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!)

Oh and yahoo chat rooms etc

Absolutely the best time of my life!

I was a 'poser' for sure, had a great body (oh how I miss my body), lots of guys chasing me and just having the best nights out with friends where we'd steal our sisters ID (my sister is a red head, I'm blonde and it was so obvious it wasn't me but it still worked every time) take £10 out with us on a night out and come home drunk after £1 shots in the club and 2 for 1 bicardi breezers. Always making sure we kept the last £1 for the night bus home.

One thing that stands out clearly from that time is straightening our hair with the iron! Also, body glitter. cringes with delight

Wow this has taken me back! The flared jeans and cords which just ended up soaked practically to the knee. Going onto MSN as soon as you got home. Spending ages reducing characters on texts.

Drinking in fields from about 14 and in pubs and nightclubs from 16. Vodka Tuesdays were a favourite.

So so glad I had my teenage years before social media and smart phones. Got Facebook when I was 18 and the iPhone came out when I was at university.

I was 14 in 2000. To be honest it was awesome (with hindsight I mean, I had the same angst at the time as everyone else). No social media, your phone could only save 10 text messages, fake IDs worked… we drank in parks, smoked our parents’ cigarettes, it all seemed a lot more innocent, and this is inner London! My group was skater/goth. Most people listened to GreenDay, Metallica, Air, Red Hot Chillis, Nirvana…. some of the boys ventured into Pantera and Slipknot.

Still friends with that group now, lots of us have marriages, children, pets. Nobody is still wearing jeans so wide at the bottom that if you stood in a puddle the water soaked up to your knees 😉

@Themostwonderfultimeoftheyear ha! Just read your comment about the jeans too

Jane Norman bags for sixth form
Jeans absolutely soaked all the way up your leg
Belly piercings
Having a job from 13
Smoking (everyone smoked)
Clubbing from 15/16
Linkin Park
A night out for a fiver
Taking your camera to boots to develop last nights photos
Paper bus timetables
Loads more independence than teens get now

I used to wear the flared skintight black trousers to school with massive heels by day, carrying my Reebok Classics and a roll of masking tape around with me in my River Island carrier bag. After school, i would go to the toilets in the shopping centre take my trousers off and tape the hems up (just at the back) by 2 inches then put my trainers on so I could go to the park and snog my boyfriend from the other local school.

I had my hair in a high ponytail with three contrasting scrunchies and the little skinny side fringes. I only had steam straighteners which did fuck all. When a hairdresser used GHDs on my in 2006, I could not believe it.

My mum used to give me £20 per week for bus money and dinner money. I would buy a 60p cake every day and walk home so that i could spend the rest of the money on a cd from Virgin.

Every fortnight I also bought J17, Bliss and Sugar.

I had forgotten how clothes smelt like an ash tray after a night out!

The thing is you didn't notice until it actually got to your knees because the fabric didn't touch your skin until then :o

I remember when they brought the smoking ban in and suddenly pubs absolutely reeked. The smoke had really masked a lot of bad smells.

It was brilliant! We used to go to so many gigs, me and my friends regularly went to Brixton academy on a school night as well, not sure what our parents were thinking!s

So glad that there was no social media then too, it was such a good time!

I accidentally burnt someone with a fag on the dancefloor in Underworld Camden once, I felt terrible! Agree once the smoking ban came in all you could smell was the toilets

@Themostwonderfultimeoftheyear your hair used to reek of smoke too, well mine did!

I was 16 in 2000. Absolutely loved it. I was a rocker and wore oversized hoodies of my favourite bands such as coal chamber, nirvana etc, huge flares that used to soak water up to my knees when wet, bright coloured shag band bracelets up my arms and hair mascara and glitter in my hair.
You could get served anywhere so on Friday nights we would head into the rock pubs in town and get really drunk. As PP have mentioned smoking was allowed then so the air would be thick with smoke.
I went to the Reading festival for the first time in 2001 which was fantastic.
A lot of time was also spent hanging around the skatepark smoking weed.
Mobiles had just started to become as essential and I used to spend time playing snake on my Nokia phone and exchanging what seems like crude picture messages on my phone.
Things like Spotify weren't around so to go to a shop and to find the cd you'd been searching for for awhile was a great feeling.
Times were great and so much fun. Great memories!

Forget the toilets. The smoke masked farts. Who knew clubbers were so windy!

I was 13/14 in 2000. Smoking in clubs was totally gross and hard to get out of your clothes/hair.
Yes bouncers would let you into clubs when you were clearly under age.

There was a lot less information due to the internet being "smaller" so often hard to learn about a world outside your own (I never heard of Russell group unis until I was 25, had just never heard of them!)

Buffy/Paris hilton/mean girls/charmed

Steps/s club 7/ everyone crying when Stephen gately revealed he was gay.

Winning the rugby world cup! Having to make firm plans to meet friends and people just not being immediately connectable.

Walking round HMV with a friend and buying shit makeup from Boots.

Low rise jeans, crop tops and wearing your thong peeping out from said jeans!

Using limewire to get free songs and getting computer viruses!

@polexiaaphrodesia I also grew up in Suffolk and went to the under 18's rock night at the corn exchange. It was literally the highlight of the month for me and when I started gouge they used to serve anyone although they tightened this up a lot by the time I stopped going in favour of the Black Horse instead.
I wonder if I knew you then!

I was 15/16.
My love of pop was the best ( Backstreet Boys, NSync, 5ive, Atomic Kitten to name a few!)
I had a care free childhood, lovely friends and went to school to mainly see them!
I was working double shifts at weekends/holidays as a waitress, The smell of smoke in the bar used to make me sick!
I met my Dp at work when I was 16, it was all about sneaking off whenever we could and lying to my parents why I was late from work ('so sorry, we did 130meals tonight- so busy")
The only time I 'rebelled' really was, when I got my eyebrow pierced on my 16th birthday- My father didnt speak to me for a few weeks- The piercing got infected and fell out at week 6!! He still mentions ' that scar on your eye' every so often- 20years later!!

@Daisychainsandglitter possibly! I went to a school in a town beginning with the letter 'H'. Did you ever go to the alternative night on a Monday at Kartouche (or Zest as I think it changed to) I used to be out until 3am and then trot off to sixth form the next day and sleep on the bus!

Who would have guessed that Wetherspoons smelt so bad before the smoking ban. Smoke was definitely preferable!

@polexiaaphrodesia it certainly sounds as though we were at the same venues in the same era!
I grew up in Ipswich and going to Kartouche and Zest were Monday night staples. Not sure how I managed to pass my a levels. It was all I could do to stay awake in my lessons on Tuesday mornings after getting home at 3am. Good times

A lovely nostalgic thread

Hair scraped back with two long thick strands framing your face
One shouldered stretchy tops, handkerchief hem boob tubes and skirts and long boho skirts
Folding down corners of mum's Freeman's catalogue in hope
UK Garage
Gap Hoodies
Having watched every DVD in Blockbuster (so many Rom Coms made!)
So much freedom without constant surveillance
Ahhhhhh

This is brilliant! Taking me right back.
I was 14 in 2000.
Those massive jeans always stank of stale beer or rain and got very grimy!
Converse with ribbons instead of laces
Made a lot of our own jewellery with beads
Indie kid, pre-emo. the gigs were brilliant, could get in to clubs from about 16, spent lots of time chatting to randomers on nights out.
buying albums in Virgin or HMV, for the music and the beautiful artwork; copying those albums and your mates albums on to minidisks
Being hungover watching T4 huddled on your friends sofa that you’d all slept on the night before.
Taping your favourite programmes and, if you had sky, sharing them with friends who didn’t because otherwise they’d have to wait months until they came to uk tv. Our science teacher let us use a tv to watch Friends during lunch breaks one year.
and agree with PP about the internet being a magical domain that felt very youthful and excitingly separate from adult life.

Appearing on and offline on MSN in the hope your crush would spot you and speak to you.
Statuses such as Aimee, Sarah and Jenn BF 4eva IDST etc etc.
How much fun it was when the first emoji type things came to MSN and being able to shake your chat partners screen.
I was SO COOL as my phone had Snake on it.
Lots of Bangles.

Glad someone else admitted to liking Five (5ive??). At school we used to go clubbing every weekend - total breeze getting in, despite being blatantly underage - and would go nuts dancing when Five came on.

Was also so bloody delighted when the smoking ban came in. Can remember many a hungover morning when all you wanted to do was feel fresh again and the stench of your own hair from the night before was enough to make you feel sick, let alone the pile of clothes you left on the floor when you got in. So different now!