Sometimes it feels like 2008 was yesterday, but then I remember this was literally one year after Britney shaved her head. It was not yesterday. In fact, it was ELEVEN YEARS AGO. Yes, my friends. Eleven whole glorious years (that flew TF by) ago.
In 2008, I was a sophomore (and then junior) in college. I was immature. I had a limited sense of fashion. I thought Lil Wayne was king. I spoke in Facebook bumper stickers. I wore Uggs. To sum it up, things were not pretty. And I’m not even getting into the fact that 87% of the time I was blacked out running around Ithaca, New York like a gazelle in the wild who just so happens to drink a lot of Captain and diet soda (gross). Minus the alcohol and the incessant need to party, 2008 was still a god damn weird time.
Back in the day, my habits were probably very normal for a 19/20 year old female attending college in middle-of-nowhere New York. But now I look back on my lifestyle and cringe. I mean, I ate BAGELS… regularly. Recently, I scrolled through the 2008 part of my newsfeed on Facebook and although I died about 16 times, I found enough material to create this list of things I did in 2008 that I would never do now. Oh, and an important message before you read:
Caution: May cause cringing.
1. We updated our Facebook status multiple times a day with updates on what we were doing, what our mood was, song lyrics, ETC.
WHO LET ME ON FACEBOOK? HONESTLY.
2. We had conversations with people via Facebook walls.
I had more Facebook wall conversations with people than I do with people through text now.
3. We brought digital cameras to parties to take allllll the pics
4. We posted albums to Facebook with a max of 60 pictures usually of one random night out.
Kids today will never understand the struggle of deciding what rap lyrics to use as the title of your next Facebook album.
5. We stalked other Facebook photo albums to find ourselves in the background of someone’s party/bar pics.
Or was this just me?
6. We saw T-Pain in concert.
Or at least I did.
7. We wore and/or sang about BOOTS WITH THA FURRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
8. We had THE MOST ANNOYING RINGTONES ON OUR PHONES BECAUSE APPARENTLY LEAVING ON YOUR PHONE ON VIBRATE WASN’T COOL.
In 2008, I had O.A.R.’s Love and Memories as my ringtone and the chorus honestly still haunts me to this day. When I hear it, I assume the ghosts of my past are calling me and I go into panic mode. Why couldn’t I have just left my phone on vibrate? No one wanted to hear my phone ring. Thank god we established this soon after to get out of the horror movie that was the ringtone era.
9. We dealt with the dilemma of having to figure out if items were shirts or dresses whenever we went shopping.
I hope this ‘trend’ never returns because it gave me a lot of anxiety. Like, was is it a shirt or a dress? I still don’t know. But I do know it looked fucking weird with jeans, yet people wore long tops with jeans anyway. Thank god for leggings.
10. We wore tube top shirts.
Side note: How did I get this tan? Life before a career was goooooood. CAN I GO BACK? Or no. I clearly did not know how to bra shop back then. Fuck.
11. We rocked the color brown.
Yes, the color of poop.
12. We also rocked wide leg jeans.
Just kidding, not everyone rocked wide leg jeans. I certainly did not. Thank god for skinny jeans.
13. We wore belts in the middle of our shirts???????
This did not look even the slightest bit good. Whose idea was this?
14. We ate at chain restaurants over cool restaurants.
Hello Chilis.
15. We still used AIM.
Maybe you didn’t, but I did still use AIM in 2008. Away messages and all. Mostly used to ask people what they were doing tonight. ~LET’S PARTY~
16. We wore tight zip up sweatshirts from Abercrombie and Hollister to parties.
…that were branded with the year 1892. What an interesting cult we were in.
17. We sent video messages to our friends while drunk on each other’s Facebook walls.
Literally it is terrifying to think about all the videos that could be out there of you doing and saying weird shit on the Internet.
18. We took fierce and fab selfies on our computers using Photo Booth.
My obsession with Photo Booth foreshadowed my chronic selfie obsession in my early-mid 20s. The obsession faded when I noticed wrinkles. Help.
19. We threw on these ancient artifacts at parties.
Thank u Kanye.
20. We let out our feelings in the form of Bumper Stickers on Facebook (the OG memes).
I was a bumper stickers connoisseur.
21. We played Jetman, the Facebook game.
I remember having a V high score. I wonder if Facebook sold my scores.
22. We watched the trashy version of The Bachelor about the girl from Myspace, Tila Tequila.
This was MTV before Jersey Shore.
23. We owned flip phones (still).
Or maybe that was just me? I didn’t cross over to Blackberry territory until 2009, so you couldn’t BBM me in 2008. I had that white Samsung music phone that changed colors instead. VINTAGE.
24. We *maybe* knew who Taylor Swift was… AKA that blonde curly haired country singer who had a guitar and was kind of annoying.
I should let you all know that I think the opposite of T Swift now.
25. We could not stop wondering why Kanye West was so… sad.
808s & Heartbreak was SO DEPRESSING. Something I am still doing now that I was doing in 2008? Missing the old Kanye.
