Top 10 Things 2000s Kids Used to Do

Some of us still love physical media and have a DVD collection we’re proud of. For others, nothing about that sentence makes any sense. Why would you buy something called a DVD when you can stream whatever movie you want on Netflix or some other service? Well, prior to 2007 when Netflix introduced their streaming product, buying or renting physical movies was pretty much your only option - and for most of us, that meant a trip to Blockbuster. And while VHS still ruled for much of the previous decade, by the 2000s, most of us had unplugged our VCRs to make room for our sweet DVD player. Clearly, this was technology at its peak…

“Total Request Live,” better known as “TRL,” made its debut on MTV in 1998, and by 2000, it was the network’s flagship show. For most of the 2000s, “TRL” was the “IT” place to be for musicians and celebs alike who wanted to be seen by the younger generation. The show would countdown the 10 most requested music videos of the day and give pop stars a place to premiere their newest video. The show was must-see TV for kids after school. And John Norris, an MTV News correspondent, even spoke to the possibility that “TRL” was a major factor in the mega-careers of some of the biggest acts of the decade, including NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, and Britney Spears.

While kids of past generations were all about the ‘rock and roll’, in the 2000s we loved to ‘walk or roll.’ Launched in 2001, Heelys were shoes with a wheel in the heel. And by the middle of the decade, the company was selling over $40 million worth of these rolling shoes per year. However, by the end of the decade, the fad had faded. And while, in 2022, the company still exists, sales aren’t what they used to be. In 2020, they only made around $5 million. But, just because rolling shoes aren’t as popular anymore doesn’t mean they still aren’t super fun. So, why not get a pair and awaken the 2000s kid inside you?

If you were chatting online in the 2000s, there’s a very good chance that you were using one of, if not all of these services: Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger, and AIM (AOL Instant Messenger). And of them all, AIM was the most widely used for much of the decade. But, just as hard as it is today to find a cool, unused Insta, TikTok, or Gmail handle. Picking a cool AIM screen name was just as challenging. But for a generation of folks back at the beginning of the 21st century that name was how we were known to the online world. Although looking back, some of them are a bit cringe-worthy. We’re talking to you ‘RebelFromTheWaistDown,’ ‘bootysmak,’ and ‘Kosherhotdog13.’

Anyone who doesn’t think flip phones are cool obviously never had a Motorola Razr. Like the iPhone is today, there was a time, from about 2003 to 2007, where the Razr was the must-have phone. The original design and thin profile made it stand out from the crowd of boring flip phone competitors. And with over 130 million units sold in those four years, it’s still the best-selling clamshell phone ever. For many of us, it was the last ‘dumb’ phone we had before switching over to either iPhone or Android by the end of the 2000s or the early 2010s and saying goodbye to flipping and multi-tap/T9 texting forever.

Napster might be the most famous file-sharing service - and not just because Justin Timberlake played its co-founder, Sean Parker, in “The Social Network.” However, by the early 2000s, legal sanctions and lawsuits had pretty much shut Napster down and kids had to find somewhere else to illegally download music. And while there were many options to choose from, for many of us LimeWire and Kazaa were our services of choice. And it wasn’t just for music. Movies, television shows, video games, software… the 2000s were a buffet of free entertainment and we were downloading as much of it as our bandwidth could handle - while trying to avoid computer viruses and cease and desist letters from our internet service providers.

For those of us who grew up in the 2000s and didn’t have a PlayStation or a Nintendo, our gaming was done on our PC. And for many of us, that meant the free games included with the Microsoft Windows software. And sure, there were the FreeCell kids, but most of us fell into one of two categories: Classic Solitaire or Minesweeper. Admittedly, Minesweeper could be confusing at first. And we aren’t dismissing the satisfaction of seeing those cards bounce all over the screen after a solitaire victory. But anyone who has ever completed a Minesweeper board at the intermediate or expert levels can vouch for the feelings of superiority and accomplishment that come with it.

Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel had been around for decades before the turn of the century. But it could be argued that they both hit their high points in children’s programming in the 2000s. While the previous generation of kids grew up during the golden age of Saturday morning cartoons, 2000s kids saw a general renaissance of programming geared towards the under 18 set. We were spoiled with cartoons like “SpongeBob SquarePants” and “Kim Possible,” as well as live-action mega-hits like “Lizzie McGuire” and “Hannah Montana” that launched the careers of mega-stars Hilary Duff and Miley Cyrus. It was a good time to be a kid with cable television.

Before everybody was on Facebook, we were all on MySpace. Launched in 2003, the platform with the crazy customizable wallpaper and auto-play profile songs was the social network of choice. And speaking of choice - Just in case you had any doubts that life is just one big popularity contest, we have two words for you… Top 8! One of the most important decisions we all had to make in our young lives was who to showcase in the Top 8 friends section on our profile page. Who would make the cut? And would we make the cut on someone else’s page? The only thing worse than not getting in was being removed from someone’s Top 8. But at least we still had Tom.

On June 29, 2007, the first iPhone went on sale in the United States. In September of that same year, Apple launched the first iPod Touch - basically an iPhone without the phone part. The Touch was a Wi-Fi-only device that didn’t come with a cellular network connection, which meant no phone calls. The original Touch also lacked a camera, Bluetooth and a built-in external speaker. But unlike the other iPods, this one had the large touch screen, the app store and the ability to play videos and games. And being a couple hundred less expensive, it also gave us ammo when trying to sell it to our parents how much we needed/wanted one, after they told us we couldn’t have an iPhone.