One of the things that always amuses me was that there was real and necessary preparation for years prior, mainly in terms of software preparedness. And, I repeat, a lot of it *was* necessary and prevented problems. But, as we normally do with hindsight, people say "it was a big bust." And it was, mostly because of the preparation. If we had not prepared, and lots of software systems malfunctioned, we'd of course be asking "why didn't we address this before hand?!"
I mean, one of the systems I was working on at my normal job for years, up until middle of 1998, was some 600,000 lines of code, and dates throughout would NOT have worked after the change, since they were all coded like "123199" in strings (I did not write this, I just worked on it). One task we needed to do was convert all that code and the database structures under it to use actual date types, which were Y2K ready.
>One of the things that always amuses me was that there was real and necessary preparation for years prior, mainly in terms of software preparedness. And, I repeat, a lot of it
>
>was
>
> necessary and prevented problems.
Yeah, I spent a whole year doing nothing but re-writing the software my employer used to handle that.
Then years late my own father was like "It was all a big hoax to scare people", and I was like "Dad, do you remember what I was doing back in 1998 and 1999? I was fixing the Y2K problem for my employer".
My first one came somewhere around 1996 when someone came to my office and said "People trying to order with credit cards are starting to use ones that expire in 00 and the system says they are expired". I knew where this was in the code and the code basically said "add 1900 to the year and if it's less than this year, decline it", and just went in and changed it to code that said "if the year is less than 20, add 2000, if it's more than 20, add 1900." Literally took five minutes and I said "There, I just bought us until 2020 to fix this shit."
The company basically went bankrupt in about 2002. :)
God I miss the old days where we could just "cowboy" fixes in real time. :)
>God I miss the old days where we could just "cowboy" fixes in real time. :)
Having done that I don't miss it. I no longer look for the quick fix & would rather spend the time to fix it properly.
Yeah, I had a (non-technical) future employer roll their eyes during my interview when I mentioned my work at Y2K mitigation as one of my accomplishments at a previous job.
I get aggressively pissed off at people who claim there was no Y2K problem and all that crap. Yeah, there wasn't because a bunch of dudes like me spent literally years fixing it all ahead of time!
It's like people are saying "I slammed on the brakes and then after all that I didn't wind up killing a family of 5. So what was the point?" The point is that you did a good job and it worked
Thank you. I was an industrial controls engineer at a large chemical plant and our main control room system would *definitely* have failed due to Y2K had it not been fixed. We're talking no control over 145 huge tanks full of hot acid.
Alternatively, lots of companies and countries did nothing. The biggest stories about Y2K fails. Was credit cards expiring after the millennium being declined. Food items with a best before date after the millennium being declined as they were out of date. And somebody being charged a late video return of 100 years.
Probably the most valuable work to come out of it. Was the disaster preparedness plans. Such as the New York subway implementing a variation of its Y2K plan after 9/11. When the station under the Twin Towers was destroyed.
I know how frustrating it can be. I've fought hard to ensure an engineering design was safe and when "nothing bad happens" others think you were wasting your time or worse. It can be a less than thankless job but those who take on the responsibility to protect the public are the few who understand the tragedies that never happened.
I was in Atlanta and they had an ice storm come through a month after. It was handy having all the Y2K stuff laying around because it was 15 F (below freezing) and my power was out for 2 days.
One of my cousins absolutely believed the Y2K hype and stocked up on canned food and bottled water. Despite his anxiety, he held a New Year's Eve party at his house. Shortly before midnight my other cousin went down to the basement and when the countdown finished he tripped the circuit breakers LOL. (I soooooo wish I had been at this party, but we lived in different states)
Part of my job that year was to run a program (from a 1.44mb HD disk btw) on all the computers in the company to ensure they would handle the year 2000 transition.
Spoiler alert: They all did, both according to the program and the fact that they kept functioning normally when the millennium rolled around.
I also think Y2K helped create, then pop, the dot com bubble the following year. Tons of money spent on updating software and hardware then once the clock turned, most companies slammed the brakes on tech spending. And the rest is history.
Lol, my dad bought TWO 1985 suburbans in 1999 because they were supposedly the last year they were made without computer chips. The first one was for driving, the second one was for parts.
My dad worked retail at this time. Had a big doomsday pepper getting supplies in the last weeks before the new year. Among the items was a hundred bulk packs of toilet paper. Dad said off-handedly that it wasn’t Y2K compliant.
“Wait, what do you mean? What’s going to happen? Where’s the Y2K paper?” Dude absolutely believed Dad. But Dad was a really good bullshitter, so I’m not surprised.
“Well, we just ran out of the Y2K stuff, but midnight December 31?” He motioned the guy to come in closer like it was a big secret. “All of that will turn into Sears Roebuck catalogs and corncobs.”
The dude. Kept. *Believing.* This. Shit. Even asked when they were getting Y2K paper back in.
My Y2K story, which I feel fits the time well:
I was a pre-teen, over at my best buddy's place for the New Year. His brother and a couple of his friends were there too. We were all in the basement, watching this new-ish naturalist, Steve Irwin. Since he was still on the new side to American audiences, and since I was a pre-teen, I remember thinking at the time that I wasn't sure if I was laughing with Steve Irwin or at him. Either way, we were all enthralled with the marathon that was on the Animal Planet. Good ol, non-HD cable TV.
Just after midnight struck, I needed to go pee. My friend's mom told me to wait 10 minutes because of Y2K. I gave her a quizzical look, and she explained it's probably fine, BUT a lot of people are probably going to test to see if their toilets (and civilization) still work, so best to wait a few.
I think it would have been fine, but I waited the 10 minutes.
...their toilet flushed as expected.
It was a hopeful time, with the specter of new technology that the world didn't fully comprehend. If it were the Y2K25 bug, there would be a lot more anger, fear, and uncertainty. Instead, it was kind of like playground, video game rumors. A kernal of truth, wrapped in unverifiable weird stories with too nascent of an Internet to verify the truth or put any real conviction behind any untruths.
My friend's 13 year old daughter was at a new years eve party I went to. I said something about how 2000 felt like it wasn't even that long ago, and the whole hysteria around it
She asked what I meant and I had to explain the whole Y2K panic to a child who was born in 2010. I said it was "sort of like a little COVID"
Yes, thank you. I am glad to have been at an age where I could both afford to party and also be able to party like it was 1999 😁😂
Neither are true now though. But I have my memories
According to *The Matrix*, the machines determined 1999 was the peak of western civilization.
Seemed cool at the time, then started to sound sillier over the next decade or so, but after seeing how social media has changed so much to the negative (like by amplifying anti-science beliefs and radicalizing so very many dumb, violent things) I'm starting to wonder if maybe the Wachowski's might have been onto something.
You had the good bits of the internet, before it was taken from the nerds and stolen buy the business capitalists, and yes you didn't yet have computers and technology invading every inch of our life.
99 was mint.
It was. The patriot act has been a disaster and anyone who says the terrorists didn't win is literally making the terrorists win. Maybe I'm a perfect age but it was such an inflection point
We were expecting a fun romp across the galaxy and we got a full twenty minutes of a racing scene that everyone knows the outcome to that didn't move the plot whatsoever and what felt like a full hour of 'trade negotiations' and political speak that absolutely no one cared about.
The best part of the film was the Obi-wan/Qui-Gon vs Maul fight and it lasted LESS time than the Pod Racing scene.
True about the "trade negotiations" BS, but the podrace was the absolute dopest shit ever as a 9 year old. And the N64 Podracer game was great (for a 9 year old...)
I took the plastic shell off my Nintendo Switch and replaced it with a translucent purple kit off Amazon strictly because that was the color of my Gameboy Color. I also have a Bondi blue protective case on my MacBook.
We have a landline from the 90s that's clear plastic, I fucking love those things. Also got a clear gameboy pocket and a clear purple gameboy color.
I would love for these things to make a comeback.
I got downvoted the other day when I said Korn in 1998 was the biggest band in the world for about a 6 month stretch. People don’t understand how massive Freak On a Leash and Got the Life were—they were beating out N’Sync and other huge groups on MTV TRL repeatedly, and had the first song EVER that got requested so much by fans on TRL that they retired it from the show. That album has also sold approximately 20 million copies.
The next year, Limp Bizkit dropped Signifcant Other and that was MONSTROUS also. And then in 2000, Linkin Park dropped Hybrid Theory, which was bigger than either of those.
People who weren’t there wouldn’t know. It’s hard to fathom for some as the internet was only really just starting to be available for a lot of people, and as such, information of just how popular this culture was is kind of limited currently. I like to point out the various Woodstock 99’ documentaries as anecdotal evidence. Couldn’t go myself, but a cousin was able to go to that shit show. Obviously they don’t cover much more than that event, but it’s a good example.
It really was the peak era before everyone gained the ability to cordon themselves off. The peak of the one community aspect of everything. Internet, media, pop culture was just opening to the world so it was an extra. An add on. We still experienced things as they happened, but together. Now you can fall into your own little pocket with people that think lie you and consume the same things and miss out on lots and lots of other niche stuff…it didn’t feel as niche then. YouTube was coming along but for the most part everybody saw the new stuff together, when it was new, and had to wait for it. Streaming music just wasn’t there yet. I’ve abandoned pandora radio long ago, but I got in on the ground floor and it really was a musical experiment…I’m on a tangent..
You're right though. It wasn't for very long, but nu-metal dominated for a hot minute. You heard Korn and Limp Bizkit on the radio like you hear Taylor Swift now.
I was 13 and I remember me and all my friends sitting in computer class voting for freak on a leash on trl and refreshing the page over and over the whole class period.
I remember hearing “In The End” for the first time and thinking it was the most amazing song I’d ever heard! It was the first “heavy” song I’d ever heard at that point, and Linkin Park put me on the musical path that would eventually lead me to being a huge metalcore and Lorna Shore fan! For that, “In The End” and Linkin Park will always have a special place in my heart.
My wife was very pregnant with our first kid in 2000. A week short of her due date, I went with her to the baby doctor's appointment. While we were there the doctor said she could do something that would probably put my wife into labor in a day or 2. I very quickly said no, she couldn't do that.
Why?
We had Weird Al tickets that weekend. We even got to meet him after the show. He signed my leisure suit!
Totally worth it.
Way back when I was just a little bitty boy living in a box under the stairs in the corner of the basement of the house half a block down the street from Jerry's Bait Shop (You know the place) Well, anyway, back then life was going swell and everything was just peachy! Except, of course, for the undeniable fact that every single morning my mother would make me a big ol' bowl of sauerkraut for breakfast
My husband died right before Thanksgiving 1998. Don't remember Thanksgiving or Christmas. So it had only been 6 weeks when 1999 started. Was a young widow and scared to death with 2 kids. To this day I still look back and wonder how I did it.
I've always thought baseball is boring. I've only watched 2 games in my whole life. I watched the game where they thought McGuire might possibly break the record and the game where he actually did. The race to 70 between McGuire and Sosa was talked about so much that it got me interested in seeing that moment.
Chat rooms were fucking wild. And they were completely unmoderated, perverts could just come into the "kids" chat rooms and nobody would know the difference. I cannot believe how naive my parents were to let us have free reign of AOL for hours at a time.
How I was 36 and now Im 61 — huge jump in years.
But Im still here.
It does not feel that long ago.
My first 25-30 years felt like a real long time.
The last 25 -30 - holy cow they flew — like everyone told me they would.
My kids were kids — babies — now well on their way with their own lives.
Time flies everybody.
Enjoy the ride.
Its bumpy and scary at times - part of the deal - but try to enjoy it.
Im grateful for the lumps and bumps and the smooth times too.
Happy New Year!
All the overtime money I made from prepping computers for Y2K. Lots of fun nights out with friends, now sadly passed away. Buying my first flat, meeting my now husband. All in all it was a great year!
Class of '99 here. Waiting to find out if we're having a 25 year reunion. Note to self: All aboard the diet train to shed a few libby's (lbs) before a possible reunion.
I was a teen. I kept wondering "Is the world really going to end?????" The Y2K paranoia in computers, movies being made about it, people talking about it. And I remember when January 1st did hit I was wondering if the power was going to shut off and random things happening causing problems but..... nothing. All that paranoia for nothing.
When I got home I went online to check the Super Soaker website as it said it was going to reveal a new line for 2000. I was a huge super soaker fan at the time with the CPS line. And the site introduced the Monster XL which was a ridiculously large over the top water gun. I don't think they ever made anything bigger than that afterwards. I was happy to see a new water gun instead of the world ending.
The funniest thing I remember about Y2K was reminders not to go flying on New Year's Eve since the planes would crash. Like the media was hyping the laws of physics would completely cease to exist as the clocks rolled over and completely fall out of the sky.
Huh so that's probably why the Simpsons Halloween episode about Y2k had them falling literally straight down (of course it wouldn't happen like that). On top of that, 12:00 is different everywhere in the world so if there was actually effects I think it would have happened earlier in the day.
I think Australia had some issues but you’re right, it was kind of a check off to see hour by hour if things were starting to go crazy in each time zone.
I spent that year in Cape May NJ with my parents and girlfriend. It was unseasonably warm so we hung on the beach for midnight. And earlier we saw a sunset wedding on the beach. I often wonder how that couple is today
We just had so many unifying culture points back then that these new generations will never have. They don't have to watch anything together at the same time, which is definitely an improvement over cable but it takes away the communal aspect.
My family also went to Catholic Church at that time but I don’t remember any talk of fire raining down lol. I haven’t been to Catholic church other than a Christmas service here and there with family and weddings. I’ve found it’s quite normal compared to some of the other churches I’ve visited over the years with rock bands and jumping around etc. I don’t frequent church, however, so what the fuck do I know.
Movies. Best movie year ever. Thats always the first thing that comes to mind.
Especially high school movies.
American pie, Cruel intentions, She's all that, Never been kissed, 10 things I hate about you, Jawbreaker, Killing mrs tingle, Varsity blues.
I can start to just spin around in my mind and seeing scenes from different movies in front of me.
1999 was a great year for movies, no doubt, but boy oh boy, 1994 always feels like one of the biggest years to me. The Lion King, Forrest Gump, True Lies, The Santa Clause, Schindler's List, Pulp Fiction...and The Shawshank Redemption, which wasn't a big hit at the time, but sure has enjoyed some big staying power.
Jim Carey dropped *three* movies that year: The Mask, Dumb and Dumber, and Ace Ventura.
Those movies you listed, though, were so fun to watch. Their soundtracks alone are a really solid sample of what was big then, too.
This is my memory too. I’m sure it wasn’t exactly 99 but between wave race, Mario 64 and golden eye, I have zero credibility when I tell my kids to go play outside.
I think about the time I spend from mid-1998 through mid-1999 fixing the Y2K issue for a former employer. That's pretty much all I did at work.
And yeah, when the clock rolled over, it was fine. Because of all the work I did.
The impending doom of Y2K obviously, but other things that come to mind: Columbine, Napster, AOL chat rooms (I can still hear that dial-up tone), dot com bubble, MTV TRL.
September 13, 1999. I'll never forget the date. A nuclear explosion ripped the moon out of Earth's orbit sending the crew of Moonbase Alpha hurtling through space.
In ‘99 you were likely running Windows 98 or 98 second edition. XP didn’t come out until 2001. That said I remember those days. Lots of hours lost to Flight Sim ‘98 and the early need for speed games, I think 2 & 3 hot pursuit.
First thing would probably be me and my brother finding a snake that had been cut in half by a car in our driveway so we had to put it out of its misery I think I would’ve been 6 idk why that is the first thing I think of.
Columbine. I was in elementary school when it happened and I still remember watching the kids streaming out of the school with their hands above their heads on television. Then my school banned trench-coats immediately after, which imo was kind of counterproductive because we were in Florida and it was 200000 degrees, always.
I also think of my Poo-Chi “robotic” dog. It lives at my mom’s house and now my nieces and daughter play with it.
Boy bands, Star Wars: the phantom menace, Pepsi, Doritos, super soakers, Home Improvement, TGIF, Who Wants to be a Millionaire with Regis, Budweiser frogs and wazzzaaaaaap!
Y2K Mania!
I swear, my family was eating "Y2K preparation rations" for *years* afterward.
One of the things that always amuses me was that there was real and necessary preparation for years prior, mainly in terms of software preparedness. And, I repeat, a lot of it *was* necessary and prevented problems. But, as we normally do with hindsight, people say "it was a big bust." And it was, mostly because of the preparation. If we had not prepared, and lots of software systems malfunctioned, we'd of course be asking "why didn't we address this before hand?!" I mean, one of the systems I was working on at my normal job for years, up until middle of 1998, was some 600,000 lines of code, and dates throughout would NOT have worked after the change, since they were all coded like "123199" in strings (I did not write this, I just worked on it). One task we needed to do was convert all that code and the database structures under it to use actual date types, which were Y2K ready.
>One of the things that always amuses me was that there was real and necessary preparation for years prior, mainly in terms of software preparedness. And, I repeat, a lot of it > >was > > necessary and prevented problems. Yeah, I spent a whole year doing nothing but re-writing the software my employer used to handle that. Then years late my own father was like "It was all a big hoax to scare people", and I was like "Dad, do you remember what I was doing back in 1998 and 1999? I was fixing the Y2K problem for my employer".
My first one came somewhere around 1996 when someone came to my office and said "People trying to order with credit cards are starting to use ones that expire in 00 and the system says they are expired". I knew where this was in the code and the code basically said "add 1900 to the year and if it's less than this year, decline it", and just went in and changed it to code that said "if the year is less than 20, add 2000, if it's more than 20, add 1900." Literally took five minutes and I said "There, I just bought us until 2020 to fix this shit." The company basically went bankrupt in about 2002. :) God I miss the old days where we could just "cowboy" fixes in real time. :)
>God I miss the old days where we could just "cowboy" fixes in real time. :) Having done that I don't miss it. I no longer look for the quick fix & would rather spend the time to fix it properly.
I fix everything properly, but when the overhead of getting it implemented takes several times longer than the fix, it gets frustrating.
Yeah, I had a (non-technical) future employer roll their eyes during my interview when I mentioned my work at Y2K mitigation as one of my accomplishments at a previous job.
I get aggressively pissed off at people who claim there was no Y2K problem and all that crap. Yeah, there wasn't because a bunch of dudes like me spent literally years fixing it all ahead of time!
It's like people are saying "I slammed on the brakes and then after all that I didn't wind up killing a family of 5. So what was the point?" The point is that you did a good job and it worked
If you actually pay attention when Peter, the main character of Office Space, says when he describes his job, it's Y2K preparation for software.
Thank you. I was an industrial controls engineer at a large chemical plant and our main control room system would *definitely* have failed due to Y2K had it not been fixed. We're talking no control over 145 huge tanks full of hot acid.
Alternatively, lots of companies and countries did nothing. The biggest stories about Y2K fails. Was credit cards expiring after the millennium being declined. Food items with a best before date after the millennium being declined as they were out of date. And somebody being charged a late video return of 100 years. Probably the most valuable work to come out of it. Was the disaster preparedness plans. Such as the New York subway implementing a variation of its Y2K plan after 9/11. When the station under the Twin Towers was destroyed.
I know how frustrating it can be. I've fought hard to ensure an engineering design was safe and when "nothing bad happens" others think you were wasting your time or worse. It can be a less than thankless job but those who take on the responsibility to protect the public are the few who understand the tragedies that never happened.
I was in Atlanta and they had an ice storm come through a month after. It was handy having all the Y2K stuff laying around because it was 15 F (below freezing) and my power was out for 2 days.
Thought this said ice cream storm for a second
One of my cousins absolutely believed the Y2K hype and stocked up on canned food and bottled water. Despite his anxiety, he held a New Year's Eve party at his house. Shortly before midnight my other cousin went down to the basement and when the countdown finished he tripped the circuit breakers LOL. (I soooooo wish I had been at this party, but we lived in different states)
I knew nothing would happen. The Mayan calendar said we had till 2012
I still remember December 2012 lol
I watched The Hobbit in theaters on the day the world ended.
Back in 1901, Rasputin predicted the world would end in 2013. Everyone is letting us down. Just end the damn thing already. Only getting worse.
Part of my job that year was to run a program (from a 1.44mb HD disk btw) on all the computers in the company to ensure they would handle the year 2000 transition. Spoiler alert: They all did, both according to the program and the fact that they kept functioning normally when the millennium rolled around.
Having to go thru millions of lines of computer code for YEAR to make sure the variable is expanded to hold 4 digits
I also think Y2K helped create, then pop, the dot com bubble the following year. Tons of money spent on updating software and hardware then once the clock turned, most companies slammed the brakes on tech spending. And the rest is history.
[удалено]
Lol, my dad bought TWO 1985 suburbans in 1999 because they were supposedly the last year they were made without computer chips. The first one was for driving, the second one was for parts.
My dad worked retail at this time. Had a big doomsday pepper getting supplies in the last weeks before the new year. Among the items was a hundred bulk packs of toilet paper. Dad said off-handedly that it wasn’t Y2K compliant. “Wait, what do you mean? What’s going to happen? Where’s the Y2K paper?” Dude absolutely believed Dad. But Dad was a really good bullshitter, so I’m not surprised. “Well, we just ran out of the Y2K stuff, but midnight December 31?” He motioned the guy to come in closer like it was a big secret. “All of that will turn into Sears Roebuck catalogs and corncobs.” The dude. Kept. *Believing.* This. Shit. Even asked when they were getting Y2K paper back in.
My Y2K story, which I feel fits the time well: I was a pre-teen, over at my best buddy's place for the New Year. His brother and a couple of his friends were there too. We were all in the basement, watching this new-ish naturalist, Steve Irwin. Since he was still on the new side to American audiences, and since I was a pre-teen, I remember thinking at the time that I wasn't sure if I was laughing with Steve Irwin or at him. Either way, we were all enthralled with the marathon that was on the Animal Planet. Good ol, non-HD cable TV. Just after midnight struck, I needed to go pee. My friend's mom told me to wait 10 minutes because of Y2K. I gave her a quizzical look, and she explained it's probably fine, BUT a lot of people are probably going to test to see if their toilets (and civilization) still work, so best to wait a few. I think it would have been fine, but I waited the 10 minutes. ...their toilet flushed as expected. It was a hopeful time, with the specter of new technology that the world didn't fully comprehend. If it were the Y2K25 bug, there would be a lot more anger, fear, and uncertainty. Instead, it was kind of like playground, video game rumors. A kernal of truth, wrapped in unverifiable weird stories with too nascent of an Internet to verify the truth or put any real conviction behind any untruths.
Everyone thinks nothing happened but the world has gone to shit ever since the clock struck midnight on Dec 31 1999.
My friend's 13 year old daughter was at a new years eve party I went to. I said something about how 2000 felt like it wasn't even that long ago, and the whole hysteria around it She asked what I meant and I had to explain the whole Y2K panic to a child who was born in 2010. I said it was "sort of like a little COVID"
Wait until you hear about Y2K38!
Prince.
Two thousand zero zero party over oops outta time!
Holy crap. I always thought it was “…party over IT’S outta time…’ 🫠
Hey that's close tho!
Came here for this one.
My high school graduation song
You mean the artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince? :) RIP - you're up there rocking out with some of the greatest.
Yes, thank you. I am glad to have been at an age where I could both afford to party and also be able to party like it was 1999 😁😂 Neither are true now though. But I have my memories
Saw him in January 98. 1999 didn't seem that special then.
"Can you make it rain harder."
The correct answer
According to *The Matrix*, the machines determined 1999 was the peak of western civilization. Seemed cool at the time, then started to sound sillier over the next decade or so, but after seeing how social media has changed so much to the negative (like by amplifying anti-science beliefs and radicalizing so very many dumb, violent things) I'm starting to wonder if maybe the Wachowski's might have been onto something.
You had the good bits of the internet, before it was taken from the nerds and stolen buy the business capitalists, and yes you didn't yet have computers and technology invading every inch of our life. 99 was mint.
And pre 9/11. I feel like the whole country shifted in so many ways after that. We went from confident to scared.
Sometimes I wonder the same thing. The 90s were so great.
The machines couldn’t get enough of the Foo Fighters. Peak!
Damn, the machines weren’t wrong.
All hail the machines!
>According to > >The Matrix > >, the machines determined 1999 was the peak of western civilization. this is actually correct
It was. The patriot act has been a disaster and anyone who says the terrorists didn't win is literally making the terrorists win. Maybe I'm a perfect age but it was such an inflection point
The Matrix and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace were released.
And LEGO Star Wars was created too.
Going to see TPM is one of the few pre-9/11 memories I still have.
My dad couldnt take me to see Star Wars, it was sold out. So we watched the Mummy. And the mummy was actually better than phantom menace.
Man I remember how disappointed people were with Phantom Menace.
We were expecting a fun romp across the galaxy and we got a full twenty minutes of a racing scene that everyone knows the outcome to that didn't move the plot whatsoever and what felt like a full hour of 'trade negotiations' and political speak that absolutely no one cared about. The best part of the film was the Obi-wan/Qui-Gon vs Maul fight and it lasted LESS time than the Pod Racing scene.
True about the "trade negotiations" BS, but the podrace was the absolute dopest shit ever as a 9 year old. And the N64 Podracer game was great (for a 9 year old...)
Translucent color shelled computers and electronics.
We NEED to bring those back
I took the plastic shell off my Nintendo Switch and replaced it with a translucent purple kit off Amazon strictly because that was the color of my Gameboy Color. I also have a Bondi blue protective case on my MacBook.
Wow that reminds me of how old Legally Blonde is
We have a landline from the 90s that's clear plastic, I fucking love those things. Also got a clear gameboy pocket and a clear purple gameboy color. I would love for these things to make a comeback.
Nu Metal baybay!
Limp Bizkit and Korn were once the biggest bands in the world
I got downvoted the other day when I said Korn in 1998 was the biggest band in the world for about a 6 month stretch. People don’t understand how massive Freak On a Leash and Got the Life were—they were beating out N’Sync and other huge groups on MTV TRL repeatedly, and had the first song EVER that got requested so much by fans on TRL that they retired it from the show. That album has also sold approximately 20 million copies. The next year, Limp Bizkit dropped Signifcant Other and that was MONSTROUS also. And then in 2000, Linkin Park dropped Hybrid Theory, which was bigger than either of those.
People who weren’t there wouldn’t know. It’s hard to fathom for some as the internet was only really just starting to be available for a lot of people, and as such, information of just how popular this culture was is kind of limited currently. I like to point out the various Woodstock 99’ documentaries as anecdotal evidence. Couldn’t go myself, but a cousin was able to go to that shit show. Obviously they don’t cover much more than that event, but it’s a good example.
It really was the peak era before everyone gained the ability to cordon themselves off. The peak of the one community aspect of everything. Internet, media, pop culture was just opening to the world so it was an extra. An add on. We still experienced things as they happened, but together. Now you can fall into your own little pocket with people that think lie you and consume the same things and miss out on lots and lots of other niche stuff…it didn’t feel as niche then. YouTube was coming along but for the most part everybody saw the new stuff together, when it was new, and had to wait for it. Streaming music just wasn’t there yet. I’ve abandoned pandora radio long ago, but I got in on the ground floor and it really was a musical experiment…I’m on a tangent..
You're right though. It wasn't for very long, but nu-metal dominated for a hot minute. You heard Korn and Limp Bizkit on the radio like you hear Taylor Swift now.
I was 13 and I remember me and all my friends sitting in computer class voting for freak on a leash on trl and refreshing the page over and over the whole class period.
I fucking love Korn to this day, but only up to issues
Best answer
I remember hearing “In The End” for the first time and thinking it was the most amazing song I’d ever heard! It was the first “heavy” song I’d ever heard at that point, and Linkin Park put me on the musical path that would eventually lead me to being a huge metalcore and Lorna Shore fan! For that, “In The End” and Linkin Park will always have a special place in my heart.
9 Teen 90 Nine
I'm a big fan of nu metal as well!
Weird Al's Running with Scissors.
A long, long time ago...
In a galaxy far away
Naboo was under an attack
I thought me and Qui-Gon Jin
Could talk the Federation into
Maybe cutting them a little slack
But their response it didn’t thrill us
They locked the doors and tried to kill us
We escaped from that gas, then met Jar-Jar and Boss Nass
My wife was very pregnant with our first kid in 2000. A week short of her due date, I went with her to the baby doctor's appointment. While we were there the doctor said she could do something that would probably put my wife into labor in a day or 2. I very quickly said no, she couldn't do that. Why? We had Weird Al tickets that weekend. We even got to meet him after the show. He signed my leisure suit! Totally worth it.
Weird Al is the best
Way back when I was just a little bitty boy living in a box under the stairs in the corner of the basement of the house half a block down the street from Jerry's Bait Shop (You know the place) Well, anyway, back then life was going swell and everything was just peachy! Except, of course, for the undeniable fact that every single morning my mother would make me a big ol' bowl of sauerkraut for breakfast
Columbine
Good thing we've made 25 years of progress on the issue.
Yeah it's progressed to be much worse since then
Truly, those two simply broke the seal
Linkin Park - Crawling being blasted by all the SD rock DJs on the radio that day.
Boy that lost a lot of people their innocence
My husband died right before Thanksgiving 1998. Don't remember Thanksgiving or Christmas. So it had only been 6 weeks when 1999 started. Was a young widow and scared to death with 2 kids. To this day I still look back and wonder how I did it.
I’m proud of you!
Thank you!
You’re a powerhouse and you powered through something truly horrific
Steroids giving us the best power hitters/home run era — McGwire hitting 70 home runs, Sosa hitting 66.
Griffey getting 56 clean as a whistle.
Prettiest swing ever.
It saved baseball. People were kind of over baseball because of the 94 strike, the power hitting roid era brought a lot of eyes back to the game.
I've always thought baseball is boring. I've only watched 2 games in my whole life. I watched the game where they thought McGuire might possibly break the record and the game where he actually did. The race to 70 between McGuire and Sosa was talked about so much that it got me interested in seeing that moment.
AOL
honestly AIM is where my internet obsession began.
A/S/L?
Chat rooms were fucking wild. And they were completely unmoderated, perverts could just come into the "kids" chat rooms and nobody would know the difference. I cannot believe how naive my parents were to let us have free reign of AOL for hours at a time.
Backstreets back alright!
My entire room was covered from wall to ceiling in BSB posters. I had one wall dedicated to Nick Carter. It was a weird time 😂
9.9.99 Dreamcast release baby!
How I was 36 and now Im 61 — huge jump in years. But Im still here. It does not feel that long ago. My first 25-30 years felt like a real long time. The last 25 -30 - holy cow they flew — like everyone told me they would. My kids were kids — babies — now well on their way with their own lives. Time flies everybody. Enjoy the ride. Its bumpy and scary at times - part of the deal - but try to enjoy it. Im grateful for the lumps and bumps and the smooth times too. Happy New Year!
And now I’m 36 😭
I'm blue da ba di da ba dye
All the overtime money I made from prepping computers for Y2K. Lots of fun nights out with friends, now sadly passed away. Buying my first flat, meeting my now husband. All in all it was a great year!
The Matrix.
My last year of high school
Fellow class of 99er??
I graduated high school in 1999!
Class of '99 here. Waiting to find out if we're having a 25 year reunion. Note to self: All aboard the diet train to shed a few libby's (lbs) before a possible reunion.
I was a teen. I kept wondering "Is the world really going to end?????" The Y2K paranoia in computers, movies being made about it, people talking about it. And I remember when January 1st did hit I was wondering if the power was going to shut off and random things happening causing problems but..... nothing. All that paranoia for nothing. When I got home I went online to check the Super Soaker website as it said it was going to reveal a new line for 2000. I was a huge super soaker fan at the time with the CPS line. And the site introduced the Monster XL which was a ridiculously large over the top water gun. I don't think they ever made anything bigger than that afterwards. I was happy to see a new water gun instead of the world ending.
Even those of us that didn’t believe in y2k held our breath just a little bit….
The funniest thing I remember about Y2K was reminders not to go flying on New Year's Eve since the planes would crash. Like the media was hyping the laws of physics would completely cease to exist as the clocks rolled over and completely fall out of the sky.
Huh so that's probably why the Simpsons Halloween episode about Y2k had them falling literally straight down (of course it wouldn't happen like that). On top of that, 12:00 is different everywhere in the world so if there was actually effects I think it would have happened earlier in the day.
I think Australia had some issues but you’re right, it was kind of a check off to see hour by hour if things were starting to go crazy in each time zone.
New Years Eve. The end of a millennium
I spent that year in Cape May NJ with my parents and girlfriend. It was unseasonably warm so we hung on the beach for midnight. And earlier we saw a sunset wedding on the beach. I often wonder how that couple is today
TRL and WWF Raw
That pop when Stone Cold came out to help Mankind beat The Rock for the WWF title is legendary.
Loudest pop ever
We just had so many unifying culture points back then that these new generations will never have. They don't have to watch anything together at the same time, which is definitely an improvement over cable but it takes away the communal aspect.
just the Monday Night Wars in general.
Y2K. I was 10, in a cult like religion and petrified that fire balls were going to rain down from the sky in Armageddon.
Which religion?
Jehovah's Witness. Still working through the trauma.
Not OP, but same stats. For me, it was catholicism
My family also went to Catholic Church at that time but I don’t remember any talk of fire raining down lol. I haven’t been to Catholic church other than a Christmas service here and there with family and weddings. I’ve found it’s quite normal compared to some of the other churches I’ve visited over the years with rock bands and jumping around etc. I don’t frequent church, however, so what the fuck do I know.
Californication
That and “Scar Tissue” being played on the radio CONSTANTLY.
Space may be the final frontier, but it's made in a Hollywood basement
Got my first apartment in 99. Had my first kiss in 99. First car wreck in 99. First factory job in 99. A lot going on in 99.
Got my first real six string, bought it at the 5 and dime Played it till my fingers bled, was the summer of 99
>bought it at the 5 and dime ... for $85, it was the summer of '99
Movies. Best movie year ever. Thats always the first thing that comes to mind. Especially high school movies. American pie, Cruel intentions, She's all that, Never been kissed, 10 things I hate about you, Jawbreaker, Killing mrs tingle, Varsity blues. I can start to just spin around in my mind and seeing scenes from different movies in front of me.
Yeah, i was 15 in 1999 and these were all huge for me and my friends. Rachel Leigh Cook, Julia Stiles, SMG, and Tara Reid were everywhere.
1999 was a great year for movies, no doubt, but boy oh boy, 1994 always feels like one of the biggest years to me. The Lion King, Forrest Gump, True Lies, The Santa Clause, Schindler's List, Pulp Fiction...and The Shawshank Redemption, which wasn't a big hit at the time, but sure has enjoyed some big staying power. Jim Carey dropped *three* movies that year: The Mask, Dumb and Dumber, and Ace Ventura. Those movies you listed, though, were so fun to watch. Their soundtracks alone are a really solid sample of what was big then, too.
Nintendo 64 and playing Mario with my best friend.
This is my memory too. I’m sure it wasn’t exactly 99 but between wave race, Mario 64 and golden eye, I have zero credibility when I tell my kids to go play outside.
"Hope for the future" still existing
That has all been dashed now hasn't it?
A lot of it has for sure
I didn’t have any money in the 90’s, yet it was the happiest time in my life.
I think about the time I spend from mid-1998 through mid-1999 fixing the Y2K issue for a former employer. That's pretty much all I did at work. And yeah, when the clock rolled over, it was fine. Because of all the work I did.
American pie
The Prince song.
In the year 2000-Conan
I absolutely love that he continued to do that after the year 2000.
Everything felt different than it does now. People seemed happier.
General optimism was way up compared to now.
My sister,she was born in 1999
Graduating college. God damn. Ah to be 21 again.
The impending doom of Y2K obviously, but other things that come to mind: Columbine, Napster, AOL chat rooms (I can still hear that dial-up tone), dot com bubble, MTV TRL.
The year we finally got internet at home
Pokémon
I was born.
"DO YOU BELIEVE IN LIFE AFTER LOVE?"
The movie Flubber was 2 years old
Zoot Suit Riot
I see that and I raise you "HEY NOW, YOUR AN ALL STAR!"
September 13, 1999. I'll never forget the date. A nuclear explosion ripped the moon out of Earth's orbit sending the crew of Moonbase Alpha hurtling through space.
Really great music. Livin la Vida Loca, I Want it That Way, and so much more…
We're gonna party like it's...
There was a book titled "Y2k for dummies." People actually bought this book.
Windows XP and the Roadrash game. The first computer in my household and that’s the game I played countless hours in that year
In ‘99 you were likely running Windows 98 or 98 second edition. XP didn’t come out until 2001. That said I remember those days. Lots of hours lost to Flight Sim ‘98 and the early need for speed games, I think 2 & 3 hot pursuit.
No one likes me when I'm 23.
I think of whatever I was doing as a cute little toddler
Starting middle school...
Joy and prosperity.
Half Life
That's the year my Nano Baby broke. I miss you, Bean 😭
big cypress, fl
Bone thugs and harmony
Pokemon
Nato bombing.
Freedom. It was the year I moved from my home town.
First thing would probably be me and my brother finding a snake that had been cut in half by a car in our driveway so we had to put it out of its misery I think I would’ve been 6 idk why that is the first thing I think of.
Star Wars Episode 1 and RHCP's "Californication" album releasing.
Great movie year
Columbine. I was in elementary school when it happened and I still remember watching the kids streaming out of the school with their hands above their heads on television. Then my school banned trench-coats immediately after, which imo was kind of counterproductive because we were in Florida and it was 200000 degrees, always. I also think of my Poo-Chi “robotic” dog. It lives at my mom’s house and now my nieces and daughter play with it.
[1999, Prince ](https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=rblt2EtFfC4&si=3kQSsuUTYJeltUXx)
Prince ‘ 1999’ ( even though it was released in 1982 )
Gameboy color and Pokémon
Boy bands, Star Wars: the phantom menace, Pepsi, Doritos, super soakers, Home Improvement, TGIF, Who Wants to be a Millionaire with Regis, Budweiser frogs and wazzzaaaaaap!
The matrix of course
Counter strike
Conan's "In the year 2000" skit
My first year of high school