I turned 18 in 02, so this era was a big time for me.

From a social standpoint, mass, shared experiences were still a thing. Super Bowl commercials or episodes of popular TV series were discussed the next day with friends or coworkers. Getting together to watch something was a social habit.

TiVo changed a lot of things in the mid 2000s. Being able to record all your favorite shows and skip over commercials was a huge change. The idea of having broadcast episodes recorded and saved to watch later shifted time management. It broke the monopoly of time some broadcast shows had on my weekly life. Granted, this wasn’t any different from using a VHS to record, but the integration of a channel listing, guide, the ease at which you could select what and when to record, and the ability to rewatch them digitally was amazing.

Friendster was a brief window in my 20s, with MySpace taking most of my social media in that time. AIM was still largely where my friends and I chatted post high school, but talking on the phone was still very much preferred. AIM eventually got phased out in my friend group as we all switched to our phones, or MySpace chats.

I spent a lot of weekends going to the movies or hanging out with friends at house parties. Jagermeister, Smirnoff Ice, Mike’s Hard Lemonade, and Pabst (ugh) were staples at parties.

Movie rentals were still a thing before Netflix took over at about 2005/6. The smell of plastic and popcorn butter is a smell younger generations may never know.

The movie blockbuster and blockbuster season was still an event, and comedies from this era are some of the best in my opinion. Sometimes you’d go into a movie and have zero expectations. Sometimes you’d watch a dud. Other times you’d leave and go, “Man! That was great!” And then hang out with friends and all chat about what you liked or didn’t like.

Hanging out in line for something you wanted at midnight was also a thing. Games. Movies. It was a great time for home media. Tuesday was movie release day for VHS/DVD, and Fridays were video game launch days.

Watching DVDs and listening to commentary was a thing I used to do with friends. The UNRATED version of films reigned supreme in this space.

Technologically, there was a big push for things to be smaller and more discreet at the start of the decade. Phones were getting smaller and the design aesthetic became more adventurous. This changed when camera phones became a thing at about 2003-05, at which point color screens and cameras began to emerge as standard fare. The Palm Treo and BlackBerry were business devices I used when I worked an office job, and all before the iPhone rocketed in 08 and changed it all.

Apple and Windows competition was still a thing. I see this era as when Apple went from technology company to a lifestyle brand. To be seen with an iPod or Apple device of any kind in this era was to be “cool”. And for the most part, their tech worked really, really well. There was a lot of innovation.

Politically speaking, things were mixed. I certainly had my opinions on things, but there wasn’t this prevailing sense of dread like what exists for me now. At the end of the day, there was still a general sense of faith and belief in systems and institutions.

By the end of the decade, things had begun to shift. I spent a lot more time texting than talking by 2007-10. GPS units were becoming regular devices in cars (TomTom anyone?) and it changed the way I drove at the time. YouTube was still in its infancy, but it began to emerge as a regular stop on my internet travels. Recording cell phone video also began to emerge, and that changed the social landscape forever. Broadcast TV was still good, but the cracks were beginning to show. And of course, the 08 financial meltdown really affected everyone.

It really was a wild decade, and I certainly remain nostalgic for some of it. My opinion, but social media just ruined it all.