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Thinking back on July 2023 and how the Barbie movie altered fashion and pop culture
Jun 27, 2024
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📺tablets didn't exist. cell phones existed but almost nobody had them. personally, my summers were riding my bike around town all day, reading books and watching movies, and playing with neighborhood kids. britney spears was my everything. youtube was something you looked at for fun every once in awhile in the computer room. people had computer rooms. everybody had a landline phone. some people had wall phones in their kitchens; i used to sit on the counter to talk to my friend on the phone. if you were poor, you didn't have any of the latest technology, so in many ways it was like the 90s. we had big box tvs and only watched movies on vhs until i was in middle school. the wii being released was huge. getting a wii was even huger. cartoons were better back then. spongebob was at its peak. teen girls crimped their hair and pierced their own noses. your parents would pay a teen girl to babysit you and then she would spend all day hanging out with her friends and pretending you didn't exist while talking about stuff your mom would flip if she knew you'd heard. mtv showed all kinds of awesome shows and you felt really cool if you got to see a few episodes of parental control or the osbournes or my super sweet 16 because your babysitter had it on. taylor swift was only popular with girls who liked country music. tube tops, spaghetti straps, wedge flip flops and tankinis were awesome. teen girls did not know how to do their makeup. malls were a much bigger thing and were hangout spots. cool girls got their prom dresses at the mall at deb. hot topic still looked awesome. you couldn't record tv shows and the only people who could watch stuff on demand were rich people. if you went to someone's house and they had an island in their kitchen you knew they were RICH. problem children were the exception in schools and not the rule. people weren't really happier; the recession fucked a lot of people over and started hurting poor people well before it affected middle and upper classes. teen girls did not have long fake nails, they had short nails that they painted alternating colors. getting your nails done by someone else was not nearly as common as it is today; it was really only done for special occasions like prom or a wedding. littlest pet shop pets, barbies, and polly pockets were the shit. people were really really really really really mean to anyone that wasn't skinny. proactiv was advertised literally everywhere all the time. twilight had all us fifth graders in a chokehold. emo kids got hardcore bullied. there were constant "anti-bullying" ads and videos and stuff but none of it addressed the root causes of bullying, aka racism homophobia transphobia classism etc. so none of it worked. there were hannah montana trading cards and some girls collected them. for some reason every girl had an asshole older brother. barrettes, butterfly hair clips, banana clips, and scrunchies were very much in. every kid in school watched spongebob and if you didn't you were considered the odd one out. if you went on a yearly family vacation you were considered rich.
for reference i turned 26 this year :)
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🎭Every new piece of technology was so exciting, because of the monoculture every new release felt like an Event, everything was shiny and glittery and in fun colors. Listening to music for the first time on an iPod was crazy. Getting a portable DVD player to watch Buffy the Vampire slayer DVDs on long road trips made me feel like I lived in the future. Seeing digital cable for the first time where it would display the programming schedule with descriptions blew my mind.
I played so many games on CD-ROM on a clunky beige monitor attached to a giant tower running Windows 98–a lot of my parents’ friends were educators so they were constantly giving me new ones to play. Neopets was my life and I loved exploring new sites. I remember frequenting many websites that were just lists of other sites lol. I did also spend a lot of time playing outside and just imagining things. Everything you see on Buzzfeed 90s kid remember the 2000s articles is accurate. The high of optimism when Obama got elected after eight years of Bush was unparalleled!
That said yeah the forced conformity was incredibly stifling and social groups were still cliquish (though this was starting to dissolve by the time I got into high school). Things that would make you cool now would lead you to be mocked or become an outcast so it was nice that emo kids existed because they were a lot more accepting of idiosyncrasies and quirks. Gender nonconformity was frowned upon—I got my hair cut short in eighth grade and was made fun of by so many people, and my male gym coach called me sir!
The beauty standards were insane and also so narrow. I remember being in a Kohl’s dressing room when I was like 12 and crying as I tried on increasingly larger pants sizes because my butt wouldn’t fit into anything I tried on and wondering why I was cursed with this body.
HONESTLY the hardest thing for me was that I needed glasses and the only ones that were really available at my local glasses shops were very ugly and nerdy (or if there were cool ones they were designer and cost like $600) and you couldn’t just buy them online so I was walking around looking like Harry Potter for most of my childhood and early adolescence and feeling very insecure about it.
The good thing about personal style, culture, and taste is that i truly had to figure it all out on my own by seeking out and curating sources of inspiration, or by word of mouth from other people, rather than having inspiration algorithmically fed to me.
I remember going trick or treating in the mall after 9/11 because some parents including my mother were very paranoid that something (?) would happen? My mom was very paranoid in general because of her own childhood experiences and seeing all of the news stories about child abductions but I wasn’t helicoptered and my parents would let me walk around the neighborhood with my friends as I got older. We spent so much time just walking from strip mall to strip mall and like loitering at Barnes and Noble lol.
So it was a mixed bag really but I wouldn’t go back and my nostalgia is usually only in passing. This is controversial but I don’t have any fondness for physical media other than vinyl records because I remember just thinking CDs DVDs and VHSs sucked and I hated when they would get damaged. When I realized that I could acquire any digital media I wanted on the internet it felt like the world was my oyster and I never looked back.
You know what though actually I just remembered how much cheaper everything was and I got mad so…
I played so many games on CD-ROM on a clunky beige monitor attached to a giant tower running Windows 98–a lot of my parents’ friends were educators so they were constantly giving me new ones to play. Neopets was my life and I loved exploring new sites. I remember frequenting many websites that were just lists of other sites lol. I did also spend a lot of time playing outside and just imagining things. Everything you see on Buzzfeed 90s kid remember the 2000s articles is accurate. The high of optimism when Obama got elected after eight years of Bush was unparalleled!
That said yeah the forced conformity was incredibly stifling and social groups were still cliquish (though this was starting to dissolve by the time I got into high school). Things that would make you cool now would lead you to be mocked or become an outcast so it was nice that emo kids existed because they were a lot more accepting of idiosyncrasies and quirks. Gender nonconformity was frowned upon—I got my hair cut short in eighth grade and was made fun of by so many people, and my male gym coach called me sir!
The beauty standards were insane and also so narrow. I remember being in a Kohl’s dressing room when I was like 12 and crying as I tried on increasingly larger pants sizes because my butt wouldn’t fit into anything I tried on and wondering why I was cursed with this body.
HONESTLY the hardest thing for me was that I needed glasses and the only ones that were really available at my local glasses shops were very ugly and nerdy (or if there were cool ones they were designer and cost like $600) and you couldn’t just buy them online so I was walking around looking like Harry Potter for most of my childhood and early adolescence and feeling very insecure about it.
The good thing about personal style, culture, and taste is that i truly had to figure it all out on my own by seeking out and curating sources of inspiration, or by word of mouth from other people, rather than having inspiration algorithmically fed to me.
I remember going trick or treating in the mall after 9/11 because some parents including my mother were very paranoid that something (?) would happen? My mom was very paranoid in general because of her own childhood experiences and seeing all of the news stories about child abductions but I wasn’t helicoptered and my parents would let me walk around the neighborhood with my friends as I got older. We spent so much time just walking from strip mall to strip mall and like loitering at Barnes and Noble lol.
So it was a mixed bag really but I wouldn’t go back and my nostalgia is usually only in passing. This is controversial but I don’t have any fondness for physical media other than vinyl records because I remember just thinking CDs DVDs and VHSs sucked and I hated when they would get damaged. When I realized that I could acquire any digital media I wanted on the internet it felt like the world was my oyster and I never looked back.
You know what though actually I just remembered how much cheaper everything was and I got mad so…
6d ago
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❤️This feels like the platform I imagined the cool girls would post on when I was 10 years old. They always wore hoop earrings, had an extensive CD and perfume collection and were the kindest people you would ever meet.
2025 always sounded so futuristic but I feel like I am back in the 2010s again. As i try to disconnect from social media more and be more mindful of how and what media i consume, i chase this feeling from my childhood. Wasting my Saturdays behind the family computer and going down a Youtube rabbit hole, blasting music from my CD player and trying to text on my Nokia phone (by having to press a button three times to get one letter.) Is it the innocence i miss because i didn't have a clue about attachment styles in relationships or the imposter syndrome i get when i go on LinkedIn? I don't know. But since the beginning of 2025 I have noticed once more, I am still 10-year old Sara: I have been listening to Avicii again, since his new documentary came out at the beginning of this year. I am always on the hunt for 2000s Guess kitten heels and handbags on Vinted and Vestiaire. Watching Lamine Yamal play reminds me of the creativity that Brazilian Football represents and the joy i had when watching them compete in the World Cup in 2014.
There is this quote i love, which talks about you being a mosaic of the people you've ever loved and how they impact you in different ways. As much as I am a product of the people in my life i am also a product of my time. As a 2002 baby I do miss the simplicity of social media, post recession pop and my daily workout being completed on Wii Sports. As nostalgic as I am, i can't wait for what this year has in store.
2025 always sounded so futuristic but I feel like I am back in the 2010s again. As i try to disconnect from social media more and be more mindful of how and what media i consume, i chase this feeling from my childhood. Wasting my Saturdays behind the family computer and going down a Youtube rabbit hole, blasting music from my CD player and trying to text on my Nokia phone (by having to press a button three times to get one letter.) Is it the innocence i miss because i didn't have a clue about attachment styles in relationships or the imposter syndrome i get when i go on LinkedIn? I don't know. But since the beginning of 2025 I have noticed once more, I am still 10-year old Sara: I have been listening to Avicii again, since his new documentary came out at the beginning of this year. I am always on the hunt for 2000s Guess kitten heels and handbags on Vinted and Vestiaire. Watching Lamine Yamal play reminds me of the creativity that Brazilian Football represents and the joy i had when watching them compete in the World Cup in 2014.
There is this quote i love, which talks about you being a mosaic of the people you've ever loved and how they impact you in different ways. As much as I am a product of the people in my life i am also a product of my time. As a 2002 baby I do miss the simplicity of social media, post recession pop and my daily workout being completed on Wii Sports. As nostalgic as I am, i can't wait for what this year has in store.
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