10 Things That Were Relevant in 1999

1999 was an exciting time for mankind. It marked the end of a millennium, Will Smith had a music career and we all happily dreamed of a bright future with hover cars and robots that will fetch us beer.

For those of you who were too young to enjoy this period, imagine a time where you didn't check into social media every five minutes and with the limited variety of online connectivity you actually engaged in meaningful conversations. Not just a status update “I’m hungry, what kind of sandwich should I eat?”

I created a list of things that were relevant back in 1999 to not only make some of you feel like a senior citizen but to allow us to reflect on how awesome we had it.

1. Y2K Apocalypse

I’ll start with this because it was a major ‘problem’ that was sensationalized by the media and scared the sanity out of some people. The Y2K or Millennium bug was the idea that when the calendar hits the year 2000, computers worldwide will systematically crash causing all out chaos. It stemmed from many computers using a numerical format that didn't account for after 1999.

Somehow it went from companies having an IT headache to a full blown apocalypse where people began hording non-perishable foods in a bunker to prepare for the return of Christ.

I’m not going to lie at the time I got caught up in the hype too, not as much as some people but to the point that on New Year’s Eve when the countdown started I began to look for escape routes in case shit just started to explode.Of course when it hit midnight nothing happened, I was kind of disappointed. I wasn't let down for the fact that we all didn't die but Y2K got hyped up so much and we didn't even get a flicker in the lights.

2. The Matrix Released

Yes that movie that introduced us to “bullet time” effects and protagonists with really bad fashion sense. Watching it now it hasn't aged well but back then when Neo danced around those oncoming bullets we all deep down wanted to be shot at so we can try it.

The movie however did do some harm. It spawned a generation of people who found trench coats and sunglasses to be an appropriate fashion choice to wear in public. The problem is, unless you’re Lawrence Fishburne or Keanu Reeves wearing that outfit just makes you look like a registered sex offender.

Ever since The Matrix was brought to the silver screen everything from movies, TV and video games have borrowed from it. The franchise later on released two more movies which had a better sequel but the third completely ruined the trilogy.

3. Playing Snake on Old Nokia Phones

Before there was Flappy Bird, Angry Birds or a slew of mindless games that pollute the app store waiting to take our money we spent our time on the toilet trying to beat our own score in Snake. Remember that addictive game you played on those indestructible phones? I mean come on you can throw old Nokias at a moving bus, pick it up and start playing Snake.

 The game itself was far from a milestone in gaming, it was simply a bunch of lit up pixels that formed a line that swallowed up other lit pixels to make it grow. The major appeal was the fact that we can play games on our mobile phones, cool!

Something has to be said for the cell phones as well. Getting polyphonic ringtones that sounded almost like your favorite song but falls short because it really sounds like a broken ice cream truck, or taking your phone to Chinese knock off stores and modding your antenna so it lights up in different colors. How about having to press three times to hit one letter on your phone till it auto suggests a completely wrong word?

While the handsets we have now make these phones look like fossils, at least they were able to handle a 4 foot drop to the floor. Cell phones now are built to be handled in a fully padded room with little to no gravity.

4. Bluetooth 1.0

Yes folks, the year 1999 was the first year we were introduced to douche bag jewelry. Bluetooth in its early stage was far from functional. Many users reported having trouble syncing with their handsets along with crap sound quality. That didn’t stop people from donning the hunk of plastic in their ear that made sure they looked schizophrenic when accepting calls in public places.  

People in general always want the newest innovative technology that makes them even lazier, so I can see why Bluetooth technology took off. Not to mention it had a sleek, futuristic look which at the time we were all on the verge of entering into the year 2000 so in our minds this was the start to a world of holograms and interplanetary exploration.

5. The Floppy Disc

The floppy disc is a chilling reminder of how insignificant our technology was compared to now. The most common disc had a total storage capacity of 1.44 megabytes. To put this into perspective, a single song today ranges from 3MB to 10MB so that means a floppy disc can’t even store one full length song.

To those who were too young in the late 90’s, this might be a shocker considering companies now have USB flash drives that hold up to a terabyte of data which is about 1048576 megabytes. Granted we only used those to store pictures, word documents and the occasional MS-Dos game but even then it was a burden to try and store a big file over 3 different discs.

6. Dreamcast R.I.P

The video game industry was taken by storm in 1999 with the release of Sega’s Dreamcast, one of my personal favorite video game systems of all time. This was forward thinking at its finest where the controller had a virtual screen that acted as a memory card while providing in-game information.

The games were beyond weird with titles including the not-so smash hit “Seamen” where you care for a fish with a photo realistic human face. The game turned out to be a glorified Tamagochi. It was games like this that made the Dreamcast eventually fail all together but for those who stuck with Sega to the very end we got to enjoy classics like Jet Set Radio, Power Stone and Sonic Adventure.

If we skip to today you can see consoles adopting some things from the Dreamcast like the new Wii-U which uses controllers with a tablet built in to provide a different way to play your games. I think Dreamcast fell short because it was way ahead of its time.

7. Teen Movies 

1999 brought us an abundance of teen movies which we all loved. Teen movies were an attempt to glamorize the struggles of an average middle class teenager trying to claim their first sexual experience. Many of these movies were predictable, full of cliches and riddled with bad acting but we enjoyed the tongue and cheek sexual humor they provided.

You may remember a few of these movies growing up, I personally watch some to this day for fun just to see how lame we were. A few teen movies released in 1999 were:

• Cruel Intentions
• American Pie
• 10 Things I Hate About You
• Never Been Kissed
• Varsity Blues
• Drive Me Crazy
• She’s All That

This was a time where it was cool to be Freddy Prinze Jr. Men fantasized about Jennifer Love Hewitt and girls wanted to be Melissa Joan Hart. These actors really showed us how not to be in a real life situations because it most likely got you a bullied.

8. The Discman

The giant “portable” music device that was next to impossible to store in your jeans. What the discman lacked in headphone size it made up in physical width. How we were able to carry these musical dinner plates around with us is still a mystery to me but we made it work because music on the go was essential to avoiding awkward encounters on the bus.

Sony was leading the market with these CD players. It was innovative at the time because we were able to skip and restart tracks instantly unlike the predecessor Walkman cassette players which I won’t even get started on because that's a whole other ball game. 

Apparently as time went on the devices became smaller while the headphones became bigger. Now were left holding an inch wide iPod shuffle listening to gigabytes of music with our massive recording studio quality Beats by Dre headphones. 

9. Rap and Rock United

When most people think of late 90's music the first thing that comes to mind is the whole boy band mess. Now it was a very big thing back then but what dominated the charts was this rap/rock movement where artists rapped hardcore lyrics to a rock riffs. Artists like Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Korn and Kid Rock were at the top of the charts.

In true hip hop fashion they even took a word and just misspelled it for the sake of being edgy. The band Korn even had a backwards "R" in their name because apparently being illiterate was hardcore. It's not that I hate Korn, I loved the video with the slow motion bullet but I can't get into a band who's named after a farm plant.

10. Living in a Pokemon World

Back when there was only 150 Pokemon and it was physically possible to memorize all of them. Those days are long gone, now there are 649. God speed children.

Pokemon cards were being traded like currency in the schools. You could give your friend a Bulbasaur to pay off a slurpee debt. The card game brought out the worst in people though, I remember seeing friendships severed over Pokemon. Your chance of getting a girlfriend depended on how strong your deck was.

The T.V. show was typical seizure inducing Japanese anime but the theme song makes you want to be a better person in life. If you Youtube the theme song I guarantee it will be stuck in your head for the rest of the day.

As we reach the end of the list by now you must be missing your childhood. Back then we were excited to see what happens in the future. Ever since the "Willenium" we've been blessed with iPads, Androids, robots, cars that self drive, and the ability to regrow body parts. Pretty good if I may say so myself but still no hover cars.