2000s Struggles That We’re Thankful Are Far Behind Us

Funny | 7/22/21

It's easy to look back at your past with the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia, but there are some problems and things we had to deal with back in the day that I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemies now.

These are 2000s struggles we never want to deal with again.

The Dark Days Before GPS

mapquest printed directions
Photo Credit: Twitter / @MEGra18
Photo Credit: Twitter / @MEGra18

Remember when you had to go on MapQuest and print out the directions to read to your mom while she was driving you to your friend's house for a birthday party?

ADVERTISEMENT

Needing A Second Light To Play Games In The Dark

ADVERTISEMENT
ad depicts boy using second light screen on gameboy
Photo Credit: Obsolete Gamer
Photo Credit: Obsolete Gamer
ADVERTISEMENT

The kids these days will never understand what it was like to try and play your Game Boy Color on a road trip, squinting to see the Super Mario at sunset if you didn't own the extra screen light.

ADVERTISEMENT

This Is How We Found Out Movie Times

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
newspaper shows theatre movie times
Photo Credit: Twitter / @TheOldManClub
Photo Credit: Twitter / @TheOldManClub
ADVERTISEMENT

If you wanted to go to the cinema to watch a movie, you had to carefully scan through rows of movie times at different local theaters in order to find the movie you wanted to see that day.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Friday Night Routine

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
General view of the exterior of the Blockbuster store
Photo Credit: Andrew H. Walker / Getty Images
Photo Credit: Andrew H. Walker / Getty Images
ADVERTISEMENT

There was nothing like rushing to Blockbuster the day that a specific movie was released on VHS or DVD so that you could get a copy before they sold out.

ADVERTISEMENT

Download Speeds Were Borderline Criminal

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
saving download says it will take 39 years to complete
Photo Credit: Twitter / @EGH78
Photo Credit: Twitter / @EGH78
ADVERTISEMENT

The worst part is, after spending hours trying to download something, your mom would accidentally close the tab or make a call, canceling out the internet and forcing you to start the process all over again.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Original Contacts List

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
notebook with handwritten phone numbers for different people
Photo Credit: Twitter
Photo Credit: Twitter
ADVERTISEMENT

I take my contacts app in my phone for granted sometimes, so it's humbling to remember that I used to have to handwrite out a list of all my friends' phone numbers.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Agony Of Putting One In And Having To Rewind The Whole Thing

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
VHS videocassette being put into VCR
Photo Credit: KAZUHIRO NOGI / AFP via Getty Images
Photo Credit: KAZUHIRO NOGI / AFP via Getty Images
ADVERTISEMENT

Every family had at least five fights that centered around someone not rewinding the VHS tape before taking it out of the player, so the next person to watch it had to wait 10 minutes for the tape to get back to the start.

ADVERTISEMENT

I Have So Many Useless Photos

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
kodak disposable camera with caption : kids today will never know what it was like to take a ton of pictures and have to wait a week to kind out they were useless
Photo Credit: Instagram / @90smadness
Photo Credit: Instagram / @90smadness
ADVERTISEMENT

Showing up for a class field trip with one of these was such a hard flex. You'd use a whole roll of film, beg your parents to get it developed, then face a slap of disappointment when all the photos were horrible.

ADVERTISEMENT

This Was An Olympic Sport

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
I feel sorry for Netflix era kids. They will never know the high stakes adrenaline of running to the bathroom/fridge/bedroom in a single ad break, with the beckoning call of a sibling screaming
Photo Credit: Twitter / @JbKnockout
Photo Credit: Twitter / @JbKnockout
ADVERTISEMENT

I would like to formally petition to remove steeplechase as a track and field event and instead replace it with "go upstairs to get your Game Boy before the cartoons come back on."

ADVERTISEMENT

Listening To Music Was A Struggle

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
person struggling to try and fit disc man into jacket pocket
Photo Credit: Reddit / dre10g
Photo Credit: Reddit / dre10g
ADVERTISEMENT

You wanted to listen to music while on a run or while out and about? You had to lug around this large contraption that couldn't neatly fit into any pocket.

ADVERTISEMENT

Before Spotify Playlists, We Burned CDs

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
burned CD titled
Photo Credit: Reddit / JeffreyStrange
Photo Credit: Reddit / JeffreyStrange
ADVERTISEMENT

If you wanted to listen to a mixture of tunes by a bunch of your favorite musicians, you had to burn your own CD. We'd listen to the same 12 songs for a whole month straight.

ADVERTISEMENT

When You Tried To Move A Window

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
box moved around screen leaves
Photo Credit: Twitter / @AlanHangover
Photo Credit: Twitter / @AlanHangover
ADVERTISEMENT

The first time I tried to drag a window on my computer and my screen glitched like this, I genuinely thought I had broken the whole computer and tried to frame my little brother for it.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Phone Cord Was A Tangle Liability

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
girl taking on wall phone is cord wrapped all around her head
Photo Credit: Twitter / @wavemywand
Photo Credit: Twitter / @wavemywand
ADVERTISEMENT

First of all, children will never understand the agony of having the one telephone in the house with the curly cords that you would get tangled in if you paced while talking.

ADVERTISEMENT

Your Favorite Memories Could Easily Be Taped Over

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
VCR with handwritten label: Hey Thomas, if you tape over this you die. You will burn in hell
Photo Credit: Instagram / @tgraf86
Photo Credit: Instagram / @tgraf86
ADVERTISEMENT

I distinctly remember that all the footage of my 8th birthday party was recorded, but my older sister taped over it when she wanted to record an episode of Pokémon.

ADVERTISEMENT

Remember Having To Choose?

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
old computer computer captioned: get off the internet i need to use the phone`
Photo Credit: Twitter / @Alo7English
Photo Credit: Twitter / @Alo7English
ADVERTISEMENT

In this era of smartphones, where you can simultaneously be on a phone call and be on the internet using the same device, it blows my mind that we once had to choose only one.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Days Before Google Were Hard

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
open phonebook
Photo Credit: Twitter / @karenharter
Photo Credit: Twitter / @karenharter
ADVERTISEMENT

Back in the day, if you wanted to get in contact with a specific business, you had to haul out this awful, heavy book and carefully search through it for the one place you wanted to call.

ADVERTISEMENT

Before iPods, We Had This

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Photo Credit: Twitter / @MsAughtsix
Photo Credit: Twitter / @MsAughtsix
ADVERTISEMENT

Everyone had their book of CDs that was a literal nightmare to flip through. You'd search for way too long when you just wanted to listen to that one song from that one album.

ADVERTISEMENT

It Was Such An Emotional Roller Coaster

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Kids these days just get a push alert to find out that school's cancelled. They'll never know the pure terror/joy of waking up early and having to wait to see their district come across the scroll on the morning news
Photo Credit: Twitter / @BenAxelrod
Photo Credit: Twitter / @BenAxelrod
ADVERTISEMENT

You'd wake up and, still in your pajamas, huddle in front of the television with blind hope in your eyes, carefully reading the ribbon of text at the bottom of the newscast in hopes that you wouldn't have to actually get ready for school.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Start Menu Was A Nightmare To Navigate

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
start menu takes three extra menus to get to game of solitaire
Photo Credit: Twitter / @legendslyf
Photo Credit: Twitter / @legendslyf
ADVERTISEMENT

Just to get to one simple program, you had to go through multiple different menus, and if you made the mistake of moving your mouse just slightly in the wrong direction, you had to start again.

ADVERTISEMENT

These Were The Best Windows

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
hank crank to open window
Photo Credit: Reddit / MORALVigilance
Photo Credit: Reddit / MORALVigilance
ADVERTISEMENT

I don't care what anyone says, hand-cranked windows were entirely superior to the current automated ones. There was something so satisfying about turning this bad boy as fast as possible.

ADVERTISEMENT

Privacy On The Phone Was Pretty Much Non-Existent

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
phone cord stretched behind closed door
Photo Credit: Twitter / @Doug_Stryker
Photo Credit: Twitter / @Doug_Stryker
ADVERTISEMENT

If you wanted to have a private phone call, you had to stretch the phone cord to its limits to try and retreat into your room just so it would be a bit harder for everyone to eavesdrop.

ADVERTISEMENT

This Was My First Heartbreak

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
CD covered in scratches
Photo Credit: Twitter / @Jodie757
Photo Credit: Twitter / @Jodie757
ADVERTISEMENT

There were few things more deeply heartbreaking than having your favorite CD get scratched beyond repair so that, every time you tried to listen to it, it would skip horrendously.

ADVERTISEMENT

It Was A Simpler Time

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
cake, neapolitan ice cream, hot dog, and juice with foil cap captioned:
Photo Credit: Instagram / @90smadness
Photo Credit: Instagram / @90smadness
ADVERTISEMENT

For some reason, every single birthday party when I was a kid had at least three out of four of these items. We really had low expectations. The birthday parties kids have today are so much more complex.

ADVERTISEMENT

This Was The Game To Play

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
space cadet pinball game
Photo Credit: Reddit / SEMiTRiCKY
Photo Credit: Reddit / SEMiTRiCKY
ADVERTISEMENT

I distinctly remember the Saturdays I spent hunched over the keyboard in my family's computer room trying to beat my high score on this game. It was the only game on our computer other than Solitaire and Minesweeper.

ADVERTISEMENT

Minutes Were A Hot Commodity

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ad shows free phone minutes on nights and weekends
Photo Credit: Twitter / @FSkornia
Photo Credit: Twitter / @FSkornia
ADVERTISEMENT

It's funny to me that teens these days will do anything to avoid discussing things over a phone call. We used to live for the free-minute hours, where you could have extra long conversations.

ADVERTISEMENT

Before Smart Boards, We Had Overheads

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
person writing on acetate sheet on overhead projector
Photo Credit: Reddit / ScrunchJeans
Photo Credit: Reddit / ScrunchJeans
ADVERTISEMENT

There were few things worse than trying to take notes when you could barely decipher anything written because your teacher with messy handwriting furiously scribbled on the overhead sheet with a nearly dry marker.

ADVERTISEMENT

Finding Posters Took Work

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
poster display you had to flip through at store
Photo Credit: Reddit / beardynolando
Photo Credit: Reddit / beardynolando
ADVERTISEMENT

You would go up to this display and search for 10 minutes to find a poster of your favorite band, only to realize they were out of stock in the shelves below.

ADVERTISEMENT

I Can Hear This Picture

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
coming soon to own on DVD and Video screen from VHS tapes
Photo Credit: Reddit / Tarhabibi
Photo Credit: Reddit / Tarhabibi
ADVERTISEMENT

Every single Disney VHS movie I owned had this segment as part of the previews, and it always tried to destroy my eardrums. The only sound more deafening was the THX one.

ADVERTISEMENT

Why Was This A Thing?

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
drawing of weird S with caption
Photo Credit: Twitter / @_Gelo01
Photo Credit: Twitter / @_Gelo01
ADVERTISEMENT

I genuinely would like to talk to a historian to ask how this "S" drawing became so popular and prevalent amongst young people all over the continent. Where did it come from?

ADVERTISEMENT

We Were Easily Entertained

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
dome-shaped rubber poppers
Photo Credit: Reddit / SovietPenguins
Photo Credit: Reddit / SovietPenguins
ADVERTISEMENT

Kids these days might need video games and iPads to stave off feelings of boredom, but back in the day, we just needed one of these rubber "poppers" to be content for hours.