[Proud90sKid]

I remember 2017 as if it was yesterday. It was 3 years before the pandemic and the resulting inflation. The economy was booming, housing was affordable, and there were no problems like Ukraine. Gas was pretty cheap. "Shape of You" was playing everywhere constantly, almost to an annoying extent. You could literally hear "Shape of You" blaring on someone's car speakers multiple times a day if you lived in a metro area. Fidget spinners were a big fad and it was the year of the "tide pod" challenge. I also got to try Crystal Pepsi, a soda that was briefly released around the year I was born and briefly brought back in 2017. Content from the prank/comedy youtube channel "NELK" seemed to be at its peak around that time. The discussion about autism awareness started to change with several new popular shows being released (The Good Doctor, Atypical, and maybe some more). There was a full solar Eclipse in north America- something that most Americans had never seen before. CBD/hemp products were becoming a big thing nationwide (though delta-8 was not a thing yet) and Florida starting selling medical marijuana while California legalized in general. People finally no longer talked about the 2008 recession (I remember the talk of it lingering into 2015). There was a general sense of optimism regardless of where you were on the political spectrum and Elon Musk wasn't seen a douchebag, but as some sort of hero to take us to mars and off of gasoline. AI wasn't yet seen as a serious threat to jobs. There was enthusiasm towards to the way tech was developing and it was also the year cryptocurrency became widely known with a huge boom in values occurring towards the end of the year. Some 2000s stuff remained but were clearly on their way out: such as the Apple Ipod that some people still used. It was near the height of the era of large cloud producing flavored vaping devices- before smaller mods like Juul took a big part of that market. It was a unique year and the most recent year that I am actually nostalgic over.

It was also the year of hurricane Irma, Maria, and Harvey. Also it was the year that Otto Warmbier, an American taken into custody in North Korea, was revealed to have been comatose for a year after suffering massive brain damage. Not good things, but they were definitely a big part of that year's events. Irma in particular got so much publicity that the national hurricane website could not handle the requests. Hurricane Ian from last year did not have near the publicity and was more of a surprise by comparison(due to shorter track and rapid intensification before landfall). Neither did hurricane Michael from 2018. I can't recall a storm that scared people as much as Irma (and Maria) for an entire week. Floridians and people in the Caribbean islands in particular were completely convinced Irma would be "the one"(and it was for Saint Martin and the FL keys). It was also the year Trump became president and the year the #MeToo movement took off. And twitter was twitter.

And Youtube was better. In late 2017, they announced a policy where there would be no more 30 second unskippable ads starting in 2018. They have apparently reversed course because I was just forced to watch two 30 second ads for a short video with no option to skip. Social media in general was also much more open discussion/less censorship friendly, particularly reddit.