what gives you 2000s nostalgia?

[castlevania]

i was born at the end of the 90s, and grew up as a 2000s kid. unsurprisingly, i have a lot of nostalgia for my childhood, but as an adult now i sometimes wish i could have lived that era as an older person to have fully experienced its culture.

what gives you nostalgia for the 2000s? is there anything you like to do to relive it, what do you miss from back then? how do you feel about your experience living back then versus now?

[castlevania]

to start the subject, this is pretty lengthy:

ive been on a 2000s nostalgia craze lately by trying to do things that i did not (or could not do) as a child back then. im playing ffxi, im listening to rock music from popular bands back then, i want to buy a refurbished ipod, im browsing through neocities and archived internet, im playing on 2000s neopets servers and webkinz (and magistream of course!), im blogging on FC2, i have a long list of cartoons and movies and video game playthroughs to watch from back in the day. i want to try to overhaul windows 11 on my PC go look like windows XP. and even though it is impossible now (and impractical in any case, i unfortunately have to have a smartphone for necessary things) i wistfully imagine using a telemoto flip phone like the ones my parents had. i love looking at art that people drew and uploaded to the internet from back then, especially if its a ms paint drawing or a scanned paper with colored pencils and pens.

not sure how to feel about how many sites opt to have discord servers instead of traditional forums like on magistream- discord is wonderfully convenient, but i feel like a lot of sites lose their charm when their official communities are discord-exclusive. and i dislike that a majority of the internet experience nowadays is centralized towards using a few mainstream sites like twitter, instagram, and tiktok (which i do not use and personally avoid- infinite scroll is very stressful to me. i also dont really "get" many aspects of modern online culture anymore, even though i should still be at the prime age demographic to be a part of it in my 20s )

the 2000s wasnt a perfect time. growing up as a very carefree child back then, without dealing with the responsibilities and awareness of being teenager or an adult, definitely shows through my rose tinted glasses. but i do miss the parts that i look back on fondly, and want to try to experience in my own way now

[6and]

I am younger but I feel like I just get waves of nostalgia when I see old flash games being played. First time surfing the web was spent finding free flash games to play. Very early youtube videos. I like sodium vapor lamps, the yellowy orange glow that's disappearing slowly. My parents saved for this pool for a long time and that filled my early childhood with so much fun! Looking for frogs in the cracks at night. Catching lizards, watching caterpillars grow and seeing their nest pop up in trees all around! Hanging out with and renting redbox movies to watch with the family. running around outside with trashcan lids and large sticks. Still enjoy the new things glad some of the old still exist.