Why Y2K? What’s so Fascinating About the Decade we Were Born in?

Gen Z is obsessed with the early 2000s. The music, the fashion, the TV shows; we can’t get enough. Take a walk around Leeds Hyde Park and the outfits will transport you straight back to 2003. Nearly all of my friends and my favourite shows (Gilmore Girls, Greys Anatomy, One Tree Hill etc) started in the 2000s. Noughties pop-punk sounds have been revived by artists like Olivia Rodrigo, and Songs like Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield and Murder on the Dancefloor by Sophie Ellis Baxtor, have trended all summer long.

So, what is it about a time before we even came into being that draws us to it so much?

I think that a lot of Gen Z feel cheated out of a time before social media and smartphones. Although most of us can remember this time from when we were kids, many of the biggest social media platforms blew up in the early 2010s, thus catapulting our existence online.

Since then, echoes of the words “life was so much better before iPhones!” ring through our ears, as we enviously devour videos of gigs without one single phone in the air, everyone present in the same moment. I even get pangs of nostalgia when I see a digital camera photo from the 2000s, despite not knowing a single person in it. 

How can we have such an intense longing for a time that existed before our consciousness?

French philosopher Jacques Derrida developed the idea of ‘Hauntology’, suggesting that we as a society are haunted by the “ghosts” of lost futures, our nostalgia for the past actually a yearning for a time that will never be again. I think this feeling is heightened by the space-age, technology inspired aesthetic that defined the early 2000s, anticipating a shiny exciting future that never quite landed.

Granted, this might be slightly too philosophical a reason to explain why the girlies are enjoying a low-rise jeans and big sunglasses moment. However, I do think there’s something truly special about the era right before technology changed human connection and interaction forever.

The resurgence of noughties tech like flip phones and digital cameras is a good example of this pushback against the modern. Whether its just for the aesthetic or not, the simplicity of the enjoyment that this tech brings hasn’t gone unnoticed. Maybe we actually don’t actually want one device that can do everything for us, and instead crave a romanticised “uncomplicated” time before our own? Or maybe those pictures just look better on your Instagram.

So, all of this begs the question: did the trend cycle just make its way around once again? Or does Gen Z’s connection to the 2000s run far deeper?

Words by: Anna Lawrence-Wasserberg