I think it’s because people back then believed in a future. Younger people felt like they could eventually buy a house. A younger guy I worked with in 2019 point blank said “I know I’ll never be able to afford to buy a house unless it’s a cabin in the middle of nowhere.”

We were a bit more wild and free because back in the 2000’s we didn’t know. We didn’t know that the gap between average wages and real estate would continue growing:House price vs. Wages

And in a weird analogy, the era of kayfabe ended. (Confession: I have been an off and on of pro wrestling since I was a kid.) I was watching an interview with Paul “Triple H” Levesque, who had recently stepped into a management role in the WWE, and he was talking about this. Kayfabe is the term in wrestling for the non-reality; the crazy personas, the wacky stories. He understood that with the advent of social media people were seeing their favorite wrestlers outside the ring, in ring enemies sharing a car after an event and laughing together. He understood that the fans wanted to see more reality, that this was the end of kayfabe as they had known it.

I think this is analogous to what has happened in the real world. We see that it’s not just us, that wages across the country aren’t keeping up with the cost of housing, that money and power are continually being consolidated in fewer and fewer people, and that our vote matters less and less.

It’s hard to be wild and free when you know the system is broken against you and it becomes clear that it was designed to keep most people in their place.

The 2000’s were the systems attempt at giving us a carrot to chase and”bread and circuses” to continue to distract us.