My Love/Hate Relationship With The New Millenium

VH1’s “I Love the New Millennium” premiered this week. Much like its fabulously entertaining predecessors mocking the 80’s and 90’s (sorry, the 70’s one predates me), it doesn’t fail to deliver laughs and amusing sound bites. Although I think I Love the New Millennium might be jumping the gun time-wise (they are discussing things that happened, like, last week!), I adore the short-attention-span-theater for the distraction-inclined:

Exploring all the pop cultural guilty pleasures, memorable products and people, disgraces and debuts, fads and fashions, scandals and sensations.

With clever and over-animated comedians dissecting and reflecting on everything from metrosexuals to Dance Dance Revolution to Sudoku, you can’t help but giggle at the off the wall and politically incorrect observations. In honor of the show, I decided to take a yummy walk down pop-culture memory lane from 2000-2004. Here are some of my personal favorite memories from the new millennium…and the ones I despise.

New Millennium Favs:

Napster- The inspiring illegal innovation that started it all. Thank you, Shawn Fanning, for changing the musical and digital landscape.

Uggs- I don’t care how hideous they are and how far-gone the trend is, these babies keep my tootsies toasty on the way to class or, if I’m feeling really lazy, at the bar.

Crazy astronaut lady- The mildly-disturbed NASA astronaut reaffirmed my faith in equal opportunity insanity by proving that not just us common folk, but also those blessed with insanely high IQ’s, can go absolutely bonkers and lose their marbles.

Tivo & DVR- Oh, how sweet it is.

Zoolander- This brilliant satirical Ben Stiller flick poked fun at male models, the fashion industry, and most importantly, gave us ‘Blue Steel’.

iPod- What exactly did we do before these magical pocket-sized miracles? Does anyone remember the Discman? I rest my case.

Harry Potter- I’ve never read the books nor seen the movies, but anything that gets kids excited about reading is kick-ass.

New Millennium Not-So-Favs:

Fauxhawk- Along with popped collars and trucker hats. Please…no more.

The rise of Bill O’Reilly- Radically right wing, this guy always reminds me of someone’s delusional, deranged grandpa, spurting and mumbling nonsensical absurdities and ranting about the downfall of society.

Janet’s Boob Pop- The drama surrounding the infamous areola accident was overblown and nauseating. Seriously, can everyone please get over nipple spillage incidents? (Editor’s Note: We have much larger word issues to worry about…like the rise in vagina flashing, lately!) Fifty percent of the world population has a set of female breasts; let’s not be fourth graders about this.

“Wazzzup” commercial- This commercial was amusing for about five seconds — before every frat boy, soccer mom and middle-aged business man drove it straight into the ground.

Big Mouth Billy Bass, The Singing Fish- Much like a hungover person awakes to question and regret their behavior the previous evening, I can only hope that the millions of people who bought this highly annoying novelty product soon came to their senses and tossed that fish back to sea (sorry, couldn’t resist).

“I’m Rick James, bitch”- Though I was a huge fan of the Dave Chappelle show (before he lost his mind and moved to Africa), this overused Chappelle-ism became a part of our daily lexicon and managed to become one of those uber-annoying catch phrases.

Clay Aiken & William Hung- I don’t get it. I’ve never gotten it. And I want it to go away.