23 High School Experiences That Kids Born After 2000 Will Never Understand

High School Musical
High School Musical

1. Finally convincing your parents to let you get text messaging on your phone and then racing to ~Cingular Wireless~ to make it happen.

2. And also not having a phone until you got to high school because this was ‘back in the day’ when four-year-olds didn’t have their own iPads.

3. Always gossiping excitedly over who had the newest Razr. “Did you see Lacey got a pink one?! I didn’t even know they made them in pink!”

4. Excitedly printing out Map Quest directions for how to get to your friend’s house when you finally got your driver’s license.

5. Not knowing what everybody else did all weekend until you arrived to school on Monday, because the cafeteria was your version of Instagram and Snapchat.

6. Having a Xanga account and thinking it was CRAZY that five people read it! (P.S. one of them was your mom.)

7. Saying “your mom goes to college!” even when (and especially when) it didn’t make sense.

8. Taking a ton of pictures with your digital camera and then getting ~*so excited*~ to upload them to your newest Facebook album as soon as you got home from the homecoming dance.

9. …and spending at least an hour with your friends discussing what the title of the album should be. And ultimately voting on an inside joke that nobody else would understand but that would make you feel superior for being in on it.

10. Actually taking notes in class…. in a notebook… BY HAND.

11. Describing an outfit to your friend via text message whenever you were out shopping, because you couldn’t pull out your smartphone and send them a snap in a matter of four seconds saying “should I buy this?”

12. Going to Blockbuster and spending thirty minutes picking out a movie (inevitably, The Notebook) to watch when you and your love interest wanted a ‘cozy night in.’ Because that was the original Netflix and chill.

13. Still being able to use Wikipedia in your research papers, because teachers had not yet realized that it was not a credible source.

14. “Say ‘crack’ again. CRACK!” being part of your everyday lingo.

15. Making the bold move of placing your crush in your Top 8 on MySpace when you wanted to make a romantic gesture. And then panicking when they didn’t immediately acknowledge it or ask you out.

16. Hearing a new song you liked and having to actually go on your dad’s desktop computer, purchase it on iTunes, hook up your iPod with a cord, and then export the song on there before you could finally enjoy it.

17. Or, if you didn’t want to pay for it: asking your friend to burn you a CD of that and several other good new songs, taking it home and importing the CD into your iTunes, and then hooking up your iPod and exporting it all onto there.

18. Having a Netflix account in which you had to actually request three (at most) DVDs and then wait for them to arrive in the mail before you could watch anything.

19. Experiencing the original version of binge-watching, which was buying a season of Friends for fifty God-forsaken dollars and then having to switch out the DVD every 4-5 episodes. Which was the original version of the “Are you still watching?” question that Netflix now uses to shame you.

20. Shopping at Hot Topic, because it wasn’t ironic yet. Thanks, Good Charlotte.

21. Literally wanting nothing more than to be or to date Marissa Cooper, even if you didn’t watch The O.C. 

22. Having to wait for your favorite music videos to come on TRL or to play during commercials on the Disney Channel, instead of being able to pull them up immediately on YouTube.

23. And having a version of Disney Channel that could never be replicated: Lizzie McGuire, That’s So Raven, Hannah Montana, Even Stevens, The Famous Jett Jackson, So Weird, Phil (Phii-iiil) of the Future. Plus all the gems they pulled from other channels: Boy Meets World, Sister Sister, Smart Guy. Bless it, bless it all. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

I’m a staff writer for Thought Catalog. I like comedy and improv. I live in Chicago. My Uber rating is just okay.

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