As a child of the late 90s, I don't really get to ride on the nostalgia wave that has hit young adults around the nation. Seeing as how I was born in 1997, I get to vaguely remember popular shows like "Hey Arnold!" and "Smart Guy," while other beloved shows like "Sister, Sister" and "The Animaniacs" go right over my head.
It may be a sad life to not be able to connect with my generation on certain things. Some even label me a misfit and a 2000 baby. But while I will never accept these slanderous names, I will admit that the 2000s were a wonderful time. There were so many things that made being an older kid in this time very wonderful.
We had Shia Labeouf before he got a little crazy and started telling us to "just do it." No, we knew Labeouf as the innocent goofball he was in a great show called "Even Stevens."
We had music videos of young black men in R&B groups where most to all of them would wear white wifebeaters.
If you're really from this time, you will remember the sheer terror you felt every time "Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends" and Spiderus would come on the screen. I have never seen a creepier children's character before and hope that show creators learned from this. This was never acceptable.
When you watched the 1968 "Romeo and Juliet" movie after having to read it for class and thought that Romeo looked just like Troy Bolton from "High School Musical."
Before there was Team Edward and Team Jacob, you were either Team Romeo or Team Bow Wow. Both of them came out around the same time, they both had similar hairstyles, and they had very similar flows. But in the end, we all know who really won: neither of them. Both of their musical careers fizzled out at around the same time cornrows did.
Lastly, the undeniably greatest invention from the 2000s. The Sidekick. Everyone who was anyone (so not me) had one of these phones. It was the first big phone to have a full keyboard and the upward sliding function was just an added plus. It single-handedly changed the way phones would be designed for years.
All I am trying to say is, the 2000s were a wonderful time to be a kid. Fashion, music, movies and TV all meant something different at this time than they ever had before. The new millenium was something not to be joked about and in a few years, will have its own glorious, nostalgia wave for people to ride on.
