I never had a MySpace but I did get Facebook when I turned 18. Didn’t get Twitter til like 2015. Back in the day, I used to associate Twitter with politicos, news/media, and old people lol.
I didn’t get my first smartphone til 2012 tbh lol. For the longest, I had a Nextel phone going into the early 2010s and I had that same phone since 2006. Also, I didn’t get my first iPod Nano 5th Generation til Spring Break 2010. It was literally my very first own gadget I had purchased for myself using my own saved up money. It was such a personal proud achievement for me, I still have that Nano to this day and yes it still works lol.
I wasn’t really into Hip Hop like that back then, at least not until 2010. I was always more of an R&B and Neo-Soul head. And yet I’m nostalgic for some of the trends in Hip Hop at the time such as The Dougie, Cat Daddy, The Soulja Boy/Superman, the colorful look of most of the street fashion during that 2008 to 2011 era, some of the most requested producers being JUSTICE LEAGUE, Just Blaze, Lex Luger, T-Minus, etc. and how I used to be excited to hear their beats, Soulja Boy’s epic run, YMCMB’s bubbling movement, Young Jeezy’s motivational ass music, some Snap Rap classics, 106 & Park w/ Rosci and Terrence, Wale becoming a problem, Rozay bringing boss music back into Rap’s formula, etc., etc.
Cartoons were good but started to gradually decline in quality around 2007/2008. For example, Nickelodeon up until 2009 was pretty dope (especially with shows like Drake & Josh, Degrassi, Danny Phantom, SpongeBob, the GOAT Avatar The Last Airbender, Ned’s Declassified, etc.) but by 2005-ish Nick had pretty much lost the legendary urban flavor it adopted from the 90’s. Cartoon Network was doing real good in the 2000’s but started going to shyt around 2009, even worse when the original Toonami was taken off the air back in February 2008. But Adult Swim, especially it’s anime block on Saturdays was GOAT-status. As for Disney Channel, it was a small handful of cartoons I messed with during my teenhood such as American Dragon, The Weekenders, Mickey’s House or Mouse, and Lloyd in Space. S/O to the Jetix channel too
My teenhood saw the stark transition of the GOAT PS2/Xbox/GameCube/GameBoy Advance/SP to the PS3/360/PSP/DS/Wii and that transition was incredibly groundbreaking and revolutionary, especially as we got deeper into these consoles’ life cycles and see how their capabilities developed over time. It was an incredible time to be a gamer. And this was back when micro-transactions was a foreign concept for the most part and would be met with
if you were to say that would ever be the future for video-gaming at the time.
Can’t do that with most kids and teens nowadays, they couldn’t care less if they never play or chill outside during punishment. Gotta hit them with the gadgets now.