20 Things That 2000s Babies Like Me Will Instantly Remember

I already feel old. 🧓📼📠

So...Y2K is back. Following the '80s revival (which ended up just being neon cyber lines on everything) and a brief '90s renaissance, it's the 2000s turn to shine, and it looks like Y2K might be here to stay (at least for longer than the previous revivals did).

Jive Records / Via giphy.com

But not every 2000s kid is a 2000s kid! For all the talk about the 2000s, most people only focus on what it was like to be a kid in the early years of the decade; yet the experiences and nostalgia of those who were actually born in the early 2000s doesn't get explored.

Fox Kids / Via giphy.com

Well, I'm here to change that (for better or worse). Buckle up, fellow older Gen Z'ers, it's time to feel ancient:

1. Hi-5 on Discovery Kids, a musical classic.

Discovery Kids / Via youtube.com

This would be a fond memory for most Australian people born in the mid-to-late '90s or later, but the hit Aussie kid's show got its own brief American version that anyone who had Discovery Kids would remember.

2. Rugrats and Hey Arnold! reruns on Nicktoons were a blast from the past.

Viacom/Nickelodeon

Today, Nicktoons as a channel name is something of a pejorative. But before it became the cartoon graveyard it's now infamous for, Nicktoons Network was the hottest place in the mid-to-late 2000s to watch Nick's high-quality back catalog of '90s content.

3. Speaking of Nicktoons, who remembers Kappa Mikey?

Nicktoons/Nickelodeon

Airing from 2006-2008, Kappa Mikey was one of those unusual properties we might've slept on as a kid, but enjoy properly now that we're older. It was on at a time when Nickelodeon and Nicktoons were trying out anime stuff, and lovingly made fun of anime and Tokusatsu tropes, while folding western humor into the mix. In this day and age, it might be appreciated more...reboot time, perhaps?

4. If you needed a Polly Pocket fix, McDonald's was where you could get it.

McDonald's

McDonald's has released Polly Pocket Happy Meal toys across the years, but they were the staple toy of 2000s babies who got fast food a lot.

5. The Michael Jackson Experience let us experience the King of Pop for ourselves!

Ubisoft

A year after his death, a celebration of a small portion of Michael Jackson's work was released by the Just Dance developers across a shocking number of consoles. With how the game had a real icon's name on it and how the box art was so flashy, it almost felt like it was some kind of status symbol.

6. Speaking of Ubisoft dance games, let's talk about Just Dance.

Ubisoft

Now obviously, this one's a bit weird to ask; the series is still very much going strong, with a new subscription service adding hundreds of songs to the game. But those born early enough will remember the series' humble beginnings as a Wii title, loaded with covers over master licenses, and simpler visual presentation. Oh, and WAY less DLC.

7. The early days of Lady Gaga are a fond memory for us 2000s babies.

Streamline

We probably all had a friend who came up to us to tell us about this new song they found and proceeded to play one of the most iconic songs of 2008-2009 (either "Poker Face" or "Bad Romance," although "Just Dance" or "Paparazzi" were strong possibilities, too). Lady Gaga's still very much active, but witnessing the early years of her career was just a magical experience that can't be replicated.

8. Who could forget the alien-themed parody of "Poker Face" by Venetian Princess on YouTube?

Venetian Princess / Via youtube.com

Lady Gaga's music was fodder for parodies, but one of the more fondly-remembered ones sees Lady Gaga as an alien singing at an elderly woman for no other reason than to screw with her (as a kid, the singing sounded way better).

9. Dance Dance Revolution Supernova, DDR2, and DDRX were fun, but royally frustrating...

Konami/BEMANI

DDR has been around since the late '90s, but came to prominence in America in the early 2000s, due to it being one of the few video games parents couldn't object to, because of the physical exercise it brought. This popularity only grew when the arcade version of Supernova came out, boasting a 300+ strong song list that was unchanged across regions. However, for American players, the game could be a chore, thanks to low-quality American cabinets made by Raw Thrills.

There were also the home console versions, which became progressively bloated with popular music, but still had some decent song lists.

10. Having your own trampoline, or knowing a close friend with one, was the best!

Getty Images

Trampolines have been around for decades, but it just seems like they shot up in popularity in the 2000s; speaking as someone who had a trampoline, and who had friends with trampolines. Many a game of Sonic the Hedgehog (which involved "Sonic" running away from a "Tails" pleaded with them to stop) was played on mine.

11. Wendy's with solariums are a lasting relic of years gone by.

Tim Boyle / Getty Images

The beloved solariums on Wendy's locations weren't a creation of the 2000s, but were a staple of years past that survived into the decade. Unfortunately, many Wendy's have been revamped and no longer have these little sunrooms. Damn you, corporate restaurant aesthetics! How dare we get a little natural light while eating your fresh-not-frozen sandwiches!

12. TELL me someone remembers all those chatroom videos, especially the Sonic ones.

YouTube / Via youtube.com

The 2000s were quite the time for the Sonic fandom. In just that decade, we got Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog, more comic issues than I'd care to count, Sonic X, AND games like 06 and Unleashed, and even that's just barely scratching the surface. All these games and other media made for the perfect source of fanfic fuel, and then halfway through the 2000s, kids and teens were introduced to YouTube.

The combination of an easy-to-use video sharing site and youths eager to write (and a computer with Windows Movie Maker), resulted in swaths of "chatroom videos," where characters from various canons and fandoms would come together on an unspecified chat client and talk about anything from how fun their day was, to what boys are cute, to bizarrely shipping Sonic and Shadow...while both of them were still in the chatroom.

Some of the content that was thought up was really inappropriate for tweens to be writing, but these videos were our soap operas as kids; we had to know who liked who and who had dirt on who.

13. The absolute joy that was the Wii.

Nintendo

The seventh generation of game consoles was a very unique generation, with the releases of new consoles feeling like a video game Met Gala. To be honest, it was probably one of the last times new game consoles coming out felt like this big, decadent event. These days, we know new consoles will come out — it's just a matter of when.

The Wii was one of the consoles belonging to that generation, and although it competed with the likes of the PS3 and Xbox 360, it was in a league completely of its own with motion controls. And with the original models having near-complete GameCube support, it was like having two consoles in one.

The Wii practically reinvented gaming, and blazed a path Sony and Microsoft briefly tried to follow before going back to what they were doing best. Controllers for this were everywhere, and its small size and library of fun games you could immediately jump into made it the crown console of parties.

14. And on the other hand, having a PS3 meant you were neighborhood royalty.

Sony

While the Wii reigned supreme over parties and having fun with friends, the PS3 was the king of visual glitz and glamor. From day one, the PS3 made a name for itself by providing 3D support and dazzling graphics on games like Ratchet & Clank Future, Everybody's Golf, Sonic Unleashed, and more.

Between the 360, Wii, and PS3, the PS3 was the strongest console of the bunch; a stark contrast from the previous generation, where the PlayStation 2 lagged behind the Xbox and the GameCube (but this did not stop it from being the most popular console of the bunch, which just goes to show horsepower isn't everything).

Having a PS3 during it's heyday (even a bit late into it) meant that you were either very wealthy, or very lucky, as its MSRP eclipsed that of the Xbox 360 and Wii. Even today, while not as expensive as a PS4 or PS5, these suckers can still cost a bit used, so they're still something of a status symbol (albeit a smaller one).

15. Winx Club on Nickelodeon.

Rainbow/Nickelodeon/Iginio Straffi

Back to Nickelodeon again. While 2000s kids might remember 4Kids' Winx Club on FoxBox or Cartoon Network, 2000s babies will definitely remember when it came to Nickelodeon.

The long-running Italian magical girl show (that is now apparently expecting a ninth and tenth season!) made the jump to the Viacom-owned network in the late 2000s through the early 2010s, following the partial merger of Viacom and production company Rainbow. This show saw the first two seasons recapped, Season 3 and 4 completely redubbed (with Season 4 coming to America for the first time through this), and finally, the release of entire new seasons.

The series was quasi-rebooted to focus on the girls returning to Alfea for what can be assumed to be further studies in the way a college student might go back to college to get an additional degree. They dealt with a new rogues gallery of fantastical villains and creatures, all while sporting new, sleek, flash-animated outfits.

Furthermore, up until Season 7, this new version of Winx sported a genuinely impressive Hollywood voice cast, containing the likes of Keke Palmer, Elizabeth Gillies, and even Ariana Grande. And that's just scratching the surface of the voice cast!

16. YoYo Games Sandbox, the holy grail of fangames.

YoYo Games

Today, indie games and fangames are shared on places like itch.io and GameJolt. But before you had those, you had YoYo Games Sandbox, AKA the internet archive for fangames.

All games uploaded were made in GameMaker (still in active development, shockingly), and ranged from everything from FPS games to quizzes to primitive, off-beat rhythm games (hint; I made one and it sucked) — of course, fangames. Lots of fangames.

It was unfortunately closed, but its legacy lives on through the above mentioned sites...and at least one YoYo games archive.

17. Jelly bracelets, one of the few accessories to cause parental heart attacks across the nation.

Amazon.com / Via amazon.com

Just as we're having a 2000s revival now, the 2000s had a revival of it's own, bringing back trends and designs from the '70s through the '80s. One such trend brought to the then-modern era were jelly bracelets. Back in the '80s, the bracelets were completely innocuous; but come the 2000s, parents were freaking out about them.

Somehow, someone somewhere put it into someone's mind that these bracelets had sexual meanings, with each color representing a different act and then that person told other people. I actually know a girl who had some, but then was effectively banned from them and didn't find out why until years later.

18. Compact digital cameras were a game changer for us who wanted to be stars.

Samsung

Compact digital cameras seemed to particularly take off in the late 2000s through around the early-to-mid 2010s). These cameras tended to be way cheaper and more accessible than normal digital cameras. Some were cheap enough that you could give one to a kid comfortably.

Some of them came with the added ability to record video, which at the time was game-changing, because most video capturing had been relegated to expensive-dedicated filming cameras or less pricy (but still by no means cheap) camcorders. I'm sure many childhood skits and movies have been filmed on these.

19. Club Penguin was the coolest virtual hangout for people not old enough for Second Life or IMVU.

Club Penguin/Disney

The 2000s saw the boom of virtual hangout games; MMO's where you didn't have to fight or anything, you could just hang out and socialize. I feel like Club Penguin needs little explanation, but just know it was very serious business as a kid, to the point where there was rivalry between the ToonTown kids and the Club Penguin kids (ironically, both were published by Disney).

It unfortunately shut down, but several revivals and spiritual successors came about. Disney attempted to make a mobile spinoff, but the resulting game was so unbelievably pay-walled (and apparently missed what the original was all about) that the game became unviable in a year, and was shut down and forgotten about quickly.

20. And finally, who could forget the Fushigi Magic Gravity Ball?

Zoom TV Products

The Fushigi ball was something a lot of kids my age wanted. The prospect of a magic, floating ball intrigued us. We wanted to be the idols of the neighborhood, but if your parents were anything like mine, they probably told you they wouldn't get it, that it wasn't worth it, or something along those lines.

Well, as it would turn out, they were right and spared us from humiliation. The Fushigi ball became the subject of a huge heap of controversy when it turned out the box and commercials were full of false advertising. Despite repeated claims that there were no tricks involved, it ended up being all tricks. You had to learn how to do contact juggling to make it work. Ergo, they basically just sold a silver ball and lied about it. Way to lie to young, impressionable children who wanted to be special.

How many of these do you remember? Share some of your favorite pieces of 2000s baby nostalgia in the comments below!