Growing up Y2K

Y2K Kids

Friday was Walkman day at school.

My friend Matt had a Spice Girls tape.

I asked to borrow it for the weekend, and he very reluctantly agreed.

On Monday I told the first lie I can ever remember telling.

“I lost it,” I said.

It was that good.

Y2K kids claim that nebulous patch of time between the 90’s and early 2000’s where crossover happened.

We were there for the transition from Walkman to CD player.

From CD player to MP3.

Limewire and Napster.

From pagers to flip phones.

Razors and Envy.

Y2K was the battle between 98 Degrees and N’Sync.

It was Lisa Frank and Gushers.

It was the leftover safety from the 80’s of riding your bike down the street with no worries but the newfound protective parents of the 90’s where you couldn’t go too far.

We were innocent for longer back then. Until we snuck snippets of 90210 or Jerry Springer.

Monopoly at McCdonalds came and went.

We had pizza parties at the roller rink with little plastic cups of foamy ice cream. Your choice: strawberry swirl or chocolate.

We grew up on dial up.

But now we get mad when a web page takes longer than five seconds to load.

We grew up writing notes and letters.

Now we text. And barely.

We were there for the first episode of Friends.

The release day of Titanic.

The Spice Girls movie.

Hey Arnold and Rugrats.

We’re old enough now that “vintage” means our childhood.

Y2K was the time when kids were still kids.

My brother and I would sneak out my window and be rebels.

Graffitiing our neighbor’s garage door with my mother’s red lipstick.

Spraying air freshener in their mailboxes.

Setting off M80’s in the street until we blew a small crater in the pavement.

As we got older, we chose our top eight on MySpace with careful consideration.

For us, childhood tastes like Koolaid and Dunkaroos.

It smells like Lipsmackers and Yoohoo.

It sounds like Brittney Spears and Nelly.

It feels like nostalgia and longing.

We look back and see all the progress.

The way our culture has shifted.

How society has welcomed technology and change.

We see the divide and still sometimes long for the simplicity.

An age where social media hadn’t been invented.

Where “Do you like me, check yes or no” notes were sent with butterflies in your stomach.

Do kids still chase fireflies?

Do they still pluck honeysuckle and suck the nectar?

Do they still get excited about sparklers?

Or has our progress diminished the innocence of childhood?

Growing up Y2K means we watched the world change.

We watched the twin towers burn.

We saw our country go to war.

We experienced the election of our first black president.

We remember when Amazon only sold books.

And as the online world changed, so did we.

It became normal to share our lives online.

To step into a role where we championed change.

And while the older generations had a hard time accepting the new way of the world,

We welcomed it with open arms.

We have one foot in the good ol’ days and one foot in the hope of the future.

We’re at a cross section where we can appreciate the way we grew up and lament some of the changes, but also see how much more equipped we are now to embrace what’s coming.

A place where inclusion is commonplace, and therapy isn’t looked down upon.

To be a Y2K kid is the best of both worlds.

We see the Nirvana and Hello Kitty shirts in Target and being worn by teenagers who’ve never heard of Nevermind or Keropi. To them, it’s vintage. To us, it’s irony and childhood.

So, long live the kids of the 90’s and early 2000’s.

May our tamagatchi’s never run out of batteries and our BopIt game be strong.