Open Thread: March 11, 2005

Welcome back to 2005, where we will revisit the first decade of the 21^st century in this Open Thread. I’m Rat Fink, veteran and survivor of the 2000s. I will be your host today. Can you believe we survived the Y2K Bug? Unbelievable!

The 2000s weren’t as colorful and vibrant as the 90s. The decade was rather dull and gray, like the color of technology. Gathered here is a collection of my favorite relics and (embarrassing) fads and memories from the 2000s.

What are your favorite relics, fads, and/or memories from the 2000s? If you’d rather forget that decade existed, feel free to talk about anything! 😎

Table of Contents

Yes, I’m aware some things and fads were around long before the 2000s. They reached their peak popularity during the decade.

Y2K Bug

You are so worried that we will go back to the Edwardian era just because a simple computer software glitch thinks so.

hXc, Scene, Emo, Indie, Etc.

Therapists are making a fortune because you think no one understands you.

Hot Topic

Instead of getting creative, you buy your overpriced yellow plaid bondage pants with faux zippers at the mall.

At least the smell of cheap plastic is pleasant when you walk past the store.

Popped Collars

Two neon colored Abercrombie and Fitch polo shirts with popped collars are worn on a hot day and you can’t help but wonder why you smell like musk ox.

V-Neck Shirts

This shirt is worn on a daily basis and you have yet to realize the 1970s ended in the early 1980s.

Flame Button-Up Shirts

You are so unattractive that you wear this shirt 1-2 times a week thinking it is a dude/chick magnet.

Fishnets

This shirt is worn at the dining table and your mom is disgusted by it.

Snuggies

Everyone is jealous of your fluffy sleeved blanket, not realizing it is actually a bathrobe worn backwards.

Skinny Jeans

Doctors know exactly what is causing the numbness in your legs and feet, but hold off the diagnosis to make a fortune.

I wore skin-tight jeans in the 90s. I forgot how comfortable normal jeans are.

UGGs

UGH! your hot sweaty feet exclaim in disgust from inside the hot pink UGGs.

Crocs

Everyone thinks you are cute until they see what’s on your feet.

Velcro sandals and flip-flops are way cooler.

Converse Knee High Sneakers

High Top Converse-wearing kids feel like total losers because you have Knee High Converse.

Heelys

Showing off your new Heelys trick to your friends is the 2000s equivalent of showing off your new hoverboard.

Frosted Spiky Hair

The coolest kid at school is you until someone shows up with liberty spikes.

Good riddance to that crunchy pasta hair fad.

Spiky Hair at the Front

Your friends keep asking you if you were involved in a single vehicle collision that messed up your spiky hair.

Trucker Hats

Truck drivers are calling you a poser because your new flat-brimmed trucker hat doesn’t have the Mudflap Girl on it.

Chrome Aviators

People like to use you to check for zits or apply their makeup.

New Year Glasses

Sporting a pair of glow in the dark plastic lensless glasses is totally worth your first minutes of a new year.

Gel Bracelets

There is an ungodly amount of black gel bracelets on your wrists because you just LOVE Hot Topic.

LIVESTRONG Bracelets

There are three LIVESTRONG bracelets on your wrist and you don’t have the foggiest idea what LIVESTRONG is.

Power Bands

You are sporting a fancy power band because you think it grants you the balance of a kangaroo.

I’d rather have a THIS STICKER ADDS 5HP bumper sticker.

Clam/Puka Shell Necklaces

Everyone thinks you are a surfer because you have a colored puka shell necklace.

Bandanas

People want to play a Dragon’s Tail game with your back pocket bandana.

Grillz

Gold jewelry can get lost or stolen, but not your grillz because they are stuck to your face.

Lower Back Tattoos

The coolest girl at school is you until your disgruntled principal asks you to stop wearing low cut shirts.

Axe Body Spray

You are stuck on a 13-hour flight with a passenger who put too much Axe on.

Been there, done that. Good grief.

Glitter Gel

People get glitter bombed every time you sneeze.

Gel Pens

The exasperated sigh of your sleep-deprived English teacher as he scribbles “USE A BLACK OR BLUE PEN!” on your essay with a glitter red gel pen.

Color-Changing LED Pens

There is a silent rave party in the boring social studies class every time you turn on your LED pen.

It would be awesome if Wacom made one.

Everything is Gay

“That’s so gay,” your friend says, pointing at an eraser, and you are not sure whether to laugh or slap him across the face.

Balloon Boy

You stop what you are doing to watch a balloon fly away on international TV.

Talk to the Hand

This is your only rational problem-solving approach for every situation.

Planking

You think you have the coolest planking position until you see astronauts aboard the ISS planking while floating on TV.

Why people thought this was funny is beyond me.

Pluto Demoted to Dwarf Planet

Despite the scientific facts, you still think Pluto is a planet.

I’m one of these people.

Harry Potter Franchise

You are crying your eyes out after Professor Snape Avada Kedavra’d Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince during Sustained Silent Reading.

Fingerboarding

The small pocket of your JanSport is overstuffed with Tech Deck fingerboards, ramps, stairs, and rails, trucks, wheels, bolts and nuts, and tools.

They’re still awesome. My family and I still play with them.

Robot Pets

Your enormously large cat has a strong urge to smash your stupid yipping Tekno The Robotic Puppy into millions of pieces.

Colorful See-Through Things

Geniuses like you want to see how things work without taking them apart.

3D Image Glass Cubes

There is one with a 3D image of the New York City skyline sitting collecting dust on your bookshelf.

Tribute in Light

Standing between two sets of 44 xenon spotlights pointing at the sky is the best thing about your New York City trip.

This awesome view is what it’s like looking up from the middle of one of the sets.

American Pride

You become so patriotic that you have to emblazon everything with the flag of the United States of America.

BUSH/CHENEY ‘04 Bumper Stickers

The last car on Earth you want to be seen in is the one with this bumper sticker.

Hey, better than TRUMP ‘16, right?

Retro Cars

The all-new Chevrolet SSR is here and you are dying to buy a Torch Red one and some magnetic flame decals for it.

Funky Cars

After watching The 6^th Day, you want a Proton Yellow Isuzu VehiCROSS for your first car.

I still think the Subaru Baja is awesome.

Google Street View

A Google camera car shows up on your street unannounced and takes photos of your brown, patchy lawn from multiple angles.

Toyota Unintended Acceleration

The Prius is so fearsome that you steer clear of every single one in sight.

Spinners

You want to shell out a fortune for a set thinking they will look right on your old beater late 80s Plymouth Grand Voyager.

Unfortunately yes, I saw that very minivan.

Rear Seat Entertainment System

The kids get bored on a 5-minute ride to the store, so you enable them with TVs, DVD player, WiFi, headphones, and video gaming console in the rear.

Flat Screen Tube TVs

The hard earned money is put into a new flat screen tube TV which picture quality looks exactly like that of your old curved screen tube TV.

The Dell Dude

You have to listen to this dude scream “Dude, you’re getting a Dell!” on TV at least 5 times a day.

It was better than this Sears commercial that aired at least 20 times a day—sometimes twice during a single commercial break—for months.

TV Shows

A good deal of your time is put into watching the TV Guide Channel for showtimes for the following TV shows:

The Sopranos
Weeds
Breaking Bad
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Arrested Development
Ally McBeal
House, M.D.
Scrubs
Dark Angel
Dexter
The Osbournes
Malcolm in the Middle
Boston Public
Trading Spaces

Cartoons

Oh, also the following cartoons:

Robot Chicken
American Dad!
CatDog
Invader ZIM
Family Guy
Aqua Teen Hunger Force
Futurama
Samurai Jack
Drawn Together
SpongeBob SquarePants
Ed, Edd, ‘n’ Eddy

Movies

You are debating whether to stop going to the movies because there are too much of these:

Sequels
Explosions
Profanity
Remakes/reboots
Adam Sandler
Sexy vampires
CGI
3D
Black and white
Comic book film adaptions

That’s why I stopped going to the movies.

Nightmare Before Christmas

The Nightmare Before Christmas is so popular that you want to see it in the theaters thinking it is a new movie.

RROD, YLOD, and RLOD

Your new PlayStation 3 decides to YLOD on you after only a few months.

Video Gaming

Constant firmware and game updates, subscription renewals, bandwidth hogs on your network, absurdly overpriced, buggy games that are dark, depressing, and violent, overpriced consoles with overheating issues and no backwards compatibility, postponed game releases, game remakes, slow loading times, and friends annoying you to play online games with them are wearing you out.

Guitar Hero

You want to join a real punk band thinking it is no different from Guitar Hero.

Adobe Photoshop

Everyone wants you to take their photos knowing you will turn them into gorgeous supermodels with the Liquify Tool.

Decline of Film

There are dozens of rolls of Fujichrome Provia, T64, Astia, and Velvia in your refrigerator, but it is becoming difficult to get your hands on high quality film processing and printing chemicals, your film scanner is no longer supported, all your local camera stores no longer carry darkroom chemicals and equipment, and all your local labs no longer offer film services.

This is why I was forced to switch to digital.

Digital SLR Cameras

After taking photos, you automatically walk into your darkroom and try to open a camera that doesn’t take film.

Been there, done that. I was so sad.

Sony Mavica

The 3.5" floppy disk in your 0.3 megapixel camera is full after taking 7 photos.

Bokeh

You love to take completely out-of-focus photos at the minimum focus distance at F/1.4 because you think it is art.

I prefer SpaghettiOs bokeh from catadioptric lenses.

Duckface

The perfect facial expression to use in family photos of you and your grandma.

Segway

Thousands of dollars are put into a form of transportation that isn’t any better than your trusty old pair of Rollerblades.

Razor Scooter

The coolest kid at school is you until someone shows up on a mini bicycle.

I miss my Goped Roadster scooter.

Demise of Concorde

The grief when you realize you are about to miss your flight, and it is a Concorde and it is its last flight.

Apple iPod

Your newly acquired MP3 player requires you to replace your IBM PS/1 Model 2133 with a computer that has a USB port and will run iTunes in order to manage your some 40 songs.

Microsoft Zune

You try and fail to impress your friends, who have fancy U2 Special Edition red on black iPods, with your new Zune.

Mix CDs

Drawing pretty pictures on mix CDs with colored Sharpies is your favorite activity to do in your geography class.

Auto-Tune

You can’t sing, so you rely on auto-tune, not realizing it makes you sound like a robot that can’t sing either.

Michael Jackson

Immediately after he passed away, you start listening to his music for the first time only to give up and go back to The Black Eyed Peas.

Stylish Laptops

Despite the poor specs, you want a base model Compaq Evo N1020v because it has a rounded touchpad!

Apple MacBook in White and Black

The hissing sound of your warm hands touching your icy cold metal MacBook Pro is begging for a plastic one.

My sister still uses her black MacBook. I envy her.

Ball Mice

The pain of constantly cleaning your filthy mouse ball is unbearable.

Windows XP

The gorgeous color scheme of Windows XP is so unique that you refuse to upgrade the operating system.

This is why I’m tempted to install Windows XP on my Mac.

DSL

The excitement of being able to use your phone while you are connected to the Internet! No more hearing the dial-up Internet sound! No more parents, friends, or roommates telling you to disconnect! No more waiting forever for an image to load! Whoooo!

That’s how I felt when I made the switch from dial-up.

Web Browsers

There are so many web browsers that you simply don’t know which one to use.

Instant Messengers

The frustration when you have to wait for your sister to get off the phone so that you can continue your IM conversation with a classmate about Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake’s breakup.

Social Media

The stress of checking all your social media accounts daily for new comments, messages, friend requests, and invitations is unimaginable.

Farmville

Your significant other is packing to leave you because you think your precious crops are more important than him or her.

Cat Videos

You have to unfriend your aunt on Facebook because she won’t stop flooding your News Feed with cute cat videos.

Unboxing Videos

You are so proud to be the first person to unbox your new Nikon D40 that you had to film it, forgetting the fact that it was packed by factory workers.

Google Search Engine

You are ditching Lycos Search, CompuServe Search, AOL Search, and Ask Jeeves in favor of Google.

Webcomics

Cyanide and Happiness, What The Duck, Pon and Zi, Dinosaur Comics, and Polandball are among your most frequently visited websites.

I wish Bill Watterson would continue his comics as webcomics.

Cool Kid Slangs

Aside from usingg extraa letterss, Using Capitalization Incorrectly, and tYpInG lIkE tHiS, you use the following slangs and phrases in real life conversations:

LOL (laugh out loud)
Whazzzzzzzzup?! (what’s up)
Rawr (usually accompanied by clawing motion)
OMG (oh my god)
ROFLcopter (rolling on floor laughing helicopter)
Nom nom
Fo sho (for sure)
WTF (what the f••k; see dafuq)
Facepalm (usually in between two asterisks or parentheses)
Gaydar (gay radar)
SRSLY (seriously)
Dafuq?

Computer Games

You spend hours playing the following games on your new Cyborg Green Alienware Area 51 3550 gaming computer:

The Sims
SimCity 4
World of Warcraft
Fallout 3
Halo: Combat Evolved
Diablo II
World of Goo
Call of Duty
Max Payne
Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004
Grand Theft Auto III
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
Resident Evil Zero

Mini CDs

There are stacks of these in your desk because you think they are so cute!

USB Flash Drives

The last thing you want to do is get on your knees and reach the back of your dusty eMachines eTower 366c to insert or remove your 128MB flash drive.

I remember the days when 128MB flash drives cost a whopping $100.

Smartphones

“Hey, I’m here at the restaurant. Where are you?” you text your friend while sitting right across the table from the said friend.

I miss dumbphones. They make you think.

Apps, Apps, Apps, and Apps

There are thousands of games, but you are on the verge of throwing your iPhone out the window because you can’t get three stars on an Angry Birds level.

Motorola Razr

You are torn between a hot pink and a gold Razr. Decisions, decisions…

Motorola Talkabout T900

It works like a two-way walkie-talkie with a 55-kilometer (35-mile) range, but you want a red one anyway because it is oh so cute!

T-Mobile Sidekick

The stress of coming up with the most iconic AOL Instant Messenger away messages and checking MySpace during class is unbearable.

Multimedia PDAs

iPhone users are jealous of your heavy and bulky PDA that has a rotating display and camera, matte screen, better battery life, and full physical keyboard.