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Being school-aged in the mid to late 2000s was, in my opinion, a unique time. Just as every generation has their ‘thing’ there was plenty of situations you’d rarely, if ever, see today. Of course, this list of 2000s nostalgia is by no means definitive and simply reflects my own experiences of the time period – if, while reading this, you have something to add, comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts! I decided to write this as, during lockdowns, I’ve really been reflecting on how things have changed over the years, what I’ve learned over time and, along the way, remembering those funny little things that made me smile.

Fashion, Beauty and Style

Really Matte Skin

In the late 2000s, it wasn’t a thing to have a ‘dewy’ look to your skin. Foundation trends seemed to revolve purely around having completely matte skin to the point where friends really used to stress out about natural skin oils showing through as the day went on. People repeatedly used to layer more powder on top to maintain coverage, often resulting in a cakey look. Key products to achieve this look were Dream Matte Mousse and any drugstore mattifying powder compact. While a lot of people have come away from this look, I have to be honest and say that I still enjoy the matte finish and can’t see myself coming away from it any time soon. 

In addition to the matte finish, when mentioning this whole subject to friends, a lot of people reminded me that people’s foundation never used to match back then. This resulted in an orange face and a totally different coloured neck (blending down wasn’t really a thing either!).

REALLY Short and Chunky Ties

If you went to a school that required you to wear a tie as part of your uniform, you might relate to this one. At my school, it was pretty much essential to wear your tie no longer than around 5” and with a really thick, loose knot at the top. The extra tie (or tail) was then tucked through and under your shirt. Notice I said the word ‘essential’ above – if your tie was especially long, older kids at school would yank on it shouting ‘tie-day Friday’, even if it wasn’t Friday.

Burnt, Dead Hair

I’m pretty sure heat protection spray existed in 2008 but nobody used it. It was common to see people walking around with frazzled, dead hair from excessive heat styling or colouring. Some people even used to bring their straighteners to school to redo their hair in the back of a classroom if the lesson was especially slow. What also came in conjunction with damaged hair was deep side parts/side fringes or heavy backcombing. 

Neon

Neon was a big deal while I was at school. It was a time where ‘scene’ style was big so, even if you didn’t fully subscribe to that, you likely still had either a belt, an item of clothing or at least something with neon detailing.

Spider Eyelashes

Too much mascara. I don’t think I need to say much more about this.

Impulse or Lynx

I think I can name most of the common Lynx or Impulse fragrances just by smelling them on the breeze. There seemed to be this unwritten rule that everyone had to completely douse themselves in body spray before and after a school PE lesson. This meant that the air in the changing rooms and adjoining corridor quickly became a cloud of fragrance, so much so you could taste it. The favourites seemed to be Impulse Tease or True Love and Lynx Twist or Chocolate.

Technology

A Time Before Smartphones

It’s crazy to think that there was a time where Samsung Galaxy models or iPhones didn’t dominate the mobile phone world. Common phones seen back when I was at school were the Sony Ericsson 3GSM, LG Cookie, various Blackberry models and the newer end of the Nokia brick phones. My own personal track record with phones was a Siemens (can’t remember the model but it had a blue screen), a Nokia 3220 with awesome light-up sides when it rang, a slidey Samsung D900, a slidey Samsung G600 (not long after the previous phone because I managed to accidentally break the screen!) and finally, a Samsung Monte. After that, I moved onto smartphones. In all honesty, I really miss the times of having simple technology. As much as it’s easy to have the whole world in your pocket, I look back fondly on times where phones were only really good for texting and calling so people didn’t spend so much time on them.

Texting

Following on from mobile phones, texting was brilliant back in the day. People would probably be really confused by this statement but I’m genuinely not sure how I would have been able to send sneaky texts during class without a tactile keyboard! Even though you had to press a button 4 times to get a letter ‘s’, I was still super fast at texting with practice. Text language was also much more prevalent back then to help you to say what you needed to, faster.

Bluetooth

I was talking to a friend a few days ago about the past and asked her what she remembered the most. She said ‘break times were for Bluetoothing songs’. With modern access to downloading or listening to music over the internet, it’s hard to comprehend that there was a time where you had to share music with each other to get new songs.

Limewire

I was never sure where the Bluetooth shared songs used to originate from in the first place but there was usually someone in the year group who was always on Limewire downloading anything and everything. Most of the time, they would download a huge amount of malware with it.

Separate MP3 Player or iPod for Music

Phones really didn’t have much memory years ago.

MSN

MSN instant messenger was how I used to spend most of my evenings after school. Long texting conversations were often expensive in the days before lower-cost contracts or unlimited texts so MSN was the best place to chat for free. From going on webcam with friends (or telling people you didn’t like that your cam was broken) to sending nudges when someone wasn’t answering you, it was generally the easiest way of communicating. Aside from MSN, the only other main place to go on webcam was Chat Roulette or Omegle but most people I knew only really went on there for a laugh when their friends were at their house. From my experience, those places were where the creeps used to hang out.

Social Stuff

The Time Before Memes

The best way I can explain it is by showing you – these were the types of things people used to love in the time before memes:

When Junk Food Was Allowed

Before healthy eating in schools fully took hold, we were lucky enough to be able to buy things like cookies, pasties and pizza from the school canteen. While this was when I was in comprehensive school, there were times when I was even younger where the elusive Turkey Twizzler was an option on the primary school lunch menu.

Other 2000s Nostalgia

To finish, I just want to leave a list of things that I wasn’t really sure what to say about them but they were still a huge part of school life in the mid to late 2000s.

1. Skate and surf clothes being EXTREMELY popular, even if they weren’t in the nicest of colours.
2. Drawing on hands to a point where you were covered in ink, even though there was usually an abundance of scrap paper around.
3. The polar opposites of music taste amongst friendship groups: rock metal or happy hardcore.
4. Having to button bash the exit button if you accidentally pressed the browser button because mobile data was really expensive once.
5. Being confused but fascinated by people who were ‘Facebook famous’ just because of their looks. I personally followed a scene girl with multicoloured hair.
6. Facebook parties where 10,000 people would turn up to one person’s house because the event was left public.
7. Short convos consisting of Hi, what you up to, nothing much then BRB. They’d never come back.
8. Spending way too much time on either RuneScape or COD
9. Carving into tables with a compass – I didn’t really join in with this but everyone seemed to do it!

If you’d like to read more on 2000s nostalgia, check out my post all about 2009 or read my reflections of growing up in this era.