‘What’s something from early 2000s Britain you miss more than you expected to?’ – 21 people who are super nostalgic for the noughties

Our collective memory of the early 2000s is clouded by 9/11 and all that came after that world-changing event. However, it turns out that there were a lot of good bits about that era too, like early mobiles, Big Brother and the first comeback of Kylie Minogue.

They’ve been chatting about this on the AskUK subreddit after user MountainVacation3905 posed this question:

‘What’s something from early 2000s Britain you miss more than you expected to?

‘Was chatting to a mate about old phones and suddenly got hit with nostalgia for the early 2000s. Curious what random bits of British life from that era you didn’t realise you’d miss until they were gone. Could be tech, TV, high street, school life, anything.’

Lots of people had fond recollections of the time, like these…

1.

‘The music and the night life, everyone just met up without phones and got drunk and just enjoyed life without a care in the world what was happening anywhere else. Could go out with £20 and come home with £10.’
–Pale_Slide_3463

2.

‘£1 Bacardi Breezers – took forever to get drunk but it was so cheap.’
–Soundjam8800

3.

‘The gay scene was much better back then and I came out in ’98 and the pubs and clubs were so much fun back then and was the only way of meeting other gay blokes.’
–Alternative-Bee2962

4.

‘Watching the same TV shows at the same time as everyone else, then talking about it at work the next day.’
–AnythingKey

5.

‘Definitely had a deeper appreciation for music and films before streaming was a thing. You had to sit there and make the most of an album because you’d just paid a bit of money for it and you couldn’t just dismiss it and move on to the next thing.’
–Bounty_drillah

6.

‘I would say overall things just felt more optimistic. There were of course problems in the world but it generally felt like things were getting better and we had a bright future ahead. Now the future looks more bleak.’
–iMac_Hunt

7.

‘Food in general, everything is just poor quality and expensive. All the old brands trading on brand rather than products. I miss Cadbury chocolate so much. I miss full fat Sprite. And I miss the quality of the veg we had while we were in the EU.

‘I’m fact everything is just more expensive and worse quality apart from internet connections. I also miss owning stuff and having to pay monthly for every. Little. Thing.’
–111111222222

8.

‘Vaguely competent mainstream political parties.

Ricicles.’
–ResplendentBear

9.

‘I miss the beginning of reality TV, when it was about normal people, not influencers plucked from social media. Shows like Bad Lads Army, Ladette to Lady, Ten Years Younger, Fat Families, etc.’
–idontlikemondays321

10.

‘Freedom of movement.’
–fake_cheese

11.

‘Something I both do and don’t miss: the lesser ease of access to content (films, music, books). If you told me back then that today I would have unlimited access at the push of a button to most recorded popular music in history, you’d have blown my mind.

‘But at the same time, is any of it special anymore? Is there that feeling when you finally find that sought-after record in a random shop, get your hands on the next book in the series, or put your new DVD into the player knowing you can now watch it whenever you want?

‘It’s also ruined Christmas and birthdays because there’s nothing to ask for anymore, we already have it all.’
–OpenCantaloupe4790

12.

‘Decent shopping malls with many big brand shops like Topshop, Monsoon, Debenhams, HMV, River Island, M&S etc rather than unbranded ‘closing down sale’ units full of tat.

Also Topics. And Refreshers before they went disgusting.’
–verykindzebra