23 things that have surprisingly only existed since 2004

Facebook originally started as a social media platform for college students, but then it took over the world. In retrospect, it’s kind of wild that Hollywood decided to make a movie about it only six years after its creation. 

The 2000s brought along a massive influx of reality television and with that came a show that breathed life into the people who grew up watching The X-Files. 

She put the number 11 on the map with Netflix’s Stranger Things in 2016, but that was when she was still just a wee teen as she was born 12 years earlier.

Before 2004, a rap album had never taken home the big prize at the Grammys. That is until Atlanta’s own Outkast swept the competition with their double-album release, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below.

Today, everyone has a Gmail account, but once upon a time, it was a pretty exclusive thing to have access to. 

Desperate Housewives helped revitalize the primetime drama when it debuted on ABC in the fall of 2004. It’d go on to have countless addicting twists and turns for eight seasons. 

Mountain Dew introduced the world to the drink of choice for many Taco Bell patrons that year.

Up until 2004, Gwen Stefani was the lead singer of No Doubt. That all changed after her debut solo album, Love. Angel. Music. Baby., dropped. 

To say National Treasure has a cult-like following would be an understatement. It wound up being one of the top 10 grossing movies that year and spawned a sequel — ultimately leaving fans wanting even more.

One of the most abysmal trends of the ‘00s was the obsession with being thin. It was so rampant that even the technology was downsized.

Before the Fox Network became the home of a few Seth MacFarlane shows and a series in which famous faces sing wearing costumes that range from cupcakes to eagles, it used to be a proper network with critically acclaimed shows like 2004’s medical drama House.

Massachusetts made history and set a precedent for others when it became the first state in the US to legalize gay marriage. It would take over a decade for it to be legalized nationwide on June 26, 2015.

Today, a movie like Napoleon Dynamite would head straight to streaming — and probably, like, 18 people would see it and love it. Back in the day, it was like lightning in a bottle and earned major bucks at the box office, especially when one considers that it only cost $400,000 to make. All that said, much about that movie entered the pop culture zeitgeist, but nothing quite like those “Vote 4 Pedro” shirts the titular character rocks in the movie.

It’s weird to think that not all major fast-food chains started in the 1950s.

Online gaming wasn’t new in the 2000s, with the likes of The Sims having made a name for itself by the time World of Warcraft dropped. However, WOW definitely changed the game and influenced not only that realm but also the world of fantasy in other entertainment aspects and the cosplay community.

There are countless YouTube channels dedicated to breaking down plots, dissecting fan theories, and giving their predictions on where movies and TV shows are heading. While the internet went abuzz before Lost with things like The X-Files and The Blair Witch Project, Lost helped push that level of fan dedication over the edge thanks to the insanity that unraveled throughout six must-see seasons.

Andy Dodd and Adam Watts are names many likely don’t know, but they should. They eventually would go on to work on the soundtracks for Disney Channel mega-hits like Camp Rock and the High School Musical movie series, but before that, they penned “Beautiful Soul,” which was delivered to the world by Jesse McCartney. All these years later, it is still a perfect pop song.

Heathers lit the flame, Clueless ran with the torch, and Mean Girls planted it safely in the ground, cementing itself as the teen movie of the 2000s. From making October 3rd a holiday to having a singular day dedicated to pink every week, it was and will forever be fetch. Sorry, we’re making it happen.

At 10, she found herself as one of the most beloved new families on television on ABC’s Black-ish. For eight seasons, fans watched Marsai Martin play Diane, one of the family’s twins, a menace to those she wasn’t a fan of but a sweetheart to the few she could tolerate. Since the show, Martin has starred alongside Issa Rae in Little and strengthened her voice acting skills in Netflix’s Good Times, The Proud Family, and the PAW Patrol cinematic universe.

Nestled in between the release of GameCube and Nintendo DS Lite came the original Nintendo DS. Two screens on a handheld device? Talk about gamer excitement.

One just never knows how the popularity of a television show can ultimately impact the world.

There are a handful of songs that can instantly perk up people born between 1981 and 1996, and “Yeah” by Usher is one of them.

While Red Bull launched in the late ‘80s, there was a huge boom of energy drinks in the 2000s, with the likes of Monster and Crunk Energy Drink hitting the market in the early years of the new millennium. However, when the drinks just weren’t cutting it, people could take a shot of energy for a five-hour boost thanks to the cleverly named 5-Hour Energy Drinks that hit shelves in 2004.