The early 2000’s feel like they were quite literally just yesterday. And while we’ve never claimed to be mathematicians, the fact that 2002 was a solid TWENTY years ago still stops us in our tracks. Nevertheless, we thought it would be fun to look back on all of the technology we were fussing over at the time. So dig out whatever it was you were wearing in the early 2000s and let’s get started!
HDTV
It must be the ‘90s kid in us that is still impressed when we hear that a tv is an HDTV. In our defense, TV in HD started to become a thing in the ‘90s, but by the ‘00s was more readily available to households. And sure smart TVs are cool and all, but talk to us about the first time you watched The Ring in HD.
iPhones
(image via: business insider)
iPhones were first released in 2007 and up until this point all we had cellphone-wise were Nokia bricks and hot pink Motorola Razrs, so you can imagine how mind-blown we were that we were essentially holding a tiny computer in our hands. And look at us now.
iPods
Of course we can’t bring up the iPhone without bringing up the iPod. Yes, there existed a time when our music was on one device, and our phone was a different device entirely. Crazy, right? The OG iPod was released in 2001 and we can still hear the subtle clicking of the wheel you had to spin to go from song to song. Major bonus points if you remember trying to download music from Limewire only to download a TON of viruses to the family computer.
YouTube
(image via: youtube)
When Michael Scott said, “when I discovered YouTube, I didn’t work for five days”, we felt that. YouTube became a part of our lives in the year 2005 and to say the rest is history is an understatement. Who else remembers being huddled around a chunky desktop computer with a group of your friends watching Charlie the Unicorn or Salad Fingers for actual HOURS?
The Amazon Kindle
It’s hard to imagine a time without the Amazon Kindle, but we’re here to tell you, there was a time. The first Kindle was nothing to write home about, but it sold out within just five hours of its release in 2007, and paved the way for an entire line of Kindles to follow.
Wikipedia
(image via: know your meme)
We keep saying this, but where would we be without Wikipedia? How would some of our favorite podcasts exist? How would we have passed college? Wikipedia was originally released in 2001, and as we know, now consists of millions upon millions of articles.