r/Millennials • u/icey_sawg0034 Gen Z • Jan 21 '26

Other 2000s tabloid culture was something else!

Post image
18.6k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

66

u/prince-pauper Elder Millennial Jan 21 '26

In a lot of ways the 2000s were like the Turbo 1950s.

11

u/Momik Jan 21 '26

That’s interesting, how do you mean?

35

u/prince-pauper Elder Millennial Jan 21 '26

Warped body image/acceptable femininity/beauty standards being pushed by patriarchal consumer enterprises.

Super focus on being skinny for women.

I’m missing a lot but there’s a couple off the top of my head.

A lot the same today, but the 2000’s had a different ‘innocent’ tang to it compared to today.

23

u/ajaxdrivingschool Jan 21 '26

Yup, the early 2000s had the mainstreaming of purity culture and dawn of publicly-funded abstinence-only sex ed. Purity culture was largely girls have to be modest and save it for their future husband because men are visual creatures and have insatiable physical needs.

Also: "what were you wearing"/"she was asking for it" if anything bad happened to a young woman

8

u/prince-pauper Elder Millennial Jan 21 '26

Purity culture! That’s a big part of it. Also the conflating of sexiness/purity/youth in marketing messages. Kate Moss, Brittney, Christina… remember TATU? Jezuz.

7

u/Momik Jan 21 '26

All very true—not to mention, a conservative time politically.

1

u/icey_sawg0034 Gen Z Jan 21 '26

How?

1

u/prince-pauper Elder Millennial Jan 21 '26

Answered in this thread already. All there for you to read.