How was life as a teenager in the mid/late 2000s?

I see a lot of young people talking about how they don't know anything about the 2000s, specially in websites like this one who mimic (or clone) the aesthetics and functionality of the original myspace in this era. I was a teenager of your age at that time, so I can give you a little insight on how things used to work back then.

The answer is... it really depends. I mean, it depends on which country you were living, how wealthy your parents were (if you are a teenager you should not be having to work), how your personal life was, etc. Normally when talking about the mid/late 2000s and the frutiger aero/metro aesthetics, most people refers to the US. I am European (Spanish) so I did not get to experience the American side of things. Still, pretty close to what you are probably expecting.

The social aspect

Socially speaking, things weren't that much different though. It's true that we didn't use social media the way we do now, mainly because our phones did not have an internet connection. Best they could do was WAP, which was very primitive, and SMS/MMS. But we didn't use any of those because they were very limited and each message had a cost.

We normally had a computer or a laptop at home, and we would communicate using IM. Most people in the US used AOL IM I think, or Yahoo. Here in Spain everyone used MSN Messenger (and Live Messenger). So this was our "Signal" or "Whatsapp" back in the days. If you want to revive that btw, you can use Escargot MSN.

So when we went out to hang out and do our teenager stuff, you wouldn't get to a point where everyone was sitting silently while talking on their phone, as I'm sure happen to you. When you got out, you were with everyone else in your group. And it was fun. Because if you wanted to go online, you'd have to either go back home, or go to a cybercafe. And going to a cybercafe with friends was the best.

I used to go to one a couple streets behind my high school with my friends to check our OGame accounts and also play CS 1.6.

Social Tribes

Back when I was a teenager in Spain, young people was part of what we called "social tribes". I think this is mostly a Hispanic thing because I recall it being also a thing in countries like Mexico.You had the cani/chonis, you had the metalheads, you had the emos, you had the posers/pokemones, etc. There is information about these on the Aesthetic wiki. Basically it was like an MMO faction system. Looking back It was really stupid, but we were 15 at that time so we were all about stupid stuff like this. The faction determined how you look, what music you listen, how you act, and who is a friend or foe.

The technology

Technologically speaking, the mid 2000s were really fun. Everything had a personality and a vibrant aesthetic (you can look at the frutiger aero or frutiger metro aesthetics). Phones were pretty much fashion accessories at the time (as well as being that, phones). And you could tell two devices apart from each other. People didn't have Netflix, we used to buy or rent DVDs. But to be honest, commercial DVDs had a lot of unskipable ads as well at the beginning, and you might have to wait for 5 minutes for the movie to start.

We didn't have Spotify, we used either iTunes with an iPod or something, CDs (expensive, ugh), or more commonly resort to eMule. It was common for us to have an MP3 or MP4 player full of music from artists such as Linkin Park, Rammstein, Soilwork, etc. Well, at least I did :). And of course anyone could share MP3 files easily over MSN.

Aside of that, and more importantly, there were almost no cameras in the street, no AI, no fear of facial recognition, no algorithm driven social media, no "personalized ads", no "we value your privacy", no malware on phones (these were mostly unhackable until the iPhone), you get the idea. Streets didn't feel like a prison, they felt like streets.

Social Media

If you wanted any kind of social media online, you would use online forums or blogs. Yes, blogs were also social media at the time. I remember a website who offered free web hosting for static webpages called freewebs, who had a blog. And people used the comment section of the blog entries to socially interact with each other (which I did and I met a lot of people from there). There were no rules, if you could talk to somebody else, it was social.

MySpace got popular a bit later too, maybe not so much in Spain though. But aside of that, I remember using a photo sharing service called "Fotolog", way before Instagram was a thing.

Videogames

And then there were videogames... although there isn't much to say about videogames that hasn't been said in other places. Here in Spain, it was rare for anyone to own an XBOX, so most people here will rather remember the PS2 and PS3. As I said, it all depends on where you lived at the time.

Overall...

It's not like things were much better back then, to be honest. But things were much more fun and enjoyable back then than nowadays.

The problem is the actual corporate mindset of minimize everything in order to maximize profitability. Back then corpos tried to be original and designed their products to stand out and offer as much as possible in order to beat the competition. Nowadays, nobody does that. Everyone is doing exactly what Apple is doing and copying it. Mix that with the "you will own nothing and still be happy" mindset, pour a little bit of AI and crypto-scams in the mix, and what you have is the mess we are living now. Sure, things are more convenient now. Who didn't want to do everything from home without moving at all? But sometimes, convenience doesn't mean "better", even if it looks that way.

I totally understand why the new generations of teenagers are looking at those times with curiosity. After all, they don't have anything interesting now. Everything is boring. And if that is your feeling, I get you. I am bored of this time too. It's also a social problem. After all, the people who allowed all of this to happen, is the same people who is constantly consuming modern social media in their iPhone 15 pro max while walking on the street without lifting their sight from their phone. And both the young and the not so young are guilty of this.

The most important remark of this time period is the fact that people was more open and more social. People had reasons to go out and hang out with people, whether be in a mall, a restaurant or a burger king or whatever, or just the streets. You would see a lot of kids hanging out sitting in doorways or staircases and chilling. Nowadays, not so much. And when you see it, it's just to do pot or some crap like that.