what was it like being a teen in the early 2000’s?

[neroforte]

as a teen myself in 2021, i love early 2000’s emo/sceneish fashion, music etc. i’d love to know what it was actually being a teen in this time? (bonus if you were emo/punk/goth etc!)

Yes £10 for a night out and £2 taxi home! I was a greebo, hung out with all the other weird greebo kids at the civic in Wolverhampton. Frayed baggy jeans, little vest tops and cardigans. I wore odd converse and socks too. Lots of polka dots or stripes at one point too. I had a phase of a directions hair dye turquoise streak/chunk in my hair, then red, then black.
Mercilessly bullied by chavs for 1) being greebos and 2) having multiple gay people in our friendship group. It's was actually throughly unpleasant to sit on a bus and be spat at. It was a lot less of a tolerant time.

I was 20 in the year 2000 and I loved it! No social media so that was a blessing! You went to clubs and came out with fag burns even if you didn’t smoke! Cast Aways, archers & lemonade and hooch were my clubbing drinks of choice and we wore very little! Heels were high and tops were low 🤣 ahh those were the days! We had 18-30 holidays to places like Ibiza which involved booze, sex and hangovers

The music scene tended to be boy bands and Brit pop! Throughout my life the way we listen to music has vastly changed from records when I was little to tapes then onto cds and now download and streaming and I still have alot of all of those in my collection 🤣

Brad Pitt was everyone’s heart throb and to be fair he probably still is to many of us

My first car which I bought that year was a maestro metro and a lot of other friends equally as shit cars, nothing like today’s first cars, it had a manual choke!

Internet was fairly new and we had what was called dial up which was linked to your telephone line so you couldn’t access it if you wanted to phone someone and it took ages to connect!

Email wasn’t a thing for me or my company we used to fax or phone people still.

Mobile phones just were starting to come on the scene and my cool phone at the time was a Nokia 3310 and you could ring, text and play a game called snake! It was amazing! My first mobile ever though was one you could charge up or put everyday batteries in and the charge seemed to last weeks 🤣

This thread is making me smile reminiscing about the life I used to have and the freedom we had back then! Life is very different twenty years later some good and some bad 🥰

Oh yes, text messages on your Nokia 3310 cost 6p each and you would think about whether it was necessary before sending one!

The best time.
MySpace was life. Always found a way to access it in school and when I had my laptop taken away.
Drinking in parks/outdoors.
So many gigs.
House parties.
Studded belts.
Wearing Converse and Vans before they were cool.

I was very 00's emo, loved it and would love every minute all over again.

Looking forward to the mosh pit at Green Day/FOB concert next year. I'll be almost 40

Oh and DIY hair. Cutting, bleaching, stripes.

@DukeofEarlGrey

Oh yes, text messages on your Nokia 3310 cost 6p each and you would think about whether it was necessary before sending one!

Yes they did 🤣🤣 also you couldn’t send, receive or take photos which in today’s society of Instagrammers and influences would have been a nightmare but to us and my friendship group in particular it definitely was a blessing!

Still scared from my lip piercing but at least it was done by a professional. Can't say the same for many of my friends and a few of my ear piercings.

@scottmichael

The best time. MySpace was life. Always found a way to access it in school and when I had my laptop taken away. Drinking in parks/outdoors. So many gigs. House parties. Studded belts. Wearing Converse and Vans before they were cool.

MySpace was 2005, my work mate got me hooked on it when it first came out… I wonder actually if you can still access your old profiles used to write so much crap on it 🤣🤣

I was 13 in 2008 so not really the early 2000s but I do have fond memories of listening to evanescence on my discman, getting my first iPod Nano in black, searching for the perfect Bebo skin and buying up the miss sporty counter in Superdrug. The difference in makeup quality for teens between now and then is astounding 🤣
Also I wasn’t on MN as a teen, I was on the student room!

I turned 16 in December 1999. On millennium eve I snogged my cousins friend at a house party. I was wearing black satin hipster trousers and a pink lycra top from Morgan. And probably purple eyeshadow. I started going to pubs and clubs at 15 and was never asked for id. I was a bit naive really someone should have told me to just ignore older men completely as they were very creepy! But getting into club, drinking Smirnoff Ice or Bacardi Breezer and dancing to all of the ibiza tunes was just the best.
Blink 182 really reminds me of one night when we all got chucked out of a house party and ended up in the park instead.
It was so good, if you did something stupid there was no evidence the next day and underage drinking was so easy, basically Thursday nights were like an under 18s night. Used to spend about £15 including taxis and a pizza!

17 in 2000. Lots of clubbing and dance music in my peer group. You could smoke in clubs. We dressed, rather embarrassingly, like Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie. Drank Smirnoff Ice and WKD.
As well as listening to dance music, we liked Blink 182.
Boys wore diesel jeans and tight T-shirts’ from French Connection and the ones we were friendly with looked like they should be in a boy band.

Katienana do we know each other

I was early teens then and spent ages choosing the perfect song for my MySpace account (curse of curves was mine) ranking friends was brutal and caused many high school arguments. Bebo was also big and the last I fancied sending me his wave on it was a huge deal (I think you only got one a day). Everyone chatted on MSN messenger and downloaded music illegally by waiting about 10 hours on limewire. Panic at the disco, fallout boy, my chemical romance was all over my planner.
Very low jeans that went wide at the bottom, vans (extra points if you and your friends had drawn on them). I would also wear a chequered scarf think that if you undid was about the size of a tablecloth

@PattyPan

I was 13 in 2008 so not really the early 2000s but I do have fond memories of listening to evanescence on my discman, getting my first iPod Nano in black, searching for the perfect Bebo skin and buying up the miss sporty counter in Superdrug. The difference in makeup quality for teens between now and then is astounding 🤣 Also I wasn’t on MN as a teen, I was on the student room!

You sound a few years younger than me and this sounds like my entire existence at this age. Has forgotten all about my iPods and lovely of Miss Sporty.

I remember a friend and I dramatically tried to re-enact 'Bring me to life' by Evanescence. We were soo cool had also forgot the importance of choosing the right Bebo skin. Love this post!

I loved it! The fashion, cheap perfume, the music, £10 to get in a nightclub and drink as much as you like!! everything was easy going. Now my DD feels so much pressure over everything. I wish my kids had they stuff we did. Oh this thread has been a lovely trip down memory lane xx

The biggest thing has been the changes in mobile phones and social media use. But in many ways it wasn't all that different tbh. Teenagers will always find ways to create social pressure for themselves/ each other and there always has and always will be bullying, too.

Some people had good experiences, some bad, just the same as now or in any other generation.

The whole emo/ goth thing really isn't worth romanticising, it was really just a fad of fashion and music. There's really nothing to stop you dressing that way now if you want to!

Ahhhh so many memories.

Using paint to make your own bebo skins.
Listening to illegal downloaded metal/emo/screamo music from Limewire on your iPod Classic.
Massive side fringe all back combed at the front and usually some sort of crazy colour of hair extension put in somewhere.
Piercing your own face with your mums sewing needle and using ice to try and numb wherever you were piercing
Sitting down by rivers, or in fields or beaches drinking stolen bottles of WKD from the local Spar.
Telling your parents you were staying at your friends house while they did the same and you stayed out all night being mischievous.
Using MSN to message your pals and organise getting out and how and where you'd find booze for the weekend.
Smoking at the bike sheds...

What id give to go back for just a week

I was 16 in 2000, just finished my GCSEs, met the man who became my husband he was in a rock band.

Going to rock nights at the local uni, or to the rock bar in town, moshing, getting so drunk I'm amazed we survived, went to Leeds festival and saw Guns n Roses, foofighters, prodigy.

Loads of Barry M eyeshadow, pleather trousers, skin tight plunging vest tops.

I was a bit of a ned . I had gold rings including a two fingered ring with my name on it, gold chains, gold bangles in different shapes and 2 sets of gold hoops in each ear. I wore tracksuit bottoms but at the weekend I would dress up into my jeans . I wore a lot of orange make up, lots of dark eyeliner (dream matte mousse). Would get drunk on cheap cider, Buckfast and Mad Dog .
Sony Walkman phone
Bebo
Msn

I sound horrible but I was a nice teenager and despite still being a bit rough I'm a nice adult too .

I was 13 in 2000 the early 2000s were my whole teenage years and I was a “mosher”. It was a great time but also a dark time in some ways. Size 0 was the thing to aspire to and self harm was fashionable (absolutely not suggesting this should be aspired to by young people now, I still live with the scars 15+ years later).

The music was great, I’m introducing it to my skater boy DS now and he’s annoyed there’s not really anything like it now. It was a much simpler time with no social media except MSN messenger. We wore huge flared jeans that soaked up rain water to our knees but sat on our hips showing off a diamanté thong and held up with a studded belt and a tiny top (preferable Playboy). I had long blonde hair and I did have GHDs in 2002 and everyone called me Avril (Lavigne). I still wear panda eyeliner to this day! And of course we wore Vans. Actually I haven’t changed that much in 20 years 😂.

Oh and we went to “rock night” at a local night club despite being underage and moshed all night. I actually made a “top” out of neon yellow fishnet tights by cutting the feet and crotch out and wearing as a too teamed up with a wonderbra, black baggy combats with bits hanging off them and the obligatory Vans! I thought I looked so awesome!

@Laufeythejust

I was early teens then and spent ages choosing the perfect song for my MySpace account (curse of curves was mine) ranking friends was brutal and caused many high school arguments. Bebo was also big and the last I fancied sending me his wave on it was a huge deal (I think you only got one a day). Everyone chatted on MSN messenger and downloaded music illegally by waiting about 10 hours on limewire. Panic at the disco, fallout boy, my chemical romance was all over my planner. Very low jeans that went wide at the bottom, vans (extra points if you and your friends had drawn on them). I would also wear a chequered scarf think that if you undid was about the size of a tablecloth

Curse of curves! This brings back so many memories.

@LadyCatStark

Oh and we went to “rock night” at a local night club despite being underage and moshed all night. I actually made a “top” out of neon yellow fishnet tights by cutting the feet and crotch out and wearing as a too teamed up with a wonderbra, black baggy combats with bits hanging off them and the obligatory Vans! I thought I looked so awesome!

Oh god, I totally forgot the combats!!! Yes we all wore them and I wore mine with cat boots

The Middle (Jimmy Eat World) was our song.