Did Pop Culture Peak In The Year 2000? All Signs Point To Yes

When I hear certain songs from the year 2000, I am right back in my pre-teen bedroom lying on the floor looking up at my sky-blue walls (12-year-old me did not know this, but cerulean blue was the Pantone colour of the year in 2000, so your girl was on trend). I'd roll over only to press skip on my CD player to get to Aaliyah’s “Try Again” on the Romeo Must Die soundtrack.

That was the most 2000 sentence, ever.
 
As soon as Timbaland’s soothing voice kicks in with, “without a dope beat to step to, step to, step to,” I am 12 again, singing along while flipping through the pages of my soon-to-be favourite book (Zadie Smith’s White Teeth) and wearing my knockoff Juicy Couture velour tracksuit (from Stitches, of course). OK, that was the most 2000 sentence ever.

The year 2000 wasn’t just instrumental in skyrocketing my boy-band obsession, strengthening my affinity for celebrity gossip through the pages of CosmoGirl (or Seventeen, or Bop, or Teen People, RIP teen mags of my youth), and defining my future music tastes. It was a transformative year in entertainment — we got the first illegal music streaming service in Napster, the origin story of Netflix and Google Images. The year 2000 shifted us into a digital future all those '80s movies predicted — minus the flying cars. The computers around the world didn’t crash as the clock struck midnight on December 31, 1999, but change did come.

The year 2000 also brought us some of the greatest pop culture memories in history — like Jennifer Lopez’s Versace Grammys dress, Brad and Jen's wedding, and the brilliance of Bring It On. Let me transport you back to your childhood bedrooms and take you on a journey through the defining moments and people of 2000 that would go on to shape the industry as we know it today.

Here are the cultural touchstones celebrating their 20th anniversary in 2020 that solidified the year 2000 as one of the most iconic in TV, movies, music and celebrity gossip.