Do you think 2000 was a long time ago?

[MO6]

If I was to think back to 2020 (so 5 years ago), I could mentally comprehend that 5 years had passed. This is as I can think (from a British perspective) of Covid; then the 2020 US election; then Prince Philip’s death; then the Oprah interview with Harry and Meghan; then the Boris Johnson resignation; then the Platinum Jubilee; then the Queen’s death/Liz Truss resignation; then King Charles’ coronation; then the 7th October attack against Israel; then the 2024 UK election; then the 2024 US election; and now 2025 as all one continuum of events. Yes, typing out all of these major events may make it seem like there were so many, but it honestly feels all so connected like they are one after the other and so makes the five years feel shorter.

I am young, though, so five years for me is a lot.

But, if as someone who is older, you were to explain how you feel when you think of the past and how time has passed to get to the present, how would you explain it? By this I mean, people often jokingly say that “time has flown by”, but how true is this?

For instance, think of the year 2000. Would you honestly think that the year 2000, to you, felt like “yesterday”, meaning you actually believe it was so short a time ago. Or, would you recognise that 25 years is a long time and would feel like 2000 was a long time ago, but by using the continuum of events I described above be able to sort of link all of these major events in the world (and in your personal life together), to make it feel like they all happened one after another and 2025 has suddenly crept up on you rather than having taken ages to come about?

I think it probably depends how old you are. I am in my 50s and the millennium feels like yesterday and like a long time ago all at the same time. I think it’s because that it feels like the time between then and now has gone in a flash (and time seems to speed up the older you get) but when I think about what I was doing then and the events that have happened since it seems like a world ago. The incongruence is quite hard to reconcile in the mind and so it can feel unsettling when you realise how much time has passed. There’s definitely something up with our perception of both aging and time passing. The older you get, the more you are surprised by it.

I used to say I feel like I went to bed one night and woke up 10 years later. I’m now on 30 years later !! I was 65 recently. How ? I’m only 26 in my head !!! 25 years I’ll be 90………. I just can’t think about it

Perfect!

I remember 2000 really well, especially New Year's Eve for the Millennium. Like a pp poster said, it's both yesterday and a lifetime ago because so much has happened since then.

I was born in 1966 so just over 20 years after WW2 ended. The 2nd World War is very much part of History to me.

The 80s is when I was at 6th form and Uni and is the most vivid and distinct decade to me.

My dd was born in 2002 and this thread has given me the depressing realisation that the 80s must be to my dd what WW2 is to me.
I feel ancient!

It scares me how fast 25 years has gone by, I was 17 in 2000, met my husband in 2004, had my son in 2006, bought our 'forever home' in 2009, had my daughter in 2010, got married in 2013, did nothing for a while, sold forever home last year and moved to new home.....obviously all the births, deaths and marriages in between!!!!
I will be 67 in 25 years time. I don't think I am mentally prepared for how fast I will get there.

My eldest child is the same age I was in 2000.
Some things seem ages ago, others yesterday.

Seems so odd we were worried about our PCs crashing on NYE... now it would be our phones, tablets, laptops, TV, toasters, cars, watches...

Yes. It's pre 9/11 and a lot changed after that.

I agree. 2015 in my mind was a watershed date. We were finally coming out of austerity, we had nearly full employment, inflation was low and Brexit seemed like an impossibility. Immigration wasn’t a big divisive issue and the culture wars hadn’t really surfaced. The global situation was as probably as good as it ever gets. On a personal level, my beloved mother was fit and well, my brother in law was still alive (as was the best dog ever!) and my dd was still a happy teenager, before we lost her to the trans cult. I know we tend to view the past through rose tinted spectacles but it was materially different and so, so much better in my view.

Every date between 1994 and 2024 has been reclassified as “the other day”.

2000 was a few years ago. It doesn't seem like any time at all, even though loads has happened.

I'm in my late 40s and time definitely speeds up as you get older. It's to do with fractions, so at two years of age, a year is half your life, which is a huge amount, but at 30, a year is a 30th, so a much smaller amount.

I think about how I met DH 30 years ago, which was a few years ago really, but 30 years before that was 1965! So weird.

2000-2025
Fleeting

I hadn’t even left school in 2000 and I’m 41 this year. It seems a lifetime ago. I cant believe I’ve lived all that time.

Not really but I was born in the late 50s. The 70s seem a long time ago and they are

I’m in my 50s, and it feels like we somehow slipped into a parallel time line when covid hit. Every person I love has been hit with something major. Serious illnesses, deaths, terrible life events. It feels like it’s been nonstop disaster. I’m struggling to keep up and not completely break down. Then you turn on the news and watch the same thing happening on a political and mass disaster/greedy evil war perspective😔

And it all feels like it’s happened over a couple of years. I’m surprised everytime I stop and realise it’s been 5 years of shittiness😱

I think our perception of time changes the longer we've been. Alive, because a year becomes shorter in relation to how long we've lived.

For example, when I was at primary school a year seemed like forever. I remember thinking my birthday would never come. But I was about seven at the time. When I was 7 one year was a seventh of my entire lifespan. I couldn't even remember the first 2 to 3 years of my life. So I could only remember being alive 4 years.

At that age three and a half years was pretty much my entire memorable life.

Now, a year seems so quick because it's a tiny fraction of how long we ve been alive. I think that's how and why the perception changes. It is depressing though.

I was a teenager in 2000. It's weird because at the time 1975 felt like a completely different era (I wasn't born then) whereas exactly the same length of time had passed between 1975 and then and then and now. But, when you add in all the "stuff" that happened it's a lot. 9/11, war in Afghanistan, Iraq war (remember protesting that), 2008 financial crisis, bank bail outs, austerity, Brexit, Trump.

I think what makes is seem close and far away is that.we are still in a "post 9/11" and "post 2008" world. The economy never actually recovered really post 2008, it's when inflation and wage increases fell out of step, essentially when life stopped "getting better" for lots of people. And austerity had a really really big effect on lots of time ways. Even birth rates.

But because it was years ago, it feels like living in the past to moan about it, the same way when I was a teenager people moaning about Thatcher seemed a bit stuck in the past. I think for most people, the time period at which they became aware of the world around them is always going to feel closer and anything before then is properly the past.

I also feel like in 2005 if you put on a film from 1985 it looked OLD. Whereas now if you put on a film from 2005 it doesn’t seem dated in the same way?

I recently rewatched 13 going on 30 and realised if it was made now the ‘back in time’ bits where the main character is a teenager would be in 2008 😵‍💫

We didn't have 24 hour news pre about 90s/2000 so it just seems like less happened because we didn't hear so much detail about it constantly

I have 90s children so. 2000 they were at school/nursery and now they are grown women so it surprises and saddens me how long ago 200 was !

I was 18 in the year 2000 and that feels so long ago that it was a different life. Maybe it would be different if I had been an older adult then but it feels longer ago than 25 years and the time doesn't seem to have gone that quickly.

I was 18 in 2000. Started uni, had a job, was fairly self-sufficient. I objectively know it was a long time ago, but because I feel more or less the same it doesn't feel that long ago. My brain and sense of self hasn't changed much since then.

The 80s feel a very long time ago - a different world - but that's because I was a child and I don't really remember them clearly.

I remember going to see the Apollo 13 film in about 1995 which I think was set in 1970. I remember my dad’s partner saying that that year must seem like a very long time ago to me, which being 16 it certainly did but I imagine it felt like just a few years ago to her. And perhaps there was more change between 1970 and 1995 than between 2000 and today.

Now, 2000 feels like both yesterday and a long time ago, but it is hard to believe it’s a whole generation ago. 10 years, tops? I didn’t like George Bush, but he seems a positive beacon of sanity and intelligence compared to Donald Trump.

I think once you reach adulthood it all seems "recent". So for me (born in 1958) the eighties onwards seems recent - well, definitely the nineties, whereas the seventies is starting to feel like a long time ago, although everything about them remains clear. The sixties are ancient. Anything in this millennium is yesterday!

This in spades. It feels mind boggling to actually think how long ago it really was.

Time moves too quickly 😢

Yes OP, Diana and the Queen Mum seem like they were from a bygone age.

To me, aged 60, the year 2000 seems like another world. I celebrated the new year by dancing all night in a leopard print mini skirt and swigging bubbly from the bottle. Now I am the grey haired lady cycling to her allotment with a flask of tea.

The truth is that since 2000 EVERYTHING has changed. My friend died just after the millennium and I often think that if she came back today what she would think of the world How would I possibly explain to her all the things that have happened? Boris Johnson was PM, the rise of the far right, Instagram, mobile phones, 24 hour news, Vaping, Covid, slides and socks, electric cars, all the TV channels, scanning your own shopping, celebrities in space, David Bowie is gone and Trump is president.

Time doesn't seem to speed up to me, but the pace of change does. Nothing is like it was in 2000. Nothing.