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Hi. I decided to make a blog post about how to live the life you miss or could never have, but wish to have. I got you, so don't worry! We're in the Rawring 20s, Frutiger Aero and Y2K are very popular, and queen Pawlina is here to help you live like you want to! x3
As you might know, I am PawlinaPoison, a Rawring20s SceneQueen, microinfluencer and aspiring musician. I've been idolised by some people for my ability to live like it's 2008, so I decided to make a blog about it and help more people who miss the better times or want to live something they were never given.
I am 18 years old myself, which means I was born in 2005, so I was a toddler in the 2000s, and a child in the early 2010s. I've been in the emo community since 2018 when I was 12. I'm glad that in the 2020s the scenemo culture began coming back and I hope we can live almost like the better times are here today.
First, I'm going to introduce you to the styles of the best times. We're avoiding the word "aesthetic" since it's very late 2010s-early 2020s. In the 2000s, the world was dominated by subcultures and beauty trends, such as:
EMO
SCENE
GYARU
MCBLING
PREPPY
And no, Y2K is not really 2000s. It's more late 90s and the year 2000. Also, there are some words nobody would use in the era: Y2K, aesthetic, modern slang like pookie, gyatt, scenecore (it's scene!). OFC I'm not gatekeeping, just saying what you have to do to REALLY live in the 2000s.
Remember: being on SpaceHey is a HUUUUGE step in the direction of living the life of your dreams.
Sadly, I could not upload images of the styles, so you will have to look them up and search for more styles that you could represent. I will not talk about anything like music or fashion (except for one thing: DON'T BE SCARED TO WEAR SKINNY JEANS OR LEGGINGS!!! they were super popular in the 2000s), because every style has their own unique look and sound. I could only speak for the scene and emo people here.
On to the TV shows and films, look up stuff from the era. I personally recommend some shows like: Invader Zim, Gakuen Alice, Gakuen Heaven, Sailor Moon or High School Musical, also Tim Burton's films. Mean Girls, Legally Blonde, Gilmore Girls... Monster High for the early 2010s! The list goes on.
Also, I recommend refraining from using emojis on the websites that have ugly emojis. Instead, use emoticons like :), :(. If the app automatically changes the emoticons into emojis, try typing: (:, ):, 0:, |: etc. Also, if there's no other way, repeat the last sign twice like <33, or separate the characters like < 3.
Now, onto the apps you could install on your phone:
- Yahoo! - Yahoo! is much more "retro" than Google which gives it a better vibe
- Icon changers - if they are not yet automatically installed on your phone you can make your own icons using some Nokia icons or something
- OldRoll - I got this recommendation from a fellow SpaceHey user; it's a camera app that lets you take photos as if they were taken with a digital camera (if you don't own one) and if you pay you can even make them look as if they're taken with a flipphone!
- SpaceHey Mobile - pretty obvious, MySpace clone
- Avatar Life, Howrse, MovieStarPlanet, PonyTown, Everskies - these apps were either made in the era or have a vibe to them, these are games!
- A music player or downloader - for a bonus, upload your music to your MP3 or MP4 player
- Old Keyboard IME, Gboard - these apps let you set an old numerical keyboard on your smartphone! If you speak Russian, you can also use Led Keyboard where the Russian keyboard is numerical.
- Photo Director - a photo editor that still has a Frutiger Aero vibe, no oversimplified logo!
- Webkinz - retro game with pets!
Also, I recommend refraining from using too many AI features. They're very 2023. Use CleverBot instead, launched in 2008, still has a retro vibe.
Some webpages: PicMix, 4chan, Vid.Ly (IDK if it still exists), Ohmegle (new Omegle), CoolText, AO3, Fanfiction.net, Neopets [https://www.neopets.com/home/]
DON'T use TikTok or Insta too much they're just so so so 2020s -,-
Look for clothes mainly in thrift stores, it's cheaper and more effective!
I will be updating this blog post whenever a new idea comes to mind and I will likely let you know through bulletins.
As always, I encourage you to leave kudos, comments and subscribe to my blog, maybe even share the blog to some friends or fans. It helps out a lot!
and remember, cringe culture is dead, do whatever you want.
XOXO Pawlina
UPDATE: I also wanted to talk of phone usage. During the 2000s there were no smartphones, or at least they were rare, so your best bet to get a super accurate 2000s experience, you should use something like a flipphone. However I understand how today it might be almost impossible to use such aa phone on a daily basis, so I recommend having both a smartphone and an OG phone! You can use a smartphone for the necessities such as Internet at school (some schools demand it) and an OG mobile when you feel like going back in time. ;3
UPDATE 2: Hi! I just wanted to let you all know about this website I found. It's kinda new and looks like a recreation of the original Twitter! I hope it will have more users soon :)
Site link: https://blips.club/home
UPDATE 3: Also this old YouTube revival: https://www.bitview.net/
UPDATE 4: The Facebook https://off---line.com/
Comments
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psyk𝄌's online!
i don't understand the hate for this blog post, i think it makes sense that someone would want to live like it was the 2000s, it was a cool era with cool style and everything was physical, not digital fake bs, and it just feels more alive. i hate how lame the world became now for real. tiktok is stupid, modern houses / clothing styles are ridiculous ! sorry but im not the only one who feels that way.. idgaf if its outdated im using a motherfucking mp3 player! that shit's dope!
FR, but there was no h8, just criticism.
by xxPawlinaPoisonxx; ; Report
MimiTheMenice
I don't like era regression in my opinion because it doesn't feel the same as actually being in the era. It's just for the aesthetic and I just like being authentic. Authenticity is rare in this age DX
A bit ironic I'm using a MySpace clone, but it's because it's much easier to find scene kids here than anywhere else, and social media kinda peaked in the mid 2000s ngl
by MimiTheMenice; ; Report
I sumtimez regeess 4 comfort ;(
by xxPawlinaPoisonxx; ; Report
My grandparents regress to the 70s occasionally with a record player, can't wait for them to fix the record needle so I can get this in vinyl:
https://merchbar.imgix.net/product/85/10144/8196209115363/C7_AVVZVAA_SCS_V1.png?q=40&auto=compress,format&w=768
by MimiTheMenice; ; Report
OMG I WANT DIS CD
by xxPawlinaPoisonxx; ; Report
Also on April fools (which is close I'm going to add extensions to my grandma's computer to make it look like it's 2008 and I'm going to ask questions like
"Can I check my MySpace?"
"This isn't a phase, I'm an icon forever!"
"This guy texted me *flicks out a relic from the past* he said "RAWR X3". *screams*'
Bro her face XD XD
by MimiTheMenice; ; Report
I'm going 2 post a blog saying I'm pregnant xD
by xxPawlinaPoisonxx; ; Report
Also I'm going to dress super scene and walk to the corner store (alone so I can secretly drink energy drinks) and freak out the ppl working and gaslight them into thinking it's 2008 again. Huehuehuehuehue
by MimiTheMenice; ; Report
U just gave me an idea xD
by xxPawlinaPoisonxx; ; Report
I'll be shocked at how expensive a monster is and tell them they normally for (price back in 2008) and they get confused and say it's 2024 and I say it's 2008, see? Are you crazy did U hit ur head?
by MimiTheMenice; ; Report
Senshi
I have a gameboy color and an ipod... now i only need a nokia and I can almost live without my smartphone xD The only catch is school stuffz
Xx_SALEMSAYSRAWR_xX
also!!! if you guys use chrome there's a chrome xtension that replicates old versions of youtube back 2 2008 i think :-) it's called customtube! other extensions i use r old gmail emoji <- copy and pastes of old email emojis to use in emails and needs more glitter <- not super usable but very fun, it replaces all images with old glitter gifz :-P
Kewl!!!
by xxPawlinaPoisonxx; ; Report
benny
omg thank you
NP ^^
by xxPawlinaPoisonxx; ; Report
Rambling Redhead
This was really awesome! I loved reading it. Keep sharing more !
Sure thing :P
by xxPawlinaPoisonxx; ; Report
muskog
this is so bizarre lol. in 2030 youll be nostalgic for 2020, in 2040 youll be nostalgic for 2030. das jus da way it goes. larping like this is a little embarrassing
wait, maybe that was a little mean. if you love the 2000s then embrace the cringe, because those times were very cringe lol. but the cringe has to be organic, uncurated, and unashamed.
by muskog; ; Report
IKR O.o
by xxPawlinaPoisonxx; ; Report
I'm not sure if anyone will be nostalgic for 2020! At least not in the fond way they are for other periods.
by Virtual Insanity; ; Report
strangely i find its always the shitty times you end up feeling the most nostalgic for.
by muskog; ; Report
Life is pretty strange.
by Virtual Insanity; ; Report
honestly, i think people are just nostalgic for their youth -- which is fine!! and allowed!! and if they incorporate elements of their youth into their life as they continue to live past it, that's fine! and allowed!!! life itself is just an odd mess, ppl should do whatever they want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else
like with me
style-wise, and activity-wise (irl or retro vs contemporary-virtual), i'm tryna live like it's 2005-2015. but i know there's life beyond that and the art & fashion scenes are still really interesting now if you can engage with 'em! ig aesthetically i'm a blend of retro and post-apocalyptic. i just kinda do whatever i want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else <33
by benny; ; Report
nøva
omg i have been looking for something like this for so long thxxx <3
Barb
getting myself an ipod and journal to carry around me at all times has been a big game changer whenever I'm out in public, it keeps me off my phone and I have set it on dnd so I'm not getting constant notifications.
Sardonic The Hedgehog
I got my first smart phone in, eh, about 2012. I left it behind about a year and a half ago in favor of a flip phone. I'm about to drop it down a deep well or something else dramatic.
If you really want the 2000s experience, rely entirely on a computer that's hooked into a wall. Only college campuses and that one guy from Live Free or Die Hard had relatively fast internet too.
Ah, but I'm needlessly busting your chops. I think your bulletin is a great start and all I'd recommend to you is to get rid of your smart phone altogether.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to smear some Bengay on my lower back and do some metamucil shooters. Hnng
Sadly using a smartphone is kinda unavoidable now ;(
But if you don't need 1 (work etc) go for it!
by xxPawlinaPoisonxx; ; Report
You could split the difference and get one of those sliding Blackberry phones from back in the day.
by Resident Daisyfan; ; Report
Hmm, when I get home I'll update a bit on this topic :)
by xxPawlinaPoisonxx; ; Report
If you need a smart phone for work, work should pay for the smart phone! Work only follows you out of the office if you're getting paid to tolerate it following you out of the office.
But I am again just plopping in a curmudgeon reply here, so I apologize.
by Sardonic The Hedgehog; ; Report
Well in my school it's impossible to be without a smartphone :(
I think PPL can have both a smartphone & an OG phone!
by xxPawlinaPoisonxx; ; Report
"Work only follows you out of the office if you're getting paid to tolerate it following you out of the office."
YES!
"Well in my school it's impossible to be without a smartphone"
I suspect they want it that way so you always have one with you so when they try to make everything cashless you won't have a leg to stand on.
I'd also say that it's your right to not carry a phone and if you're being treated as less than others for not having one I'd call that wrongful discrimination. It's not like we're talking writing materials here, we're talking a full on tracking device that does all sorts of spookey 'extra' stuff. Education has existed for how long without smart phones? If they're demanding smart phones to complete your eduction now it's because they're going out of their way to make it difficult for you, not because they're helping you.
by Virtual Insanity; ; Report
Agreed, but actually having a smartphone doesn't bother me, personally. Still, I'd love to live in the 2000s where smartphones weren't a common thing since nowadays people are glued to them. TBH, I'd like to have both a smartphone and an OG phone so that I could use the OG mobile when I want to time refresh :)
by xxPawlinaPoisonxx; ; Report
Virtual, I'd argue you're being paranoid, but I also perceive smartphones as devices that are causing mass psychological issues. I guess what I should say then is that your paranoia is misplaced; the sellers are always trying to control the buyers and these damned things are just another cog in the machine.
The decision I arrived at in my own bulletin was to keep a powerful flip phone as a daily driver but use it sparingly and leave it behind often. One can procure a cheap burner phone for emergencies that can go live in the dopey tool kit I keep in the trunk anyway.
But alas, I think I'm in the weeds and I'm just typing to avoid work.
by Sardonic The Hedgehog; ; Report
There was a TON of choice when it came to phones in the 2000s: flip phones, slide phones, what you might call 'soap bar' phones, some with qwerty keyboards, most with numerical keypads, various different operating systems. Now they're virtually all 6" by 3" slabs with either Android or iOS.
by Virtual Insanity; ; Report
Ah, man! I know! I had one of each of those. My first ever was the OG Nokia 3310 that belonged to one of my parents that had a month of minutes left on it. I had a cool simple slider and a cool qwerty slider too.
Those were the days.
And now these kids need to stay off my lawn!
by Sardonic The Hedgehog; ; Report
Well, to clarify, I don't think that schools are necessarily deliberately doing this to aid in going cashless. Maybe they're being encouraged to from higher up, maybe not, the point was more that it plays into going cashless, as do all these tickets for entry on your phone, scanning QR code for a menu and so on. Call it paranoid if you like, I don't like where this is going.
If 'everyone' has a smart phone it's a small step to say 'government demands we only take payment via government digital currency on your phone', 'it's to prevent fraud' and 'you're not being left out, you do have a phone after all!'
Nearly half of the checkouts in operation at my local supermarket are card only. If bank notes go you can basically say goodbye to having any private transactions.
Besides, it seems that schools which ban smart phones do better than the ones which don't, so I'd argue that demanding the use of smart phones in school is counter to educating the students.
by Virtual Insanity; ; Report
Yup, I have a 3310 I use for 2FA.
Unfortunately 3G is being switched off here and some time in the future 2G will go too. I'm assuming 3G is going first because the frequencies are more valuable to reallocate than the 2G ones. Perhaps 2G still has some reach into the countryside that they'll need to keep up until they know 4G can cover it. I believe that at least some of the old 3G frequencies are getting reallocated to be lower frequencies on 4G, so maybe that has to happen before 2G gets dropped. I don't really know though.
by Virtual Insanity; ; Report
Jinnicide
If you really want to "live in the 2000s" you wouldn't have a smart phone or apps lol.
You could in the early 2010s though
by xxPawlinaPoisonxx; ; Report
Dani
hiiiii tSo I wrote a REALLY long reply to this but I think it's best for me to just keep this short, because I'm sure other people can point out the very common observations I made, plus it's probably stuff you already know. So I'm delelting all the other paragraphs and just want to focus on this because I don't hear about it as much from younger people who didn't live through it or dont remember because they were little, but are interested in 00s life:
another thing that's hard to explain about the 00s is how quickly things changed, the gaps formed between early adopters and people who were doing things 'old fashioned' (aka, from 2 years earlier). How quickly things became 'weird' and the expectations we developed for things to progress quickly! Look at your average video game from '85., '95, and then the jump by '05! In 7th grade I submitted some school assignments on a USB... and some on a FLOPPY DISK LOL. SAME YEAR. Carrying my walkman around with a CD case to listen to on the bus was normal in 2004, was sort of lame in 2006, was downright WEIRD in 2008! People looked at me like I was a caveman. By 2008, MP3 players had been around for more than 5 years and by then you needed to have made the switch to a zune or ipod. In college I went from a flip phone to a iPhone 5! I could access the internet FROM MY PHONE. A complete change in lifestyle overnight. These little things weren't just happening with personal gadgets but in school, at work, in public spaces. It made you feel like the future was on its way... but it wasn't always like that. And now I think we are so used to these kinds of huge jumps, and every jump in tech seems smaller because of it.
Anyway I deleted this part by accident from my comment- I just wantde to say I think it's really cool that you and others are trying to revive the positive aspects of this time period, and I love your post! There are a lot of things that have improved since those days, but i think a lot of things have got worse, and it's not a bad thing to try to distance ourselves from the all-encompassing extreme surveillance and consumerism in modern tech.
by Dani; ; Report
<3
Str0ngly 4gr33
by xxPawlinaPoisonxx; ; Report
"lot of things that have improved since those days, but i think a lot of things have got worse"
Totally!
by Virtual Insanity; ; Report
Yeah my original too-long reply went into that more, like I think the emo and scene culture for young people today is way less homophobic, misogynist, and racist than what my friends and I experienced as kids(generally i think bullying is getting more under control, with obvious heartbreaking exceptions, but i mean generally things have improved)
by Dani; ; Report
Y34! W3 br1ng1n b4kk d4 2000z but b3tt4h! :D
by xxPawlinaPoisonxx; ; Report
Archer_The_M0NST3RR_
Woah! I might download some of those apps, I didn't know I could do this!
I am dedicated to living like the 2000s as much as possible, and while I do have Tiktok I won't be on there as much really, it's a nuisance. I prefer hanging on Spacehey more.
S4m3!!! x3
by xxPawlinaPoisonxx; ; Report
jojo
i remember being in highschool in the 2000s. i remember downloading music off limewire and hanging out on myspace shitposting and watching videos on the internet before youtube. i also remember hanging around on geocities before it shut down in 2009 and hanging out with my family at the mall. good times
H0w d1d MySp4c3 sh1tp0st1ng l00k 1f u c4n xpl41n? :P
by xxPawlinaPoisonxx; ; Report
it was mostly people dunking on each other and making parodies of each other. i remember a dude made a song making fun of emo people and another dude made a whole album praising tom as jesus. also, a bunch of nastolgiaposting about the 90s. and myspace groups getting into fights and spamming each other.
by jojo; ; Report
S0unds fun. 1'm 1n.
by xxPawlinaPoisonxx; ; Report
lime360
you forgot to mention neocities
1s 1t st1ll up? 1 tr13d 2 g3t th3r3 but 1 th1nk 1t w4s g0n3 :0
by xxPawlinaPoisonxx; ; Report
neocities is up! I use it every day haha
by Dani; ; Report
LOL 1 m1x3d 1t up w1th g30c1t13s xD
by xxPawlinaPoisonxx; ; Report
i have a my chemical romance fanpage on neocities but i'm srsleh bad at html .. its an issue X_x
by Xx_SALEMSAYSRAWR_xX; ; Report
Virtual Insanity
Not everything in the 2000s was peaches and cream, the political climate was pretty horrendous. Not that it's gotten any better, it's just different now.
Anyway, these days people tend to have their phone as they're everything; it's their computer, music player, camera, payment method, tracking device, oh and it's a phone too! Back in the 2000s (especially early 2000s) those were mostly separate devices. A phone did calls and texts and not much more.
If you wanted music with you you'd have some sort of mp3 player. Back then a friend introduced me to iRiver. I never got one but I did lust after it for some time since they could play Ogg Vorbis files (and maybe FLAC too?) which sounds way better than mp3! And of course FLAC is lossless, so it's bit for bit true to the original. And we didn't play stuff over Blue Tooth, we plugged it into a mini-jack, or an 'iPod cable' as some people called it, much to my disgust!
The cameras in phones weren't all that great, some were ok-ish, many were train-wrecks, but nothing like today where phone cameras can take pretty decent photos. Back then if you wanted something kinda good you'd probably get a compact point and shoot camera of some sort. Maybe you'd want to show friends your pictures, one way to do it was to plug it into a TV with an AV cable! And back then it might have been a flatscreen CRT TV. Yes, one of the big old bulky ones with the glass tube, but the surface of the screen was flat.
Payments were usually done by either cash or card, but with a signature. I can't remember when 'Chip And PIN' came in, but before then the cards were swiped to read the black magnetic strip and you'd sign the receipt to authorise the payment. PayPal had been on my radar since probably 2003 or so as the new thing to use on eBay and people would sometimes use it to transfer money to their friends too.
Oh, gigs were paper tickets. Basically everyone I knew had some sort of pinboard or other collection of all their tickets for the gigs they'd been to. I suppose that's maybe going away now. It used to be a great thing for conversations at parties, you could talk about who you'd seen and who you were jealous that you hadn't seen!
ProcyonWolf
Bonus points for using Windows XP look with Retrobar and OpenShell, maybe getting locked in the white room until you forget which year is it and have a team of people convince you it's the year 2004
LOL 3x4ccly
by xxPawlinaPoisonxx; ; Report
Yes, I stuck with XP for absolutely ages. I think I was still using it after support had ended for it, I only moved to Windows 7 because I really needed more than 4GB of RAM and apparently the 64 bit version of XP was pretty hit or miss for drivers, so 7 it was. But once installed I had to install Classic Shell, I couldn't take the stock 7 start menu. I don't know how people cope with Windows 10 or 11. I've switched to Linux now so no need to put up with that sort of nonsense.
by Virtual Insanity; ; Report
D4 n3w w1nd0wz 1z just so ugly :(
by xxPawlinaPoisonxx; ; Report
TylerTT
If you use a PC install Escargot!!! It's a revival of MSN Messenger and is so nostalgic