If you left school in 2009 – to go on to uni or into work – you’ll remember the halycon days before One Direction and Taylor Swift, when you listened to music on an iPod Classic and bought CDs from shops. When telly for teens was really great, and Marvel hadn’t taken over the cinematic year. As part of NME‘s ‘Class Of…’ series, we’re looking at all the things that made schooldays great, from the mid-nineties to the late 00s. Be warned: any one of these 41 things could make you super nostalgic.
1. You were more upset when E4 stopped showing Friends than when the when the actual series ended in 2004
You were too young to enjoy it the first time round. Over the seven years it was repeated on E4 from 2004-2011, you probably saw every episode at least once, mainly while bunking off lectures at uni, and when you heard it was heading for Comedy Central you were like this:
2. The Skins/Inbetweeners teen dichotomy was way too real
Expectation:
Reality:
3. As a teenager you owned a gimmicky phone like this
And you treasured it with all your heart. We still love you, O2 Cocoon.
https://twitter.com/Lauren_Usher_17/status/688813903183237124
4. You quoted Anchorman, Little Britain, and Austin Powers all the time at school
Sometimes you still do
Not a bad way to start my day, Get in mah belleh ? pic.twitter.com/sOBvOKUdwK
— Robb (@iRobbb) April 9, 2016
5. You’ve always had a soft spot for Cool Runnings
You had it on VHS, and while it didn’t get you to the Winter Olympics, you probably still did this after watching it for the first time
6. When you saw Tony Gardner in Fresh Meat you immediately thought of My Parents Are Aliens
Professor Shales will always be Brian to us.
7. You were too young for the first series of Big Brother in 2000, but you watched it anyway
Remember when they got naked and covered themselves in clay?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06jesyrEoUM&start=127
8. Arctic Monkeys are one of the few bands you’re proud you liked when you were younger
Even though Gordon Brown ruined it by saying he liked them too
9. You used to buy CDs from the Virgin Megastore
Or Woolworths. Classic.
Westlife open the new Virgin megastore at Piccadilly Circus in London, 1999 #iSpeakWestlife pic.twitter.com/XiXatbcY
— Westlife . (@iSpeakWestlife) April 23, 2012
10. You used to buy physical copies of singles too, and you look back on this time fondly
…even if the stuff you used to buy included ‘Heaven Is A Halfpipe’ by OPM. No one is judging you.
11. You remember the year you left school because of the amazing Reading & Leeds lineup in 2009
Arctic Monkeys, Radiohead and Kings of Leon headlined that year, and there were sets from The Prodigy, Bloc Party, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Ian Brown, and The Courteeners. It was amazing. Either you went to celebrate leaving school, and were like this:
Or you couldn’t go, and were more like this:
12. There was probably one of these in your house
Zig-a-zig ah #girlpower
Early #tbt #spicegirls #cassette #90s pic.twitter.com/s0LB2uqFUz
— OhWheelie (@aureliesm) August 21, 2013
13. The internet was so, so bad
Hear it and shudder:
You still managed to use MSN Messenger though
http://giphy.com/gifs/12UHyW79VtjEeA
14. In your lifetime you’ve heard the phrase ‘guitar music is dead’ at least 5,000 times
…and every time you’re like:
15. At school you had a Livestrong wristband and you thought it made you a good person
https://twitter.com/jessnicole1997/status/736001158003576834
16. You were all about the rubbish prizes in snacks and cereal boxes
Pointless collectibles like Tazos were great, obviously, but then there were things like this, which slowly got covered in dust and hair.
https://twitter.com/item_plusher/status/729383325006172160
17. You didn’t understand why everyone was so upset about the 00s Star Wars films
Simon Pegg was busy losing his job in Spaced over the awfulness of Jar Jar Binks, but you didn’t know any better at the time. It wasn’t until later that you saw the true crimes of the prequel trilogy.
18. You literally grew up with Harry Potter
You were 10/11 when he went to Hogwarts in first film, you were 17/18 when he left school at the end of the sixth, and you went to watch the last two at uni because everyone did. To anyone who questioned it, you were like:
http://giphy.com/gifs/hP8xenrzdIhqw
19. You never want to hear this speech from Taken ever again
The phrase “particular set of skills” has lost all meaning
20. You have a Family Guy quote for every occasion
You are also great at saying this really fast
http://giphy.com/gifs/IV4wBde5Ou0XC
21. You and your friends wasted an embarrassing amount of time shooting each other on Halo and Counterstrike
#NoRegrets
22. You wasted even more time on Pokémon Blue, Red or Yellow
Missingno was always the key catch, really.
http://giphy.com/gifs/vbJSzTQrpYL60
23. You know that there are only 150 real Pokemon. All the new ones are rubbish
This one is literally called ‘Trubbish’.
this is "trubbish" pic.twitter.com/8DtvI64fqf
— Ian // Bank (@ssbmbank) May 13, 2016
24. You know what lupus is because of House
25. You used to write Facebook statuses in the third person
Did everyone set their status in third person on Facebook or was I the only one? #imcool #FB4LYFE #2009 pic.twitter.com/CcFpmuymQ9
— Leigh Anna Driggers (@la_driggers) December 29, 2013
You also remember when ‘poke’ was a clearly listed option on people’s walls. When they were called walls.
26. BBC Switch was aimed directly at you
Annie Mac and Nick Grimshaw were a Sunday night dream team on Radio 1, but the corresponding live music TV show, Sound, was kinda weird. Why was no one but Annie & Nick watching the performances? Why was it always outside? No one knew.
27. T4 had the best teen shows on TV
After you grew out of CD:UK and SMTV Live, you moved to T4, with The OC, The Simpsons and more. Its best offering, Popworld, had a golden age from 2001-2006. It was mainly Simon Amstell and Miquita Oliver taking the piss out of everyone, and it was great.
28. The word gunge has a deep, slightly horrifying significance for you
The reason being that it was part of every children’s game show you watched. Health & Safety standards didn’t exist back then.
29. You owned at least two of the Now! That’s What I Call Music CDs
Now 39 is a particular classic. Was this the last one to feature Radiohead and Pulp?
30. You consider Elf the Christmassiest Christmas film that ever Christmassed
It’s also one of the few Will Ferrell films you can legally show a child.
http://giphy.com/gifs/67AD97AdkOEZa
31. Just before you left, your school got a Smart Board, aka a Ridiculous Waste Of Money
Your teachers kept getting flustered after forgetting to put the smart pens back and making marks by mistake – or worse, by drawing on them with regular board markers.
"Miss Yoyo" trying out the smart board in one of my classrooms. #greenhearttravel #teacher pic.twitter.com/tunxFdnYOw
— sasha vazquez (@sashaVAZ_Q) May 21, 2016
32. The Simpsons + The Fresh Prince of Bel Air = ’90s weekday evenings on BBC Two
Happy days
Friday nights in 2001 were wild:
5:00 Blue Peter
5:35 Neighbours
6:00 Simpsons
6:30 Fresh Prince
7:00 Robot Wars
7:30 Top of the Pops— Lizzie (@lizzieharrett) May 10, 2016
33. Lord of the Rings was a significant cultural landmark for you
When people bring up the ‘plot hole’ thing about the eagles flying the ring to Mount Doom, you look at them with pity and remind them about these guys.
http://giphy.com/gifs/FmsDqwA8Cb5Vm
34. Spider-Man 3 was among the most hilariously bad films you watched as a teen
Here are just a few of its terrible moments:
http://giphy.com/gifs/XtEFDhE79TqO4
http://giphy.com/gifs/jkmycFPVKYdI4
Yeah no thanks
35. Whereas Mean Girls was brilliant and formative
School may be completely different in the UK, but Tina Fey’s 2004 drawing of teenage competitiveness (and general awfulness) was perfect. And so very quotable. It was probably the best school-set comedy since Clueless.
36. You felt grown up when High School Musical came out because you considered it lame and bad
Wasn’t aimed at you, but still. What the hell was that?
http://giphy.com/gifs/NqgEf8EjQRnuE
37. ‘Bad times’ was once part of your lexicon
And epic fail. And FML. And, less so, yolo.
38. You honestly thought Lost was going somewhere
http://giphy.com/gifs/OfpdDt12u1Psk
When it started, it was really cool. When it ended it was a mess. You still haven’t quite forgiven JJ Abrams.
39. During IT lessons you spent most of your time on Miniclip.com
8-ball pool was where it was at
http://giphy.com/gifs/usHSkV5yTxM5y
40. You spent ages organising your mp3 library
In the days before GraceNote, you had to painstakingly label and organise the mp3 files you ripped from your CDs, and your mates’. You probably used iTunes, or Windows Media Player.
https://twitter.com/LRCN0CNNR/status/414340128396439552
If you were one of the chosen few, you would have used Zune instead
@Microsoft zune software is still one of the best looking media players pic.twitter.com/QKDIVN9M1W
— james owen (@rainbrodash) May 20, 2016
41. You shed a tear as Top of the Pops died its slow death
It went from this:
To this:
It’s still a sad story – but the music lives on. And let’s face it, your music taste is better now than it was when Top of the Pops was on anyway.