This is the best kind of time travel: the ordinary, routine, sometimes mundane. The "in-between" moments that make up so much of life. You never realize you'll miss something like pushing a cart around the supermarket with mom on the way home from school until it's just another past errand now long behind you.
😭You have no idea man of course you do but man watching this hurts. so many of my family members were alive, i was a kid living my best life, actually i was a teen so i was getting a bit older and had access to newer things, ahhhhh. i would do anything to go back. its not fair. why didnt we appreciate it more 😭 people say its cause we are depressed but if things in life didnt change so much and for the worse that would not be the case. i literally lost my aunt to covid and none of my grandparents are alive.
@@allimkhan7540 there are sooo many people who say that about the mid 2ks. Erly 2ks were great, even though we had 911 which was horrible. Between 2005-2006 I notice things slowly getting weird. By 2007 I remember telling people things have gotten weir and many agreed with me. .
@@amarstaThe merchandise they offered online at first was probably pretty limited or the same thing you could just get in store. People just probably thought if you’re going in store to pick up an online order, why not just shop normally then?
I miss Kmart so much. Used to go shopping there every weekend with my mom and it’s become an integral fond childhood memory of mines. I was so sad the day it was announced they were on the list of stores being closed down.
But let's be honest. If you were in a Kmart in 2004 you were already time traveling back to like 1997. I remember standing at the checkout at my local one in like 2008 looking around and feeling like I was standing in 1999.
I honestly didnt understand the feeling, but yeah. I remember being at kmart around 2009-11 when kmart was declining. I loved it as a kid and as a teen it was still pretty fun to browse. when my local Kmarts were going out of business I was sad even as a 17-18 year old. It was like being back in 2000.
As a 47-year-old, this doesn't seem that long ago to me. What were some similarities and differences between 2004 and 2023? Well, let's see. It was a post-9/11 world. There was the internet and cell phones, but no smartphones. However, there were iPods, which are now obsolete but were pretty new and widely used at that time. There was no UA-cam yet; that was still one year away. Twitter was still two years away, but there was early social media like MySpace and early Facebook. This was before the financial crisis and the Great Recession. This was also pre-Obama, who was, at the time, a state-level Illinois Senator. He would be running (that year) for the federal U.S. Senate seat for Illinois. At the time, Trump was a famous businessperson and reality TV personality. In 2004, the U.S. was engaged in two wars: the War in Iraq (ended in 2011) and the War in Afghanistan (ended in 2021). Brick-and-mortar retail chains remained the dominant force in the retail industry at that time, but e-commerce was on the rise. Of course, there was no Covid-19, and Chat GPT didn't exist. So, some significant changes have taken place. Still, though, I don't feel like I'm in an era now that is so far removed. In fact, I feel like we could still be classified under a larger "grand" period grouping going back as far as the late 70s. I have felt that way for a while as I have seen the world slowly change over the years and decades, but as of recently I feel like we are coming to a major turning point where we will finally phase over to a new grand time period. So far though in my life it feel like there has only been one with smaller eras.
The 70s always felt ancient to me. 2004 definitely feels like a throwback time when you compare the technology we have today from back then, but it still feels somewhat connected to 2024.
@@twiff3rino28 It was around that time (mid-70s to early 80s) when many of the social, cultural, entertainment, economic, political, and technological changes and developments that had occurred throughout the 20th century culminated into a common contemporary era that we are still a part of.
One regret I have in life was that I wasnt born in a time when I couldve been in my 20s like I am right now but in 2004, so I can see how truly Kmarts were from a adult perspective. I remember shopping with my mom at my local Kmart back in 2004, I really miss those days looking back it knowing all the Kmarts I knew are all gone. It was truly an honor for me to say I have shopped at Kmart.
I was in my 20s in 2004. I was 22. My K-mart started to go out of business by the 2000s. I remember when K-mart rebranded itself as Big K in the late 90s. By the mid to late 2000s or maybe early 2010s, my K-mart was taken over by this Sears Outlet store. The store was awful. Barebone selection of stuff. It was nothing like K-mart.
These were the final days of Kmart’s heyday! Even after Walmart came to town in 1996, our local Kmart stores still did okay for a while, because Walmart was such a dump. But then after Target came along in 2005, that’s when Kmart really started falling apart.
@@jackson5116 For a while K-Mart had a normal sized location until they got a newer, bigger one in late 93/early 94 in my area. Until then, Caldor was their biggest competition, until Wal-Mart came around in 93, which prompted K-Mart to upgrade where I am. Caldor would later close their doors in late 98. Target than came about here in the late 2000's/early 2010's(teens), and knew K-Mart's days were probably numbered then. As good as it might be to have those stores close by, I do miss the more simpler days when we didn't have much here, but were good enough with what we did have, until commercial development began to start popping up like crazy as time went on.
I was on my Honeymoon in 2015 and we found a Kmart. We spent like an Hour in there 😂. Had those old Tiger electronic handheld games. It literally looked like the 90s in there.
This is the era when Kmart started going downhill. I remember some Kmarts had Hot Wheels Collector events where if you were lucky enough to be early in line, you got to look through cases of Hot Wheels vehicles and pick out what you wanted. I only went to two events. They stopped doing that sometime in 2007.
Funny enough, when I'd worked there in 2014, they had a Hot Wheels event and had me run it. They gave me raffle tickets and told me to hand them out to people. Only like three people had showed and I'd just said to hell with it and let them go through the boxes.
I loved our Kmart, I watched them build it and then watched it slowly go under, basically the only store I’d shop at other than Sears another store I miss..😢
That's funny! I was thinking the exact same thing! That OLD lady fiddling with the toaster oven. "What's this new fangled contraption for?" That lady probably passed 10 years ago. I'd like to know what store this was. Look's like one I was in.
You never know. There could still be a few of the elderly people still alive in this video and if they are still alive they would probably be 100 years old or a little older than that. There have been a good majority of people that have lived to be 100 years old and even past that.
Looks exactly how I remember it. I can smell the video, hahaha. Had many Icees, popcorn, nachos, and Little Caesars pizza in that era. It's funny, cause in 2004 I'm sure there were many people who longed for the old 1970s Kmarts of their youth, and likely complained about the modern stores. We look back on videos like these with so must reverence; the feeling that the past was so much better. But once we take off the rose tinted glasses we realize how blinding those nostalgic feelings can be.
@@rabiabegum6136 It has something to do with selective memory. Usually we remember mostly positive things from the past and tend to forget about the negative especially when times are hard in the present.
Back in 2004, people actually talked to each other face to face because here was no social media, and people weren't glued to their smartphones because they didn't exist. So in that regard, the past was better.
@@hakeemsd70m social people always talk to people no matter what. In 2004, a lot people scoffed at those who were in chat rooms, blogs, messageboards but now they are filling social media with garbage all day.
I saw it was around 2013 actually. Cause that’s when smartphones actually passed feature phones in sales. Most people statistically before 2013 didn’t have a smartphone. If you count the blackberry it was more 2011ish.
My mother and I used to take every Friday and shop at KMart after an early breakfast. I would usually buy new shirts and stuff but loved the electronics section. It was never busy so felt right at home and the whole experience had a real cozy feel to it.
The weird thing about 05:29 is about the kid in the shopping cart. He looks to be about 5 or 6... that makes him 24 or 25 today. I know that's just how time works but it feels so weird...
I was born in 2000 and only have a few memories about 2004 such as nursery/kindergarten and my family moving into our new house (the same house we’re still living in to this day).
I was born in late 2002 so I was about to turn 2 when this video was filmed. I don't remember Kmart at all. The one in my area closed when I was very young.
Quite amusing this was shot the day which is commonly referred to as the start of Kmart's downfall. So this video is basically a glimpse of Kmart's peak. Thanks for uploading.
My mom and I would go to K-mart all the time. Our favorite thing to do was go to the music section and pick out a CD to listen to on the way home. I saved up enough money from helping my dad on the weekends to buy a gamecube there. I can walk the store in my head still, but this is an amazing visual reminder.
That was my time. I was 17 and no one looked at their phone much except to play Snake. There was technological progress but it was just before the internet exploded. You weren't bombarded with stuff from the internet all the time, you still met regularly and arranged to meet on the phone. I'm glad I got to grow up like this.
A little past 2:00 it is announced to “visit our website” and shopping by web was still a bit of a novelty in 2004. Amazon was still mostly selling books. Retail was still very much in play, online shopping was so much smaller back then.
I actually miss Kmart😢 25 years ago, that was my go to store and they were open 24 hours, a lot of stuff was reasonably priced🤑 back then I lived by a freshly built Kmart and it was pretty awesome👍
watching made cry. the last kmart in my town closed around 2004, i was a little kid but still remember going with my dad, older sister, aunt, and grandma to buy clothes, get food, or look at toys amd video games. watching this didn’t just feel like watching a video, but felt like looking into a window of the past. into the simpler carefree world i knew long ago
I used to date a girl with a young kid that was born the same year as you. To think, you all are running around on UA-cam posting comments now...Enjoy your youth!
@@H.K.5 It wasn't awful. I liked elementary school. Were you bullied or something? No friends? I dunno what to tell you, man. I already said I'm sorry your childhood wasn't great. What else do you want from me? Some of us enjoyed our childhood.
2004, age 32. This was around the time of one of my last trips to KMart. I used to shop at the ones in Moorestown and Burlington. I loved those exciting "Blue Light Specials"!
That's no joke. When I started in '95 the store was new and bright white. 20 years later the shelves, floors, registers, even the bathroom walls were yellowed from the flourescent lighting
Interesting video. More stock and more customers than I can remember ever seeing in a Kmart. Seeing those prices and the goods like the 'Peak' antifreeze reminded me why I rarely shopped at Kmart. The quality of their merchandise and their prices. One was high and another was low. Not hard to figure which was which. 15 years later a gallon of Prestone Antifreeze was CHEAPER @Walmart than Kmart's 2004 price. That's the story of why Sears and Kmart are no longer around.
lol I guess I'm old but besides the TVs this looks exactly the same as right now, to me. I also had to remind myself 2004 was nearly 20 years ago. Seems like 10, absolute tops.
@@H.K.5 That's what I was thinking. This looks almost identical to a modern day Walmart. Even the appliances look exactly the same. I guess there's no real reason to change toaster design. The only thing that's different is the electronics section, obviously. Even the fashion isn't terribly different, though that could be from fashion trends looping back around.
K-Mart was passed it's peak by this point, but this was probably one of the last few years that it was still relevant. Last time I went into a K-Mart was in 2011 (and only did so because I was nostalgic for the early 2000s) and it was very near the end by that point.
I remembered when my dad most of the time say: “I need to go to Kmart” when we were in Puerto Rico in Juana Diaz and also we went to look for the transcription and go with him, Unfortunately the store closed in early 2020 and now is a Pepe Ganga
This was way before people didn't care how they looked in public. As I watched the video, none of the shoppers wore pajama bottoms and a coat like they do today.
Makes me feel old to know 2004 was 20 years ago now , feels like yesterday , miss stores like KMART and places in Canada that were similar like Zellers ...We had both at one time and other places but most are gone now except Walmart and Canadian Tire ....We now live in the Amazon world of shopping ..
What really gets me thinking is most of us people apprecitate those nostalgic journeys today… why is it like that? Is it because of nowadays issues in all kind of sections, escpecially when it comes to our own safety… each further second in life keeps us longing for easier times we used to know when we were younger. We won‘t ever get there again, mankind is damned to end in tragedy because there is nothing to reach anymore. We all here wish for a simple life in which appreciation is still possible and existent for everyone here on earth … but the system is made to proceed… and so our achievements lead to a harder feel of joy. Life is tough and it wont get and better. Thanks to all of your time-travelers!
Pure nostalgia i remember going to Kmart in the early 2000s as a kid theres still one an hour away from me I’m planning on visiting it for the nostalgia before it closes
Around this time I used to go to Big Kmart a lot with my brother. I bought my first Xbox there. As sell as my first Cd which was Trapt’s first album. After big Kmart. Me and my bro Would head over to Burger King.
I was only two years old when this was shot. Now I’m finishing up my undergraduate degree. It’s weird - this video simultaneously seems like it was shot forever ago and like it was shot yesterday. I really do enjoy these slice-of-life videos. Thank you for sharing :)
Man, this is a trip. My local K-Mart was still around then. I was just a kid in high school and Half-Life 2 had just come out. I'm sure I was at home playing Counter-Strike: Source for hours on end when this was filmed. XD
I often miss Kmart. This store was laid out exactly like ours. Walmart and target are on the other side of town and what was once Kmart is now a uhaul store. I still have some items from Kmart. A wooden shelf and my weight bench.
most didn't see any true remodels, the few that did circa 2010 just got a few new signs, and the 2004 logo put on the face of the entrance, but many, many of them retained their early-2000's look.
@@jackson5116 As much as I dislike Wal*Mart, their remodels into Supercenters were very vanilla and out of time. Meanwhile Super K-Marts seemed to be stuck in 1997-2005 design wise. I rather prefer the 70-80s relics over the trendy looks of the 90s.
@@jackson5116 Early 2000's? Most hadn't been updated, really updated, 10-15 years before then. Just spruced up. A good deal of the ones I went to in 7-8 states, right out of the late '70's early '80's.
I remember going to a Kmart in 2012. It was in Middlebury CT, and my mom and I were going to get Christmas decorations. I saw tons of sales for the PS3 and Xbox 360 during that holiday season.
I live in Switzerland and we have other similar stores but its sad that they are closing all stores in the US while in our country Malls and Stores are still popular and make millions and Billions of Dollars in Switzerland Swiss francs
When adults and people would interact with each other as humans. I was already in Kindergarden around this time. Halo 2 posters were everywhere. Game Crazy had a entire wall dedicated to selling Halo 2. The coolest toy i ever wanted at the time was Black Rangers Morpher from Dino Thunder. The music was so good, i remember telling my self. I cant wait to be adult adn experience the world more. I dont regret those words but i do wish i could experience that world as adult and do wish that things didnt have to get as bad as they did. But things can alwasy change.
This brought back some great memories. Thank you for the video. I remember my KMart was a Venture and thinking to myself KMart thanks to the parent company Sears will last my entire life. I was wrong.
I started to work at KMart in 2006, and in those two years apart, not much change. I really do miss working there though, especially during the holiday season. Sept - Dec is the best time to work there.
Oh lord I miss when Kmart was around. I remember when I first went to a Kmart store when I was a kid back then around 2005 and it was the most memorable moment ever when I first stepped foot inside of my local Kmart Store. I went to the one located in Byron Center, MI and the store is no longer there no more and I miss every memory that I had when I was a kid growing up when my mom took me there and the whole store was part of my childhood but now I am 23 years old and wish to go back in time to the good ol days of the mid 2000's.
This is the best kind of time travel: the ordinary, routine, sometimes mundane. The "in-between" moments that make up so much of life. You never realize you'll miss something like pushing a cart around the supermarket with mom on the way home from school until it's just another past errand now long behind you.
Great Comment and Very True!
I miss those days!
This comment fucked me up 😐
Very true statement
Beautifully said
My brain trying to process that 2004 was almost 20 years ago
The 2000s they're a period now my brother.
We didn’t know it then but these were the best days. Simpler times now just a memory.
😭You have no idea man of course you do but man watching this hurts. so many of my family
members were alive, i was a kid living my best life, actually i was a teen so i was getting a bit older
and had access to newer things, ahhhhh. i would do anything to go back. its not fair. why didnt we
appreciate it more 😭 people say its cause we are depressed but if things in life didnt change so much
and for the worse that would not be the case. i literally lost my aunt to covid and none of my grandparents are alive.
Agree 110 percent I feel the same way !
The mid 2000s sucked
@T M I agree in the mid 2000s that is when things started getting very weird. I miss the old days when people were normal and had class 😪
@@allimkhan7540 there are sooo many people who say that about the mid 2ks. Erly 2ks were great, even though we had 911 which was horrible. Between 2005-2006 I notice things slowly getting weird. By 2007 I remember telling people things have gotten weir and many agreed with me. .
You know you're old when we're at the point where we consider 2004 nostalgic
I own clothes that I still wear from that year.
I mean it was 20 years ago.
This makes me feel so old now. In 2004 I believe I was 17. I'm now 36 geez time goes by so fast.
feelsbatman :c
@@HacksignKThuh? Make sense man.
I miss 2004 because my parents were alive. I'm grateful to have a home and youtube to keep me sane.
I'm so sorry for your loss :(
I'm sorry man :( you deserve a friend 🙏🏾
When the lady knocked the tv over... 😅
I miss Kmart. Staple of my childhood.
3:55 🤣
I'll never forget the many hours we spent shopping at Kmart in my youth. The good old days of old...
Them ol' LCD screens held up pretty good! An LED screen would've broken if the same thing happened to that 😆
Lol, so thin! Wow!
I worked here as a teenager in 2004, this video brings me so much comfort 😢
Now you are grown ass woman lol 😂
@@MakelBelieve way to state the obvious
@@MakelBelieve hush little man
Now you’re a grandma.
Ahhhh yes...this was right before TVs really slimmed down. I remember buying my dad one of the ones with the silver border in 2005.
That was the ps3 Wii and Xbox 360 era
@@gizmonovack Yep. I got my 360 the year before.
One of the last peak years. We had internet but no social media bullshit.
The year this video was made, there was a new kiosk at the service desk for online ordering. I never saw anyone use it
@@amarstaThe merchandise they offered online at first was probably pretty limited or the same thing you could just get in store. People just probably thought if you’re going in store to pick up an online order, why not just shop normally then?
Kmart was my free Internet service for a little while back in the early 2000's.
UA-cam only had a few hundred videos around this time
@@Am71919 UA-cam came out in 2005
I miss Kmart so much. Used to go shopping there every weekend with my mom and it’s become an integral fond childhood memory of mines. I was so sad the day it was announced they were on the list of stores being closed down.
I can relate Rice. I miss Kmart as well.
Only a few left like Miami... New Jersey....New York....There are some outside of the US like Guam, which is definitely the best and thriving
There are heaps of Kmart stores here in Australia and from what I’ve heard they’re doing pretty well.
@@Wildcat6830They found success in Australia but got wiped out by Walmart here in the US unfortunately. Kmart had much better service than Wal-Mart.
@@Wildcat6830yeah, when I was there a few years ago in Brisbane, it truly was a shock to see lol
But let's be honest. If you were in a Kmart in 2004 you were already time traveling back to like 1997. I remember standing at the checkout at my local one in like 2008 looking around and feeling like I was standing in 1999.
I honestly didnt understand the feeling, but yeah. I remember being at kmart around 2009-11 when kmart was declining. I loved it as a kid and as a teen it was still pretty fun to browse. when my local Kmarts were going out of business I was sad even as a 17-18 year old. It was like being back in 2000.
i was born in 97, shit is pure nostalgic. i wish kmart was still around
The cash registers ran on Pentium Pro 200mhz processors
Sooooo true! I remember going in the one that closed about 12 years ago and I legit felt like I had warped back to 1992.
3:52 lol, she was impressed by how thin the TV was and then knocked it over, and then looked back with such a look of guilt on her face
You break it you buy it
@@VietPho 🤫 shhh
its 2004, steve jobs is at the helm of apple. the iPod mini is just released, and you get to choose between 4 colors but you choose silver.
Sony Ericsson Walkman phones were the shiznit.
As a 47-year-old, this doesn't seem that long ago to me. What were some similarities and differences between 2004 and 2023? Well, let's see. It was a post-9/11 world. There was the internet and cell phones, but no smartphones. However, there were iPods, which are now obsolete but were pretty new and widely used at that time. There was no UA-cam yet; that was still one year away. Twitter was still two years away, but there was early social media like MySpace and early Facebook. This was before the financial crisis and the Great Recession. This was also pre-Obama, who was, at the time, a state-level Illinois Senator. He would be running (that year) for the federal U.S. Senate seat for Illinois. At the time, Trump was a famous businessperson and reality TV personality. In 2004, the U.S. was engaged in two wars: the War in Iraq (ended in 2011) and the War in Afghanistan (ended in 2021). Brick-and-mortar retail chains remained the dominant force in the retail industry at that time, but e-commerce was on the rise. Of course, there was no Covid-19, and Chat GPT didn't exist. So, some significant changes have taken place. Still, though, I don't feel like I'm in an era now that is so far removed. In fact, I feel like we could still be classified under a larger "grand" period grouping going back as far as the late 70s. I have felt that way for a while as I have seen the world slowly change over the years and decades, but as of recently I feel like we are coming to a major turning point where we will finally phase over to a new grand time period. So far though in my life it feel like there has only been one with smaller eras.
You have truly said it all. So true. For real.
What happened in the late 70s?
The 70s always felt ancient to me. 2004 definitely feels like a throwback time when you compare the technology we have today from back then, but it still feels somewhat connected to 2024.
@@twiff3rino28 It was around that time (mid-70s to early 80s) when many of the social, cultural, entertainment, economic, political, and technological changes and developments that had occurred throughout the 20th century culminated into a common contemporary era that we are still a part of.
One regret I have in life was that I wasnt born in a time when I couldve been in my 20s like I am right now but in 2004, so I can see how truly Kmarts were from a adult perspective. I remember shopping with my mom at my local Kmart back in 2004, I really miss those days looking back it knowing all the Kmarts I knew are all gone. It was truly an honor for me to say I have shopped at Kmart.
I was in my 20s in 2004. I was 22. My K-mart started to go out of business by the 2000s. I remember when K-mart rebranded itself as Big K in the late 90s. By the mid to late 2000s or maybe early 2010s, my K-mart was taken over by this Sears Outlet store. The store was awful. Barebone selection of stuff. It was nothing like K-mart.
An honor is crazyyy
You’re a npc
Hater@@live42dayy25
These were the final days of Kmart’s heyday! Even after Walmart came to town in 1996, our local Kmart stores still did okay for a while, because Walmart was such a dump. But then after Target came along in 2005, that’s when Kmart really started falling apart.
Same with my area when K-Mart shut down after Target moved in too.
@@freakyfornash that's what's finishing them off. Walmart may have weakened them, but Target is who finished them off.
@@jackson5116 For a while K-Mart had a normal sized location until they got a newer, bigger one in late 93/early 94 in my area. Until then, Caldor was their biggest competition, until Wal-Mart came around in 93, which prompted K-Mart to upgrade where I am. Caldor would later close their doors in late 98. Target than came about here in the late 2000's/early 2010's(teens), and knew K-Mart's days were probably numbered then. As good as it might be to have those stores close by, I do miss the more simpler days when we didn't have much here, but were good enough with what we did have, until commercial development began to start popping up like crazy as time went on.
I'm surprised Walmart is still doing as well as they are. The stores are always trashed and the prices aren't even that low anymore
@@pacmancdi Yeah, I miss the golden days of Walmart too. The once king of low prices is now way past their prime.
Ah the good old days of Kmart that will be in my memory forever of when me and my mom used to shop there
2004, Kmart was already on its way out. The peak was 80's into the early 90's. Kmart was already declining by the late 90's
Rip old lady 😢
My consolation on getting dragged to Kmart in the late '80s was to go to the toy department and stare at the Lego sets for ages.
Kmart had an older and loyal clientele... sadly, both are gone today.
I was on my Honeymoon in 2015 and we found a Kmart. We spent like an Hour in there 😂. Had those old Tiger electronic handheld games. It literally looked like the 90s in there.
I can smell the Little Caesar's pizza
This is the era when Kmart started going downhill. I remember some Kmarts had Hot Wheels Collector events where if you were lucky enough to be early in line, you got to look through cases of Hot Wheels vehicles and pick out what you wanted. I only went to two events. They stopped doing that sometime in 2007.
Funny enough, when I'd worked there in 2014, they had a Hot Wheels event and had me run it. They gave me raffle tickets and told me to hand them out to people. Only like three people had showed and I'd just said to hell with it and let them go through the boxes.
@@Intangedous1 that’s the spirit lol
Awe heck yeah, I remember the Hot Wheels K Day events!
@@Intangedous1 me too
I loved our Kmart, I watched them build it and then watched it slowly go under, basically the only store I’d shop at other than Sears another store I miss..😢
I agree...very sad Jay
This is around the last time I bought anything from Kmart. This video is a Time Machine!!!
Last thing I purchased at my local K-Mart was the PlayStation 4 I put in layaway in 2014. The store closed in late 2018. Today, only a few exist
Good ole layaway; where they put a in back for your with your name and you put a down payment on it.
STFUUUUUUUUU really?? I’m surprised I remember me and my 3 siblings and my dad got us out Wii there crazy how time flies.
To think that many of the elderly people in this video are now dead. It’s truly scary!
That's funny! I was thinking the exact same thing! That OLD lady fiddling with the toaster oven. "What's this new fangled contraption for?" That lady probably passed 10 years ago. I'd like to know what store this was. Look's like one I was in.
And many of the young kids in the video are in college now or have and on with their lives..
@@vincemajestyk9497, "newfangled"? It's a toaster oven. Sure was surely familiar with them.
You never know. There could still be a few of the elderly people still alive in this video and if they are still alive they would probably be 100 years old or a little older than that. There have been a good majority of people that have lived to be 100 years old and even past that.
True true
Looks exactly how I remember it. I can smell the video, hahaha. Had many Icees, popcorn, nachos, and Little Caesars pizza in that era. It's funny, cause in 2004 I'm sure there were many people who longed for the old 1970s Kmarts of their youth, and likely complained about the modern stores. We look back on videos like these with so must reverence; the feeling that the past was so much better. But once we take off the rose tinted glasses we realize how blinding those nostalgic feelings can be.
I wonder why we always think the past was better 🤔
@@rabiabegum6136 It has something to do with selective memory. Usually we remember mostly positive things from the past and tend to forget about the negative especially when times are hard in the present.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Back in 2004, people actually talked to each other face to face because here was no social media, and people weren't glued to their smartphones because they didn't exist. So in that regard, the past was better.
@@hakeemsd70m social people always talk to people no matter what. In 2004, a lot people scoffed at those who were in chat rooms, blogs, messageboards but now they are filling social media with garbage all day.
Yup. Just like I remember K-Mart. Only 2004 and you could already see the writing on the wall.
You can see the shift in society from 2008 - 2010 (introduction of iPhone). It's just not the same anymore.
I saw it was around 2013 actually. Cause that’s when smartphones actually passed feature phones in sales. Most people statistically before 2013 didn’t have a smartphone. If you count the blackberry it was more 2011ish.
My mother and I used to take every Friday and shop at KMart after an early breakfast. I would usually buy new shirts and stuff but loved the electronics section. It was never busy so felt right at home and the whole experience had a real cozy feel to it.
I was 25 years old. Time flies . I really hope there are Kmarts in heaven!
Hopefully Kmart can make a come back. And you can tell it's from the early 2000's with the style of TV's on the shelves
A CRT I'd take one to Use older video game systems
K-Mart is as dead as they come. The margins are so small at retail stores it's barely worth it.
Kmart doesn't exist anymore
@@wildkeith they might come back
soon it will all just be amazon, far as the eye can see
The weird thing about 05:29 is about the kid in the shopping cart. He looks to be about 5 or 6... that makes him 24 or 25 today. I know that's just how time works but it feels so weird...
I was born in 2004 and I'm turning 19 next week its crazy enough to think that this video was taped nearly 20 years ago.
I was born in 2000 and only have a few memories about 2004 such as nursery/kindergarten and my family moving into our new house (the same house we’re still living in to this day).
I was born in late 2002 so I was about to turn 2 when this video was filmed. I don't remember Kmart at all. The one in my area closed when I was very young.
I remember shopping at Kmart when I was a kid. I was 9 or 10 years old in 2004 depending on what time of the year this was. I am now 28.
Quite amusing this was shot the day which is commonly referred to as the start of Kmart's downfall. So this video is basically a glimpse of Kmart's peak. Thanks for uploading.
My mom and I would go to K-mart all the time. Our favorite thing to do was go to the music section and pick out a CD to listen to on the way home. I saved up enough money from helping my dad on the weekends to buy a gamecube there. I can walk the store in my head still, but this is an amazing visual reminder.
That was my time. I was 17 and no one looked at their phone much except to play Snake. There was technological progress but it was just before the internet exploded. You weren't bombarded with stuff from the internet all the time, you still met regularly and arranged to meet on the phone. I'm glad I got to grow up like this.
A little past 2:00 it is announced to “visit our website” and shopping by web was still a bit of a novelty in 2004. Amazon was still mostly selling books. Retail was still very much in play, online shopping was so much smaller back then.
I actually miss Kmart😢 25 years ago, that was my go to store and they were open 24 hours, a lot of stuff was reasonably priced🤑 back then I lived by a freshly built Kmart and it was pretty awesome👍
NOSTALGIA 🥹 and omg, I literally just finished watching Elf 📺😂
🤣🤣🤣
watching made cry. the last kmart in my town closed around 2004, i was a little kid but still remember going with my dad, older sister, aunt, and grandma to buy clothes, get food, or look at toys amd video games. watching this didn’t just feel like watching a video, but felt like looking into a window of the past. into the simpler carefree world i knew long ago
Thanks this the only reason I know what a k Mart looked like because I was borned in 2011 and my dad showed it this to me so thank u 🙏
I used to date a girl with a young kid that was born the same year as you. To think, you all are running around on UA-cam posting comments now...Enjoy your youth!
@@PowerSynopsis Don’t know about you but I hated being 11 years old.
@@H.K.5 Sorry to hear it. I enjoyed my childhood.
@@PowerSynopsis I’m sure you also enjoyed going to school 5 times a week.
@@H.K.5 It wasn't awful. I liked elementary school. Were you bullied or something? No friends? I dunno what to tell you, man. I already said I'm sorry your childhood wasn't great. What else do you want from me? Some of us enjoyed our childhood.
2004, age 32. This was around the time of one of my last trips to KMart. I used to shop at the ones in Moorestown and Burlington. I loved those exciting "Blue Light Specials"!
these vids make me happy and sad at the same time
Lmao I bet the store looked exactly the same 10 years later, just yellower.
That's no joke. When I started in '95 the store was new and bright white. 20 years later the shelves, floors, registers, even the bathroom walls were yellowed from the flourescent lighting
This store looks no different to modern day stores. It only looks older because of the camera quality.
Interesting video. More stock and more customers than I can remember ever seeing in a Kmart. Seeing those prices and the goods like the 'Peak' antifreeze reminded me why I rarely shopped at Kmart. The quality of their merchandise and their prices. One was high and another was low. Not hard to figure which was which.
15 years later a gallon of Prestone Antifreeze was CHEAPER @Walmart than Kmart's 2004 price. That's the story of why Sears and Kmart are no longer around.
Yeah...those price wars with Walmart wasn't one of their best ideas.
They had a price wars with walmart??? yeah no wonder they closed down lol
@@vampirerobot NEVER try to price compete with Walmart. You will lose every time.
When 27" was considered a big screen TV.
And they were heavier than a modern 55" TV.
lol I guess I'm old but besides the TVs this looks exactly the same as right now, to me. I also had to remind myself 2004 was nearly 20 years ago. Seems like 10, absolute tops.
The silver painted case tv era. All televisions were that silver gray color for a few years in the early/mid 2000s.
The person was just standing there recording the poor grandma 👵 😂
She didn’t even know what was going on
2004 looks like 1994
Huh?
Only because of the camera quality. The store here looks exactly the same as modern day stores.
@@H.K.5 That's what I was thinking. This looks almost identical to a modern day Walmart. Even the appliances look exactly the same. I guess there's no real reason to change toaster design. The only thing that's different is the electronics section, obviously. Even the fashion isn't terribly different, though that could be from fashion trends looping back around.
K-Mart was passed it's peak by this point, but this was probably one of the last few years that it was still relevant. Last time I went into a K-Mart was in 2011 (and only did so because I was nostalgic for the early 2000s) and it was very near the end by that point.
My mom and i spent so much time at Kmart. Rest in peace mom
Imagine people actually enjoying shopping instead of looking down on their phones
I remembered when my dad most of the time say: “I need to go to Kmart” when we were in Puerto Rico in Juana Diaz and also we went to look for the transcription and go with him, Unfortunately the store closed in early 2020 and now is a Pepe Ganga
This was way before people didn't care how they looked in public. As I watched the video, none of the shoppers wore pajama bottoms and a coat like they do today.
I wish K-mart, Sears, Montgomery Wards, and Toy's R Us were still open.
1:20. “I don’t want to be on television” 😝. 18 years later ends up on UA-cam
🤣🤣🤣
Makes me feel old to know 2004 was 20 years ago now , feels like yesterday , miss stores like KMART and places in Canada that were similar like Zellers ...We had both at one time and other places but most are gone now except Walmart and Canadian Tire ....We now live in the Amazon world of shopping ..
Love these old videos! Best $1 I ever spent at a Kmart was in the mini arcade up front duel wielding House of the Dead 2 as a kid.
What really gets me thinking is most of us people apprecitate those nostalgic journeys today… why is it like that? Is it because of nowadays issues in all kind of sections, escpecially when it comes to our own safety… each further second in life keeps us longing for easier times we used to know when we were younger.
We won‘t ever get there again, mankind is damned to end in tragedy because there is nothing to reach anymore.
We all here wish for a simple life in which appreciation is still possible and existent for everyone here on earth … but the system is made to proceed… and so our achievements lead to a harder feel of joy.
Life is tough and it wont get and better.
Thanks to all of your time-travelers!
When Kmart was nearing the end of its prime. I miss the old Kmart days when I shopped there a lot.
Same.
Pure nostalgia i remember going to Kmart in the early 2000s as a kid theres still one an hour away from me I’m planning on visiting it for the nostalgia before it closes
Where is it at? I miss Kmart😥
@@kalanilee7951 its in westwood nj 1 of 3 kmarts left😭
@@TheHardstyleGuy. when I was in NJ back in 2019 I visited a Sears and it stocked Kmart clothing. I miss it Kmart
@@zzizahacallar me too😭
This made me miss my grandma so much.
I was 6 years old. Great time to be a kid.
I was 12 in 2004. One of my coworkers was just born this year. Lmao. He’s always calling my an old man in the work place.
I hope one day Kmart makes a comeback I loved it so much better than Walmart
Around this time I used to go to Big Kmart a lot with my brother. I bought my first Xbox there. As sell as my first Cd which was Trapt’s first album. After big Kmart. Me and my bro Would head over to Burger King.
I was only two years old when this was shot. Now I’m finishing up my undergraduate degree. It’s weird - this video simultaneously seems like it was shot forever ago and like it was shot yesterday. I really do enjoy these slice-of-life videos. Thank you for sharing :)
You're lucky. WheN i was a kid we didn't have video cameras readily available.
What are you? A hundred ? Movie and video cameras have been readily
Available for over 70 years
@@michaelstacey8303 Yet my family didn't own any in the 1970's or 80's... so yea, they weren't around then for us.
What’s crazy is this the Kmart I worked at! And right around the time I started!!!! Even know the checkout manager dan was there in the video!
Man, this is a trip. My local K-Mart was still around then. I was just a kid in high school and Half-Life 2 had just come out. I'm sure I was at home playing Counter-Strike: Source for hours on end when this was filmed. XD
I often miss Kmart. This store was laid out exactly like ours. Walmart and target are on the other side of town and what was once Kmart is now a uhaul store. I still have some items from Kmart. A wooden shelf and my weight bench.
Except for the electronics department (and the customers lol), it still looked similar to how my local Kmarts looked even in 2019
most didn't see any true remodels, the few that did circa 2010 just got a few new signs, and the 2004 logo put on the face of the entrance, but many, many of them retained their early-2000's look.
@@jackson5116 As much as I dislike Wal*Mart, their remodels into Supercenters were very vanilla and out of time. Meanwhile Super K-Marts seemed to be stuck in 1997-2005 design wise.
I rather prefer the 70-80s relics over the trendy looks of the 90s.
@@jackson5116 Early 2000's? Most hadn't been updated, really updated, 10-15 years before then. Just spruced up. A good deal of the ones I went to in 7-8 states, right out of the late '70's early '80's.
Granny toaster oven was timeless
I remember going to a Kmart in 2012. It was in Middlebury CT, and my mom and I were going to get Christmas decorations. I saw tons of sales for the PS3 and Xbox 360 during that holiday season.
I live in Switzerland and we have other similar stores but its sad that they are closing all stores in the US while in our country Malls and Stores are still popular and make millions and Billions of Dollars in Switzerland Swiss francs
I think the way people shop is changed and has evolved over a long period. Shopping 'Malls' have been dying off for a very long time.
The Old days were the best times especially the 70s and 80s life was normal than unlike today.
When adults and people would interact with each other as humans. I was already in Kindergarden around this time. Halo 2 posters were everywhere. Game Crazy had a entire wall dedicated to selling Halo 2. The coolest toy i ever wanted at the time was Black Rangers Morpher from Dino Thunder. The music was so good, i remember telling my self. I cant wait to be adult adn experience the world more. I dont regret those words but i do wish i could experience that world as adult and do wish that things didnt have to get as bad as they did. But things can alwasy change.
This brought back some great memories. Thank you for the video. I remember my KMart was a Venture and thinking to myself KMart thanks to the parent company Sears will last my entire life. I was wrong.
Oh god that's when I started my run with them, this is going to be painful nostalgic.
Watching this makes me sad 😞…… still remember the icee and popcorn snacks as a kid !
The TVs😂😂😂. But the prices 😮
Some random kid in 2004: "YU GI OHHHHH!!!!" lmao it's at 41 seconds.
I was born in December of 2004 when I went to sleep 😴 I would play this while sleeping one earbud out 💯
Never really went to kmart but these are the good days where our favorite stores actually existed.
I started to work at KMart in 2006, and in those two years apart, not much change. I really do miss working there though, especially during the holiday season. Sept - Dec is the best time to work there.
I miss Kmart so much.
Hard to imaging that this was life only 20 years ago.
Not much different than now.
Kind of funny seeing the last of the box/tube TV's....the hybrid flatscreen coming into play at this time.
Those big grey tvs are HDs that weighed about a hundred lbs 😵💫
What prompted you to record all of these videos? Or how did you get ahold of the footage?
Oh lord I miss when Kmart was around. I remember when I first went to a Kmart store when I was a kid back then around 2005 and it was the most memorable moment ever when I first stepped foot inside of my local Kmart Store. I went to the one located in Byron Center, MI and the store is no longer there no more and I miss every memory that I had when I was a kid growing up when my mom took me there and the whole store was part of my childhood but now I am 23 years old and wish to go back in time to the good ol days of the mid 2000's.
I miss going to Kmart with my Grandma. Getting the Kmart cafee and little Ceasars. RIP Grandma.
People are going to miss these days.... When there's grocery store and department store deserts and only fast food and corporate crap.
i was only 7 when this was taken, i wanna go back!!!!
I miss Kmart 😢
Blue light specials were always interesting. I miss Kmart.
The good old days.😢😢😢😢