2000s Aesthetics Were Weird...

Frutiger Aero, Y2K, and several more obscure yet nostalgic aesthetics shaped a lot of the technological design in the 2000s. Having a profound impact on fashion, media and even architecture, in today's video we have a look at some popular and little-known aesthetics you might recognise. Of course, a couple of these get pretty weird.
CONTENT
0:00 Intro
0:28 Frutiger Aero
2:38 Y2K
4:58 Dark Aero
5:30 McBling
6:02 Weirdcore
7:20 My thoughts
7:46 Conclusion

[@ExtraMintyy]

I Tried Making Frutiger Aero! kzbin.info/www/bejne/bF7bdKF4q5KGaqssi=PqeZYwIOBndJBQX0 ⬇Discord discord.gg/9vnVJWssxc

[@AMPProf]

You are pushing something thats cool But.. Where are the Dunkaroos?

[@Phatballzinyoface420]

The movie robots?

[@FindTheFun]

This is honestly the last time people were still optimistic about the future, and it shows through the art.

[@prkrcnnn]

great comment

[@SpartanArmy117]

Yep, you'll get gaslighted by someone saying "nOsTaLigA" but you're 100% on point. This was an era of innovation and creation. I'm not even saying its astetically pleasing, although I personally enjoy it, but just that people were actually trying back then and there was some optimism in the air.

[@klaplays8853]

Yoo

[@towcat]

Between 2001 and 2008, yeah that was the last good time Cars peaked in the 00s The economy was doing well Everything wasn't insanely expensive And pretty much anything built then of any sort of quality will still outlast a lot of stuff built now, but still have modern efficiency

[@screwyourhandle]

Yeah, from a US perspective I think the whole 9/11 and War on Terror thing brought down the vibe, and then the Great Recession just killed it. And then Trump and covid desecrated its corpse

[@Taikina]

imagine being a fucking goldfish and every day you look at your master's back as he sits down to drop a log. and that's your life whole

[@ianbell9041]

Sounds like the makings of a great traumacore post.

[@I_CANSPEAK_IN_CAPS]

I'd get used to it (maybe)

[@jonathanjohnson9611]

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@ItsTheNatShack]

NAW

[@scriptKiddieOG]

😂😂😂😂😂

[@makytondr8607]

“The future we were promised but never got” hits hard. Totally accurate.

[@mummyjohn]

You act like that's not something we've been saying about futuristic art for well over 100 years now.

[@jimmywoo3885]

@@mummyjohn I know. The Metropolis movie's skyline, or William Gibson's "Raygun Gothic" concept in his short story The Gernsback Continuum.

[@user-fx1vh6jw1x]

no, you just grew up. its nostalgia.. thats all..

[@SaturnineXTS]

In many ways the future is pretty amazing, give it 10 more years and you'll see where we get thanks to AI

[@jimmywoo3885]

@@user-fx1vh6jw1x If you were not there then, you have no idea how horrible life is today.

[@celebrityrog]

I call it the Glass/Aqua/Aero era where everything had to be some sort of see through, clear, air like design that had some water like qualities to it, and everything was shiny with it too, like glass. It was just a weird time.

[@EvzenEmanuel]

It was awesome time. Definitely better and more interesting design than today's flat design abomination.

[@amit_patel654]

​@@EvzenEmanuel I hate today's designs. It's purposely so freaking bland and corporate. The McDonald's across the street from me is literally gray now. Wtf happened?

[@melley420]

1:44 OMG i remember these soaps! They had a physical plastic fish inside'em, it looked really cool with the background and the transparent graphics on the front of the bottle.

[@ShadowMudkip123]

I think my parents still have a soap bottle with some floating penguins inside. Not the same exact one but similar aesthetic feeling. I hope they never throw it out, it’s probably been there since I could even conceptualize a bottle

[@SpaceGhostDemon94]

I miss those.

[@melley420]

Me too

[@Miarai]

I have those still in regular use!

[@xdani_thethinkingneko]

Lol my grandparents still have their bottles that look like that in their house. They’ve been refilling them since I was a kid.

[@Myself-yf5do]

Back in the 2000s, we all wondered what the future would hold. Now that the future is here, we all wish we could go back to the 2000s.

[@firstreality3867]

I feel like a lot of these videos ignore what aesthetics were actually shared and created by the average person at the time. I remember the whole Frutiger Aero look was more seen as a generic corporate thing that you associate with electronics companies, kind of like the generic minimal look nowadays. There were a few interesting takes on the aesthetic like what you see in Mirror's Edge or LittleBigPlanet but it was almost strictly made by corporations like Apple or Microsoft. Meanwhile, a lot of younger people were creating things that fell more in line with the Frutiger Metro look, or continuing the Y2K/Cybercore thing with hacker UIs and abstract 3D models. A lot of it had to do with it being simpler to create for forum signatures and wallpapers, so it was all over the place.

[@Julian-tu6em]

THANK YOU, the Frutiger Aero look is akin to corporate memphis.

[@-Patali-]

100%, but in retrospect I miss aero compared to the modern miniamlism "squarecore"

[@juherd1967]

I reckon the "cluttered" advent of aero was meant to showcase the advance of color technology, like "look how many shades of blues and greens we can display." Just speculation tho

[@ExtraMintyy]

@@juherd1967 For sure, with all of the new HD tech.

[@Mr.Marbles]

@@-Patali-and in 20 years we will miss the flat design minimalism and dislike the new stuff the companies cook up then. You always miss what you dont have 😊

[@mtsimlover2]

"i wish it was 2006." that man gets it.

[@johngiles6376]

I know right I miss it.

[@mcgasm]

I remember 2008 wishing it was 2006 😔

[@MissEldira]

There was something special about 2006 wasn't there?

[@johngiles6376]

@@MissEldira Yes, yes there was.

[@NatLeRat]

@@MissEldirabecause it’s when I was born 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

[@candydream16]

I remember in the 2010s everyone was obsessed with the 90s and now everyone moved onto the 2000s. I'm dreading 2040, where everyone will be obsessed with the 2020s... shudder.

[@user-dz4eb5rb3g]

What is there to be obbessed about the 20s? The fashion is just 90s and 00s, corporate art too is from the 2010s, literally nothing to be obsessed about.

[@hamiltonseggsgaming69]

@@user-dz4eb5rb3gDon’t drag the 2010s in the corporate realm, the 2010s are known as the last good decade

[@whywhere1768]

@@hamiltonseggsgaming69lol that’s what people said abt the 2000s 10 years ago

[@rmj8905]

The 2010s were only good up to about 2013. 2014 on I feel has lead us into the lousy world of the 2020s.

[@hamiltonseggsgaming69]

@@whywhere1768 exactly but I don’t think the 2020s will be the same bcuz of covid, wokeness, brainrot, etc

[@haraldlindohf4032]

Feels almost a bit depressing how so much of our current culture is shaped in some form or another by nostalgia.

[@featheryfemme]

Eh, it kinda has been and is always gonna be. It's more like a cycle that evolves with every rotation.

[@kewoshk]

It is most visible in fashion, designs come back constanly in infinitely rehashed ways

[@sarakajira]

I agree. I think in large part this os because Zoomers don't have many defining movements across their generation, and so instead seek to emulate ever more micro asthetics of the past.

[@ryang2573]

Children don't have a lot of responsibilities to manage, they are largely ignorant of the unpleasant aspects of reality, and they generally have a lot of free time to enjoy themselves. Then those children become adults and all three of those things stop. This creates leads to a sense that things were overall better in the past which, in turn, creates a desire to return to that past. That's the emotional root of nostalgia. Furthermore, this is also why nostalgia is relative to what generation one grew up in and why older generations can't relate to the nostalgia of newer generations. For older generations, the things newer generations are nostalgic for are corruptions of their own childhood cultural icons. I think this clip from the Simpsons sums up this phenomena well: kzbin.info/www/bejne/goeTqIeqnq-snbs

[@Ratmilker]

@@ryang2573yeah dude, totally has nothing to do with a failing government, failing economy, and our nonexistent future. Nostalgia is prevalent but children or not shitty times are shitty times. Your grandparents might have nostalgia but they will tell you the 30’s sucked massive dicks. My dad grew up in the 70’s and became an adult in the 80’s and I assure you he has no nostalgia for either. The economy was trash, and everything sucked compared to the 90’s and 2000’s when he flourished. He has just as much nostalgia for this time period as I do not just because I was a kid, but because we could afford to live, and things were cool. Trust me, EVERYONE was let down by that whole “future we were promised and never got” thing

[@Chopperdragon39]

a lot of the weird core images here especially with children's bedrooms or blacked out people fit more the traumacore genre. I think.

[@PeachysMom]

Totally agree. Those are absolutely traumacore.

[@ExtraMintyy]

Fair point, I feel like there is definitely a lot of overlap between the two!

[@illsmackudown]

commentcore much?

[@neon_mineshaft]

"traumacore" 🤓

[@Chopperdragon39]

@@neon_mineshaft someone seems upset

[@saratimbre]

I'm an art historian. The concept of "aesthetics" as gen z uses the word is really interesting to me. It's like the sane thing as how we try to categorize different art movements but somehow claims to be different? The ones you listed even fall in like chronologically with the movements of the beginning of the 20th century. Everything was bright and dreamy about the future, art nouveau 1900-1910ish. Futurism. Look to the future but also want conservative return to a time before the first world War. Up through the end of ww1ish, the dark aero. And then finally the post ww1 absurdity of Dada="weirdcore". It would be really interesting to look at the rest of this trend but I don't know enough about "aesthetics". What's the latest "aesthetic", or the one after weird core chronologically? I wonder if it also lines up.

[@FayeVert]

@saratimbre "aesthetics" seems to mean a more broad zeitgeist-y bunch of trends than an art movement would be. I wouldn't consider dollar store soap dispensers part of an art movement, for example, but if HGTV has a show that does an aquarium-themed bathroom, that's going to start an aesthetic trend.

[@gabriel9116j]

The newest/current aesthetic is corporate Memphis

[@daviematcha]

As someone who was a design student when iOS 7 came out, things like Frutiger Aero, the skeuomorphism of older iOS, and raster asset heavy, splashy skincare ads just seemed increasingly tacky, fake, lazy, and overwhelming. All of those shiny buttons and UI textures were more work to put in a website and didn't scale as the screens we used became higher resolution. Worst of all it, became a dated norm that was done poorly more often than it was pulled off successfully with often stolen and clearly regurgitated assets. It got to the point Flat, minimal graphics were like a nice break from the noise before they became the noise itself. Aero didn't feel like Ecofuturism at the end, it felt like a smarmy corporate lie. Another weird irony this historical lens presents is that modernist fonts like Frutiger's (Frutiger, Univers, and to some extent, Avenir) were seen as a cure to the DaFont driven craziness of the time that was more often associated with these images. I'm glad this stuff can be appreciated now for its best traits, and I'm terrified that nostalgia for 2010s the folksy Mumford and Sons skinny handwritten font tumblr core is only a few years away.

[@Mares149]

Beautifully said

[@ProbablytheRyan]

Never diss frutiger aero

[@MOTO_DOSE]

I remember thinking most of these 2000s blob esthetics were so tacky at the time.... looking at them now makes me nostalgic as hell though.

[@Tar.o]

@@MOTO_DOSE They are still ugly asf

[@xerilaun]

Makes me happy that frutiger aero is getting popular again

[@1cosmicdebris]

Never left in my world!

[@kesamot]

It makes me mad. I hate frutiger areo.

[@appl42]

@@kesamot why?

[@kesamot]

@@appl42 It makes everything look older

[@cherrybloodflavor]

@@kesamotyou have no soul

[@Pabliski577]

In 2000s there was shower core. Then in 2009, League of Legends... can't have both

[@XYZB0RG]

hey, what the everloving, undying FUCK is a shower core? it's a fucking design choice, not a goddamn nuclear reactor engine powering your fucking unit of self hygiene. why don't people just call it what it actually goddamn is, that cool shiny design? fuck!

[@dragonsfire07]

"shower-core" lmfao I love that description of frutiger aero, also I have some memories of playing flash games on (what used to be) my mom's dell inspiron that ran vista. Idk I like 2000s stuff, I still have my sillybandz

[@kristofaxelson5088]

A lot of the examples seem similar to garish late-1980s CG images.

[@sadhu7191]

Same it was a good faze.

[@ThatGuy-bh9qh]

If you didn't have an aquarium screensaver gtfo

[@jasperisdumb4891]

wow... great video... i did always want a toilet like that also... combine it with maybe racing cars or trucks maybe? definitely some money to be made....

[@overlordbrandon]

Nowdays, I want toilet with a pop-able head model of male_07 from garry's mod

[@Dogetheun]

@@overlordbrandonI can’t believe halflife 2 stole from Garry’s mod😤😤😤 I hope nobody takes this seriously

[@snark567]

@@Dogetheun Can't believe Garry's Mod stole from Skibbidi Toilet. 😡

[@overlordbrandon]

@@snark567 I can't believe they make a game and a spinoff from Skibidi Toilet

[@HansWurst-lg1ws]

I used to have one of these toilet seats as a kid ... additionally we had a weird one in the same design but it was a seat out of soft foam wrapped in plastic. They were really warm & comfy to sit on for hours and play GameBoy instead of leaving lol. Apparently they were super annoying to clean so my mum binned them after a couple months or so

[@alexthetiger7806]

I was born in '96, the perfect time to experience all of these aesthetics. I miss the very aquatic designs of the early 2000s. I was super into it then, I had one of those bubble column things with fish in them in my room when I was about 5 or 6. We always had the Softsoap in the bathroom. Very upsetting that they just changed the design of those bottles. I still love these water-y aesthetics and I want the 2020s to be the aquatic decade. I'm glad Frutiger Aero is making a comeback too. Also I played so much NFS Carbon back in '07. I loved that game. Dark Aero was a great theme too.

[@lavenderflowersfall280]

There's something about a small body of water that I can swim around in That's essential to my childhood core

[@anothersettlementneedsyour9628]

I honestly think all this is made up by zoomers now, the reason this was popular at the time was simple - it was first time graphic designers and animators could make things like this easily. It was combination of designers flexing their skills, companies flexing they have skilled designers and software developers flexing their software can do this. I’m not trying to make this less interesting, it’s very challenging art style, it takes skilled artist to pull it off. The fact that many found comfort in it is valid enough.

[@claypotts2334]

We all think you don't know what you are talking about

[@the__man]

@@claypotts2334said the 12 year old who wasnt even alive back then..

[@doctahjonez]

Bro... What?

[@albinoyak2755]

It's literally just that.

[@jedisponge16]

Yeah these aesthetics definitely existed, but I nobody referred to them as any sort of name until I started seeing tiktok slideshows about them

[@Yoghurtmale8]

Fun fact about Y2K. People actually thought that technology would cease to work after new years that year. My dad worked in a department store in the electronics section at the time and was tasked with sticking the Y2K compatible stickers on the electronics. Obviously there was nothing different about these appliances. The company just wanted to make people less worried so they’d buy them.

[@kricku]

Imagine this comment being someone's introduction to the y2k bug

[@BetamaxFlippy]

Most of these things are so nostalgic to me, half of me wants to bathe in it and the other half would rather stay out of it and forget it happened...

[@SnipsOW]

Oh im happy to see a video on this! I adore how these aesthetics are coming back in popularity!

[@ExtraMintyy]

Thank you!

[@SaiyanGamer95]

I'm not sure if this would count, but there was also what I would call the "Motherboard" aesthetic. It was something I saw often, mostly on stuff like game consoles and computers. They were see-through, letting you see the technology underneath. Those were really cool!

[@ExtraMintyy]

Awesome, I remember owning some Xbox controllers like that, it was such a cool design

[@cattysplat]

The launch Game Boy Color was see through purple, along with GBC only game cartridges.

[@ScreenSage_YT]

That's geeks more like a part of Y2k than it's own thing.

[@DiscoTimelordASD]

I had a see through game boy😁

[@Ballissle]

I found it very tacky but at the same time i appreciate it. I just didn't like all the clear translucent hard plastic material.

[@Ace_of_Horns]

There was alot of silver and white in the 2000s. Fridges, Televisions, cameras, video game consoles, dvd players, clothing, shoes, boom boxes, mp3 players, CD players, cell phones, etc. Most technology nowadays though is basically black. Even the things that are still silver, aren't the same kind of silver of the early 2000s :P

[@cattysplat]

2010s was all shiny black. Got scratches all over everything. 2015 moved to matt black.

[@Galidorquest]

Theoretically, I think the transition from silver to black is a reflection of current events. Silver or light gray represents the hype we had for a promising new Century, and black represents post-9/11, war, recession and dark times.

[@Ace_of_Horns]

@@Galidorquest hmm interesting take

[@c.eb.1216]

​@@cattysplat ~late 90's my family got a small matte black TV. Most electronics like our VCR were either matte black or beige.

[@animeloveer97]

looking at my crt tv your so right, its because the silver is more of a white silver vs just plain silver.

[@Mentalbox52]

My mom had a frutiger aero bathroom when I was a kid. It was very short lived and I miss it a lot. The curtain was blue and each hook had it's own fish, the bathroom was white but we had light green and coral rugs/seat covers we would swap between, there was a dolphin snow globe with a coral base that you could wind up and it would play a tune and the toothbrush holder and soap dispenser both had coral bases. I'm sure there was more but I was so young and this was so long ago for me. Maybe mid 2000's? We still have some of the things like the soap dispenser, toothbrush holder, and the dolphin globe which is now slightly cloudy, has a bubble at the top, and has a jammed wind up key (I don't even remember what song it played TmT), but that's about it.

[@AL1_917]

Awesome video, man! These aesthetics feel like home ...

[@ExtraMintyy]

Glad you enjoyed! Thanks!

[@XXPYR0XX]

that clear hand soap with the fish on it was allways the best.

[@possibleproblem479]

i may have been too young to truly understand the culture, but i had older siblings growing up that were super into all of the trends and various styles back then. i remember most of my sisters being very into the mcbling style. another factor that sort of pairs with this childhood impression of the 2000s is the fact that we lived in a very small town in the middle of a valley, but our house being fully surrounded by farmland. i remember walking to the school at night in this town with my sisters fully dressed in the most emo/mcbling outfits ever, the bright yellow light coming from the street lamps greatly exaggerated by the astigmatism i have, passing by house after house until we reached the school zone where you could look out at the vaguely lit farmland that stretched out miles into the base of a mountain you couldn't see because of the darkness; the mix of feelings i have for this era being influenced by living in a family full of 5-6 siblings that embraced its culture, not fully understanding it which adds to the mystery, but it fading away before i could even experience it as a kid their age due to them moving out and the family collapsing because of divorce soon after, completely changing the dynamic where i remember a more frutiger aero overtone to life taking over. sometimes movies from back then that are hard to find nowadays will resurface and ill be slapped in the face with the childhood feeling of these aesthetics, but those movies are few and far between.

[@billgatesisinmybussy4938]

This only has 500 views? I was under the impression that it had like 200k, super underrated.

[@karlos1008]

183k now. Still needs more tbh

[@pandivima]

well now it is, 210K views (feb 15 2024)

[@Legal-104]

y2k was peak style. everything was covered with the word "extreme" and i loved it

[@glory2cybertron]

Everything had to be Xtreme 😂

[@Legal-104]

@sariofcybertron6956 hell yeah buddy, EXTREME CHEDDAR!

[@thrandulfthegreen]

Frutiger aero is a vibe I didn't know was defined... That is some wild nostalgia.

[@octakhan4673]

I like this stuff but the naming scheme of putting "core" into everything is so unbelieveably annoying.

[@featheryfemme]

i think you mean annoyingcore

[@mass._.619]

Bruh fr i thought I was the only one😭

[@omgodification]

agreed

[@patrickisswayze3446]

It's really bizarre. Especially considering the time period being referenced the only time "core" would of been used would have been for metalcore and hardcore.

[@_Mamimi]

THANK YOU I’ve been saying this for a while now. Core is used so much that it means nothing now. I hate the word now.

[@wormluvr]

I LITERALLY HAVE THAT SHOWER CURTAIN OH MY GOD IT WAS A JUMPSCARE HONESTLY 😭

[@ExtraMintyy]

Nice, I knew there was gonna be someone hahahahahaha

[@lavosdream5809]

Same

[@misstekhead]

I recall the “Y2K” font aesthetic of wobbly, bubble fonts promoting raves and club nights. Looking back I thought it was tacky, and to be fair most the promoters working on these designs did it out of their own love (and very little money) for the scene had no formal training. Many of them were still in high school or first few years of college!

[@supermonk3y07]

Early 2000s aesthetics were 90s aesthetics until 2004 or 2005. And by 90s I mean starting in 1995 or 1996. Early 90s were basically 80s aesthetics. I think very soon we are due for a new aesthetic because what we've been seeing are mostly just late 2010s aesthetics

[@Galidorquest]

'Late 2010's aesthetics', or flat minimalist hipster design as I call it, was trending since the Late 2000's. I saw it trending since 2006 and now the normies are finally talking about it.

[@supermonk3y07]

@@Galidorquest ah good point. Maybe it's because sometimes aesthetics repeat every 10 years or so?

[@supermonk3y07]

@@Galidorquest every other aesthetic ends up being pretty similar. It kind of goes in a pattern like A, B, A, C, A, D, E, A, F, G...

[@belstar1128]

it was a slow transition you could have one commercial that looked like it was from 1987 and another one that looked like 2000 next to each other in the year 2000. the more old school one was probably going to be for something mundane like cleaning products while the modern looking one was going to be for a video game.

[@Misckelskyisch]

dark aero… frutiger evil

[@man.506]

That softsoap bottle took me back man, wish i knew they were the better times while i was there

[@Galidorquest]

I loved the aquatic design on those Softsoap bottles. I was disappointed when they changed it back to something simplistic.

[@unlimitedcotton]

This was nice and calming to watch, more of this please! Next video could be some kind of guide on how to aeroify or Y2Kify your life (clothing, decorative elements, which software/tech to use), I always wanted to see something like that. Good luck, and again, really nice video!

[@aguywithahat7085]

This video reminds me of my orthodontist's office and the basement bathrooms of my childhood church.

[@ThePC007]

Man, I miss the times when user interfaces actually had some design going on. Nowadays everything looks like programmer art that somehow made it into the final product. :/

[@Aqueox]

Everything is either flat and boring or a fucking hulu/Netflix/Disney+ interface. Dull and idiotic. Lowest common denominator type bullshit.

[@EvzenEmanuel]

Couldn't say it better. Flat design is boring and borderline disgusting. A really miss the times of 2000s design. XP, Vista Aero, iOS skeumorphism, OS X aqua. It was so awesome and felt like you had to have some truly design skills to actually design something. Not so much today.

[@CoasterToast]

For me modern day design just boils down to depression greys, and uninviting basic shapes. I miss a time where color was everywhere and corporations actually wanted to make everything interesting looking. I craved this 2000s design but know it was a product of time.

[@cattysplat]

Flat design and tired sad nordic color schemes cannot die fast enough.

[@CoasterToast]

@@cattysplat honestly

[@EpreTroll]

I remember very well the transition from what you call Frutiger aero. I saw it mostly through the design of software UI and experienced it mostly as an inherent minimising of design. It went from optimism to minimalism. Exploring what can be done with new limits of software to then reducing to a boring husk. Depth became flattened and in general everything just became more lifeless and boring. I miss the Windows 7 days still

[@ExtraMintyy]

Windows 7 on top

[@TheSwagza]

That Pontiac G8 advert gave me a flashback to the time I switched our family computers wallpaper to a really low quality version of that specific G8 advert

[@BinglesP]

My Ed Edd n' Eddy AU "Rétro Future" is based heavily on Y2K and Frutiger Aero(and a couple others featured in this video), not only aesthetically but also fundamentally. The aesthetics make me happy, nostalgia aside. The chrome and bubbles tickle my brain in just the right spot

[@paulhowell6430]

I think I have one of those shower curtains somewhere...

[@Rookiewompus]

Loved this! One of the great things about this era of aethetics is that while some things, like the G3 iMacs for example, were rooted in real design of physical hardware, so much of it was digital.

[@Ballissle]

that toilet seat was something i completely forgot about and had seen and used before somewhere. It was weird back then too

[@abandexx]

I never leave comments on videos. This was incredible, as others have said this video needs more views! Great stuff dude.

[@rebeccahowell2943]

You really are a delight to listen to, you have a rare talent for education. I find your videos fascinating as I'm learning about movements I didn't know existed! Thanks 4:05 4:06

[@KangMinseok]

A lot of information in a condensed format that doesn't waste the viewer's time. Good stuff.

[@ORLY911]

i used to have a novelty toy, it was the Marlin Salt Water Car with a motor in it and then with salt water it would zoom. That toy cars design for some reason came to mind with this video. A very futuristic, bubbly look.

[@Tenshii_Artii]

These all bring so much comfort to me. I feel like whenever I feel so overwhelmed, I listen to music, look at wallpapers. I’d like to think It brings me a sense of peace in this chaotic world. One weird thing is that I always associated Fruiter Aero and other early 2000s aesthetic like this with guitars, summer and the afternoon. If anyone is interested in some of the 3D rendered images that show up in this video, I highly recommend checking out Bryce 3D!

[@margaretthemagnificent]

The visuals of water and chrome, and then high-saturation photoshop were both odes to the graphics of the day making leaps and bounds. We had never seen cgi water that well rendered before. It was a bragging right to show it for your company or product. Screens had never had that level of pixels and fidelity before. It was a bragging right to have very colorful stock photography. It looks dated now, but it was jaw-dropping at the time.

[@TokyoXtreme]

5:52 "Spechelle"… that made me laugh out loud.

[@fluffrier]

This is probably a "boomer take" but things just haven't been the same ever since Google adopted Material Design and Microsoft adopted the Metro look, and flat design took over. For decades, designs were about looking forward to the future and envisioning an utopia, perhaps a strange one, but utopia nonetheless. But then flat design stepped in and it was all about promoting simplicity and efficiency, and avoid distraction. Somewhere along the way we traded the soul for the efficiency.

[@XYZB0RG]

it's really stupid, isn't it? it doesn't hurt to have a little flair on the GUI of a computer or a webpage or anything. it's not even trading for efficiency. they're just getting rid of soul, everything is devoid of soul. we need to bring it back

[@nerolmars3701]

I love so many of us collectively became nostalgic for frutiger aero at the same time, many of us not even knowing it’s name but searching for it and finding it anyway. I was born in 1993. One of my finest visual memories is being in an airport in Spain in the early 2000s and seeing Frutiger Aero/Showercore-esque style in some of the lounges, especially where vending machines for bottled water were close by. I was (sadly) genuinely thrilled by Vistas UI when I first saw it. These memories always take me back to a time when I felt the most motivated and inspired for life, and I’m so happy videos like these exist to remind me how that feels.

[@Strongobado]

At 4:30 you mentioned the iRiver mp3 player. I stopped the video in stunned silence. Seeing that mp3 player again made me stop and think of those days as a kid trying to decide what part of my music collection to keep on my limited space. I remember the selection knob and the little blue screen. Damn...very nostalgic. I wonder if my iRiver is still hanging around...Thanks for the video!

[@ExtraMintyy]

Yeah the limited space made it so hard lol

[@danielgomezjr]

These videos are always the best to binge on. Subscribed

[@kannalostherjaw.8693]

Really cool video dude, great choices of visuals for each aesthetic

[@ExtraMintyy]

Thanks, glad you enjoyed

[@holeefuk1087]

I feel like an old man watching this video

[@kage28]

Great analysis, you extract feelings and articulate them well.

[@new-lviv]

Back then it was just "the design". What is weird is that it is a nostalgic topic now :-)

[@Zarnubius]

I've been a huge fan of almost all of these "micro-aesthetics" since they happened and never had a name to unify and categorize them. It's pretty neat that people are doing it now. I remember it started when I stared at some handsoap.

[@tiffany15O5]

wow I was so surprised when I saw the views on this, this is a great video! feels like it should have way more

[@ExtraMintyy]

Thanks I really appreciate it!

[@rubenlopez3364]

I’ve always thought of it as a time where everything looked really advanced, but it was actually basic in function

[@CaptainPrincess]

the specific sub-aesthetic I REALLY miss is Frutiger Metro Having grown up in an urban armpit type neighbourhood I have a real close attachment to urban designs and Frutiger Metro was always so uplifting to me Embracing the urban element without shunning it in favour of more idealistic futurism but still having the bounce and fun of the overall frutiger vibes

[@dharkbizkit]

back then, i really liked frutiger aero. today, i only see a design language, used to look friendly and intuative for people, that had no clue in tech and werent interested in it years before. a design of a time, when things changed and shifted from "a thing for special interest group" to a thing "for everyone" and the changes that came with that

[@sal5811]

Yoooo this brought me back! Great vid, needs more views lol!

[@GigaChad_169]

This was a great summary. Thanks and subbed.

[@TheAdventuresOfJimiJaden]

Even during its prime, I enjoyed all of these, except for McBling. And Weirdcore was just something I found interesting at night. As an artist, these styles look really cool and they have a lot of hard work put into it.

[@Onetruefreeman]

This video feels like one that will get heavily pushed in the algorithm, and will get 100k-300k views.

[@SlyHikari03]

Dark Aero and Frutiger Aero were awesome. Also, love the use of Wii Games (for Frutiger Aero) and Windows Vista ultimate (Dark Aero) as example.

[@ab76254]

The HTC HD2 phone design and marketing really captures the Dark Aero aesthetic for me, though I don't know if it really falls into that category of aesthetic

[@KevinReillySV]

I wanna go back… it’s scary here

[@thedomesticoperator]

Earthsuit's Kaleidoscope Superior album cover was so y2k and went hand in hand with that mp3 player!

[@tiagoaguiarguitar]

Playstion Demo Discs menu backgrounds dipicted 2000s so well! Even the music... damn miss those times!

[@Pistolophobia]

dark aero and vista aesthetics is such a beauty for the time, i remembered installing vista visual package apps for my XP back then

[@klorgas]

Honestly, as someone who hated the rounded, plastic and glossy look (especially Frudiger era) in everything from digital to physical design I was literally waiting for the next decade so things don't look awful anymore, and finally one day I saw the Volvo V60 2018 model in the streets and thought to myself "it's finally over"

[@BeforetheStorm.]

Cool video. Interesting to see all the 2000s aesthetics.

[@Supinori]

Please! Keep doing this analysis on nostalgic themes of the internet!

[@hayushiii]

how are you not more famous this video was so fun to watch and super well made :)

[@DeepSpaceNetwork]

I remember not long ago when there was no categorisation of this aesthetic period. Really strange to be living through such a big aesthetic period that seemingly appeared accidentally and no one noticed when it left. Just feel strange about the whole thing

[@DARKredDOLLAR]

A few years ago I asked my art and design history professor why we stop learning about different design movements around the year 1990. I still vividly remember his reply - historians have it hard to categorize and recognize what more modern esthetics are, there's a lot of overlap and it's only possible to see and differentiate clearly 20 years back. - he is still active in art and design history space and also releases different research papers with new findings. And I think this is it. 4-6 years have passed since that conversation and we're finally starting to see the difference in the esthetics of the early 2000's. 6 years ago I wouldn't look at my parents kitchen and say it's retro, seemed quite normal for the time. Now looking at and designing modern kitchens myself I can clearly see the difference. For example. So yeah 20 years seems like the right amount of time to possibly say what the overall movement was. BTW he wasn't able to say what contemporary at the time was. He hypothesized it might be mathematically precise lines and surfaces (that the computer aided design allowed us to do not that long ago) and focus on minimalistic and flat surfaces. And that's about it. I suppose in next 20 years we'll clearly see what the esthetic of the 2020's was :D

[@bonneymoy5194]

The Foto with the black silhouettes at around 7 min caught me off guard. The living/dining room scenery reminds of intimate gatherings of family and friends in childhood, while the low quality underscores that feeling of having forgotten where and when it was, kinda cut out of time and space. Meanwhile the black shapes represent to me how these people might have changed or even died. Crazy really. Shed a lony tear even

[@Markov092]

Human mind is dope and weird. Growing up as teen in 2000's, seeing its aesthetics gives warm and nostalgic feel.

[@thej3799]

I'm guessing people forgot flannel, deep house, progressive trance, CDs, IKEA, DVDs, queer eye, 4x3 aspect, antenna tv, cybergoth, getting called a metro sexual for having a clean apartment, something awful, wow, second life, metafilter, Myspace, live journal, yahoo messenger, digital point and shoots, cat5 cable, John Stewart, Nokia, Motorola, Toyota Camry, hunter green SUVs, BitTorrent, adsl, affordable living spaces, and more. I was in my 20s in the 2000s and don't remember any of this aqua blue aesthetic.

[@cattysplat]

Gotta throw internet forums for everything out there. Wasted so much life arguing with others.

[@kranichkrone]

​@@cattysplat The inane flamewars I got into on all those forums helped me hone my English language skills as a foreign speaker.

[@Galidorquest]

@@kranichkrone It's a lot easier to get into flamewars in KZbin comments about politics.

[@kranichkrone]

@Galidorquest This was before 2005, back then, forums existed, but KZbin did not.

[@Antifearn]

Growing up, my neighbor’s kid (who was my age) had a private bathroom with that cool Frutiger/Aquarium aesthetic, and it made me so jealous! It had a soap dispenser with little floating fish inside that I wanted to touch and play with so badly. It also had one of those iconic SoftSoap bottles with the clown fish (the smell of that soap brings back so many memories), a fish-shaped bath mat, a clear, vinyl shower curtain with orange and green dots, a basket of those cute squirty fish bath toys you always find at gift shops, and even a coral-colored jelly-fish lamp hanging from the ceiling in the center. I always thought that both Finding Nemo and SpongeBob were the biggest influences on the whole aquarium bathroom aesthetic, but I guess it goes deeper (lol, ocean pun) than that. The neighbors still live in that house, and the bathroom was transformed to have an uglier fish aesthetic that just screams “Bass Pro Shop”.

[@KhalidAun1]

I think another good example of the Dark Aero theme would be the Tron film made in 2010

[@littlebird8515]

I loved watching this video. The bathroom/tropical fish/water aesthetic was huge where I lived. our family had an all tropical fish themed bathroom with one of those holographic fish soft toilet seats. Every one of my friends had fishy accents to their bathrooms. I loved my water/Ocean themed puzzles. We also had weird water themed fidget toy's. they were weird plastic tubes that were designed to slip out of your hands when trying to hold them. They were filled with water and tiny plastic fish or dolphins. I also remember having those "moving pictures" night lights. it was cool, but loud as hell. Couldn't sleep with it on. Still don't understand it, but it reminds me of my childhood and I've got a fishy night light in my bathroom as a reminder.

[@Mylesawc]

I never realised the bullring was a product of the y2k blob era

[@kilgoretrout4491]

Great video. This reminds me of my early childhood.

[@Walleyedwosaik]

I was incredibly young in the 2000s but man this sh$t gives me memories

[@MegaDrainProductions]

I absolutely adore Dark Aero and use it with Open Shell all the time. But if there's one thing that I get my 2000s future vibes from are SSX 1 and Midnight Club 2. The menus, music and over all art design are my jam.

[@lil_revive115]

Awesome video about stuff I knew was interested in but didn’t know how to search for 🤷🏻‍♂️ great recommendation KZbin.

[@ExtraMintyy]

Glad you enjoyed! The algorithm works in mysterious ways

[@galamotshaku]

Dude I don't get why people call "Frutiger Aero" an aesthetic. All the visual references they use are things that came out in the early 2010s around the era of windows 7 or the Xbox 360, but then they mix them with things from the late 90s or stuff that would fit better in the Y2K category, which itself is already quiet misrepresented by sub genres like "cyber-core" or those modern equivalents of "tumblr made-up aesthetics" that only vaguely resemble the real aesthetics of the time period they claim to be from. This might sound like a neat pick, but I actually grew up in both of those eras and it feels weird that people this days categorize aesthetics on "vibes" alone without any coherent connection or undertone that carries any kind of meaning outside of their looks. I've seen a bunch of niche internet aesthetics nerds like myself making this same point and commenting on how the lack of theory around this aesthetic categories hurt the discourse around them. The only solution to this is to dive deeper into this themes and write about them in a more serious way.

[@0xAA55]

100% they over play the frutiger aero shit. It wasn’t that big on its own and all the other genres like “dark frutiger aero” didn’t exist. It’s not even classified by the bubbles lmao.

[@thisprojectisretired1164]

"Tumblr made-up aesthetic" is the perfect sentence to describe them core this core that

[@courtneythompson6179]

I remember wanting the see through toilet lids and getting the dye in the commode that made the water a different color

[@iugey]

This was fascinating. I could easily watch an hour more of this.

[@realsteventalvinzvestial420]

No matter how odd or intresting, the 2000s were also simpler times back then despite the major events that changed everything forever

[@Ballissle]

My older sister used to make phone cases with that mcbling style for a bit when she was still in school as a small side gig.