In art and design, nothing happens in a bubble. This was the culmination of 60's pop-art, op-art, 70's futurism, 80's Memphis, Minimalism, etc. I am an industrial designer and graduated in 1999. I am also a design teacher. This is the very best breakdown of Y2K ever. To me, this was the closest to a quasi art movement of the turn of the century, and it was magical to me. This whole thing runs deeply in my veins.
Yeah designers were given unlimited geometry potential and within 24hrs went whack with it😂 I love these moments of unadulterated and totally unexplored art. We always go way too far before feeling it out
My favorite trend was the semi-transparent electronics. From N64 controllers, to Tamagotchis, to computer peripherals. I also loved the late-60s/early-70s revival in everything, from Austin Powers to the Spice Girls. Also, I loved Jnco jeans. Oh and trance music. Seems like everything was better back then. 1999 was a peak year IMO.
For me Y2K is all about trance music, ace combat series, Nokia phones, Playstation, Oakley sunglasses, spiky hair, G-Shock watches, futuristic electronic bgm
I was so young in this era, old enough to internalize what i was looking at but not old enough to participate in any meaningful way. Looking at my art now I can see im still holding onto the feeling this aesthetic moment gave me. Thanks for the essay! Really lit up a fire for this and got me thinking!
I'm so glad I found this video. I could never put my finger on why so many parts of the Y2K aesthetic were the way they were, they just 'felt' right, but you put it in words and it's much easier to understand now
i was a kid in the early 2000s ( born in 99 lol) however i do remember lots of stuff from this era, specially the makeup my mom used to wear blue eyeshadow ALL THE TIME, even now she still wears it. it's such an iconic color.
I TRULY enjoyed this video! Thank you for your hard work in putting this together. I enjoyed how you discussed aspects that made that era/movement and provided samples. Looking forward to more of your content!
It's very difficult for those that didn't live during this time to imagine the actual optimism and hope for the future, Y2K fear mongering notwithstanding. Can you imagine witnessing a new MILLENIUM !? Combined with the rise in new technologies afforded by PC's and the internet, it was clear that a new era was dawning leading to an explosion of creativity surrounding this aesthetic.
It's kind of funny that all the stuff we were excited for has kind of turned on us. Digital technology, the internet, cell phones. It felt like 3d, faster speeds, and infinite ability to communicate instantly was going to be amazing. What we got was a games industry mired in triple A games with amazing graphics but no substance, social media, and phone addiction. Oh, and the ever-increasing subscription model to pay for it all. I miss 2000.
@@bradleylovejA 10 yo me would be mind blown to find out that in the future mobile phones would be strong enough to play ps2 games but in reality, graphics stopped being impressive after Ps3 and Social Media feels toxic instead of being this amazing method to connect to the world.
Y2K seemed like a really cool era to just be alive and exist within the culture. Someone made a great point in the comments on how 9/11 swiftly ended the potential of what Y2K could've been since the new culture was one of war and fear. We should bring this aesthetic back because even today, it still seems so futuristic
9/11 definitely killed the Y2K aesthetic. Y2K represented what people imagined the 2000s to be, only to be quickly replaced with a surge of "MURICA" and military iconography one year into the millennia. People's vision of a perfect utopia was broken with the constant fear and war mongering of the "War on Terror".
I guess the same could be said about 2020. Was looking foward on what the 20's would bring, but. No, at this point i suspect that this is all flawed by design.
I think you are right. Here in Brazil I remember Y2K aesthetics lasting far after 9/11. I think Frutiger Aero only became popular here after the release of Windows Vista in 2007. I'm was born in 96 and I clearly remember everything here still had the Y2K vibes until mid 2000's.
This is ridiculously true. Well said. It's when our government seized too much control and destroyed the evidence of it's theft and corruption of the American people. And it's been all downhill from there.
I was a young child during the transition from the previous millennium to the current one, and so I really do associate the Y2K aesthetic with optimism with regards to the future. It's funny how I can look back to those years and think of them as somehow being more "modern" than the ones that came after. The late '00s and early '10s feel a lot more "dated" to me.
Because it really was new... not just trend-hopping, but trendsetting. People were legitimately trying things and taking bigger artistic risks. The 2000s and 2010s everything is just commodified, rerun, and copy-and-pasted...
It’s probably because those years are still too recent. There’s a lot of styles of the late-00s and 10’s that are still considered contemporary - the industrial chic aesthetic found in countless coffee shops and modern studio apartments seemingly isn’t going away any time soon, neither is the Jony Ive school of glass and aluminium product design, or the Great Flattening of UI and graphic design. Though in all those cases the aesthetic has been refined over the years to the point where there’s a distinct difference between early and late examples, they are still very much part of the same design trends that have been ongoing for the last decade or so. The “y2k” design trends on the other hand feel distinctly old fashioned now, and we’re far enough away that we’re now seeing a revival of these aesthetics in many areas of design. There’s an alien-ness to it that wasn’t apparent when the style was still new, before a bunch of bloggers on the internet coined the phrase and grouped somewhat separate design movements into one convenient label.
The late 2000's were horribly hurt by the Great Recession, and so companies had to compromise on build quality while making it look "modern" resulting in a lot of late 2000's gadgets and cars just look.... Cheap.
talked to a genz coworker recently. She only knew Y2K as a fashion trend, and not as the theory that computer systems would crash bc it wouldn't recognize 1999 becoming 2000. She was dumbfounded when i told her what the real Y2K event was. Never felt older lmao
My father told me he was mad during y2k because he spent the day upgrading stuff in his office and then he found out the ones that weren't upgraded in time still ran fine
@@ghivifahmi4252 Dude got mad that he upgraded his computers? 😂 It's like getting mad that you went from an iPhone 6 to an iPhone 15. Yeah, you spent money, but it still an improvement nonetheless that would happen inevitably
@@chilliam00 that improvement was not like a Windows upgrade or like upgrading Android/iOS apps: it was something so unnecessary since, as his father stated, the computers without an upgrade were still running fine and didn't need an upgrade. Money and time spent unnecessarily. My home computer was running perfectly after Jan 1st, 2000, and I didn't need to upgrade it in any way. Nothing happened at all, we were somewhat disappointed since we were expecting all tech to have a breakdown and everything was as normal as before. It was frustrating since people were getting ready for something that never happened (and wasn't even going to happen; it was just collective hysteria).
Crazy to think about the fact that Michael Jackson pioneered the Y2K aesthetic with his Scream Video in mid-1995. Dude was a whole 2 years ahead of the curve.
I personally believe Frutiger Aero is more of a "devolution" of Y2K, a more dialed back version. But yes, an equally fascinating period deserving of a vid.
there's a great video on it floating around youtube already, and it's full of visual content rather than a static selfie shot of the creator, which is very 🥳
@@exzardoz3532 ruclips.net/video/nL7kTMtvebQ/видео.htmlsi=vcnB-FxHBBcEDBbY Undefined’s video has been very popular in reintroducing ppl 2 Frutiger Aero.
I remember being about 11 years old in the 99' & everything feeling "futuristic". I am glad you pointed this out and I am not the only one. One of my fondest memories was sitting in my older cousin's Saturn (I mean even the car Brand name was about space/celestial object"). It first felt futuristic with the 3rd passenger suiciude door. Once sitting in there we were on our way to a friends house to play some games on the futuristic Sega Dreamcast, a video game console that had screens on the memory card that could go into your controller and actually went in the internet! On the way there I remember looking at the stars while listening to Sandstorm from Darude on a metallic looking CD and thinking about how we were in the "future". Edit: Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast really contributed to that future feeling with its aesthetics and being the first online console RPG.
I like that you mentioned the Saturn. One of my favorite cars growing up was the Mazda RX-8, and I ended up getting one for my first car, which I still have today. It has the same kind of doors as the Saturn, plus the stereo controls are arranged in the shape of a CD, with the volume knob in the center. The backs of the front seats are that smooth, silver-colored plastic. The speedometer is digital with those cool, italicized "alarm clock" style numbers. The tail lights have clear lenses. Lots of awesome early 2000's aesthetic; it's fun that I still get to experience just a little bit of that every day.
ME TOOO!!!! I have color palettes in my mind per year 2000: It is indeed very Gray/Silver/Aqua 2001: To me is mostly Red and Orange 2002: Is Blue 2003: Is very Green
'91 millennial here, thank you SO much for this video! As a person who deeply misses that decade, seeing your video popping out on my algorithm literally made my day... Damn, I almost forgot some of the trends from that era! Personally speaking, what I love and miss from those years is the general positive feeling about the future, the growth of technology in such a short timespan - I still remember how shocked I was when the ps2 was announced back in the days- and the fashion. Oh, and the music! Nowadays, I listen to all those from the past more than modern ones... Damn how I wish I could go back to those days!
I'm right there with you brother. I'd give anything to go back and stay there, forever gazing at that bright future, even though in retrospect it turned out to be fake
I still remember the news showing the Japanese release of the PS2 in 2000 and was surprised the news was talking about video games in a non-negative way, back then.
'91 millennial here. Also seeing this in my recommended was a blast from the past! I wanna bring the aesthetic back, it's much better than what we have now... Maybe so, maybe not. Such simpler times. Millennials! Let's travel back together!
Personal web pages. I miss those. MySpace pretty much killed them. Before everyone migrated over to social media accounts, we each designed our own personal pages on sites like GeoCities, using clipart, backgrounds, and crude animations that seemed cutting edge at the time. We started with basic html and gradually worked in Java applets and links to Flash animations. There were blogging sites that were partially pre-formatted, but there was still a lot of creative flexibility. And then, once we were starting to learn programming language, suddenly everyone was instead setting up MySpace pages that had very limited customizability and a growing build-up of ad banners. Facebook and Twitter then took over, with cleaner looks, but the creativity was gone, and we were down to posting paragraphs of text and uploading pictures, rather than designing whole experiences.
BlackPlanet, MiGentente, AsianAvenue also allowed you to customize pages. Tagged still allows you to do this - but the site is way too grimy for my tastes. We were literally flirting with 6-figure salaries and didn't even know it at the time.
It was actually an intentional social engineering move to make social media "bland" and non-personalized. "Face Book" was intended from the beginning to create a database of all citizens and their personal lives, especially social networks, and collect pictures of them, for use with facial recognition technology. This would eventually become extremely valuable data for anyone wielding it, whether to profit by it's sale, or to use the data themselves for massive manipulation power. It took away people's online personality, and turned everyone into simply a list of information and photos with a common interface. This allows the digital medium of the socialization to manage and control those participating, by altering how we express ourselves and communicate online. The more you realize how controlled the internet actually is, the scarier this all seems. Almost every digital technology to evolve has been required to leave security backdoors for government (or unscrupulous actors) to secretly access. Every bit of data that's ever existed online is stored on private servers that secret networks of "government" have access to. When you look into Facebook and Zuckerberg's history and network, along with it's evolution, many have reason to believe that it was a ClA operation from the beginning.
I miss livejournal and how everyone had a blog with in depth updates. I definitely felt closer to online friends in the 2000s vs following someone cool on insta.
I think the Y2K aesthetic was more defined by the years BEFORE 2000 than after. It started in the mid-90s with the internet boom and anticipation of the new millenium, which was viewed as a futuristic event. As someone else said, it all died in 2001.
Correct me if im wrong , the futuristic approach was lot more popular in Europe and asia Than on America, so i don't think 9/11 was the only thing which was giving fuel to the end of this mentioned trend? ive been following to learn about this y2k topic for a while cuz im born in mid 2k
@@thesrndude6588 Yes it was more popular outside the US, but 9/11 was a global event that quickly ensnared Europe and had much of the world fearing a kind of world war. As an American the most anger I experienced at America right after 9/11 was in Europe, especially after 2003
Yep, as a Gen X kid, it was early 90’s techno clubs where I saw it all begin in a way. Afterwards, bands like Prodigy, NiN, and others who were part of that techno genre, became mainstream.
Thank you! always loved this aesthetic so much growing up but could never find any divisive videos covering it in depth also I've been kind of on a treasure hunt for as much media from this era that I could find so this is perfect timing
Same here, been going on a nostalgic trip seeking out the simpler times as a pacifier for the discomfort that the current times are giving us right now.
This is the official y2k aesthetic case study of RUclips. The one and only one you’ll need to learn y2k. Awesome work brother. I enjoyed this vid with my breakfast
I was born in 84 and started high school in 99. Art, music, tech, and movies made the world seem promising. Although everyday life was honestly bland in comparison, art and culture made the world look so big. Before the internet, your life was your neighborhood and town and you'd hear stories from Other Places, but the internet makes you realize how BIG the world actually is. I remember fondly this aesthetic (not even realizing it was an aesthetic at the time), making collages from my teen magazines, Teen People and YM, desperate for Delia's "futuristic teen clothes", wearing rave meets space clothing. We were very aware of the 70s as an inspiration for our fashion. We wanted bell bottoms, lava lamps, black lights, funky music, funky clothes, small shirts that had yin and yang and "groovy" on them, sci fi, platforms, athleisure, etc... Speaking of the 70s... Love, sex, and rock n roll. I also want to point out that the era was very sexual. And since our parents were teens and young adults in the 70s, most (I'm saying most, not all) of our parents weren't so scandalized by sex in our collective culture. And some of this to a detrimental effect - it was completely normal for girls to be sexualized and to date much older boys/men. I look back at many things back then and it's a big YIKES. (I still have some of my Yikes branded notebooks, by the way.) Rushing home to watch TRL because there wasn't a collective place to watch music videos and interviews with your favorite musicians besides MTV. The era seemed exciting and full of potential. I wish this era as the "love letter to the future" could have kept pace with us into our actual future. 😕 Great video but makes me sad to see how little our actual future represents the hope we had.
@@TheShadowPerson. I was born in 2000, at just the right time to be alive but barely remember any of it. Everything after that has been ugly and soul-less.
That description of y2k being so alien and otherworldly is ironic. I was born 1998 so I didn't get to experience it as the adult that I am now but I have faint memories of it and a kind of fascination and almost strange nostalgia for it. It's like remembering being in another reality which feels more distant when you look around in the one you are living in. I remember having a flip phone with those aero graphics, like o2 with their blue water theme. I remember silver being perceived as a cool colour. The 90's movies like X-Men and Men in Black. It was definitely a part of my early child-hood and I saw it as a form of escape from reality.
Same with me 98, never really like the y2k aesthetic but it’s always been nostalgic for me and now suddenly it’s interesting to me as an adult years later
Especially seeing promos on vhs tapes of 90s movies. Some tapes had previews before the movie started and they were of shows that aired around 1996 to 2003.
Honestly imo the “decades” blend a bit between their transitions to the ‘beginnings’and their ‘ends’. So fair play. That said, X Men also came out in the year 2000, not that that’s the point. The point to is I think a lot of the generation that was born in this era are experiencing what GenX to millennials and onward experienced by having this wave of nostalgia for pop culture / fashion of the time and era of their birth some 20 years and some change later. Great observation!
This video is WONDERFUL! Definitely sending it to everyone who calls mcbling "y2k" (Honestly it's SO frustrating to me when I search for y2k things and I see stuff from 2006-2008 lol). I turned 16 in 2000 so this era was absolutely magical for me. To be in one's teens during this "art movement" (and it really did feel like that) was so much fun. The Sega Dreamcast and its marketing was a huge part of it for me personally, I also got into asian pop music around that time and oh my GOSH did Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan really know how to do the y2k aesthetic! I was very much saturated with the look & feel of this era while it was happening. And that's not counting the emergence of the television channel ZDTV (later to become TechTV, and later G4TechTV after a merger, and then just G4..... boy that's a story) which was focused on technology at the time... I just left it on all day, basically! XD Thank you so much for the nostalgia trip, honestly the memories this video brought back are innumerable!
I love how thorough this video is. I feel like you really touched upon every point of the y2k era. I was a kid during the 2000s so I didn’t grasp the importance of the internet at the time, I guess I was too busy playing pinball on windows. Great video essay!
The movie 'The Island' released in 2005 captures this aesthetic so well. I also think the y2k aesthetic is heavily linked to the 'frutiger aero' style of the mid to late 2000s, with the latter having more natural, organic visuals like grassy landscapes and wildlife (think windows xp wallpaper). Even as someone born in 2004, the y2k style and 2000s movies/music is very fascinating to me :)
They don't quite fit together copaceticly; Frutiger Aero feels like a comprehensive evolution of this look, but they diverge way too much to be completely compatible.
I was also born in 04. Like both aesthetics as I grew up for both but they don't compare all that much imho, Y2K doesn't care that much about organic stuff such as plants or water, it has a more synthetic vibe to it and also uses way more "man made" colors than FA. They share some traits though.
I was born in 1989. It was such a interesting time to grow up. I'm glad I got to experience it. Before things changed to how they are nowadays. There was a sense of Retro-Futurism mixed with vintage vibes. McDonald's had Nintendo 64's, Blockbuster/Hollywood video, you could preview music before buying it. Magazines would come with demo discs for new games coming soon. There's so many reasons why the 90's ruled. Because it had a bit of a 80's vibe and attitude. Such awesome Aesthetics all over in such diverse ways. It was like "okay kids, go have fun, you might get hurt so watch out, but, have fun 👍🏻." Nowadays, it's like they completely got rid of any "fun, goof off, odd stuff." It's like everything is all modernized, minimalism, contemporary, bland, repetitive and if it doesn't make money 💰 then it's gotta go.. so all those old houses, old shops, drive in movie theaters, roller rinks, obstacle courses, bouncy houses, indoor fun zones with r/c speed boats, mini golf ⛳ with loops, bumper cars, ball pits, just weird random stuff. Random weird local shops, stores that you could play halo 1 on big TVs and link up LAN parties. Towns still had older run down sorta house's, duplexes, just unique "lower income living options ya know?") where I live they have literally gotten rid of all of that and just put in cookie cutter type places to live and everything costs ridiculous per month and everything is so bland and stale. I just miss the creativity, the quirkiness that's all. Being born in 1989 I was lucky to get to see the tail end of these things that aren't around anymore and I can't help but wonder what it must be like for kids that never got to experience the stuff the 90s kids got to experience. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. Getting to be a teen when wild Boyz, jackass, CKY was a big deal 🤘🏻 a kid when Steve Erwin was literally my idol! Growing up on magic school bus, bill Nye the science guy, captain planet, X-Men the animated series, all the animated series tv shows. All the classic animated movies. Like it was the best time to be a kid and a teenager. It had such a Vibe.
Well put bro.. born in 1988 I grew up with everything you did aswell, with an the extra twist of my first 8 years growing up in a third world country. Fuck man they literally took and killed Halloween lol glad we got to enjoy it while it lasted.
@@HolyClownFuckarus Thanks man. I'm glad u got to experience things that really were such awesome things of a specific era. Imagine being born in the 2010's? It's weird how much things have changed since our childhood.. idk I wish a lot of things could have stayed around and continued into our current era. Society has become very bland it seems compared to how creative the 90s were.. *by the sounds of how u described living in a different country (I sometimes think that I'd rather live in a different country then how our current situation is in the US. It's crazy how unbalanced the cost of living is here. I really enjoy hiking and being connected to our surroundings so I definitely have thoughts of living somewhere else that is more interconnected to the environment than we are here in America. America seems like u need to have $ to even exist & there is no option if u don't have the amount of $ that life requires of u per month. It's exhausting honestly. I just wish we could have different ways we could conduct our society.)
@@benmcreynolds8581 very true, it’s almost like we shifted timelines and now whatever the fuck “it” is, they are trying to numb, erase our past memories with such blatant and excesses multi and social media bs. Most words get drown out by the bigger voice with more sheep falling in order. It’s sad but my memories bring a smile to my face
@@HolyClownFuckarus my memories bring a smile to my face too. (I just had a memory flash back of me as a kid going to safety town growing up. Then once I became I teenager I actually signed up to be a Safety town instructor and had a blast working with kids and other teens my age. I wouldn't change that for anything in the world) and that's just one aspect of growing up as a 90s kid
I can vouch for cds being magical to hold back in the 2000s. As a kid every time I’d pop in the matrix into our dvd player I’d marvel at how something as cool as movies and games could fit inside such a weird lil circle.
Was a kid in the....Mid-late 2000s??? I loved the holographic look in them too, seeing all those colours in rainbow form made was very cool, and almost felt magica. It was also mine, not a borrowing, not a rental, but mine.
idc if i sound like a typical 90s kid reminiscing about the past, but the 90s and early 2000s were truly a magical time; great music, great movies, great fashion, great tech progression, great aesthetics.
i was born in '93, so being a relatively young kid when this was happening, i just thought of it as completely normal. like, this is how all pop artists and their album covers and music videos are just supposed to look! i also had one of those clear inflatable chairs, but, mine had a green stem intersecting the whole seat part, and a purple flower on top. i haven't seen any others like that haha
Seeing this all laid out like this is such a mind fuck. I really wonder where aesthetics are going now ? I am a jewelry designer and it feels like my work is so different from other contemporary jewelry atm. Your point about the decentralized world of aesthetic islands we all live on is extremely interesting! I would love to see a global aesthetic based around the human body as its primary driving force. Human centric, like how Frank Herberts Dune is a world completely dominated by the human scale. In doing so humanity grows to a new height. I would also kill to hear your ideas about the potential consequences of AI taking such a dominant role in future design. Incredible video!!!!
@@Galidorquest True. The beginning year of the Millennials are exact. But the last year of it is very debatable. Some say 1995, others say 1996/1997. Either way, I would also say after 1996 was Gen z. And 1996 and before are definitely millennials. Although I do feel that people born between 1994 and 1996 are usually Zillenials (Millennials+Zoomers) born in two generations instead of one. I'm glad my siblings and I were born in the 1990s and grw up in the late 90s and early 2000s. Such a time that even people from 2003 and onward weren't able to experience back in the day.
@@cat-wi4un Yeah that's the thing, for those born between 1994 and 1996, we tend to be in the middle between millennial and zoomer generations. So that's why I call myself a "Zillennial" because of it.
I was born in 1975, and this look has aged really well to me, at least compared to the first couple of decades in my life. I grew up with wood paneling on everything, chrome would have been a dream.
I'm an '01 baby so I missed this, but my early childhood playing PS2, watching certain movies, and seeing some of it in things like science textbooks makes me incredibly nostalgic for a time I never really experienced. Love that Gen Z is kind of remixing it cause it needed a comeback!
Always smacked me as weird that the start of the 1990s almost to around exactly 1995 was pretty much just a suped-up version of the 1980s and then like a couple years late BLAM! We got something aesthetically completely different. Even weirder to think that a lot of carry-overs from the 1980s kind of just existed alongside Y2K era stuff…
@@NowhereBeats'britpop' as a 90s music scene actually took off in mid 1992 and saw its peak around 1994-96, to end by 1997. During 1988-early '92 there were other music scenes in the UK like Madchester and shoegaze. They're definitely of British origin, but I wouldn't call all of them 'britpop' that loosely. Just saying
This was so good, love hearing about this side of y2k. What reminds me most of y2k is the movie zenon and the bubble bags. Caught up on your Dune video but had to watch the movie first loved that one too. ❤
It's funny when I was growing up as a kid, I hated this style. It felt cheap to me, specially when electronics were painted in silver colors. But this video and pretty much all of Pan Pizza's channel has made me find an appreciation for the era and the aesthetics of it. Perhaps it's because of nostalgia and well, just growing up and having different tastes now. Then again, when we look back at eras we tend to look at the best of the time.
I know it’s not the same as it was used to be regarding y2k movement and aeathetics, but It’s making a come back in some forms and as a 90’s-2000’s kid I’m here for it. I’m strongly nostalgic about this. 😅❤
I loved the iMac's marketing. "sorry, no beige." **shows a top down photo of five orange imacs in a semicircular pattern as if its a citris fruit** "yum." **every available imac color** "no artificial colors"
As a '92 Millennial I ofc remember this. But it was very obvious when it came to a screeching halt. The late 90s early 2000s optimistic future died for many American Millennials when we had to deal with Columbine in 99, 9/11 in 01 and Columbia in 03. After those 3 events you basically felt like school safety, country safety, and science safety were not 100% secure. That said, it was a cool time before it ended. You did feel like you lived in the future. But EVEN at the time there was a level of performative future(aside from the CD's, Macs and DVD's. Those were actual improvements). The CGI was new but it wasn't destroying the 90s CGI yet(like Jurassic Park). The designs were future-y with the smooth curved shapes and the clear or chromed out appliances and toys. But we could tell a lot of it was cosmetic. There were no video phones, electric cars, drones or touchscreens or anything. It was a lot of 90s type of stuff given a retro-future(60s and 70s) overhaul. Anyway, good video and I agree with your thoughts at the end. Y2K was the last "total" aesthetic and we'll never see anything like that again because of the internet. Now it's microtrends that come and go. I don't think we'll have any more hardline 20/30yr nostalgia revamps either because once the 2010's are nostalgic there won't be anymore total aesthetics to copy. The world/Internet/social media really opened up everything in that decade onward.
@@JSSMVCJR2.1 Like OP said, the ‘10’s was dominated by micro trends mainly through social media, it made way for a lot of goofy dance trends, viral catchphrases, and the short form content we have currently. It’ll be hard to really pick apart decade defining characteristics of the ‘10’s. Hipster subculture might come back since it did gain some steam throughout the first half of last decade.
i think the statement about 2010s being the last nostalgia could be spoken wrong. it’s not even definable as an era cause we’re still in it. however being born in 99 i miss 2008-2012. vibes like juno and superbad lmaoo
I was so drawn in and mesmerised by your narrating and storytelling it felt like a vaporwave album, not like listening to it, but being inside of it. What was an hour felt like a singular point in time. I spiritually want more. What about its direct progeny: "Frutiger Aero"?
I was born in 93, so I didn't get to be a teen during y2k. I still remember it grabbing my eye a lot when I was little. The silvery and space like and shiny and colorful and smooth. Really did something for my brain and was really fascinating to me. I was really drawn to games like ddr and music that was featured in it and the UI design style of those games.
It was a celebratory time for sure. All kinds of wild futurism fueled by pounding beats, XTC and Red Bull. It was a fun time to be out partying but it also felt it was like a thing that ended as soon as it started. All those transparent plastics looked great when new but tended to look pretty dingy after just a bit of real world use. The cool underground Techno look got mainstream so fast that those metallic sweatpants you wore at that ultra cool D&B party made you look like a complete Bombfunk wannabe a few weeks later (speaking from experience here). The paranoia and jingoism after 9/11 shut down the party for good. It's heartbreaking to me that we never really rekindled that spark again but instead seem to have devolved to a world dominated by a culture of division, dogma and pessimism. I secretly hope that the advent of AI will somehow make us lust for the future again but early signs are pointing more towards it leading us to a potential dystopia. But at least it has caused a change that goes much deeper then anything we have seen since the adoption of the Internet. I can only imagine the freaky fashion that will go along this revolution.😮
ok normally i don't leave comments on videos but i feel like i HAVE to say something. you are a very talented writer and speaker, and I can feel how passionate you are about this topic. i can also tell how well-versed and educated you are in the field of art and design, and how excited you are to share your knowledge with all of us here on youtube. this was such a pleasure to watch (and made me very nostalgic). this deserves so much more love and attention especially since i can tell how much time and effort you put into making it. i hope your channel gets the attention it deserves soon!! i'd love to see more content like this and i look forward to what you'll upload next :)
Such a great video and break down of that silvery futuristic Y2K aesthetic and super grateful you acknowledged Black artists as pioneers in this within pop culture.
This is one of the few aesthetic trends I was consciously aware of and possibly the only one I actually appreciated at the time. I was actually saddened that there would be a time in the near future that this style would no longer be in fashion. It's also jarring to remember how optimistic we could be back then compared to now, at least before 9/11.
As someone who grew up and became an adult in this very era you absolutely nailed it. From the inflection point of the launch of the iMac to recognising the black artist and hype Williams influence of the era to just the grand overview that we may never have such a total blanketed art era again. Great insight all over and thoroughly enjoyed. I wish you many white wines in the future. You have earned them!
THANK YOU for this video. I think after a couple of years of 2000s fashion being ‘in’, people are finally starting to learn what *genuine* Y2K is - I’ve certainly developed a new appreciation for it. There’s evidence to suggest elements of the fashion are making a comeback in 2023 but obviously we’re never going to have the full movement again. Which makes me sad as I was a young child and never really got to experience it 😩
Amazing video. This is why I find it so tragic when kids think anything that looks 2000s is “Y2K”. Also hearing you describe this all made me think of “the bean” in Chicago Millennium park, it makes so much sense
Your content is wildly underappreciated, damn you have a talent! I missed Y2K aesthetics mostly because it wasn't much of a thing in my country back in the days, but I find it very captivating. This documentary is pure gold!
this is a great video. I actually watched it twice. Please make something like this for the aesthetic that came right after Y2K. All the optimism and perceived future wealth of the 90s evaporated once the wars started again after 911 and clothing and style became more dark. This also reflected on a lot of the music that came right after Y2K.
27 year old here. I know exactly what you're talking about and I'm glad you brought it up. The dark aesthetic that came after 9/11 was mainly the Emo/Scene subculture. It surfaced in the Mid 00's. The Mid 00's was when you started seeing sideswept emo-hair, retro themes, skull designs and death-related themes in streetwear. Forgotten clothing brands from the Mid 00's like Ed Hardy and Affliction are a prime example. A *LOT* of people used to wear those clothing brands, especially the hood-types in Chicago. Album cover design also started getting flat & minimalistic in the Mid 00's. Early Blink 182 and Corinne Bailey Rae are some examples. Logo design started getting flat & minimalistic in 2006 too. It started with the Doritos logo in January 2006. Flat design & minimalism was partly inspired by the rise of Vectors, Flash animation and the Go-Animate program. The BP Invigorate commercials from 2007 & 2008 was the start of minimalism & flat design in corporate media.
@@Galidorquest it always felt to me like the pendulum had gone one way and then it had to swing hard to the opposite end. go from Y2K aesthetic to the emo/scene of the mid 2000s was crazy
@@jermainerobinson7741 Thanks. I've always wanted to do a post-Y2K Aesthetic Analysis. I also forgot to mention that the Mid 00's began the rise of first-person shooting-games like the Call of Duty series, Halo, Assassin's Creed, etc... All of which were released after 9/11. The surge in shooting-games was most likely an effect of the war in the Middle East. And maybe it was also a subtle recruitment tool for the military since these games mainly appealed to kids.
You should be so proud of yourself. I would be if I had made this video. I have always been interested in this topic, ever since I was able to conceptualize the shifting of/contrast between aesthetics, past to the present. Thank you for this interesting video that helps me reflect on my childhood and adolescence. I could cry just from feeling immersed in that time period watching this.
I love micro trends. Why force yourself into the same aesthetic everyone elae follows if it doesn't do it for you or for most people you know xD Micro trends are more personal, they last as long as you want and they represent your inner self better since you get to choose it. And Y2K is a great trend, you can still enjoy it if you want ^_^
Yep, one of the aesthetics that stand out as particularly nostalgic and memorable to me. Was born '94 myself. It was everywhere, from music vids to movies, technology, interior and more
It’s nice to see someone being just as (if not more) obsessed with this stuff as I am, haha. This video covered so much of what I’ve also been thinking & researching, and it offered a lot of new insights as well. Very impressed with your level of research and analysis! The way socio-economic factors influence pop culture and design is one of my biggest interests, especially when it comes to the ‘90s and ‘00s-as well as the’ 60s and ‘70s (since we can see so many elements from these earlier decades referenced or mirrored in the later decades, as you mentioned). I love that both space age and flower power aesthetics had their own reimagined versions in the millennium era. That “groovy”, kid-oriented version of Y2K is embedded into all my childhood memories, along with Groovival / Curly Girly kind of aesthetics. I’m actually currently working on a sort of research project/write-up about the films that came out in the year 1995-which in my opinion was one of the most interesting years in cinema history, mainly because it was such a watershed year for technology. I’m not sure yet if I’m gonna publish it as a letterboxd list or a blog or something, but when I do I’ll definitely link to this video!
It was such a fresh look! I loved the PS1 and demo discs and Dreamcast and Mechanical Animals. I loved all the white and silver and coloured translucent plastics!
Ultimate, thorough, complete, deep analysis of the Aesthetics that began with the new century. The way it was contextualized gives you a great understanding of the overall situation of those times. This was definitely a documentary my man, a great work of art, everything mixes perfectly 🤯 Big support from Italy! 🇮🇹
The 80s/90s and Y2K aesthetic holds a special place in my heart. This video gave me so much nostalgia. Now I want to get a lava lamp and some Oakley Eye Jackets. Subscribed.
Very tied into Afro Futurism. The first I remember seeing of this aesthetic movement was spearheaded by Hype Williams in videos he directed for various electro-RnB stars like Timbaland, 702, Missy Elliott, TLC, Mel B and Busta Rhymes.
Now I understand why the Ultraviolet movie had such a weird look haha. I had never realized everything that was intrinsic to this aesthetic. I always remembered it as "what movies were like when I was little" without realizing how specific it is. Suddenly I can think of a large number of media that follow this aesthetic.
What an amazing, detail-oriented and informative video! Is there a period where the Y2K and the Frutiger Aero aesthetics overlap? There are elements from Y2K, like the transparent and colorful tech, that give me strong frutiger aero vibes.
I was born 1991, and was in elementary school during this period of time. I remember very well the aesthetic of this era. The music, the fashion, everything, I thought it was so cool! When I got to middle school (2002-2005), it all eventually seemed to disappear, and I was genuinely confused what had happened. As a kid, I thought it was there to stay! I literally had a mini depression for a small chunk of time in middle school, not to mention middle school was just plain rough, period. But now that I am 31, I understand styles and trends come and go, but I will ALWAYS remember this era very fondly.
Please do more analyses about more eras, talk about how the 70`s were a big crazy coloufull parties full of drugs and the 80s were the times to "sober up" with the gymnastics aesthetics and the sleek "bussiness" trend fashion with shoulder pads that went well into the 90's until Y2K put an end to all of that
I was already a young adult back then (thank god for that) so i lived thru it and it was exactly like that (and kinda still is, atleast in my personal sphere, cause i'm a retro collector, both itemwise and in movies/music). You did an excellent job there. I was like this bro did a massive job finding the exact mood of the Y2K, almost on a spiritual level, lol. And i barely could't stop reading the comments. This is why i luv YT and keep watching it for hours daily. I hate the white boring soulless mainstream minimalism today but it doesn't mean everything is sh-t tho. I still see cool things here and there. We got pretty aesthetic malls here in stockholm, some with a pretty close to 90's/Y2K vibe or an evolution of it (shapes/colors and all that) and music is still very good if you're into retro style synth stuff (literally thousands of great artists). And now we got both AI and VR and they develop even faster than the internet bubble did. VR games are pretty mind blowing, that will create som future nostalgia for sure, i mean i'm already nostalgic about it, lol. My whole apartment is a shrine dedicated to the good old days, to some part even the eras before me (1970's and forward) but mostly 80's and 90's and all the funky colorful tech from the Y2K era. I can't get enough of it. I live in a retro bubble but at least it feels kinda like using a time machine, lol
Excellent video. I was at university studying a Bachelor of Multimedia Design at this stage. You are spot on with the idea of everything feeling utopian and futuristic. I loved the whole graphic design aesthetic and in particular crafting my own animated hud graphics for my university projects was essential. I loved my silver PVC nightclubbing jacket and the ruby red lenses in my Oakley style sunglasses. I still remember around 2002, the moment i saw the whole movement crash came when I was looking through a department store catalogue and saw the new season dresses for the ladies- They were in loose, flowing cottons, with generous, layered and angled cuts and all in organic oranges and brown floral prints. My mind had a little meltdown as I thought to myself - “this doesn’t fit”. All of a sudden the glorious futurism we were rocketing towards came crashing down, and like the Apollo moon program, I knew we were never going back.
This is an absolute love letter to one of the most interesting zeitgeists in my lifetime, one I remember only as a very young kid. Looking back the look and style was so innocent and humbling when looking at the corporatised, minimalist looks of today. It was all about being seen and being heard, nowadays it's corrupted by so much censorship and sanitisation that the optimism of the time seems so naïve.
Amazing Episode I've watched ever, I didn't get bored during along the 1 hour, I'm really seeing a huge potential in Y2K and how it could replicated and implemented in modern day, such as Front End Web Dev as I'm a Developer and Designer, Wish me luck
I love this video wow! I was born in 1992 in a country that was pretty poor back then. Because of this, most of the Y2K Millennium style things I saw were on movies, music videos and tv. Around me people didn't have gadgets or computers at home, it felt truly amazing to see these things, like they came from the future. And then Barbie brought these things closer to me. While the tech and the style wasn't widespread throughout the country, my mom lived in another country during my early childhood and she would send me Barbie dolls for birthdays and christmas, and many of them came with accesories from that resembled the era. I had one with an inflatable chair, some had metallic outfits, funky accesories. It was great! Some came with accesories for me, like translucent acrylic bracelets and hair clips. As I grew up, I have continued with my obsession with translucency and translucent colored plastic/acrylic things, still one of my favorite aesthetics!!
What I find so fascinating about the zeitgeist of the time, is that it was as if society in its entirety had wholeheartedly embraced aspirations of a utopia in which one transits through public/private architectural marvels by day and at night one sips cosmos in glossy lounges. As though collectively we'd abandoned all aspirations exceeding - today will be like yesterday, just better.
Living through this time is fun as a teen and young adult because like you said that design got relegated to kid stuff after a while so it stuff with us longer. People are pining for this time again not just because of the nostalgia but like you pointed out it was positive hopeful time well no hope is hard to find. The illusion of connectivity. Now we are too too connected lol, the illusion being realized is not as cool as we thought it would be unfortunately. If i had a time machine i would go back to this time for sure, it was really fun and innovative and personalized as a teen so im sure it was super fun as a 20/30 year old. Thank you for very informative, fun and nostalgic video! The clear color tech for sure is my favorite! And my walkman even though it always skipped lol. I had an orange white grey one and the neon orange blobby w used to run my fingers over it because it was so cool.
I'm currently running a starfinder campaign set in a late 90's american city. This was very insightful even for someone like me who was there at the time. A truly magical time of optimism.
I have a love for early to mid 90s music and fashion. Recently got into y2k, and generally 00s. I use y2k and the 90s as visuals in my art and style. Im 10 minutes into the video and i enjoy it very much :D
It still feels so recent that it's on odd feeling to finally be able to look back on as a distinct aesthetic. I can still remember at the time people comparing things to the 70's/80's and saying "everything's so normal, we don't have distinct decades anymore" in the same way they do now. I guess it's all a matter of time. To be honest, my attachment to this aesthetic is purely nostalgic. I don't actually like it, but it feels comfy.
Gen Z/Zillenials call it cybercore a lot on social media (y2k styles, 00's styles). As someone who's grown up w' cd's + listened futuristic rnb, cybercore will always have a place in my heart. Fashion goes thru cycles, that's why we're seeing a resurgence of these styles. Even emo/scene-kid styles have had a resurrection w' Gen Z, I like the way they mix the emo stuff w' anime + cyber elements.
Very, very good summary of Y2K. It's gone but fondly remembered, as, like about any other design era, the good things stay in our imagination, and the mediocre and derivative fade. It was in between 2K that Liminal spaces become the focus, in a minimalist design carried to the extreme. Light wood, white and gray large tiles, satin or polish ed aluminium became the language of design. Alessi, Bang & Olufsen, Bose, Volkswagen/Audi, with their sleek design and monotone / pure material aesthetic become iconic. B&O flat CD player, Audi TT, presented in ultramodern glass timber and aluminium showroom containers, Apple i-Lamp computers, Lux Ottica wireframe sunglasses, brought imagination to new environment. It was not just wasteful use of plastic: Corian was invented and tile producers in Italy refined the "natural stone looking Gress" able to reproduce nature without the huge impact of extrection caves and material waste. Aluminium become estetically viable and good looking, supplanting chrome steel, much heavier, more expensive and wasteful to create, the use of maple and Bamboo instead of expensive and slow growing Chestnut and oak, the use of laminate wood and recicled one instead of solid one without dangerous finishing from the seventies, Paper and cardboard employed in new ways, building in Japanese tradition. I'd say this was a good time compared to what we live today, where aesthetic and quality still mattered compared to the cheap, post industrialization products we get from China today. "Patterns Recognition" by William Gibson is an must read to understand this era.
Since you did such a great job with this video, it would be nice to also see an aesthetic analysis of color palettes from various time periods and how that informed the overall vibe/mood of the eras how you did in this one!
The Y2K label is a Western one, because it sorta persists here in Asia and wasn't limited to the 90s-00s.. Its still a common aesthetic in Asian music videos, and outside of that in modern Asian interior design etc, albeit in a very-minimalist form, perhaps because there's a very strong association and familiarity with technology and gadgetry in day-to-day life here, and a sense of continued optimism in the technological advancement and integration. Whereas Westerners now fear technology, it's always been welcomed and innovated with open arms here. J-pop, K-pop, C-pop and their associated fashion were leading that aesthetic in this part of the world since the early 90s, along with architectural styles and models of clean-cut urban development. And now Southeast Asian countries, which are rapidly going through the same type of economic and technological boom that defined the first wave of Tiger economies, are carrying that trend on. If you look at 'Kiềng 3 Chân' by Hoàng Thùy Linh of Vietnam, 'Kilometro' by Sarah Geronimo of the Philippines, or 'Tokyo Girl' by Perfume of Japan (all three are popular artists), you'll see the "Y2K" or more "cutting-edge futuristic tech aesthetic" is very much alive here in Asia. Perhaps the West copied the aesthetic from here?
@@faustinuskaryadi6610 Yeah, I grew up on a lot of Japanese entertainment and I even noticed the Y2K aesthetic in the mid 1990s. To me, Japanese PS1 commercials in 1994 looked no different than in 2000. Also, All Japan (AJPW) wrestling when you watched it (not VHS rips) had higher quality picture compared to the other wrestling shows at the time. One time, I was watching Dr. Death vs. Misawa in HD (a match from 1994), and my little brother (not knowing the wrestlers) thought it was 2004 by the way the camera work/video quality was, as well as the ring and the wrestler's attire. It didn't age like the cartoonier WWF and WCW in the mid 1990s.
@albalog2449 For me 1996 Japanese Itazura na kiss Live Action TV drama don't age, it's still watchable by today standard while 2000 Taiwanese Meteor Garden TV series looks dated by today standard. Japanese was really advance in 1990s and early 2000s. Ayumi Hamasaki MV, You (released in 1998), don't look dated either.
@@faustinuskaryadi6610 yeah Japan and Asian countries seemed to contribute to cyber Y2K but the overall fashion aesthetic was already a thing in the US, mainly the non technological aesthetic
yeah Asian countries seemed to contribute to cyber Y2K but the other fashion aesthetics that were Y2K were already a thing in the US, the non technological aesthetic, started by black designers and artists, who actually also pioneered and contributed to the cyber Y2K (Afro futurism) here.
In art and design, nothing happens in a bubble. This was the culmination of 60's pop-art, op-art, 70's futurism, 80's Memphis, Minimalism, etc. I am an industrial designer and graduated in 1999. I am also a design teacher. This is the very best breakdown of Y2K ever. To me, this was the closest to a quasi art movement of the turn of the century, and it was magical to me. This whole thing runs deeply in my veins.
Just checked out your techno playlist, I believe you brother.
@@one.ebrown Thank for checking it out.
@@colinsteeley what are you here for, if not to geek out about aesthetics?
@@thotslayer9914 Too many to list. Rave clothing, industrial design, and graphic design.
Yeah designers were given unlimited geometry potential and within 24hrs went whack with it😂 I love these moments of unadulterated and totally unexplored art. We always go way too far before feeling it out
My favorite trend was the semi-transparent electronics. From N64 controllers, to Tamagotchis, to computer peripherals. I also loved the late-60s/early-70s revival in everything, from Austin Powers to the Spice Girls. Also, I loved Jnco jeans. Oh and trance music. Seems like everything was better back then. 1999 was a peak year IMO.
So was 2019 lol
I remember I liked all the transparent, clear coat, different colored electronic stuff so much
the 2020s are really bringing back a lot, and introducing a lot of charismatiacy.
What’s your favorite 90s trance track?
Those need to come back in my opinion. Nothing looks quite as good as my Jungle Green N64.
For me Y2K is all about trance music, ace combat series, Nokia phones, Playstation, Oakley sunglasses, spiky hair, G-Shock watches, futuristic electronic bgm
Surely Ace Combat 3 ELECTROSPHERE?
@@wiegraf9009Master piece
Darude feel the beat bom funk mcs
I'm blue if I was green I would I
Actually Sega Dreamcast shell looks more Y2K than either Playstation or Playstation 2, unfortunately it was failed in market.
I was so young in this era, old enough to internalize what i was looking at but not old enough to participate in any meaningful way. Looking at my art now I can see im still holding onto the feeling this aesthetic moment gave me. Thanks for the essay! Really lit up a fire for this and got me thinking!
I'm so glad I found this video. I could never put my finger on why so many parts of the Y2K aesthetic were the way they were, they just 'felt' right, but you put it in words and it's much easier to understand now
i was a kid in the early 2000s ( born in 99 lol) however i do remember lots of stuff from this era, specially the makeup
my mom used to wear blue eyeshadow ALL THE TIME, even now she still wears it.
it's such an iconic color.
the fact that somebody was able to summarize this a video is amazing in itself
I TRULY enjoyed this video! Thank you for your hard work in putting this together. I enjoyed how you discussed aspects that made that era/movement and provided samples. Looking forward to more of your content!
Big W for putting my girl Left Eye in the thumbnail
this is such a good breakdown, thank you for putting this together
Very informative. Thanks for your hard work.
This video is really well done man! ⚪️
Brilliant analysis!
missed opportunity to discuss Wipeout and The Designers Republic also
Mildly tragic that the hoodie and basketball shorts look has become the peer approved clothing choice.
I the think the song American Dream by Jakatta really fits this aesthetic.
It's very difficult for those that didn't live during this time to imagine the actual optimism and hope for the future, Y2K fear mongering notwithstanding. Can you imagine witnessing a new MILLENIUM !? Combined with the rise in new technologies afforded by PC's and the internet, it was clear that a new era was dawning leading to an explosion of creativity surrounding this aesthetic.
Now we're in subscription hell.
It's kind of funny that all the stuff we were excited for has kind of turned on us. Digital technology, the internet, cell phones. It felt like 3d, faster speeds, and infinite ability to communicate instantly was going to be amazing. What we got was a games industry mired in triple A games with amazing graphics but no substance, social media, and phone addiction. Oh, and the ever-increasing subscription model to pay for it all.
I miss 2000.
And then 9/11 happened
@@adamant5550 9/11 saw everyone beginning to become happier and happier and boom. New timeline.
@@bradleylovejA 10 yo me would be mind blown to find out that in the future mobile phones would be strong enough to play ps2 games but in reality, graphics stopped being impressive after Ps3 and Social Media feels toxic instead of being this amazing method to connect to the world.
Y2K seemed like a really cool era to just be alive and exist within the culture. Someone made a great point in the comments on how 9/11 swiftly ended the potential of what Y2K could've been since the new culture was one of war and fear. We should bring this aesthetic back because even today, it still seems so futuristic
9/11 definitely killed the Y2K aesthetic. Y2K represented what people imagined the 2000s to be, only to be quickly replaced with a surge of "MURICA" and military iconography one year into the millennia. People's vision of a perfect utopia was broken with the constant fear and war mongering of the "War on Terror".
STEEL FUEL CAN'T MELT JET BEAMS
I guess the same could be said about 2020. Was looking foward on what the 20's would bring, but. No, at this point i suspect that this is all flawed by design.
I think you are right. Here in Brazil I remember Y2K aesthetics lasting far after 9/11. I think Frutiger Aero only became popular here after the release of Windows Vista in 2007. I'm was born in 96 and I clearly remember everything here still had the Y2K vibes until mid 2000's.
yeah blame that on the us for attacking itself
This is ridiculously true. Well said. It's when our government seized too much control and destroyed the evidence of it's theft and corruption of the American people. And it's been all downhill from there.
I was a young child during the transition from the previous millennium to the current one, and so I really do associate the Y2K aesthetic with optimism with regards to the future. It's funny how I can look back to those years and think of them as somehow being more "modern" than the ones that came after. The late '00s and early '10s feel a lot more "dated" to me.
2010s was the era of piano black aesthetic, that's why it feel a lot dated.
Because it really was new... not just trend-hopping, but trendsetting. People were legitimately trying things and taking bigger artistic risks. The 2000s and 2010s everything is just commodified, rerun, and copy-and-pasted...
It’s probably because those years are still too recent. There’s a lot of styles of the late-00s and 10’s that are still considered contemporary - the industrial chic aesthetic found in countless coffee shops and modern studio apartments seemingly isn’t going away any time soon, neither is the Jony Ive school of glass and aluminium product design, or the Great Flattening of UI and graphic design. Though in all those cases the aesthetic has been refined over the years to the point where there’s a distinct difference between early and late examples, they are still very much part of the same design trends that have been ongoing for the last decade or so.
The “y2k” design trends on the other hand feel distinctly old fashioned now, and we’re far enough away that we’re now seeing a revival of these aesthetics in many areas of design. There’s an alien-ness to it that wasn’t apparent when the style was still new, before a bunch of bloggers on the internet coined the phrase and grouped somewhat separate design movements into one convenient label.
The late 2000's were horribly hurt by the Great Recession, and so companies had to compromise on build quality while making it look "modern" resulting in a lot of late 2000's gadgets and cars just look.... Cheap.
talked to a genz coworker recently. She only knew Y2K as a fashion trend, and not as the theory that computer systems would crash bc it wouldn't recognize 1999 becoming 2000. She was dumbfounded when i told her what the real Y2K event was. Never felt older lmao
My father told me he was mad during y2k because he spent the day upgrading stuff in his office and then he found out the ones that weren't upgraded in time still ran fine
@@ghivifahmi4252 Dude got mad that he upgraded his computers? 😂 It's like getting mad that you went from an iPhone 6 to an iPhone 15. Yeah, you spent money, but it still an improvement nonetheless that would happen inevitably
@@chilliam00 it's his company's devices, not his
@@chilliam00 that improvement was not like a Windows upgrade or like upgrading Android/iOS apps: it was something so unnecessary since, as his father stated, the computers without an upgrade were still running fine and didn't need an upgrade. Money and time spent unnecessarily. My home computer was running perfectly after Jan 1st, 2000, and I didn't need to upgrade it in any way.
Nothing happened at all, we were somewhat disappointed since we were expecting all tech to have a breakdown and everything was as normal as before. It was frustrating since people were getting ready for something that never happened (and wasn't even going to happen; it was just collective hysteria).
I was born in 2002 and I was aware of the fear of planes crashing but I never the origin of it until this video.
Crazy to think about the fact that Michael Jackson pioneered the Y2K aesthetic with his Scream Video in mid-1995. Dude was a whole 2 years ahead of the curve.
Actually, there were some Y2K Aesthetic things before 1997, it was just popularized in 97
The "Frutiger Aero" period is the evolution of this aesthetic. I think a video covering this period would be a great addition.
I personally believe Frutiger Aero is more of a "devolution" of Y2K, a more dialed back version. But yes, an equally fascinating period deserving of a vid.
there's a great video on it floating around youtube already, and it's full of visual content rather than a static selfie shot of the creator, which is very 🥳
@@christofthedead
...link plz
@@exzardoz3532
ruclips.net/video/nL7kTMtvebQ/видео.htmlsi=vcnB-FxHBBcEDBbY
Undefined’s video has been very popular in reintroducing ppl 2 Frutiger Aero.
@@christofthedeadwas it by the channel “undefined”?
I remember being about 11 years old in the 99' & everything feeling "futuristic". I am glad you pointed this out and I am not the only one. One of my fondest memories was sitting in my older cousin's Saturn (I mean even the car Brand name was about space/celestial object"). It first felt futuristic with the 3rd passenger suiciude door. Once sitting in there we were on our way to a friends house to play some games on the futuristic Sega Dreamcast, a video game console that had screens on the memory card that could go into your controller and actually went in the internet! On the way there I remember looking at the stars while listening to Sandstorm from Darude on a metallic looking CD and thinking about how we were in the "future".
Edit: Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast really contributed to that future feeling with its aesthetics and being the first online console RPG.
This was beautiful. Sublime. 10/10 can relate.
It’s still good but also underwhelming as hell
I remember being 11 in 91
Damn, you had to go and mention the Dreamcast and Phantasy Star Online! Nostalgia so strong, it makes my heart hurt.
I like that you mentioned the Saturn. One of my favorite cars growing up was the Mazda RX-8, and I ended up getting one for my first car, which I still have today. It has the same kind of doors as the Saturn, plus the stereo controls are arranged in the shape of a CD, with the volume knob in the center. The backs of the front seats are that smooth, silver-colored plastic. The speedometer is digital with those cool, italicized "alarm clock" style numbers. The tail lights have clear lenses. Lots of awesome early 2000's aesthetic; it's fun that I still get to experience just a little bit of that every day.
That black, white and Dark blue aesthetic is how I view the entire year of 2002, always have.
ME TOOO!!!! I have color palettes in my mind per year
2000: It is indeed very Gray/Silver/Aqua
2001: To me is mostly Red and Orange
2002: Is Blue
2003: Is very Green
YEEEES, And with Linken Park playing in the background too
Estonia-Style.
Don't forget the blue ballz energy drink
@@arturocas90 Silver & aqua peaked from 1999 - 2003. It started with "Blue" from Eiffel 65.
'91 millennial here, thank you SO much for this video! As a person who deeply misses that decade, seeing your video popping out on my algorithm literally made my day... Damn, I almost forgot some of the trends from that era!
Personally speaking, what I love and miss from those years is the general positive feeling about the future, the growth of technology in such a short timespan - I still remember how shocked I was when the ps2 was announced back in the days- and the fashion. Oh, and the music! Nowadays, I listen to all those from the past more than modern ones... Damn how I wish I could go back to those days!
I'm right there with you brother. I'd give anything to go back and stay there, forever gazing at that bright future, even though in retrospect it turned out to be fake
92' millennial here the late 90s early 2000s are so nostalgic to me
I still remember the news showing the Japanese release of the PS2 in 2000 and was surprised the news was talking about video games in a non-negative way, back then.
@@HollowRick 93' millennial here and agreed 100%
'91 millennial here. Also seeing this in my recommended was a blast from the past! I wanna bring the aesthetic back, it's much better than what we have now... Maybe so, maybe not. Such simpler times.
Millennials! Let's travel back together!
Personal web pages. I miss those. MySpace pretty much killed them. Before everyone migrated over to social media accounts, we each designed our own personal pages on sites like GeoCities, using clipart, backgrounds, and crude animations that seemed cutting edge at the time. We started with basic html and gradually worked in Java applets and links to Flash animations. There were blogging sites that were partially pre-formatted, but there was still a lot of creative flexibility. And then, once we were starting to learn programming language, suddenly everyone was instead setting up MySpace pages that had very limited customizability and a growing build-up of ad banners. Facebook and Twitter then took over, with cleaner looks, but the creativity was gone, and we were down to posting paragraphs of text and uploading pictures, rather than designing whole experiences.
Funny hearing this perspective I've heard a lot of Myspace fans talking about how much customization was possible relative to modern Social Media
Even until Orkut there was some customisation available. Orkut died & that aspect died with it entirely.
BlackPlanet, MiGentente, AsianAvenue also allowed you to customize pages. Tagged still allows you to do this - but the site is way too grimy for my tastes. We were literally flirting with 6-figure salaries and didn't even know it at the time.
It was actually an intentional social engineering move to make social media "bland" and non-personalized. "Face Book" was intended from the beginning to create a database of all citizens and their personal lives, especially social networks, and collect pictures of them, for use with facial recognition technology. This would eventually become extremely valuable data for anyone wielding it, whether to profit by it's sale, or to use the data themselves for massive manipulation power. It took away people's online personality, and turned everyone into simply a list of information and photos with a common interface. This allows the digital medium of the socialization to manage and control those participating, by altering how we express ourselves and communicate online. The more you realize how controlled the internet actually is, the scarier this all seems. Almost every digital technology to evolve has been required to leave security backdoors for government (or unscrupulous actors) to secretly access. Every bit of data that's ever existed online is stored on private servers that secret networks of "government" have access to. When you look into Facebook and Zuckerberg's history and network, along with it's evolution, many have reason to believe that it was a ClA operation from the beginning.
I miss livejournal and how everyone had a blog with in depth updates. I definitely felt closer to online friends in the 2000s vs following someone cool on insta.
I think the Y2K aesthetic was more defined by the years BEFORE 2000 than after. It started in the mid-90s with the internet boom and anticipation of the new millenium, which was viewed as a futuristic event. As someone else said, it all died in 2001.
Correct me if im wrong , the futuristic approach was lot more popular in Europe and asia Than on America, so i don't think 9/11 was the only thing which was giving fuel to the end of this mentioned trend? ive been following to learn about this y2k topic for a while cuz im born in mid 2k
@@thesrndude6588 Yes it was more popular outside the US, but 9/11 was a global event that quickly ensnared Europe and had much of the world fearing a kind of world war. As an American the most anger I experienced at America right after 9/11 was in Europe, especially after 2003
Yep, as a Gen X kid, it was early 90’s techno clubs where I saw it all begin in a way. Afterwards, bands like Prodigy, NiN, and others who were part of that techno genre, became mainstream.
It's wrong! Y2K aesthetic was popular all the way to 2005, then most things became Frutiger Aero
Thank you! always loved this aesthetic so much growing up but could never find any divisive videos covering it in depth also I've been kind of on a treasure hunt for as much media from this era that I could find so this is perfect timing
Thanks for watching! I’m glad you liked it
S A M E
decisive
Same here, been going on a nostalgic trip seeking out the simpler times as a pacifier for the discomfort that the current times are giving us right now.
Divisive?
This is the official y2k aesthetic case study of RUclips. The one and only one you’ll need to learn y2k. Awesome work brother. I enjoyed this vid with my breakfast
Long breakfast you had huh.
ha, i'm eating b-fast too
@@CockatooDude breakfast platters go hard
Totally agree. fantastic presentation. He could create an amazing documentary on this subject.
No it isn't.
I miss the electronics that were transparent so you could observe the components inside. We had a telephone like that, I loved that phone!
I was born in 84 and started high school in 99.
Art, music, tech, and movies made the world seem promising. Although everyday life was honestly bland in comparison, art and culture made the world look so big.
Before the internet, your life was your neighborhood and town and you'd hear stories from Other Places, but the internet makes you realize how BIG the world actually is.
I remember fondly this aesthetic (not even realizing it was an aesthetic at the time), making collages from my teen magazines, Teen People and YM, desperate for Delia's "futuristic teen clothes", wearing rave meets space clothing.
We were very aware of the 70s as an inspiration for our fashion. We wanted bell bottoms, lava lamps, black lights, funky music, funky clothes, small shirts that had yin and yang and "groovy" on them, sci fi, platforms, athleisure, etc...
Speaking of the 70s... Love, sex, and rock n roll. I also want to point out that the era was very sexual. And since our parents were teens and young adults in the 70s, most (I'm saying most, not all) of our parents weren't so scandalized by sex in our collective culture. And some of this to a detrimental effect - it was completely normal for girls to be sexualized and to date much older boys/men. I look back at many things back then and it's a big YIKES. (I still have some of my Yikes branded notebooks, by the way.)
Rushing home to watch TRL because there wasn't a collective place to watch music videos and interviews with your favorite musicians besides MTV.
The era seemed exciting and full of potential. I wish this era as the "love letter to the future" could have kept pace with us into our actual future. 😕 Great video but makes me sad to see how little our actual future represents the hope we had.
I hate being born in 2002
Also born in 84.
You nailed it.
This description was much more accurate than the video's.
We wanted star trek and got robocop
@@TheShadowPerson. I was born in 2000, at just the right time to be alive but barely remember any of it. Everything after that has been ugly and soul-less.
yeah people forget how fkn boring the 90's were compared to now ...
That description of y2k being so alien and otherworldly is ironic. I was born 1998 so I didn't get to experience it as the adult that I am now but I have faint memories of it and a kind of fascination and almost strange nostalgia for it. It's like remembering being in another reality which feels more distant when you look around in the one you are living in. I remember having a flip phone with those aero graphics, like o2 with their blue water theme. I remember silver being perceived as a cool colour. The 90's movies like X-Men and Men in Black. It was definitely a part of my early child-hood and I saw it as a form of escape from reality.
Same with me 98, never really like the y2k aesthetic but it’s always been nostalgic for me and now suddenly it’s interesting to me as an adult years later
Especially seeing promos on vhs tapes of 90s movies. Some tapes had previews before the movie started and they were of shows that aired around 1996 to 2003.
men in black was a 90s movie bruh
Honestly imo the “decades” blend a bit between their transitions to the ‘beginnings’and their ‘ends’. So fair play. That said, X Men also came out in the year 2000, not that that’s the point.
The point to is I think a lot of the generation that was born in this era are experiencing what GenX to millennials and onward experienced by having this wave of nostalgia for pop culture / fashion of the time and era of their birth some 20 years and some change later. Great observation!
@@ENigma-um8zw Nostalgia is the lowest form of culture
This video is WONDERFUL! Definitely sending it to everyone who calls mcbling "y2k" (Honestly it's SO frustrating to me when I search for y2k things and I see stuff from 2006-2008 lol). I turned 16 in 2000 so this era was absolutely magical for me. To be in one's teens during this "art movement" (and it really did feel like that) was so much fun. The Sega Dreamcast and its marketing was a huge part of it for me personally, I also got into asian pop music around that time and oh my GOSH did Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan really know how to do the y2k aesthetic! I was very much saturated with the look & feel of this era while it was happening. And that's not counting the emergence of the television channel ZDTV (later to become TechTV, and later G4TechTV after a merger, and then just G4..... boy that's a story) which was focused on technology at the time... I just left it on all day, basically! XD
Thank you so much for the nostalgia trip, honestly the memories this video brought back are innumerable!
Thanks so much for educating the people and talking about your experience! I have a question would mean girls be considered y2k or Mcbling?
"The Asian Design Federation"
So jealous... 😳😳😳
@@jasminevirgil4975 Mean Girls was during the early McBling days for sure. Still a bit of crossover with y2k of course though
Thankssss !
I'm 33 now and still stuck in this era. It's a huge part of my inspiration and aesthetic. 2002 was top teir in everything.
I love how thorough this video is. I feel like you really touched upon every point of the y2k era. I was a kid during the 2000s so I didn’t grasp the importance of the internet at the time, I guess I was too busy playing pinball on windows. Great video essay!
The movie 'The Island' released in 2005 captures this aesthetic so well. I also think the y2k aesthetic is heavily linked to the 'frutiger aero' style of the mid to late 2000s, with the latter having more natural, organic visuals like grassy landscapes and wildlife (think windows xp wallpaper). Even as someone born in 2004, the y2k style and 2000s movies/music is very fascinating to me :)
They don't quite fit together copaceticly; Frutiger Aero feels like a comprehensive evolution of this look, but they diverge way too much to be completely compatible.
I was also born in 04. Like both aesthetics as I grew up for both but they don't compare all that much imho, Y2K doesn't care that much about organic stuff such as plants or water, it has a more synthetic vibe to it and also uses way more "man made" colors than FA. They share some traits though.
The movie that made me have a crush on Scarlett Johansson 😍
The Island was one of the first movies I ever watched high and it blew my fucking mind. When I watched years later I was like, "this is alright".
That movie came out in 05!? Omg it feels like yesterday
I was born in 1989. It was such a interesting time to grow up. I'm glad I got to experience it. Before things changed to how they are nowadays. There was a sense of Retro-Futurism mixed with vintage vibes. McDonald's had Nintendo 64's, Blockbuster/Hollywood video, you could preview music before buying it. Magazines would come with demo discs for new games coming soon.
There's so many reasons why the 90's ruled. Because it had a bit of a 80's vibe and attitude. Such awesome Aesthetics all over in such diverse ways. It was like "okay kids, go have fun, you might get hurt so watch out, but, have fun 👍🏻." Nowadays, it's like they completely got rid of any "fun, goof off, odd stuff." It's like everything is all modernized, minimalism, contemporary, bland, repetitive and if it doesn't make money 💰 then it's gotta go.. so all those old houses, old shops, drive in movie theaters, roller rinks, obstacle courses, bouncy houses, indoor fun zones with r/c speed boats, mini golf ⛳ with loops, bumper cars, ball pits, just weird random stuff. Random weird local shops, stores that you could play halo 1 on big TVs and link up LAN parties. Towns still had older run down sorta house's, duplexes, just unique "lower income living options ya know?") where I live they have literally gotten rid of all of that and just put in cookie cutter type places to live and everything costs ridiculous per month and everything is so bland and stale. I just miss the creativity, the quirkiness that's all. Being born in 1989 I was lucky to get to see the tail end of these things that aren't around anymore and I can't help but wonder what it must be like for kids that never got to experience the stuff the 90s kids got to experience. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. Getting to be a teen when wild Boyz, jackass, CKY was a big deal 🤘🏻 a kid when Steve Erwin was literally my idol! Growing up on magic school bus, bill Nye the science guy, captain planet, X-Men the animated series, all the animated series tv shows. All the classic animated movies. Like it was the best time to be a kid and a teenager. It had such a Vibe.
Well put bro.. born in 1988 I grew up with everything you did aswell, with an the extra twist of my first 8 years growing up in a third world country. Fuck man they literally took and killed Halloween lol glad we got to enjoy it while it lasted.
@@HolyClownFuckarus Thanks man. I'm glad u got to experience things that really were such awesome things of a specific era. Imagine being born in the 2010's? It's weird how much things have changed since our childhood.. idk I wish a lot of things could have stayed around and continued into our current era. Society has become very bland it seems compared to how creative the 90s were.. *by the sounds of how u described living in a different country (I sometimes think that I'd rather live in a different country then how our current situation is in the US. It's crazy how unbalanced the cost of living is here. I really enjoy hiking and being connected to our surroundings so I definitely have thoughts of living somewhere else that is more interconnected to the environment than we are here in America. America seems like u need to have $ to even exist & there is no option if u don't have the amount of $ that life requires of u per month. It's exhausting honestly. I just wish we could have different ways we could conduct our society.)
‘89 baby too & everything you said was on point!
@@benmcreynolds8581 very true, it’s almost like we shifted timelines and now whatever the fuck “it” is, they are trying to numb, erase our past memories with such blatant and excesses multi and social media bs. Most words get drown out by the bigger voice with more sheep falling in order. It’s sad but my memories bring a smile to my face
@@HolyClownFuckarus my memories bring a smile to my face too. (I just had a memory flash back of me as a kid going to safety town growing up. Then once I became I teenager I actually signed up to be a Safety town instructor and had a blast working with kids and other teens my age. I wouldn't change that for anything in the world) and that's just one aspect of growing up as a 90s kid
I can vouch for cds being magical to hold back in the 2000s. As a kid every time I’d pop in the matrix into our dvd player I’d marvel at how something as cool as movies and games could fit inside such a weird lil circle.
Was a kid in the....Mid-late 2000s??? I loved the holographic look in them too, seeing all those colours in rainbow form made was very cool, and almost felt magica. It was also mine, not a borrowing, not a rental, but mine.
idc if i sound like a typical 90s kid reminiscing about the past, but the 90s and early 2000s were truly a magical time; great music, great movies, great fashion, great tech progression, great aesthetics.
early 2000's had amazing aesthetics.
i was born in '93, so being a relatively young kid when this was happening, i just thought of it as completely normal. like, this is how all pop artists and their album covers and music videos are just supposed to look! i also had one of those clear inflatable chairs, but, mine had a green stem intersecting the whole seat part, and a purple flower on top. i haven't seen any others like that haha
Everyone talks about the chairs and couches, but you touched on something; other inflatable knick-knacks were a thing too!
Seeing this all laid out like this is such a mind fuck. I really wonder where aesthetics are going now ? I am a jewelry designer and it feels like my work is so different from other contemporary jewelry atm. Your point about the decentralized world of aesthetic islands we all live on is extremely interesting! I would love to see a global aesthetic based around the human body as its primary driving force. Human centric, like how Frank Herberts Dune is a world completely dominated by the human scale. In doing so humanity grows to a new height. I would also kill to hear your ideas about the potential consequences of AI taking such a dominant role in future design.
Incredible video!!!!
you're cool
Prob going simple to save money and so dumb people and kids can remember the brand more if it’s fun looking
For us millennials born before 1996 this was normal to us by the time it came out. I LOVED it !
Most sources say Millennial years span from 1981 - 1996.
@@Galidorquest True. The beginning year of the Millennials are exact. But the last year of it is very debatable. Some say 1995, others say 1996/1997. Either way, I would also say after 1996 was Gen z. And 1996 and before are definitely millennials. Although I do feel that people born between 1994 and 1996 are usually Zillenials (Millennials+Zoomers) born in two generations instead of one. I'm glad my siblings and I were born in the 1990s and grw up in the late 90s and early 2000s. Such a time that even people from 2003 and onward weren't able to experience back in the day.
@@SuperFlashDriveri was born 1995 and i'm 90% zoomer
@@cat-wi4un Yeah that's the thing, for those born between 1994 and 1996, we tend to be in the middle between millennial and zoomer generations. So that's why I call myself a "Zillennial" because of it.
Sega Dreamcast vibe, design, and everything felt so connected to the Era for me. Brings a lot of nostalgia for that time.
Dreamcast is the the first thing I think of when I think Y2K ❤
plus Sonic Adventures Jet Set Radio
@@ciaran3629Agree
Tony Hawk Pro Skater always felt very Y2K to me, even at the time they were out.
Thank you for being one of the many talking heads on the internet who actually knows what Y2K is. Love this video!
I love the futuristic chrome aesthetic, maybe the world actually became super advanced and stylish in an alternate universe.
we got stuck in the wrong timeline
The other one is a futuristic utopia by now🥲
I was born in 1975, and this look has aged really well to me, at least compared to the first couple of decades in my life. I grew up with wood paneling on everything, chrome would have been a dream.
I'm an '01 baby so I missed this, but my early childhood playing PS2, watching certain movies, and seeing some of it in things like science textbooks makes me incredibly nostalgic for a time I never really experienced. Love that Gen Z is kind of remixing it cause it needed a comeback!
Always smacked me as weird that the start of the 1990s almost to around exactly 1995 was pretty much just a suped-up version of the 1980s and then like a couple years late BLAM! We got something aesthetically completely different. Even weirder to think that a lot of carry-overs from the 1980s kind of just existed alongside Y2K era stuff…
@@NowhereBeats'britpop' as a 90s music scene actually took off in mid 1992 and saw its peak around 1994-96, to end by 1997. During 1988-early '92 there were other music scenes in the UK like Madchester and shoegaze. They're definitely of British origin, but I wouldn't call all of them 'britpop' that loosely. Just saying
This was so good, love hearing about this side of y2k. What reminds me most of y2k is the movie zenon and the bubble bags. Caught up on your Dune video but had to watch the movie first loved that one too. ❤
Thank you! Oh yeah, bubble bagsss! Bonus y2k points if they're in METALLIC finish! I loved them as a kid
It's funny when I was growing up as a kid, I hated this style. It felt cheap to me, specially when electronics were painted in silver colors. But this video and pretty much all of Pan Pizza's channel has made me find an appreciation for the era and the aesthetics of it. Perhaps it's because of nostalgia and well, just growing up and having different tastes now. Then again, when we look back at eras we tend to look at the best of the time.
shoutout to Rebeltaxi
I know it’s not the same as it was used to be regarding y2k movement and aeathetics, but It’s making a come back in some forms and as a 90’s-2000’s kid I’m here for it. I’m strongly nostalgic about this. 😅❤
I loved the iMac's marketing.
"sorry, no beige."
**shows a top down photo of five orange imacs in a semicircular pattern as if its a citris fruit**
"yum."
**every available imac color**
"no artificial colors"
I feel like 90's marketing was so funny and somewhat aggressive. At times horny.....
@@royareyzabal823 bruhhh…
@@royareyzabal823 Horny in what way? Any prominent examples?
As a '92 Millennial I ofc remember this. But it was very obvious when it came to a screeching halt. The late 90s early 2000s optimistic future died for many American Millennials when we had to deal with Columbine in 99, 9/11 in 01 and Columbia in 03. After those 3 events you basically felt like school safety, country safety, and science safety were not 100% secure. That said, it was a cool time before it ended. You did feel like you lived in the future. But EVEN at the time there was a level of performative future(aside from the CD's, Macs and DVD's. Those were actual improvements). The CGI was new but it wasn't destroying the 90s CGI yet(like Jurassic Park). The designs were future-y with the smooth curved shapes and the clear or chromed out appliances and toys. But we could tell a lot of it was cosmetic. There were no video phones, electric cars, drones or touchscreens or anything. It was a lot of 90s type of stuff given a retro-future(60s and 70s) overhaul.
Anyway, good video and I agree with your thoughts at the end. Y2K was the last "total" aesthetic and we'll never see anything like that again because of the internet. Now it's microtrends that come and go. I don't think we'll have any more hardline 20/30yr nostalgia revamps either because once the 2010's are nostalgic there won't be anymore total aesthetics to copy. The world/Internet/social media really opened up everything in that decade onward.
Once the '10s are nostalgic, how it will look like?
@@JSSMVCJR2.1 Like OP said, the ‘10’s was dominated by micro trends mainly through social media, it made way for a lot of goofy dance trends, viral catchphrases, and the short form content we have currently. It’ll be hard to really pick apart decade defining characteristics of the ‘10’s. Hipster subculture might come back since it did gain some steam throughout the first half of last decade.
@@JSSMVCJR2.1 they already are lol
i think the statement about 2010s being the last nostalgia could be spoken wrong. it’s not even definable as an era cause we’re still in it. however being born in 99 i miss 2008-2012. vibes like juno and superbad lmaoo
The last nostalgia would be 2015-2019, before COVID19 happened. F**k I can't even remember what popular songs during 2020-2021
I was so drawn in and mesmerised by your narrating and storytelling it felt like a vaporwave album, not like listening to it, but being inside of it. What was an hour felt like a singular point in time. I spiritually want more. What about its direct progeny: "Frutiger Aero"?
I second this
I was born in 93, so I didn't get to be a teen during y2k. I still remember it grabbing my eye a lot when I was little.
The silvery and space like and shiny and colorful and smooth. Really did something for my brain and was really fascinating to me. I was really drawn to games like ddr and music that was featured in it and the UI design style of those games.
Actually, you did experience 2000s as a teenager, you were 10 in 2003!
It was a celebratory time for sure. All kinds of wild futurism fueled by pounding beats, XTC and Red Bull. It was a fun time to be out partying but it also felt it was like a thing that ended as soon as it started. All those transparent plastics looked great when new but tended to look pretty dingy after just a bit of real world use. The cool underground Techno look got mainstream so fast that those metallic sweatpants you wore at that ultra cool D&B party made you look like a complete Bombfunk wannabe a few weeks later (speaking from experience here).
The paranoia and jingoism after 9/11 shut down the party for good. It's heartbreaking to me that we never really rekindled that spark again but instead seem to have devolved to a world dominated by a culture of division, dogma and pessimism. I secretly hope that the advent of AI will somehow make us lust for the future again but early signs are pointing more towards it leading us to a potential dystopia. But at least it has caused a change that goes much deeper then anything we have seen since the adoption of the Internet. I can only imagine the freaky fashion that will go along this revolution.😮
Very nice video ! As a person who grew up in the Y2K era, I can't really describe what it is, but when something looks and feels Y2K, I just know.
ok normally i don't leave comments on videos but i feel like i HAVE to say something. you are a very talented writer and speaker, and I can feel how passionate you are about this topic. i can also tell how well-versed and educated you are in the field of art and design, and how excited you are to share your knowledge with all of us here on youtube. this was such a pleasure to watch (and made me very nostalgic). this deserves so much more love and attention especially since i can tell how much time and effort you put into making it. i hope your channel gets the attention it deserves soon!! i'd love to see more content like this and i look forward to what you'll upload next :)
🥲 thank you x
yes yes yes
very based
wait y did i comment it here HELPP
I'm probably biased from being born in 1994, but this is one of the best videos I've seen in a long, long time. Seriously well done!
Such a great video and break down of that silvery futuristic Y2K aesthetic and super grateful you acknowledged Black artists as pioneers in this within pop culture.
Yesss, many times our community doesn’t get credit for pioneering this aesthetic.
@@LexiNc8284 they didn't pionner the aesthetic they make cool and memorable Y2k aesthetic.
This is one of the few aesthetic trends I was consciously aware of and possibly the only one I actually appreciated at the time. I was actually saddened that there would be a time in the near future that this style would no longer be in fashion. It's also jarring to remember how optimistic we could be back then compared to now, at least before 9/11.
Absolutely amazing! My mind was blown watching this. Suddenly, so many things from my childhood made much more sense. Thank you so much for this!
Lived it. Was in my mid twenties during y2k. Interesting to hear the perceptions of someone who came along afterwards.
Unbelievably thorough analysis on this aesthetic. Please do 70s/disco/ colorful psychedelic aesthetic
I could sum up with LSD and mushrooms lol
That would be amazing!
As someone who grew up and became an adult in this very era you absolutely nailed it. From the inflection point of the launch of the iMac to recognising the black artist and hype Williams influence of the era to just the grand overview that we may never have such a total blanketed art era again. Great insight all over and thoroughly enjoyed. I wish you many white wines in the future. You have earned them!
THANK YOU for this video. I think after a couple of years of 2000s fashion being ‘in’, people are finally starting to learn what *genuine* Y2K is - I’ve certainly developed a new appreciation for it. There’s evidence to suggest elements of the fashion are making a comeback in 2023 but obviously we’re never going to have the full movement again. Which makes me sad as I was a young child and never really got to experience it 😩
Amazing video. This is why I find it so tragic when kids think anything that looks 2000s is “Y2K”. Also hearing you describe this all made me think of “the bean” in Chicago Millennium park, it makes so much sense
Your content is wildly underappreciated, damn you have a talent!
I missed Y2K aesthetics mostly because it wasn't much of a thing in my country back in the days, but I find it very captivating. This documentary is pure gold!
this is a great video. I actually watched it twice. Please make something like this for the aesthetic that came right after Y2K. All the optimism and perceived future wealth of the 90s evaporated once the wars started again after 911 and clothing and style became more dark. This also reflected on a lot of the music that came right after Y2K.
27 year old here. I know exactly what you're talking about and I'm glad you brought it up. The dark aesthetic that came after 9/11 was mainly the Emo/Scene subculture. It surfaced in the Mid 00's. The Mid 00's was when you started seeing sideswept emo-hair, retro themes, skull designs and death-related themes in streetwear. Forgotten clothing brands from the Mid 00's like Ed Hardy and Affliction are a prime example. A *LOT* of people used to wear those clothing brands, especially the hood-types in Chicago.
Album cover design also started getting flat & minimalistic in the Mid 00's. Early Blink 182 and Corinne Bailey Rae are some examples. Logo design started getting flat & minimalistic in 2006 too. It started with the Doritos logo in January 2006. Flat design & minimalism was partly inspired by the rise of Vectors, Flash animation and the Go-Animate program. The BP Invigorate commercials from 2007 & 2008 was the start of minimalism & flat design in corporate media.
@@Galidorquest it always felt to me like the pendulum had gone one way and then it had to swing hard to the opposite end. go from Y2K aesthetic to the emo/scene of the mid 2000s was crazy
@@Galidorquest Yeah, a video of everything you explain here would be prefect
@@jermainerobinson7741 Thanks. I've always wanted to do a post-Y2K Aesthetic Analysis. I also forgot to mention that the Mid 00's began the rise of first-person shooting-games like the Call of Duty series, Halo, Assassin's Creed, etc... All of which were released after 9/11.
The surge in shooting-games was most likely an effect of the war in the Middle East. And maybe it was also a subtle recruitment tool for the military since these games mainly appealed to kids.
You should be so proud of yourself. I would be if I had made this video. I have always been interested in this topic, ever since I was able to conceptualize the shifting of/contrast between aesthetics, past to the present. Thank you for this interesting video that helps me reflect on my childhood and adolescence. I could cry just from feeling immersed in that time period watching this.
I love micro trends. Why force yourself into the same aesthetic everyone elae follows if it doesn't do it for you or for most people you know xD Micro trends are more personal, they last as long as you want and they represent your inner self better since you get to choose it. And Y2K is a great trend, you can still enjoy it if you want ^_^
Yep, one of the aesthetics that stand out as particularly nostalgic and memorable to me. Was born '94 myself. It was everywhere, from music vids to movies, technology, interior and more
It’s nice to see someone being just as (if not more) obsessed with this stuff as I am, haha.
This video covered so much of what I’ve also been thinking & researching, and it offered a lot of new insights as well. Very impressed with your level of research and analysis! The way socio-economic factors influence pop culture and design is one of my biggest interests, especially when it comes to the ‘90s and ‘00s-as well as the’ 60s and ‘70s (since we can see so many elements from these earlier decades referenced or mirrored in the later decades, as you mentioned). I love that both space age and flower power aesthetics had their own reimagined versions in the millennium era. That “groovy”, kid-oriented version of Y2K is embedded into all my childhood memories, along with Groovival / Curly Girly kind of aesthetics.
I’m actually currently working on a sort of research project/write-up about the films that came out in the year 1995-which in my opinion was one of the most interesting years in cinema history, mainly because it was such a watershed year for technology. I’m not sure yet if I’m gonna publish it as a letterboxd list or a blog or something, but when I do I’ll definitely link to this video!
It was such a fresh look! I loved the PS1 and demo discs and Dreamcast and Mechanical Animals. I loved all the white and silver and coloured translucent plastics!
Ultimate, thorough, complete, deep analysis of the Aesthetics that began with the new century. The way it was contextualized gives you a great understanding of the overall situation of those times. This was definitely a documentary my man, a great work of art, everything mixes perfectly 🤯
Big support from Italy! 🇮🇹
The 80s/90s and Y2K aesthetic holds a special place in my heart. This video gave me so much nostalgia. Now I want to get a lava lamp and some Oakley Eye Jackets. Subscribed.
Also, I still love CDs and DVDs. Streaming is convenient and all, but physical media just hits different.
Very tied into Afro Futurism. The first I remember seeing of this aesthetic movement was spearheaded by Hype Williams in videos he directed for various electro-RnB stars like Timbaland, 702, Missy Elliott, TLC, Mel B and Busta Rhymes.
Now I understand why the Ultraviolet movie had such a weird look haha. I had never realized everything that was intrinsic to this aesthetic. I always remembered it as "what movies were like when I was little" without realizing how specific it is. Suddenly I can think of a large number of media that follow this aesthetic.
What an amazing, detail-oriented and informative video!
Is there a period where the Y2K and the Frutiger Aero aesthetics overlap? There are elements from Y2K, like the transparent and colorful tech, that give me strong frutiger aero vibes.
I was born 1991, and was in elementary school during this period of time. I remember very well the aesthetic of this era. The music, the fashion, everything, I thought it was so cool! When I got to middle school (2002-2005), it all eventually seemed to disappear, and I was genuinely confused what had happened. As a kid, I thought it was there to stay! I literally had a mini depression for a small chunk of time in middle school, not to mention middle school was just plain rough, period. But now that I am 31, I understand styles and trends come and go, but I will ALWAYS remember this era very fondly.
Please do more analyses about more eras, talk about how the 70`s were a big crazy coloufull parties full of drugs and the 80s were the times to "sober up" with the gymnastics aesthetics and the sleek "bussiness" trend fashion with shoulder pads that went well into the 90's until Y2K put an end to all of that
I was already a young adult back then (thank god for that) so i lived thru it and it was exactly like that (and kinda still is, atleast in my personal sphere, cause i'm a retro collector, both itemwise and in movies/music). You did an excellent job there. I was like this bro did a massive job finding the exact mood of the Y2K, almost on a spiritual level, lol. And i barely could't stop reading the comments. This is why i luv YT and keep watching it for hours daily. I hate the white boring soulless mainstream minimalism today but it doesn't mean everything is sh-t tho. I still see cool things here and there. We got pretty aesthetic malls here in stockholm, some with a pretty close to 90's/Y2K vibe or an evolution of it (shapes/colors and all that) and music is still very good if you're into retro style synth stuff (literally thousands of great artists). And now we got both AI and VR and they develop even faster than the internet bubble did. VR games are pretty mind blowing, that will create som future nostalgia for sure, i mean i'm already nostalgic about it, lol. My whole apartment is a shrine dedicated to the good old days, to some part even the eras before me (1970's and forward) but mostly 80's and 90's and all the funky colorful tech from the Y2K era. I can't get enough of it. I live in a retro bubble but at least it feels kinda like using a time machine, lol
Excellent video. I was at university studying a Bachelor of Multimedia Design at this stage. You are spot on with the idea of everything feeling utopian and futuristic. I loved the whole graphic design aesthetic and in particular crafting my own animated hud graphics for my university projects was essential. I loved my silver PVC nightclubbing jacket and the ruby red lenses in my Oakley style sunglasses. I still remember around 2002, the moment i saw the whole movement crash came when I was looking through a department store catalogue and saw the new season dresses for the ladies- They were in loose, flowing cottons, with generous, layered and angled cuts and all in organic oranges and brown floral prints. My mind had a little meltdown as I thought to myself - “this doesn’t fit”. All of a sudden the glorious futurism we were rocketing towards came crashing down, and like the Apollo moon program, I knew we were never going back.
This is an absolute love letter to one of the most interesting zeitgeists in my lifetime, one I remember only as a very young kid. Looking back the look and style was so innocent and humbling when looking at the corporatised, minimalist looks of today.
It was all about being seen and being heard, nowadays it's corrupted by so much censorship and sanitisation that the optimism of the time seems so naïve.
God I miss the turn of the millenium so much the 2000s feels like the last decade that had a real look and feel associated with it
Amazing Episode I've watched ever, I didn't get bored during along the 1 hour, I'm really seeing a huge potential in Y2K and how it could replicated and implemented in modern day, such as Front End Web Dev as I'm a Developer and Designer, Wish me luck
I love this video wow! I was born in 1992 in a country that was pretty poor back then. Because of this, most of the Y2K Millennium style things I saw were on movies, music videos and tv. Around me people didn't have gadgets or computers at home, it felt truly amazing to see these things, like they came from the future. And then Barbie brought these things closer to me. While the tech and the style wasn't widespread throughout the country, my mom lived in another country during my early childhood and she would send me Barbie dolls for birthdays and christmas, and many of them came with accesories from that resembled the era. I had one with an inflatable chair, some had metallic outfits, funky accesories. It was great! Some came with accesories for me, like translucent acrylic bracelets and hair clips. As I grew up, I have continued with my obsession with translucency and translucent colored plastic/acrylic things, still one of my favorite aesthetics!!
What I find so fascinating about the zeitgeist of the time, is that it was as if society in its entirety had wholeheartedly embraced aspirations of a utopia in which one transits through public/private architectural marvels by day and at night one sips cosmos in glossy lounges. As though collectively we'd abandoned all aspirations exceeding - today will be like yesterday, just better.
Living through this time is fun as a teen and young adult because like you said that design got relegated to kid stuff after a while so it stuff with us longer. People are pining for this time again not just because of the nostalgia but like you pointed out it was positive hopeful time well no hope is hard to find. The illusion of connectivity. Now we are too too connected lol, the illusion being realized is not as cool as we thought it would be unfortunately. If i had a time machine i would go back to this time for sure, it was really fun and innovative and personalized as a teen so im sure it was super fun as a 20/30 year old. Thank you for very informative, fun and nostalgic video! The clear color tech for sure is my favorite! And my walkman even though it always skipped lol. I had an orange white grey one and the neon orange blobby w used to run my fingers over it because it was so cool.
I'm currently running a starfinder campaign set in a late 90's american city. This was very insightful even for someone like me who was there at the time. A truly magical time of optimism.
I have a love for early to mid 90s music and fashion. Recently got into y2k, and generally 00s. I use y2k and the 90s as visuals in my art and style. Im 10 minutes into the video and i enjoy it very much :D
It still feels so recent that it's on odd feeling to finally be able to look back on as a distinct aesthetic. I can still remember at the time people comparing things to the 70's/80's and saying "everything's so normal, we don't have distinct decades anymore" in the same way they do now. I guess it's all a matter of time.
To be honest, my attachment to this aesthetic is purely nostalgic. I don't actually like it, but it feels comfy.
Gen Z/Zillenials call it cybercore a lot on social media (y2k styles, 00's styles). As someone who's grown up w' cd's + listened futuristic rnb, cybercore will always have a place in my heart. Fashion goes thru cycles, that's why we're seeing a resurgence of these styles. Even emo/scene-kid styles have had a resurrection w' Gen Z, I like the way they mix the emo stuff w' anime + cyber elements.
Early 2000s era was supposed to take off and be something special for much longer.
But instead we got the war timeline continuation.
Very, very good summary of Y2K.
It's gone but fondly remembered, as, like about any other design era, the good things stay in our imagination, and the mediocre and derivative fade.
It was in between 2K that Liminal spaces become the focus, in a minimalist design carried to the extreme. Light wood, white and gray large tiles, satin or polish ed aluminium became the language of design.
Alessi, Bang & Olufsen, Bose, Volkswagen/Audi, with their sleek design and monotone / pure material aesthetic become iconic. B&O flat CD player, Audi TT, presented in ultramodern glass timber and aluminium showroom containers, Apple i-Lamp computers, Lux Ottica wireframe sunglasses, brought imagination to new environment. It was not just wasteful use of plastic: Corian was invented and tile producers in Italy refined the "natural stone looking Gress" able to reproduce nature without the huge impact of extrection caves and material waste. Aluminium become estetically viable and good looking, supplanting chrome steel, much heavier, more expensive and wasteful to create, the use of maple and Bamboo instead of expensive and slow growing Chestnut and oak, the use of laminate wood and recicled one instead of solid one without dangerous finishing from the seventies, Paper and cardboard employed in new ways, building in Japanese tradition.
I'd say this was a good time compared to what we live today, where aesthetic and quality still mattered compared to the cheap, post industrialization products we get from China today.
"Patterns Recognition" by William Gibson is an must read to understand this era.
Since you did such a great job with this video, it would be nice to also see an aesthetic analysis of color palettes from various time periods and how that informed the overall vibe/mood of the eras how you did in this one!
The Y2K label is a Western one, because it sorta persists here in Asia and wasn't limited to the 90s-00s.. Its still a common aesthetic in Asian music videos, and outside of that in modern Asian interior design etc, albeit in a very-minimalist form, perhaps because there's a very strong association and familiarity with technology and gadgetry in day-to-day life here, and a sense of continued optimism in the technological advancement and integration. Whereas Westerners now fear technology, it's always been welcomed and innovated with open arms here. J-pop, K-pop, C-pop and their associated fashion were leading that aesthetic in this part of the world since the early 90s, along with architectural styles and models of clean-cut urban development. And now Southeast Asian countries, which are rapidly going through the same type of economic and technological boom that defined the first wave of Tiger economies, are carrying that trend on. If you look at 'Kiềng 3 Chân' by Hoàng Thùy Linh of Vietnam, 'Kilometro' by Sarah Geronimo of the Philippines, or 'Tokyo Girl' by Perfume of Japan (all three are popular artists), you'll see the "Y2K" or more "cutting-edge futuristic tech aesthetic" is very much alive here in Asia. Perhaps the West copied the aesthetic from here?
I believe the Y2K aesthetic was started by Japanese electronic companies, possibly from Sony Minidisc player.
@@faustinuskaryadi6610 Yeah, I grew up on a lot of Japanese entertainment and I even noticed the Y2K aesthetic in the mid 1990s. To me, Japanese PS1 commercials in 1994 looked no different than in 2000. Also, All Japan (AJPW) wrestling when you watched it (not VHS rips) had higher quality picture compared to the other wrestling shows at the time. One time, I was watching Dr. Death vs. Misawa in HD (a match from 1994), and my little brother (not knowing the wrestlers) thought it was 2004 by the way the camera work/video quality was, as well as the ring and the wrestler's attire. It didn't age like the cartoonier WWF and WCW in the mid 1990s.
@albalog2449 For me 1996 Japanese Itazura na kiss Live Action TV drama don't age, it's still watchable by today standard while 2000 Taiwanese Meteor Garden TV series looks dated by today standard.
Japanese was really advance in 1990s and early 2000s.
Ayumi Hamasaki MV, You (released in 1998), don't look dated either.
@@faustinuskaryadi6610 yeah Japan and Asian countries seemed to contribute to cyber Y2K but the overall fashion aesthetic was already a thing in the US, mainly the non technological aesthetic
yeah Asian countries seemed to contribute to cyber Y2K but the other fashion aesthetics that were Y2K were already a thing in the US, the non technological aesthetic, started by black designers and artists, who actually also pioneered and contributed to the cyber Y2K (Afro futurism) here.