By
Updated 2 months ago,March 4, 2025
Controversial opinion: Millennials are the greatest generation.
We were a hopeful, inclusive generation .
We had fun without caring about being cringe.
Watching The OC together may have been the last time we were really united as a country.
You could walk around without worrying that you were going to be filmed and put on someones TikTok.
Here are a few moments in time where millennials really had it all.
Its a shame Gen Z will never know this life:
1.
Clubbing without iPhones
The golden age of the club was 2008-2012.
Additionally, clubbing used to be much cheaper as establishments werent hyper focused on catering to the wealthy.
VIP sections didnt take up half of the club and almost anyone could get a table.
Drinks were $4-7.
Zoomers will never know this joy.
We also had to catch each episode weekly when it aired or you were out of luck.
And since there were less options for watching TV, everyone tended to watch the same shows.
The Britney Spears/Lindsay Lohan/Paris Hilton triumvirate
The late 2000s was the height of celebrity gossip in America.
She also said that the paparazzi would heckle her about her weight and her parenting.
As much as we also hated the paparazzi at the time, we also consumed everything they captured.
This came in the form of magazines likeUs Weeklyand blogs likeOh No They Didnt!
Everything Britney, Paris and Lindsay did was news.
Every night out, arrest and feud was front page news.
BothLindsayandBritneywrote songs about it.
We wentferalfor our ladies.
There was no melt down that would have ended our devotion to The Trinity.
To this day we can still quoteMean Girlsand dance to Slave 4 U.
Everyone was LGBTQ friendly
In the early 2000s simply being gay was still controversial.
We didnt want to be like our parents, we wanted a better, more enlightened world for everyone.
It was a hopeful subculture that united people through a shared love of dancing, partying and creating memories.
It was a simpler time where we were all adoring fans of culture.
If you werent there when Lana Del Rey releasedBorn to Die, you will simply never understand.
Above all, Indie Sleaze wasfun.
This is the time the acronym YOLO (you only live once) became popular.
When Matthew McConaughey said L-I-V-I-N, he was talking about us.
More thoughtful media
Zoomers have Instagram and TikTok.
Millennials learned to code on LiveJournal and Neopets.
We are not the same.
Yes, these were all very real personal essays presented sincerely for public consumption.
The quality of everything was higher.
It was a better time.
Hope for the future
As the Zoomers say womp womp.
