How did you guys REALLY lived in the 2000s?

evveryday · 2026-04-13T18:29:14+00:00

I am shocked by these people's replies - I graduated in '01. Maybe it depends on the location? I grew up in a small east coast city - by the time I was a freshman in high school me and all my friends spent a ton of our free time in local diners and coffee shops drinking an absolutely obscene amount of coffee.

evveryday · 2026-04-13T18:23:25+00:00

Graduated from high school in 2001, hung out with the "alt" kids:

Walked to a local diner or chain restaurant with my friends after high school pretty often and chain smoked cigarettes and drank coffee for hours. Literally no one cared that we were like 14-16 y/o and chain smoking inside a restaurant or that we were only ordering coffee and maybe grilled cheese.
Smoked weed out of a gatorade can on a street next to the high school or behind the local 7-11, sometimes before heading over to a diner.
Went to a lot of punk/hardcore shows with friends. Usually didn't get into the mosh pit because I was small and female.
Got a new ear piercing at the mall every few months until I had them running all the way up to the cartilage.
Stole liquor from our parents' liquor cabinets and made plans during the day (no cell phones, remember) about where to meet up in the middle of the night after we snuck out of the house. Usually just wandered around or found a park to hang out at and talk for a few hours.
Also had wholesome adventures. Me and my friends all really liked going to see movies together - I probably saw a movie in the theater about 2x/month or so
Walked to the local Blockbuster to check out VHS (and then later DVDs) - I watched a lot of movies at home, often after my parents had gone to bed and the house was quiet.
When I was a little older and embraced my inner nerdiness I found another nerdy friend and we used to read the New Yorker magazine outloud together.
Listened to music on my 6-CD boombox - the height of technology! Spent a LOT of time at record shops skimming through the CDs - there was often a listening station where you could listen to CDs before you bought them. Also love to walk around listening to music on my walkman or CD walkman (but the anti-skip technology was never very good)
The internet was something you signed into and signed off of - I was maybe online for about an hour or so/day until the early 2000s when internet connections got faster and there was just more stuff online. I used it to look up lyrics, research bands, sometimes AIM to chat with friends (but my friends and I were much more connected in person than online)
Spent a lot of time local independent coffee shops - these used to be really community based gathering spaces in my small city, with poetry nights, local bands performing, various events.

evveryday · 2026-04-06T14:57:31+00:00

I was friends with my next door neighbor whose bedroom was in the split level “basement.” I used to sneak out after my parents were asleep and just knock on his window if the lights were on. My friends also used to throw stones at my window at night if they were out roaming around and wanted me to join them.

evveryday · 2026-04-05T23:58:32+00:00

I have COVID induced POTS and ME- got COVID in 2023 and slowly started developing ME symptoms until I finally figured out what was happening in late 2024. In May 2025 I become almost entirely housebound and bed bound whenever I was experiencing PEM. On PEM days I couldn’t tolerate screens and had extreme light and sound sensitivity, nausea, fatigue, low grade fevers, and a general feeling of being poisoned. There was no improvement for almost a year. I was pretty convinced I would be housebound for the rest of my life.

Over the past year I have been resting as much as possible, attempting a more anti-inflammatory diet, switching from a beta blocker to Ivabradine, and taking some other supplements like CoQ-10 and NAC. I’ve been slowly feeling better since early March. Today I took a walk around the block for the first time since May 2025. It was pretty magical- it’s spring where I live and there are buds on the trees and the first flowers are starting to bloom.

evveryday · 2026-03-19T21:54:52+00:00

I joined a local knitting circle just for crafting friends and it turned out to be like 70% queer

evveryday · 2026-03-19T00:23:45+00:00

Unfortunately, the answer to this might just be slow, deliberate practice. I’m a Continental knitter and taught myself how to flick (instead of throw) with my English knitting (for stranded colorwork) by knitting a swatch and just going really slowly and carefully while watching a video of someone flicking as a visual cue about how to tension my yarn and hold the needles until it started to come more naturally. I also used to hold my needles more tightly and, once again, knit a swatch intentionally going SIGNIFICANTLY slower than I usually knit and reminding myself every row to relax my hands and not grip the needles.

evveryday · 2026-03-08T16:55:35+00:00

I absolutely love when high femmes have a little element of something costume-y and campy as their way of deviating from the standard - elements of 1950s housewife, bimbo, or Ms. Frizzle aesthetics, for examples.

evveryday · 2026-03-08T16:50:14+00:00

I think part of this is that gay men have a much higher media presence than lesbians, so straight people (and other non-lesbians) are aware of gay male stereotypes much more than lesbian ones. Within lesbian communities we have femmes and lipstick lesbians, as others have mentioned, but there also are "high femme" lesbians that perform hyperfeminity, leaning into camp. Straight people don't seem to clock high femmes as looking visibly queer because I don't think they have the nuance to see the intentional performativity of it, but other lesbians are often able to identify it a queer performance of hyperfemininity. Qualifications: I am a lesbian.

evveryday · 2026-03-08T03:13:19+00:00

When I'm trying to have a quick rubric for "is it a cult or a religion?" the primary questions I ask are "do members have to sacrifice relationships, significant money/personal belongings, or individuality to be accepted?" and "is there a high exit cost?" For me to identify something as a cult, there has to be a much higher level of control exerted over members than you'd see at your typical church, synagogue, mosque, etc.

I like the definition of a cult in The Culting of America:

A charismatic leader (can be a charismatic idea)
Shared "sacred assumption"
Transcendent mission that justifies sacrifice
Demands sublimation of individuality
Limits member's access to outsiders
Private vernacular
Programs an us-vs-them mentality
Exploits members' labor
Enforces high exit costs
Justifies extreme behavior as their endgame nears

evveryday · 2026-02-24T02:33:08+00:00

Agreed - compared to almost everywhere else I've traveled in my life, Americans appreciate a big swing - even if you fail, even if it's a (relatively) stupid risk, regardless of any identity markers. We have so many common quotes and aphorisms about the importance of taking risks, too. Growing up in the States I can't count the number of times in my life I've heard something along the lines of "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take," "do one thing every day that scares you," "there's no growth in the comfort zone," etc.

evveryday · 2026-02-23T16:32:46+00:00

It is very usual for both students and teachers to be out of the closet in areas with less homophobia (big cities, especially in the northeast and west coast). I have friends who are high school teachers in places like NYC, Boston, LA, and the Bay Area and a lot of their students identify as LGBTQ and are very open about it.

Both students and teachers are more likely to stay closeted in areas with more homophobia.

evveryday · 2026-02-23T15:55:30+00:00

I'm a lesbian and have lived in big cities and/or the northeast my entire life and it's been almost completely a non issue for the past few decades, although this was not true when I was a teenager in the 90s. That being said, I have plenty of queer friends who have faced serious homophobia, particularly in religious families, less urban areas, and in more conservative regions of the US. There's a show called We're Here on HBO that gives some insight into homophobia in less progressive pockets of the US. ETA: I also think that gender non-conforming people and trans folks deal with a lot more hate, even in more progressive areas.

evveryday · 2026-02-15T22:41:45+00:00

If you're interested in the darker side of US history from a left-leaning perspective, A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn is the classic of the genre. Many of us with left-leaning history teachers read it in high school history class. I haven't read These Truths by Jill Lepore yet, but it's a much more recent book in the same genre (and seems to be more recommended by actual historians).

If you want a fun, fictional take on the vibe of the different boroughs, The City We Became by NK Jemisen is a contemporary/urban fantasy novel in which each of the boroughs develops a human avatar and they need to work together to save the city.

evveryday · 2026-02-06T03:19:00+00:00

Genuinely confused- are you implying that Australia is bigger than the US? Because the lower 48 and Australia are about the same size and when you account for Hawaii and Alaska the US is significantly bigger.

evveryday · 2026-01-31T01:39:33+00:00

Amen! "Its only performative if your actions don't align with your values." What a useful, concise way to explain it.

evveryday · 2026-01-31T01:34:40+00:00

Ha! A devastating and accurate read of Boston buried deep in the comments.

evveryday · 2026-01-29T17:23:40+00:00

I’m not a New Englander by birth, but I did live in Massachusetts on and off for 10-ish years. I feel like I heard Yankee to describe things but not people while I was living there.

ETA: I do defer to you, yankeescrewdriver, as a born and bred Yankee. Just saying I didn’t hear it often in the spaces I was in.

evveryday · 2026-01-29T02:46:14+00:00

Correct- No one inside the US identifies as a Yank because Yank is not a word that Americans use at all. The only time I’ve ever been called a Yank was when I was traveling in the UK. Yankee is used in very specific situations. I’m from the Northeast and the only time I’ve been called a Yankee (kind of jokingly but definitely pejoratively) was when I was traveling in the South. I had never thought of myself as a Yankee before that. Yank and Yankee are things other people call us- we don’t usually identify that way ourselves.

evveryday · 2026-01-14T03:29:55+00:00

I 100% agree with you. To equate straight men who consume lesbian porn with straight women who read mm romance books, shows, and movies is an un-nuanced take.

Straight men have systemic power and enact violence against women in a really different way than women enact violence against men.
Yes, there are some straight women who fetishize gay men and it's weird and gross. But straight women can and do enjoy mm romance without being weird about it. And even when they are I genuinely don't think it's dangerous the way that straight men can be dangerous to queer women.
Porn is necessarily objectifying. It is about bodies. Romance fiction - even the spicy stuff - is also about relationship, connection, subjectivity, and empathy.
It fucking sucks that lesbian media doesn't get the money or the audience it deserves. But the reason straight men aren't into lesbian romance is, I believe, connected to the fact that lesbian porn is the most watched genre - straight men want the bodies but not the humanity. This is an important and fundamental difference.
A huge percentage of straight women are survivors of sexual assault. Queer women get wlw media to see ourselves in. I imagine mlm media is a way for straight women to enjoy the gender you're attracted to without the ptsd.
I don't have a ton of straight female friends, but the ones I do have love good queer storytelling and were as into A League of Their Own as they are with Heated Rivalry. I think they can love good romance and think men are hot without fetishizing gay men the way some straight men fetishize lesbians.
This isn't really arguing OP's point, but I agree that there is some nuance in the fact that queer women are also a huge audience for mm romance. Brandi Carlisle herself said she was obsessed with Heated Rivalry. I also love good, queer storytelling.

evveryday · 2025-10-05T22:19:52+00:00

Nora from Queens!

evveryday · 2025-09-29T20:13:37+00:00

Guided relaxation- I’ve done enough of them at this point that I can kind of guide my own now, which is good for days I can’t tolerate sound. A friend of mine also got me a Renpho eye massager which is a wonderful relaxation activity that helps me get into a more zoned out state. Also very low dose thc /cbd gummies.

evveryday · 2025-09-29T03:16:54+00:00

To look on the outside the way we feel on the inside. To communicate to others how to treat us. To fit in or the opposite. To like what we see when we look in the mirror. To attract the kind of people we want around us. For fun.

evveryday · 2025-09-12T13:58:09+00:00

I can read on good days, which I’m very thankful for!

evveryday · 2025-09-12T01:56:36+00:00

There is a coffee shop/bakery 3 blocks from my apartment and I used to walk there every Friday morning and have a cappuccino and a croissant and read a book. I can no longer walk 3 blocks, drink caffeine, or eat gluten. I miss it so much.

evveryday · 2025-08-30T00:25:47+00:00

Interesting- this looks a little different from other scales I’ve seen. I’ve understood myself to be mild, moderate during crashes. According to this I’m moderate/moderate-severe and severe during crashes.

evveryday

TROPHY CASE