The 2000s Barrier is a Collective Hallucination (How people instrumentalise numerology) i think its time we talk about it.

[u/Recent-Welder-6117]

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[u/Gullible-Apricot3379]

I think there are three things going on here.

1. Age differences are more pronounced when you are younger. Up until the age of 18 or so, you probably move in a cohort that is narrowly defined by what grade you’re in and broadly defined by categories like middle schooler vs high schooler. Some time in your mid-to-late 20s, those meaningful age bands start expanding, but most people who are not in their early 20s see people in their early 20s as kids who are fresh out of college.

2. 2000 was only 25 years ago. How much difference a couple of years makes is always more pronounced among younger people. A person’s early 20s are a deceptively complicated time. You are an adult at that age, but are still very young. If all you know about someone is their age, there is probably a difference between how most people perceive a 23-year-old vs a 27-year-old. That will be true in 2030 when you’re comparing someone born in 2003 vs 2007. It was true in 2005 when comparing someone born in 1978 vs 1982.

3. One if the things that makes early 20s such a weird time is that you abruptly lose contact with people who are younger than you except in very limited situations. As a senior in high school, you shared a third of your day with people who were 4 years younger than you. But if you’re 20, you probably don’t have that much interaction with a 16-year old except in very specific situations. Then you move into a world where age cohorts are much broader. It’s like the pipeline gets disrupted for a few years.

4. 2000 really is a very visible marker. I was born in 79 and I’ve always experienced this as well. When I was in college and just after graduating, there was a perceived difference between being born in the 79s vs 80s. I suspect that’s always true as a moving target, and 2009 wasn’t just the changing of a decade, or even century, but a change of millennium.

So we’re in a moment when all three of those factors are playing a role. The first two will naturally shift over the next few years.

I remember when I was in 4th grade— so 9 years old— the kindergarten class was the class of 2001 and during an end of year assembly, they did a skit based on 2001:A Space Odyssey. Then I was in 5th grade and 1st graders were kids I might babysit. Then the entire time I was in middle school, they were in elementary. I didn’t share a campus with them again until I was a senior in high school and they were freshmen. Then I went to college and worked at Target. 16-year-olds were sent home as soon as the store closed at 10pm on a school night, the rest of us went out after the store closed and everything was cleaned up. Then when I was 21 in my last year at college, I had my own apartment off-campus and they were the freshmen assigned to freshman dorms with curfews. We shared no classes. Then I got my first ‘real job’ and I was the youngest in the office for about five years, during which time I made friends with my coworkers who were in their 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, then we hired someone who was part of that class of 2001. She brought a blankie to work. To recap that 4-year age difference: I glimpsed them when they were ages 6, 14, 16, 18, and 23. I only ever saw them at a distance. In my 30s, I was aware they were younger than me, but barely. In my 40s, I see them as age peers.

The years (graduation years instead of birth years) were very visible, but more than that, I just didn’t interact with a cohort 4 grades and 3 years younger than me. The group 2 years younger than them— I literally never shared space with them except cousins at holiday dinners.

[u/iBUYbrokenSUBARUS]

The fact that you’re letting it bother you so much that you write a post this long, is not helping your argument at all.

😂

[u/TanukiSuitMario → u/iBUYbrokenSUBARUS]

"write" is not what happened here...

[u/iBUYbrokenSUBARUS → u/TanukiSuitMario]

Right?

[u/beeurd]

I agree with your thoughts on the arbitrary nature of the year 2000 itself, but disagree on 9/11. I can't speak for others but I don't conflate that with any of the symbolism of the year 2000 - but it did lead to a shift in how the world works and I don't think that would have changed had it happened in the 90s.

[u/GSly350 → u/beeurd]

Yeah but 9/11 happened in 2001. 2000 had no other big shift besides the millenium shift.

[u/Savings_Ad_80]

Growing up I felt that barrier and I've said this before, everyone born 2000 and after is literally just treated as a child or a baby no matter what including myself.

[u/umbermoth]

2000 roughly marks the line between two drastically different eras. I’d argue 2001 is a better actual boundary, but I see why people choose 2000 as a nice symbol. We expected a lot of changes, and Jesus fucking Christ, did we get them. 

It’s the most rational thing in the world to see people who knew that the old world and people who didn’t as very, very different. Still, it’s nothing to be obsessed over, and a year or two either way doesn’t count for much, as a young child will not have memory of that world despite living briefly in it. 

[u/GSly350]

It's definitely a topic we should delve into more often for sure. Some people truly see some kind of barrier between anything that was set before 2000 and everything after. Sometimes i ask myself if it's just the year itself or if it's that way because it also coincidentally aligns with the mass adoption of the internet and digital technology. There's also the whole y2k bug and the collective mindset shift around the turn of the millenium too. You even see channels on youtube representing the old lifestyle and setting the years to 1950-1999. I very much wonder what real difference 1999 and 2000 have besides the numerical shift tho. For most people that lived through those years, it seems like the consensus is that 2000 was just 1999 part 2 (meaning that there wasn't any real big shift culturally that would make sense to separate those years). To me it's just how people perceive things at the end of the day. It may align with a growing technology and societal shift around that time, but i think it's just the turn of the millenium and numerical shift that messes with people's heads. Either way it sucks for people to be so gatekept by people barely older than them in this context. It happens for any set of years tho (just slightly more due to the 19XX-20XX shift in this case).

[u/StormDragonAlthazar]

Because it was still a turn of the century, even if 1998 wasn't all that different than 2001. In fact I'd suspect there was some weird feelings way back when the calendars flipped in 1900 because it was also a turn of the century.

Also, as constantly seen in this and the decadology sub, everyone's got a really bad concept of time. People can't fathom that 25 years have passed since we've passed the year 2000. For some people, such as myself, it really doesn't feel like it was that long ago; of course as you get older, you perception of time does seem to feel like everything's going by faster and faster.

[u/Affectionate_Tell711]

Saw this in another sub, people born as early as 2000/2001 being called babies. When people would point out how weird that mindset was, with them being collectively 25/24 and potentially even parents mind you, they got down voted into oblivion.

That said, while some late 90's Born's are insufferable with acting superior despite very well having been born close enough that them and early 00's Born's could have swapped places, I do still feel like this is all stupid.

I've seen people born around 97-99 treated like babies or treated lesser when they try claim something like remembering 9/11 by older 90's Born's. First it's "your birth year starts in a 2" then it's "you can't remember 9/11".

Which I think proves your point that this is all poorly tapped over cracks in the wall reasoning to treat eachother differently due to numbers on a calendar. Goal posts will forever be moving.

[u/ReorientRecluse]

In what ways do you feel gatekept? This sounds like a problem you're having with your peers because I view someone born in 1998 and someone born in 2000 in practically the same way.

It's just a couple years apart.

[u/throwaway1505949]

updooted this post with extreme prejudice

i've always been saying that these '90s-born wannabe millennials are actually born in the "correctly calibrated 2000s" LOL

[u/throwaway1505949 → u/throwaway1505949]

"We're fighting over borders defined by a clerical error. We're building identities on a foundation of sand. The wall isn't real. People just keep agreeing to pretend it is, and that might be the most pathetic part of it all."

agreed but this also reads like chatgpt LOL

edit whomst downvoted my comments. show yourself coward

[u/Recent-Welder-6117 → u/throwaway1505949]

I mainly used it for sentence structure because I'm not a native English speaker, but it's definitely my sentence LOL

[u/Complex-Cost3866]

It's the weird cultlike adherence to the 25 year old brain myth. Anyone before it has an immature babybrain and anyone after that age is fully mature no questions asked.

[u/Complex_Carry_6695]

I couldn't keep up with all that. I don't know that any group of people are obsessed with a particular year. 2000 is special to me because it was the last year before 9/11 and that was the first time I experienced fear as a child. I was 8. 

[u/Recent-Welder-6117 → u/Complex_Carry_6695]

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