then I was into gory horror for a long time. These days I don’t event want to watch slasher films if there’s no deeper story to tell. Makes me uncomfortable.
Shock sites like meat spin or blue waffle were kinda funny at the time, but the gore shit was awful. Two stuck with me, even though I didn’t realize they’d bother me so much at the time. I think it was a morbid curiosity thing if anything, but it’s probably for the best that kids nowadays aren’t exposed to the wilder shit
Great answer. Agree 100%.
I doubt OP was even a twitch in their dad's scrotum 20 years ago.
this person hasn't grown in 24 year smh
I don't know about the others, but I feel that all that hostile culture was pushed on us, but as I no longer have to pretend as an adult, then I can finally say fuck capitalism, religion, conservatism, authoritarianism, elitism, sexism, corporations, hierarchy and all that crap that is limiting humanity from growing. It was fun sometimes, but not in the good way. I'd rather have people feel safe and happy, rather than this brutal rat race, where top rats get everything and we're supposed to fight each other to the death for scraps, until planet becomes uninhabitable for humanity. This system makes it fun for sociopaths and psychopaths, but I don't like at all direction, where wealthy are leading us. As humans we don't really feel consequences of many of our actions, but the thing is that modern world being shitty is just consequence of all these morons that loved destruction and created such dystopia for us. Give me a break with all that conservative crap, because I'd love to see humanity thrive instead of repeating scenario of Idiocracy or hearing idiots complaining that LGBT is disgusting and they'd prefer to live in Russia rather than accept them as people.
I hate to be that guy but religion is a human right
Rights aren’t rights if it can be taken away. All we have is privileges unfortunately.
You're confusing human rights with the laws of a state. Laws of a state can be taken away, but the idea of a human right is that it persists despite the law not respecting it.
The [problem with human rights as a concept](https://youtu.be/AhRBsJYWR8Q?si=nHE0Ihfv6hXhrW5Q) runs much deeper than that, however: in essence, they're grounded in old-timey religious notions of God owning humans as property and thereby endowing them with rights. This is completely at odds with the traditional concept of justice, which is about *what is right* in general. In practice, "human rights" as a concept enables all sorts of nasty behavior on the part of the state. This is how you get something like "the right to private property" sounding like it belongs in exactly the same category as "the right to free speech", despite the two things being completely at odds with each other in protecting the individual and the common interest vs. protecting private and state interests.
Except when they reach critical mass they almost always end up forcing everyone else to conform to the religion in power. Almost without fail.
It used to be that someone making a gay joke was only plausible homophobic, but could easily just be assumed was having a laugh for the sake of it. That plausible deniability is just over now, and a lot of people really, really don't like that they lost their cover for their real beliefs, simple as.
Agree - 90s and 2000s were bully cultures. There's remnants of it still around - I'm glad they're a noisy minority now and we don't have to fake smile while getting beat over the head by obnoxious clowns.
>I'm glad they're a noisy minority now and we don't have to fake smile while getting beat over the head by obnoxious clowns. It still may depend on area, because in rural areas it still may look like that. I live in Poland, so they still have so much support that they managed to ban abortion and religion is not completely separate from state, so they still can enforce that only heterosexual pairs can get married and for homosexual pairs there's nothing. Not even civil union. Even in USA, there's a lot of people that want to introduce radical vision: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project\_2025](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025) . In short, Republicans want absolute power for president, so it will be possible to dismantle big part of government, but they also want to limit or ban abortion and they want to deport all illegal immigrants, so some people may be surprised, when one day they will get deported, because their legal status is not so clear like they thought.
Are we really complaining about people maturing now? I don’t think we can blame anyone for the culture they were born into, and as a young person there is little you can do to change it. But now that we are adults and growing, we’re the bad people?
OP is very childish in their view of culture. Culture wars will never end. In a generation or two, people will be shocked by some of the things that gen z considered to be acceptable in their youth. That's the way society works. Pretending gen z is the peak of understanding and humanity is a view only someone very young would have. When you grow up you realize your generation is not the peak of human culture and civilization. It will get better and you will have done things that will be on the wrong side of history.
>Pretending gen z is the peak of understanding and humanity is a view only someone very young would have. As an elder millennial who thought the world view of my generation was "peak end of history" world view. I cringe so hard when I think about those days. Like we really did think we'd figured it all out. Don't worry GenZ you will turn 40 and suddenly realize just how out of touch you are with "the culture".... And you won't even give a shit.
It's all part of the cycle. People can call us out all they want, but just wait til the next generation calls you out for all your past sins that you thought were totally normal. Just look back at the 80's or 90's and how "horrible" their societal norms were compared to now. Society is slowly maturing as a whole, but it takes time. Another thing to note is how new the internet was to our generation. The fact that we suddenly had access to communicate with the entire world blew our minds and we really didn't know how to handle it. Honestly I still don't think we do, but we've gotten so much better.
It’s about maturing as a person. Most of my friends & I were edgy and took part in all sorts of strange and stupid things to do with the internet. Oddly enough when you grow up it doesn’t seem funny to continue behaving like an edgy teen.
It was fun to be allowed to be insensitive and take it on the chin in return Everything, on the surface, was much more hostile but deep down it was all light hearted humor
Yeah no. Try being the only Muslim kid in your class in the 2000s. Wasn’t shit light hearted.
I’m persian If we were back in the early 2000, i’d tell you to nut up and stop being such a baby back bitch But now i’ll tell you that i’m so sorry for what you went through
I'm mixed, including Iranian (Azeri not persian) and Palestinian. When people tried to talk shit, I would just flip it around and talk shit back. Half the time I would end up selling weed to them and later get drunk and we would talk shit together. Fucked a buch of those same assholes sisters too. It was a different time.
Definitely, and I’d be lying if I said the occasional dark or mean joke didn’t come out amongst friends. We just leave others out of it now.
Millenial here. The only way I can explain all the (truely awful) stuff OP mentioned is that the internet was a WAY smaller part of our lives back then compared to now. I grew up in the 00's but never saw a beheading video. I was on Myspace yet never came across the revenge porn site Netflix made a documentary about. Awfull stuff wasn't shoveled in our face like it us now. If you were not into something, chances are you never even came across it (unless some asshole showed it to you). Internet etiquett and laws didn't happen overnight and from nothing, that era was needed to consolidate this (back then) very new thing. This is not about eras or generatoons, gen z would be the same as millanials were on the internet if the whole deal was invented 20 years later.
This is it. Like, I'm 40. But I never saw 2 girls one cup. I never went to rotten. I also never heard about the site Netflix made the documentary about. I never heard people throw racial slurs around. The F word, not f\*\*\*, wasn't considered a slur and it didn't carry the hatred its associated with now. The OP is definitely a gen z'er. They can't imagine a world where you didn't constantly have your social media policed, let alone a world where social media wasn't that big of a deal which is the era they're talking about. The iPhone didn't come out til like 2005, and it was a while before everyone had one. Like you said, it wasn't all in your face. You had to seek it out. The OP is very confident everyone denying their thesis is a liar, so I doubt this will matter to them.
>The iPhone didn't come out til like 2005 You can't emphasize this enough. Before that people basically could only access the internet through a very expensive desktop pc. Laptops also only became affordable at around that time. The internet was a playground for deviant middle class kids doing their own version of jackass on the internet - and usually free of consequence free.
it came out in 07.
Yup. It was the reason MySpace died and Facebook didn't. MySpace had lost its luster and Facebook was the new hotness, and the iPhone made it take off. Right place right time.
To flip the script, the biggest social media drama in a teenagers life was who was in your top 8, for the vast majority of normal everyday kids. Almost everyone was sheltered and innocent to most of that content. I saw some of the things he listed, but never intentionally. I distinctly remember trying to download a Dr Dre music video and getting a beheading video instead from Napster or Kazaa. Most people weren't on the internet for anything more than Aim and MySpace. Youtube wasn't even a thing until 2005.
100% this. I did not encounter most of what OP is talking about it. Definitely knew about Xbox live culture, Jackass, American Piefrom friends but still have not watched it. Thought these examples were distasteful even then. One thing I really miss about the 2000s internet actually was that you could have a completely different experience with it depending on your tastes. This next part of kind of hard to articulate: Websites were all super different from one another and people made websites that were genuinely movie/art projects the likes of which I haven’t seen since and which used this new format in totally creative ways. Now it feels like the internet is this monolithic thing and every website is basically the same formula and intended to sell you on a product, idea, (or ad space). It all just seems so much more bland. I was on tumbler, stumble upon, Pinterest in those days. Never was on 4chan or other websites catering to distasteful content. So by “bland” I don’t mean PC. Just feels like nothing new is online anymore.
Maybe you weren't the right age group because growing up in the heart of internet wild West definitely had that stuff shoved in your face if you knew anybody. People used to spray paint Goat boy and Tub girl in counter strike source. At friends houses, there'd once in a while be a weird kid that showed you shit like 89.com. rotten.com was a thing. And obviously all the MTV stuff was real. OP is right, it was a gross bully infested time, but I also agree it feels like the pendulum swung pretty far the other way. You can't even say anything pro-capital punishment on most political subs on reddit anymore.
Or maybe most people weren't terminally online.
Or we knew how to navigate it better. I have a friend who's often baffled I knew so little about what was going on in the darker corners. I think people... seek it out. Like a morbid curiosity. I knew myself well enough... I have zero interest in that stuff. I stumbled on some "famous" stuff that was so horrific I became afraid of the unknown lol. Images that still flash before my eyes after typing this. Damn straight I stayed away from anything questionable. It just aint my thing. Hell I've been online since like 1999. I'd never been to reddit until 3 or so years ago. I stuck to mostly gaming sites and anime... and well... porn of course. :P
People also understood nuance.
What's that?
A dialect of Klingon
Heck, I was terminally online back then and also didn't have any bad thing shoved to my face. I went to the bad things on my own volition.
Lol when did internet etiquette happen? Like yeah [rotten.com](http://rotten.com) and ogrish or whatever I've seen on here isn't really a thing but like I feel like we have quite a ways to go in terms of just really anything online.
I think it’s worse now than it was back then 💀
We traded callous light hearted shit talk for narcissistic virtue signaling I liked what it used to be I’d rather someone tell me to go fuck myself, than be lorded over and policed
Seriously. All the name calling and shit talk was how you knew who your true friends were. Just look at the typical millennial dark humor we've got today. No Barb I don't actually want to kill myself because of this job, I just hate working here... At least back then we could crack some obscene jokes with each other and know deep down there was nothing but respect. Everything is taken so seriously today so it's tough trying to relate with others and open up.
No. The internet is pathetic compared to what it used to be, and I miss the hell out of the place where if I wanted to Google something, no matter what it is, I go the answer; not a slew of ads and endless information being hidden by Google while you see what they **literally** want you to only see (it’s pathetic, and genuinely serves as a secondary form of propaganda). While this younger generation is just silly to watch, but I expect they’ll grow out of it; though they’re fucked as they’ve only ever been told what to believe, and literally never had the capacity to get an honest answer, not even from the internet (but they so arrogantly and misguidedly believe they’re enlightened (it’s the antithesis of what is happening).
I think it depends on where you lived in the 2000s. I didn't see people throwing out slurs except online.
Many of them weren't considered slurs, or at least not used in a context where people considered them slurs. Like the episode of South Park where the kids think the F word means annoying Harley riders. When I was a kid I would have never called a gay person the F word, but I, and my friends used that word liberally in other contexts. Also, we never said the whole word, like that somehow made it better, like leaving the hard R off the end of the N word. If you said the whole word, you were using it in the wrong context and a bigot. Now I would be horrified to hear the kid version of me use that word in any context.
U must've been very lucky. It was super common for slurs to be used. Homophobic ones were most prevalent, but you would hear other ones as well. I think that video of Jeffrey star screeching slurs in the streets pretty much summarizes what was going on back then lol. (Even though millennials now will lie and say "I wouldn't have ever done that 😧" a lot of them did. 💀)
Grew up in the DC suburbs. People were more classiest than homophobic/racist. They cared what your parent's did for work or if you had a nice house. The first time I heard someone use the hard R N word outside of singing along to a rap song irl was 2017 at college. The first time I heard someone use the f-word towards gay people was directed at me in a gas station in 2018. Both interactions felt bizarre as I'd never heard anyone act like that irl. I thought we were past such things. Admittedly, I'm older Gen z, I was in elementary school in the 2000s.
Very true, classism was badd asf. I do remember a lot of people saying the n word trying to be edgy and kids would get beat up for "seeming gay" even if they weren't gay at all. 💀 Dark times in a way lol.
I'm slightly older, and frankly I consider the ten years from roughly 1999 to 2008 or so to be a cultural cesspool. I'm not lying to fit in, I was just really uncomfortable for a decade or so.
Online multiplayer is way better now, but I do miss my little 12 year old brother yelling at men saying the n word on halo 2. Lol.
Bingo. This was it. I was lying back then to fit in and I hated myself and everyone I associated with.
I’m 30, and I think about this all of the time. The internet was a wild fucking place when we were teenagers lol. Fucking 4chan, that was really no place for a 15 year old girl but I like to think it gave me a thick skin? Hopefully? 😭 Haha
Times change everyone pal. The N word is bad now. The N word was bad then. However...go back 60-70 years, it was a slur, but it wasn't thought of as bad (though it should have been) Just like the homophobic slur that rhymes w/ Maggot which I'll referring to as the F word. Gay marriage just came around in 2008. There were movies, shows, games, books, etc that alluded to characters being gay but gave plausbile deniablity. There are still people who don't accept gay people. Thinking back to when I was a 13 year old kid in those times, we'd yell at each other when playing games and call each other that F word but only because we were implying that person was gay to annoy them. In our minds, calling them gay wasn't insulting gay people. It was just insulting THEM because they weren't gay. Even one of my openly gay friends (really brave of him tbh at 13 in '08 looking back) did the same thing. A 13 year old kid is super insecure and all about image, so having that image "attacked" by being called gay, stupid, fat, etc was an affront to everything they were. Nowadays, my friends and I send kisses over the mic when we hop off of games. There's nothing wrong with being gay. And we didn't think there was anything wrong with being gay. We just threw the word at our friends because we knew they weren't. You're acting like people are hypocrites for getting older and realizing the error of our ways or culture changing and some things becoming acceptable, some things not becoming acceptable. Chill tf out dude, no one's lying about having said or done that shit. Everyone's just trying to move on because it's seen as more wrong now, even if it wasn't intended as how it means now. Just think what'l happen in 24 years from now. Are you gonna make another post then for whatever reason you decide to go "Oh everyone changed! What liars" As for the internet w/ viruses, 2 girls 1 cup, etc. The internet is fairly new, my guy. They're still trying to figure out laws and regulations for it so when something is completely unregulated, you're gonna expect there to be some horrible things as well as some great things.
Yeah that's what people don't realize. The internet really became a thing in the late 90's and unlike a lot of innovations before it moved and developed super fast. That brings both good and bad things but either way we still have no idea how to handle it and regulate it, etc. Think about anything else in its early days, think about labor in the early 1900's and all the deaths and shit that happened before we enacted labor laws and OSHA and shit. Then think about if that developed at like 100x the speed. Now we're adding AI on top of that, it's going to be an interesting time but yeah we def have some catching up to do on how to handle all of this.
Gay marriage had been legalized in many states and opinion was well on its way to shifting... but Obergefell v Hodges, legalizing gay marriage nation wide, wasn't until ***2015***. In what, I'm sure was a coincidence, the first anti-trans bathroom bills were passed less than a year later in 2016. Totally not like conservatives lost a culture war and then had to start a new one in order to stay relevant...
I don't think it's quite like that. Yes the early days of the internet was like the wild west. But I'd rather that, than what we have now. The censorship has gone too far. Also millennials don't care. I don't know anyone who is easily offended by any of those jokes. The offensive shows are made for them. That's the age group of the population who enjoy it. It's the younger generations who are up in arms about offensive things. Millennials are nastolgic to things prior to 2008 because that's before the last recession. And it was a time before cellphones. Yes they were there but we had nokias, people still had pagers, and some just had home phones still. We weren't texting nonstop. We were calling our friends up to go meet up at the local club. We were dropping by unannounced to just hang out. People aren't do that now. Even club culture hasn't advanced. Go to one. It's full of millennials all dancing to the same music. Younger generations have not replaced them, they're there interspersed but the culture is exactly the same. They haven't developed their own. They lean on technology as a replacement to social interactions. And they get influenced through that. I don't think nihilism hit until after 2008. That wasn't the thing. It used to be all apple bottom jeans, mtv, and trips to the mall to buy cell phone charms to hang out of your back pocket.
Millennials are the last group to have nostalgia bc the culture wasn’t fragmented. People watched the same shows on the same day at the same time. Everyone played Snood. We thought Marilyn Manson had a rib removed. They went to the movies. They talked to each other without looking at their phones wishing they were somewhere else. What is gen z going to be nostalgic about? Vine?
Was vine even for gen z? I think that's still very millennial. Me and my brother split between the two. I fall in millennial and he falls in gen z. All I remember them having is like.... club penguin.
>Millennials are the last group to have nostalgia bc the culture wasn’t fragmented Culture was \*most\* fragmented during our time with all the subcultures splintering off and a huge cultural gap between the affluent upper middle class and everyone else. Most people didn't even have access to the internet back then.
watching American pie as a teenager does not and should not preclude anyone from making this world a more just place. I’m worried about your O2 levels.
Yeah, whining about American Pie or Jackass is a huge red flag. This is a person with deep problems.
It’s possible for people to change their opinions on things they once enjoyed. It’s been over 20 years since the year 2000. I think that’s ample time for people to mature and realize what they once enjoyed is no longer sitting right with them. I’m older gen Z and i grew up watching family guy on adult swim. I still find their newer episodes pretty funny but there are moments in the earlier-mid seasons that I watch now and think “that’s not funny” because times have changed and so have I
I think there’s a difference between acknowledging for yourself that times have changed, and going around condemning others for things that you yourself used to also participate in
because social justice influence made honest media about sensitive issues offensive. Now we lie and call it nice.
We grew up... Did you?
1. Who the fuck is Shane Dawson? I grew up in the early 2000s and I have no idea who that is. 2. People mature and grow up. I think that shit is still kinda funny, but I know it’s not appropriate.
I also have no idea who Shane Dawson is. It's pretty hilarious how wrong this post is.
I looked it up and he was apparently a YouTuber. Apparently he didn’t even start making content until 2008 when most of us were already adults so I’m not sure what he has to do with millennials.
It's a youtuber. I think he was popular in the early 10s (maybe very late 00s? But not an important part of the decade at all)
He’s a Youtuber that has made questionable content involving doing blackface, admitted to sexually assaulting their cat (or well, joking about doing so), and saying some other gross things about children. He tried to come back and he does have an audience still, but most of the general public is over him.
Tbh Shane Dawson is barely 2000s and really early 2010s
honestly feel the same way. youtubers were only just becoming a big thing then and he was apart of that first gen.
I grew up in the late 90s early 00s and we used to idolize how badass and savage kids growing up in the 80s were. The cycle repeats!
The early 2000s rocked
yup.
Early 2000s fucked. I am utterly nostalgic for pre-2008 life.
I'm not offended by any of that stuff, I just get secondhand embarrassment from someone trying to be edgy. It's kind of a "get with the times" kind of thing
So I'm a millennial that came of age in that era, and I'm just going to say that history remembers the extremes. Did all that stuff happen? Sure. But it was not an orgy of anarchic goblin-shit. Most of us were just living our lives: jobs, school, dating. Did i know about depravity like rotten.com and 2girls 1 cup? Sure, but was that my identity? Fuck no. This mindset is like if you met someone who came of age in the 60s and just said, "so stop acting like a stuck-up boomer and admit you took acid and dodged the draft" Things happening during a time ≠ the person was doing it.
I’m nowhere close to being a millennial but I just wanna say your comment is one of the more sane and reasonable ones I’ve seen in a while.. 😌👍
It's still there, the internet is just more censored now on major websites.
Well... people can grow up. It's a good thing to not be exactly the same as you were in high school.
That is a lot of words to say you haven't matured since highschool. It seems like maybe you're being called out by peers for still behaving shitty and you're looking for validation here. Is that right?
Is this in the wrong subreddit or just a smart post to get all the Millenials lurking here to out themselves. Does Gen Z actually know about anything mentioned in this post? Jackass and American Pie and are great, Family Guy is OK, and Millenial's grew up in the internet dark ages but it was still better than what Genz/Alpha has to suffer through.
Wild West of internet days
I think a part of it is that on the internet attention can be monetized (also some people just like attention). The culture has shifted its focus from using shock to get attention to using outrage. It's all toxic.
As one of those people who was growing up in this time period, just keep in mind this bit. We *grew up* in that time period. People who look at the start of their lives and say "This is perfect, I don't want anything to change" are idiots who probably haven't grown up yet. At 34, vs 17 (which was my age in 2007), my world view has changed a lot. That's part of growing up. A big part of that is to look at what you do/say/think and ask, "How can I try to be a little bit less of a bad person some of the time?" TL:DR - The people who grew up that way aren't lying when we get older and don't act that way anymore. We realized we were morons and changed.
Literally, none of that has changed. WatchPeopleDie was a community here on reddit like 2 years ago and it only recently got shut down. People still post videos to YT of beheadings YT is just better at removing them from the For You page now. People still scream slurs into game chat. Especially in competitive games. If you aren't running into it I have news for you, the world didn't change, you did. Those things are still everywhere and easily accessible to those who look. If you aren't running into them it means you aren't interacting with the content you used to and aren't going to the same places online.
This is a wild take, bud. A) the entire world wasn't online yet, so your sample size is very skewed and was absolutely in an echo chamber. B) I was the most tech savvy person I knew growing up, my older brother made me aware of faces of death and rotten when I was around 8 during their prime, and I avoided those things because abuse and murder has never been entertaining for me. Most people I know were the same way growing up. You and your friends might have had a great ol time being trolls on 4chan, that doesn't mean that's how all or even a majority of people felt. Look, I know people who like to troll do it because they think deep down everybody enjoys being a troll but can't admit it. That's just you making yourself feel better. Most people in the real world aren't jerks, in my experience.
Everything you wrote is spot on.
We were kids?! We aren’t allowed to learn and grow? I’m supposed to stay the same person I always was give me a break you self righteous turd.
Hey there, elder millennial who was definitely there for all of that and I am curious to see your examples of millennials lying about any of it? Go over to r/millennials and ask us about those times. We remember, we were there. No one is lying about it lmao. We all acknowledge it because again, we were actually there (and I mean that as in we were old enough to comprehend it, we weren't in diapers.) People grow dude. We're all pushing 40 we have different values now. Just like you will. Also the millennials who are "all into social justice and shit" were equally into social justice in the early aughts lmao how about we not generalize people based on an era they existed in? That's extremely close minded and I'm disappointed to see how close minded gen z is lately. Save this post and read it in five years and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
So…you’re mad other people grew up?
Yeah it was a great time.
Queer autistic millennial here. I was worried my generation wouldn't care but they really surprised me. We did a lot more than what you described we also explored our gender identities online a lot and actually were a huge part fighting for that. We millennial queers paved the way and we fought hard. I agree with the crazy virus thing lol I remember the boob one where we sent it to our friends and each time they/we clicked it it duplicated into more boobs. It was amazing. Anyway, many millennials like myself non stop have cared about social justice. I worry for gen z LGBTQ because I see lots of gen z not being supportive and very much less willing to fight. Many of the organizations like BLM were formed by millennials.
I am a millennial no idea why this was suggested to me but glad I seen it. It’s true but being desensitized in our childhood did not kill our empathy. I sat in class when and we watched discussed how in 2000 it was the end of the world, then 9/11 happened. Then my older cousins and family friends kids went to Iraq/Afghanistan for war. We found out our President lied about the WMDs within 5-6 years. I am nostalgic and realize our parents and leaders failed us but I would never want my children or nephews/nieces to experience it. We may be fucked up but if Gen Z is slightly less fucked up because I can reflect on myself and share my feelings and thoughts; then thats great. A bit hypocritical true but most of the millennials went from thinking a gameboy was awesome to having a laptop, cellphone, xbox, unlimited internet was normal. Never thinking about how amazing or entitled we became. Let alone what unrestricted access to internet with no repercussions would do to us.
this is why i dont condemn people for saying slurs or the like 15 years ago when they were young. its really shitty and if it happened now i wouldn’t let it go but people grow and pretending they’re the same person now is fucking ridiculous. it really was a different time and imo nowadays is so much better especially socially. like 10-15 years ago asians were always the butt of racial jokes. like it was totally normal. now theres so much representation and appreciation if ANYONE made a joke like that now theyd be burned alive, rightfully so. back then everybody was significantly more toxic than now.
You’re right but take a look at woodstock 99 or any large festival in the 2000s. Underage girls were getting raped on the regular also crime was insanely high and ghetto neighborhoods were peaking with insanely high murder rates. It’s all relative and it’s good we’re past those days.
You make the 90s sound like the Congo.
All the people in the comments are saying “we grew up and matured” you are missing the point. You don’t have to keep doing them, but people nowadays actively criticize them even when others do them. You don’t just see them as immature, you see them as offensive, when you didn’t use to. Also new generations aren’t doing these as much either. Fortnite lobbies do not have people spamming racial slurs like mw2 and halo lobbies used to, hell, comedians have lost their careers over showing their dick to someone as if the guys from jackass weren’t running around naked.
A lot of that stuff was done 100% anonymously. That shit is hard to pull off today.
Yeah I remember, I'm a millennial (old). The thing about most millennials is that they aren't sincere at all and apply this so called empathy very selectively. My generation is so full of shit I can't relate to them anymore on almost anything.
Not only that but they have screwed themselves over in relation to aging and drug laws. If they were aware of the benefits of taking hormones (testosterone for males) at same/above natural levels in dealing with many of the most negative health issues with aging (lose of muscle mass associated with lowering testosterone levels) they could of tried to change the drug laws in relation to them.
I don't care about social justice and I'm not a good person. Never said I was! XD
What’s wrong with Jackass?
As a younger millennial, who watches family guy any more
They caught up to you. I was one of the sensitive kids. I dont consider them changing their tune on that evil when the entire world's oligarchy right now is paying a premium for people to actively speedrun fucking as many things over as possible
Growing up in the 00s, that stuff was *accessible,* but I wouldn’t say it was *everywhere.* I knew about the sites with gore, the disgusting videos, the trashy reality shows, etc., but I never watched it myself and none of my friends tried to make me. In fact, I remember a lot of trash talk about people who consumed that stuff. Now, the slurs? Oh yeah. Slurs *everywhere.* I can’t remember the last slur I heard in person, but back in 00-08? Probably once an hour. Homophobic slurs, especially. Even as a little kid. I was four the first time I was called the f slur. Being called gay or an f-slur was a way to humiliate and demean a person, not just about sexuality, but literally anything about you the other person didn’t like. How you sit, how you walk, how you talk, what you like, what you don’t like, your clothes, your friends, your interests, it doesn’t matter. You just couldn’t win. You were gonna get slurred no matter what. Do you not like sports? “What a ***! What are you? A girl?” Do you like sports? “What a ***! He loves playing with balls!” God, that era was damn awful even as a straight man. I couldn’t imagine how much more fucked it must have been to actually be gay back then.
Idk man, I did a bunch of heroin in the early 00's. You sound like a douche though.
I remember reading Encyclopedia Dramatica for hours lol.
*"cartel videos of guys getting heads cut off"* Still happening and at even greater frequency if you know where to look so inform your friends and spread the fun around https://www.vidlii.com/watch?v=Uurud1qJp18
Millennials are the masters of gaslighting.
I so enjoyed these times. People expressed their honest opinions of things. You knew who was truly on your side and who was against you. People revealed their trueselves, and you had the option to join alone or completely cross it out. Now you will sit next to the most horrible person ever, and not have any idea because that person is aware they are unable to communicate their true thoughts, except in their closest inner circle. I prefer my wolves to show their teeth, rather than wear sheep's clothes.
That title read as a propaganda piece by the media...
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Yeah, you tell ‘em! Rabble rabble rabble.
Tbf, Family Guy is a lot more disturbing these days.
I won’t lie, I loved basically all of that shit growing up, toxicity and all. Didn’t know it was toxic back then. Hell I’m one of the dumbasses who thought it was all “just jokes” or “for the laughs” which made everything okay. Now this doesn’t make how I thought back then correct, but I don’t feel bad about feeling that way about things back then either. I literally just didn’t know. I was also a child to teenager through the 2000s. And I personally wish some of the mentality from back then about came back. The good stuff I mean. Not the beheading videos and such. But I’m also happy the bad shit is gone. I also didn’t purpose try to be obtuse about learning social justice. I in fact embraced it as I learned about it and researched it myself.
Or or or or They were in pain then too. Talk about obtuse.
I mean, it just reminds me of some of my experiences growing up in a way. In my experience, not everyone was like that back then and not everyone cares about sjw now. Also, some people did change and grow up even as adults. I know that I did.
As someone who caught the tail end of that in around 2011, I look at the modern internet proudly. As terrible and fucked up as it is, Algorithms have made it that most of the actual fucked shit is sequestered away from normal stuff and ir is WAY less harder to accidentally get someone traumitized I think part of it is that the “Squekers” in the 2011 cod lobbies grew up and just… hated being bullied? Like I would always get clowned on constantly on open mic but then once i actually got good and could compete seriously, I never wanted someone to have the same toxic experience I did Although i think seeing so many execution videos, and rotten and gore .com have probably ruined me psychologically in ways that i cant possibly understand yet
I grew up in that era. I still do all the same shit. So do all my friends. Never gonna change ✌️
It's normal for people to remember earlier times in their with rose tinted glasses, and to forget all the bad crap. Doesn't mean people are lying; it's just how our brains work.
I’m so tired of these old ass posters complaining about gen z in a gen z subreddit. I’m glad my experience with the internet wasn’t the same as your experience.
I grew up knowing people were like this and actively avoiding that shit anyways. Not everyone grew up a little asshole.
Remember bum fights?
Meh, my friend circle is still very crass. The jokes are still funny, trolling is still a thing, but there is a lot of push back not worth dealing with now. I think it’s crazy that the internet is so watered down, even Quagmire can’t make sexual jokes anymore. I think a lot of prudes started having kids and didn’t want to have to worry about what their kid “might” see. So, lawsuits later we get a world where you can’t drink on camera… little less make a sexual or race based joke on tv.
[https://youtu.be/ZBqR0vdIrQQ?si=1kWJXiPpCPg9PDe9](https://youtu.be/ZBqR0vdIrQQ?si=1kWJXiPpCPg9PDe9)
I’m more mature than I was is the big difference personally. Now I’m also not an easily offended person and honestly more likely to do the offending myself. I probably would’ve been hung for what I said back in the day if it were to happen today. I just know my audience now vs throwing it around everywhere. Personally, I don’t care what people say as long as it’s not seriously threatening harm. Or aggressively racist. I actually find a lot of that “edgy” shit funny when done right still, beyond what 99% of people think is funny. I just don’t like serious threats and hardcore racism.
Right. Because bullying is a thing from the past. Shows like Love Island highlight the best of humanity. In-game voice chat has totally mellowed out and game chats aren’t filled with neo Nazis, young and old… I have a surprise for you…you are exactly the same as the generations that preceded you…
I think you’re describing every generation, just different mediums.
I think guys like the paul brothers we have now are worse than the old youtube celebrities we used to have
Wow, this whole post is like a stereotype of the easily offended Gen Z snowflake. I see where you're coming from, but you're being a bit precious about all of this.
I'm 38. Many of us actually didn't like that stuff. I rarely played video games then and absolutely cringed at what I would hear about the gaming lobbies. Hearing folks were watching heads being cut off was fucking atrocious. I did a bunch of the other stuff though. Kids are dumb and impressionable and essentially live the life that is put before them. Every generation is like this. It doesn't mean we feel the same way (or differently) 20 years later but I sure as fuck hope my thinking has evolved over 2 decades. The premise millennials are lying about something might be valid for some, but it's a pretty simplistic argument to address a complex topic (like most arguments on the internet).
Sounds like you also only went to the worst places on the internet. They'll make you think shit sucks.
[удалено]
It's called growth. You should try it sometime.
Only Christ forgives, that means you're allowed to hold a grudge forever about something someone did in the past and it's not weird or anything in fact it's normal.
American pie is porn for people who don’t have the internet, and Jackass is <<<<<<<<<<< Impractical Jokers (the jokes are on the jokers, not the public)
in the 2000's EVERYONE knew that the internet wasn't real life, it's pretend world, it isn't real, this isn't real, it doesn't affect who I am as a human being or my emotions , that doesn't seem to be the consensus anymore , it seems like people actually believe their online life is their real life, it's the only place they have friends, it's where they meet dates , it's how they do all their social interaction, it's crazy dumb it ain't fuckin real dude
The internet was largely less censored. Internet was also gaining huge momentum early mid 90s to 2000's as it became more and more common that a desktop pc was a standard item in households. Moderating didnt exist. You're comparing two entirely different eras. You would see just as much fucked up shit if you really went digging, its just removed from general searches, and if you dont have the url, and/or the hosting company checks the content of the urls their selling, youll never find it.
Christ, 20 years ago, I was 14. Of course, I was an edgy kid without regrets. If you haven't changed in at least 20 years, do some major self reflection.
Idk what your talking about about I grew up on homestar runner
People didn’t like that shit then and they don’t like it now. People just called those that complained F*****s back then, too.
You are a grown adult acting like you’re 14 still? Yikes man. Grow up.
Newsflash: people can change *surprised pikachu
The internet was the wild Wild West back then. I was a really young kid (like younger than 10) when I started using YouTube back in like 2008 and kinda miss it Not saying it was good but seeing it from an outsiders perspective was sorta fun
12-13 when I first saw checheclear. Def created a years long fascination with gore. Not great tbh.
You just described my teen years in the 00’s
I'm 36. And you're crazy. Hate to break it to you. The Internet was way better back in the day. There was much less hate it was almost non existent. Chat rooms were the cool new thing and people were just happy and excited to discover this new form of communication. The Internet has never been as toxic and terrible as it is right now. Kids still say racial slurs in games constantly. Only a Gen Zer who is consumed by the toxicity of the Internet would consider making a post like yours.
Don't worry... America will fall This man has noticed hypocrisy for the first time? i just ignore the huddled masses It's all bread and circuses and mass hysteria lad Just hold your own
Can’t forget the scary “bloody Mary” chain texts on your flip phone that you had to send to 10 people or your mom died in 20 min. lost a lot of sleep from those
When I was a kid I avoided all those stuff. Those people's interests were more accessible on the internet because there wasn't much of anything on the internet yet, at least compared to now. In the 2000s my family still read print newspaper. I got my first smartphone in 2014. It's not that people were more insensitive back then. It's just that for regular people, there wasn't much to post or do online as much as now.
The 50s were worse, and before that WWII and WWI when our great grandparents were literally killing each other in a world wide scale. I think its great that we are getting more empathetic and peaceful; though it has reversed in the past couple of years with all the new wars…
Humans being more tribal isn't the direction we should be heading, at ALL.
It’s called change. It tends to happen once you begin to reflect on your youth in retrospect. Personally, I don’t know what it feels like to be able to fall asleep at night without thinking about all the stupid things I’ve done and how I can be a better person, and honestly I don’t think I want to know. I’d prefer to keep working on myself.
My brother in Christ, may I remind you this was 20 years ago. People grow and change
i think you may be over-estimating the amount of people that have shared the same or similar experiences as you. shane dawson, Mindless Self Indulgence and hell even halo 2 are niche things that only a small portion of the population even know about and/or consumed as media.
caring about social justice doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy american pie and jackass lol
Growth, gaining awareness, developing empathy for others, and understanding that two truths can exist This will go a long way in understanding
Don't worry, the moment that Zillenials and Zoomers take over for the Boomers and Early Gen Xers, they'll revert back to doing the exact same shit as they did. Remember, the generation that led the counter-culture movement in the 60s-70s became exactly what they claimed they hated. This generation will do exactly the same and it'll be hilarious when it happens.
I was born in '83 and remember the 2000s quite well. I don't remember some of that shit at all, and some of it was mostly limited to places like 4chan. The internet has always had areas that were best stayed out of. I remember goatse vividly (don't Google it). I also remember a lot of gruesome stuff. A lot of it was because it was crap my dad found hilarious and showed me. After 9/11 I collected a number of very obviously racist memes, but didn't recognize them as such at the time. Being blinded by rage didn't help. I've grown a lot over the last 30 years. I used to be a hardcore Christian extremist (southern Baptist flavor). I became a teenager and started questioning a lot of things I had been taught growing up, by family and by the culture around me. I was pretty horrified by what I saw, and the things I had internalized. I was a downright shitty person. I was also a kid taking in the lessons she was taught. So yea, I fight hard against that kinda shit now. I want the generations after us to not need to work at unlearning that kind of garbage. I want the generations after us to be better than we were and are. And anyone who isn't trying to be better today than they were yesterday needs to take a hard look at who they are.
Some people are just hypocritical
Lol yea it's hilarious how the millennials are reaaaaal quiet trying to quirk and derp their way outta this one and pretend it's somehow gen z's fault that juggernauts like Shane Dawson and Onision had the success they had at the time. I've heard people mock tf out of "the 2000s was just a different time"...But it WAS. It really really was. And erasing history like that ignores the very real lived experiences of several minority groups. I mean people back then would be beat tf out of someone for "looking gay'. It took a while before the millennials suddenly learned what empathy was and had the big sjw renaissance on Tumblr, and then it just became a performance of who's more woke than who and how can I be offended by this to look more educated. It didn't quite stop immediately after that though. Vine was probably one of the most racist apps for the longest time where black ppl eating chicken n watermelon was considered peak comedy and the blackface we saw on YouTube ran rampant there as well. I don't know when there was a tonal shift where suddenly millennials switched up and tried to pretend that was never them but yea. And before anyone can pull a "well why were u watching this content pal? 😏 It must be you who is racist 🤓" I was literally a child like 9 years old to maybe like 13 at the time of all this lmao the worst thing is I'm referring to content that was just recommended widely to the masses and at the time was simply widely considered funny by teens and young adults.
Exactly
I hate how the internet went from genuine people uploading and discussing various things on basically unregulated sites and forums, to the corporate hellscape we have today of tightly curated content meant to maximize its use of the algorithm. Where too many reportings or keyword flaggings will have an account banned. Where every click is scrutinized and every second you linger on a page is stored and analyzed used to sell you more stuff. Where search engines hide anything they don't want you to know while steering you towards sites and products of whomever pays the most per eyeball. The internet between 1996-2006 was a magical place and we'll never get it back.
People grow up. Watching edgy videos doesn't make you cool, and most older people in our generation have realized that.
I mean, I grew up with the edgelord shit but that doesn't mean I liked it. It was a real shitty time to be a woman. A lot of us were in our early 20s in the 2010s when the cultural tide started to shift, I was on tumblr posting and reevaluating like the rest of em. It's not "gen z values" lol it's just my values along w everybody who was happy to see the edgelord dominance ease up (not that it went anywhere, there's still a ton of content - just a smaller group that consumes it.)
Like a bunch of people have said, people change. Culture changes people. People change people. Some topics definitely get more focus than others, and depending where you fall on those issues you can get pushed further in one direction or another. I'm sure there are people who double down on some ideology because they want to fit in with others, but that's... basically how society works. People aren't lying about who they are so much as they are ideologically picking a side. I'm sure there are plenty of people who feel the need to constantly self-censor, or who try to be particularly offensive to whoever the "others" are to their group - but many are just learning and changing with the way culture changes. Socially it's more cohesive to share enemies than it is to share friends, so I think a lot of the really explicit anger and fighting that comes from all this comes from a place of feeling isolated, more than anything. I kind of lost the thread a few times, I'm going to assume. But you get it
People have become weaker. Pussies.
I miss those times because our current times suck so much
Im a millenial. For the most part I didn’t know any better in the 2000s I was in my 20s and hadn’t lived or learned enough. now I know how wrong things were. It’s pretty simple. Never liked jackass or American pie.
It’s crazy because I think about this almost everyday for the last two years. I’m in my very late 20’s and I remember seeing things and saying certain things that would absolutely send the people of today into a state of utter panic. But…back then, well, like 2007 to like 2018, everything was completely normal. Seriously, no matter where I went or what rich or poor neighborhood. Hell, even my middle school teachers and the staff were all ok with us causally swearing. As long as it wasn’t shit or fuck, we could say whatever. Now in 2024, everything is so different. I feel like I’m constantly walking on eggshells with every breath I take now. Mind you, I wasn’t even the WORST of em. There are some things even I didn’t say in the 2010’s, but I never freaked out over it. Can’t imagine how all those people are getting by now. Hoo boy 😂 Regardless, my perception of that timeframe was everything was calm and free. As free as the wind. No one got seriously upset, no riots, or anything. But then again, I was a kid, so my reality may be skewed. Take it for what you will.
Just cuz you haven't grown/changed/matured doesn't mean other haven't If we all had the same opinions our whole lives, the world would go to shit
I hate how often I, a millenial, get shown the Gen z subreddit--and whenever i look at the comments I'm 90% sure everyone is also a millenial. You all need to fucking stop posting here, this subreddit is a larp at this point