12 Signs You Graduated High School In The Late 90s

By

1. No one could see it, but you were wearing Steve Maddens or Airwalks under your graduation gown.

2. If you were really lucky your parents gave you the greatest graduation present you could ever ask for: a pager.

3. Your graduation song was either Green Day’s “Time of Your Life” or that terrible Vitamin C “Graduation” song. The worst was if you graduated in 1999 like me and instead of the one time in history you could use Prince’s “1999” everyone still insisted on Green Day. Way to go Harlan High School’s class of ‘99. Way to go.

4. You hoped it was going to be like the graduation on 90210, but it was nothing like the graduation on 90210.

5. You made the announcement of your graduation by putting together a Geocities or Angelfire website. It took you hours just to make the background orange. Thank god you had 40 hours of internet from AOL.

6. You hung your tassel from the rearview mirror of your car right next to your N’Sync “No Strings Attached” marionette.

7. No one had cell phones so you couldn’t text everyone and make last minute changes to your post-graduation plans. You’d have to get everyone together or hope they checked their answering machines as soon as they got home.

8. Your friend’s older brother couldn’t get a keg for the graduation party, but he did manage to get a six-pack of Zimas.

9. You had a very specific mix tape to listen to on the way to graduation and on the way home. It more than likely included some of the following:

  • Third Eye Blind
  • Matchbox 20
  • Oasis
  • Meredith Brooks
  • Montell Jordan
  • Fatboy Slim

10. If you were more advanced than mix tapes, you probably attempted to make a mix CD for the day. Unfortunately it took days to download a song from Napster and your CD burner would ruin the disc if you attempted to use a speed faster than 8x. Add that to the fact that blank CDs used to cost like $2 each and the whole process just turned into a disaster.

11. If you didn’t go to a grad party, you went with a group of friends to watch Final Destination and it freaked you out for a week because you thought every little thing that happened was the start of a ripple effect that would end with you being murdered by some curtains.

12. If you decided to be really unsocial, you skipped the grad party and the movie night so you could go home and play Wolfenstein 3D or Rollercoaster Tycoon. People may not have understood, but they’ll get it once you unveil the amazing theme park you just put together.