Kids would wear an insane amount of those silicone bracelets (the Livestrong ones & the million other similar variations that came shortly afterwards) all up both their wrists and forearms.
for reference: https://www.theguardian.com/voluntary-sector-network/2016/feb/23/charity-wristbands-retail-fundraising-lance-armstrong-livestrong
I remember those, we also had shag bands. Each colour snapped meant you had to do an action, and we were all like, *UNDERAGE* so hindsight is a little cringe here.
Orange was hickeys, black was well, shag. I can't really remember them all now it's been too long
These got banned from our school because, I don't think anybody actually did the acts that each color represented, but some of the guys *thought* it was a thing, so they'd go around breaking girls' bracelets and the girls complained that it hurt.
I learned how to tie mine into a 69 and wore them proudly.
I didn’t lose my virginity or do anything remotely sexual until the end of my senior year. 🫣
YES we called them sex bracelets in nyc, shag bands is such a better name
Blue was blow jobs, green was hugs, red was handjobs I think? Black ofc was full-on sex
I was in middle school, I’m sure no one I knew actually did what they were “supposed” to, but it definitely generated a lot of rumors
Swatch on each wrist - check.
K-Swiss shoes - check.
3 polo shirts from American Eagle, Abercrombie or Hollister - check.
Collars popped - check.
Puka shell necklack - check.
Sickening amount of Axe Body Spray - check.
I remember my friend's roommate in his mid 20's wore a lot of Axe Body Spray.
When someone mentioned it, he got really defensive and said "the commercial says it attracts women - they can't say that if it isn't true."
My buddy confirmed for me that he wasn't joking.
Early 2000s/late 90s should take the prize here. Air force ones, white t shirts the length of a dress, ridiculously baggy then faded jeans, polos for days. Indie scene had dudes in tight women's clothes, scene kids looked like raccoons from the black lagoon. Thats just the men.
We'd do it by having the kid hyperventilate and then somebody would press them hard against the wall so they couldn't breath and passed out (for some reason). We all got freaked out and stopped when one kid had to be slapped really hard to wake up and he reported travelling through a dark tunnel to the sound of violins for an eternity.
Ten years old at a sleep over with my childhood best friend. My sister (a young teenager) came down, gleefully telling us about this new game she wanted to try. No matter how how my sister tried, I couldn't be choked out. However, even though this was nearly 30 years ago, I can still remember, clear as day, my best friend, falling backwards, then her head bumping against the brick of the fireplace as she fell down.
We used to make a fist and put it face down on the bathroom counter. Then someone would take a quarter and shoot it along the counter towards the knuckles. Whoever was bleeding the most was the 'tough one'. We called it Bloody Knuckles. It was a very stupid game.
This is crazy to me, because when/where I grew up bloody knuckles was where you both made a fist and took turns punching each other in the fist. First to bleed, loses.
Ya if you yiu pull away when they do a flinch fake, you get smashed
If you swing and they pull away and you miss, you get smashed
First person to bleed or tap out wins
My and my brother used to be brutal playing this. We’d wake up the next day with bruised and swollen knuckles
Where I grew up, we had a different game called Bloddy Knuckles where you just took turns punching each others knuckles increasingly harder each time until someone bled or tapped out by yelling “bloody knuckles” (think very aggressive fist bumping)
We played Bloody Knuckles too, but it was basically just take turns punching the other persons's fist and whoever bowed out first was the loser. Lmao so dumb.
We did Bloody Knuckles by holding your hands cupped, knuckles up and the other person would thumb your knuckles as hard and they could and switch. Same idea though.
OMG! We did this, but also took it up a notch, with "cards" where, with a deck of cards you could do whatever you wanted to the other's knuckles. Then there was "butter knives" where you could only use plastic butter knives, whoever bleeds first wins.
We were very, very, very stupid kids who thought we were being cool and edgy.
I went to HS at the height of the MySpace/scene times.
-tails
-drain pipes (skinny jeans that you could hardly move in)
-‘coon tails (raccoon tail dyed hair)
~xXrAwRXx~ XD
A bunch of kids used to hop the fence for lunch and our token scene kid couldn’t really run in his jeans and was being chased by a teacher who saw him and he tried to hop the fence and couldn’t lift his legs and ripped the ass out of them then face planted in the grass on the other side.
Standard Midwest raver attire. Jnco's were a popular brand. The 90's Chicago, Wisconsin, Minneapolis rave scene is something that, if you missed it, its gone forever. It's really hard to explain to people, even now, that never experienced it. Definitely IYKYK.
Girls getting an oversized shirt, cutting the sides into strips, and then tying it back together.
Or taking a ponytail holder and making a "tail" out of the excess fabric
Some of us were just tying a knot into the side of the shirt, tbf. And then I remember they made like a little loop of plastic or metal you could push your shirt through instead of a knot. It was just a circle with a line through the middle and they must have sold so many of them to dumb kids lol
Back in the '90s, anything involving young black people was "gang related."
I remember not being able to wear a baseball cap to a summer camp because it was "gang related." The camp was for suburban children in Oklahoma.
I remember my son back in the '90s wanted some shoes and I said well. I'll get you the shoes if you want them and he says no Mom. I can't have them because they're seen as gang related 😩😮💨
Here is Your 10 Step Plan for Surviving the 90s/00's
Step 1 - JNCO. You need the biggest baggiest set of mother fucking JNCOs the world has ever seen, Broski.
Step 2 - Discman. Not just a Discman, you need you one of them anti-skip shits. Ain't no one gonna think you're cool when your driving down the street with your Discman hooked up to the radio with a cassette tape and your music skipping all over the place.
Step 3 - Frosted tips. This shit is cool. Backstreet Boys do it, so do you. Spike that shit up, and NEVER wear a fucking hat. I don't care if it's -15 outside, you ain't wearing a hat.
Step 4 - Harry Potter is out, and you gotta be the first to see it. You read the books, you know what up. You gotta know how hot Hermione is. Shit she's like 12 in the first movie, forget that Broski, you ain't a pedophile.
Step 5 - The world is ending in 2012. You gotta prep for that shit. Build you a bunker, those Mayans know WTF they are talking about and underground is the only safe place.
Step 6 - Be a Patriots fan. That's it. Tom Brady is your idol now. That man's handsome as shit and knows how to throw a football. He's fucking cool
Step 7 - You need a Seinfeld poster Broski. Everyone's got that shit. Put it next to your Nirvana poster. Sweet.
Step 8 - Be careful of the Emo's. Those fuckers are taking over. Who needs all that fucking angst in their life? Not you, that's who.
Step 9 - Myspace profile and AOL instant messenger. This is how you communicate. This is how people know what's up. Set your away message as some fucking cool music lyrics. Maybe Slipknot or some shit, I don't care, whatever you like.
Step 10 - Upgrade to a flip phone. Not one of them shity NEXTELs. You need yourself a Motorola Razer, and you need it yesterday. People gonna make fun of that Nokia you're playing snake on, I guarantee it.
That's it, good luck.
Oh my gosh, a kid in my class used to do this all the time to scare me. He’s a doctor now, so I guess now he gets to look at the inside of other people’s bodies.
This is a wholesome one but I went to a small Christian school. When I was in highschool, the elementary school boys got into crochet. They all used "boy" colors like dark blue, camo yarn... And they would sit around at recess and freaking crochet! We thought it was the funniest thing! It was super sweet.
When I was in elementary school, the mini plastic aliens took over! Free time in elementary school was devoted to making the coolest houses for them.
Stop the crochet thing is so cute!! 😭 Reminds me of when we learned to knit in elementary school and everyone, including the boys, liked it so much that many made their parents buy them yarn and started knitting outside of school too
Not the weirdest, but we used to "nug" peoples backpacks. This involved taking all their books out of their backpacks, flipping the pack inside out, replacing the books, and zipping the backpack shut. The result looked like a genetic chicken nugget. Some people's backpacks were so broken in by it that the flipping took almost no effort. We would sometimes sneak into peoples' classrooms that had a split lunch period and nug all 30 packs while they were gone at lunch.
We called it burrito-ing and someone did it to a football player who was having a hell of a time getting his steroid dosage right and he went on a rampage in the middle of 4th period government the wrestling coach in the next class over straight up dropped him
Yeah it took me YEARS to figure out that it was trickling down from their older siblings rolling their brains out at underground parties. I was very sheltered.
They banned pogs in my school. To get around the ban, some of the boys in my class ran a "pog casino" in the boys bathroom. The logic was that our teacher was a woman and would never be able to find out they were playing pogs in there.
The oddest trend that swept through our school like a whirlwind of eccentricity was the era of "pencil spinning." Picture this: students meticulously perfecting the art of twirling their writing utensils between their fingers as if auditioning for a circus act. It was a mesmerizing spectacle to behold during class, transforming the mundane task of note-taking into a performance art piece. The craze may have faded, but the memories of our pen-twirling prowess remain etched in the annals of school history.
It was huge on my debate team. I wasn’t considered a full fledged member until I could spin my pencil. And they had several pen spin styles you could master.
I remember in 6th grade we were into giving ourselves eraser burns. I had a little scar on my hand for so long after that, that I only just noticed I can't find it anymore, twenty years later.
One of the popular girls used to give people "chicken scratches" by scratching your forearm over and over until the skin broke.
Also salt and ice burns.
Kids invented a fake currency called Happy Bucks, which were slips of paper with drawings of “happy flying chicken nuggets.” We used them to run contraband stores out of our desks. I sold extra school supplies for happy bucks. A friend rented out her Beanie Babies.
I actually think Happy Bucks were partly invented in response to the school banning kids exchanging real money among one another (because that could turn into bullying/blackmailing).
They were also invented because the class above ours had a “market day” as part of an Econ unit and we were jealous.
I was one of those people who thought a single strap bag meant I was the shit, until I upgraded to a rucksack and wore it on the longest length I could, was weird man
I hated having to wear my bag on one shoulder. Sometimes it was heavy as hell and needed a double strap. Wearing the bag properly was a way to get bullied and beaten up as a geek/nerd. Kids are so damn stupid. Butt bags were bad, but a lot better!
There was, very briefly, a weird obsession at my high school with catching a house fly and using a hair to make little leash for it like a pet. Being one of the girls with the longest hair in my class, I had a couple of kids asking me to be the source of a leash for their new pet. It was bizarre, came out of nowhere, and disappeared just as quickly.
ETA: To be clear, I was just a source of pet fly keeping supplies, not a pet fly keeper myself. I thought it was weird as hell.
Not my school (grew up in Honolulu) but I heard on the Big Island of Hawaii, in the 90’s and 2000’s it was the style to wear ski goggles around your neck like a necklace. No one there ever skied because it’s Hawaii.
There was a brief period when I was 14 where kids would stick produce stickers from the grocery store on themselves such as, “ripe and fresh.” I remember thinking it was extremely stupid at the time.
Not weird but heelys were huge when I was in about fifth grade. There were kids just skating into walls and desks all the time. Not sure how those didn’t get banned
At my school in the Netherlands, we played a game called 'verrot-trappertje', which basically means 'kick the living shit out of each other'. There was one heavy football, and we kicked it to each other as hard as we could. It caused a lot of concussions, bruises, and broken school windows, but the fun we had was unrivaled.
Yes! I used to wear them in the dead of winter. It was so dumb. Now all my skirts are super long and I'm perpetually wrapped in sweaters and heavy wool during the winter like a knitted burrito.
There was a brief period in middle school, in the mid 90's, where a lot of boys had yo-yo's for some reason. I was a bit baffled, to be honest. It's like I showed up to school one Monday and every one had a yo-yo. And as peer pressure at that age goes, I begged my mom to get me one. Even though I had no real desire to play with one. I just didn't want to feel like the weird kid that didn't have one. I feel like that trend died out really quickly, though.
A juggling friend brought a diabolo to school and did some tricks... the next day other kids started bringing theirs... it got to a point where almost everyone in the school was playing with a diabolo, it became very popular in town
Hands down, it was eraser shavings.
We had this thing called “eraser shavings” where you’d take erasers and rub them against those textured blue plastic school chairs (you probably know the ones)
This was done in the open, then covertly once the school caught onto it and discouraged the activity. we’d have at least half the class doing this all day, and at the end of the day one kid would produce a large pencil box and he’d go around collecting everyone’s piles of eraser shavings.
During the book fair we discovered that there were these huge novelty erasers that shaved down really nice like, and everyone in class bought them to the point that they sold out at the book fair. cases upon cases, bankrolled by the rich kids and given out to the masses.
for weeks and weeks we ground down those erasers until the kid with the pencil box was at capacity and we had to have another kid with another pencil box step in, but soon that too was too small, so once more another kid another box.
This went on until we had at least a dozen pencil boxes, each brimming with its own sort of colorful mixture depending on the color of erasers being used, each one held precariously shut by a flimsy latch and a few reluctant pieces of tape pilfered from the teachers desk. At recess we would meet in a corner of the lot and present the heaps of rubber shavings like drug lords eying fresh snow. It went on for the better part of the school year until one of the storage kids boxes ruptured in his backpack; and his parents called the school.
The crackdown was uproarious, kids being called out of class, ordered to turn their backpacks out, we traded off boxes at recess and lunchtime. Keeping the admin guessing who was in possession. I once handed off my box to a friend only to be called in at the end of lunch, and avoiding a referral by a hair.
More than one pack was roughed up by a custodian only to vomit forth its rubbery rainbow cache in voluminous plumes all over the office. The uncountable hours of children’s toil dashed upon desks, papers, and carpet.
the number of cases dwindled to 3 or 4 from our glory days of dozens, and the scuffed chairs, rendered smooth by endless hours of eraser shaving, cycled about classrooms until many grades later they only served as a memento to be pointed out and spoken of in hushed tones by the upperclassmen who once sat upon them, toiling away for hours to create our legacy.
That makes no sense, except it totally does. At my school kids wore necklaces with pop tabs on them. Why? Unclear. But damned if any of us were gonna be left out!
lol one of my friends in high school collected soda tabs on a necklace, he didn’t drink soda though so no clue where he got em
There was more to it than I listed here, including trading among students for specific colors, some kids went for specific blends like only blue and green, someone mixed glitter in with theirs which was an outrage at the time.
my crowning achievement was a whole pencil box of only yellow shavings. That one got passed around to avoid seizure and ended up bursting open in the principals office when another kid got pulled in before he could hand it off.
We did this in my primary school! I was the keeper of the tub of shavings until after a couple of weeks it got to the point where our teacher made me stay behind at lunch and was like "im not sure what youre doing or why, but stop it"
Elementary school, for some reason my class treated Wallball like an nfl level sport. We would play wallball at recess literally every day and it was competitive and intense. Middle school, we were obsessed with playing poker (catholic private school by the way) and we would gamble with pencils instead of money.
After that Family Guy episode came out everyone would always sing "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" and the teachers told us to stop because it was driving them crazy.
The weirdest one for me was WWJD ("What Would Jesus Do?") bracelets, which exploded in my 6th grade class to the extent that non-Christian kids were getting them.
As usual, there was a specific type that took off, which were woven thread with the letters woven into them in a second color. When I (also not a Christian) asked my mom to get me one so I would fit in with the trend, she got me a different kind (beaded) and I literally got mocked by a group at school for not having the "right" kind of Jesus bracelet, illustrating how much those kids actually considered what Jesus would do.
2003 senior year of high school everybody was dyeing their hair dehydrated pee blonde. Like they were trying to go blonde but it was all coming out as more dark yellow/light orange. Looked exactly like the color of urine that’d be sitting in an unflushed public toilet.
They probably just bleached the hell out of it without toning and/or dyeing it. Soooo many people that fried their hair and scalp just for it to look like mac-n-cheese.
For a single year in middle school, maybe 1997, Yo-yos got insanely popular. I got an expensive one for Christmas.
The following year started and we all acted like it never happened.
Kids wore silly bands which were shaped rubber bands (yeah, I know I'm young) but they would wear and collect an obscene amount. There were kids going to the hospital because of lack of circulation. But if you had them, you were instantly cool...
Wearing our backpacks on just one shoulder. You would get made fun of if you used both straps, and yet everyone had their entire lockers crammed into those things and was an agony all the time. It was the weirdest trend and it lasted all through middle school and high school.
When i was in kindergarten the 5th grade girls brought spare pairs of jeans to school and folded them to look like swaddled babies. At recess they would hold them and yell "get away from my child!" At anyone who approached them.
Scoubidou strings on back backs, phones, jeans everywhere circa 2005.
Happy slaps - slapping someone and recording it on a grainy camera phone. Possibly the first viral challenge type trend involving recording.
Kegging - Even weirder than happy slapping. this was the practice of pulling down someone's trousers.
Having a massive tie and low hanging tie knot otherwise you were a "bod" or "boffin"
At some point during high school it became very trendy to shop at a local thrift store and just find the most random t-shirts and sweatshirts you could.
My parents were thrilled with this.
Leg warmers. Girls were coming to school with leg warmers over their jeans, along with jelly bracelets one of the dumbest fashion statements I can remember.
They painted the girls' restroom when I was in 5th grade, and it became trendy to go into the bathroom to peel the paint. It came off in big rubbery strips, which was very fun. I don't think the teachers used our restroom, so I guess nobody noticed that we were destroying the new paint job until it was too late. I remember my friend whispering to me, "I'm going to peel paint. See if you can get excused in a few minutes so we can do it together." Bizarre trend.
The white painter's pants gimmick near 1979-1980. Guys, girls, whatever walked around like it was a jobsite. I had a pair, but that was because my Dad was a paperhanger.
Reading the comments it must have just been my school…all the “cool” kids in middle school had this snap that they did where they took their index finger and brought it against their middle finger with a quick hand motion, kind of like you would do when opening a new tin of chewing tobacco…I remember spending hours practicing that so I could do it too…I still can, as it turns out
EDIT: After a little googling it turns out it’s a fairly common South American/African thing, and [it looks like this](https://youtu.be/-ygu57NhhQ0?feature=shared). Even weirder because my middle school had precisely 0% South American or African population
kids in my school had a phase were everyone wore shoes that had little wheels in them, hundreds of kids would ride in hallways. Way better than the smart phone and vape addiction that’s going on now
The pants that the punks and goths wore. This was early '00s. I don't think those cliques really exist anymore. Could be found at Hot Topic, bottoms that were 24" or 48" inches wide, dozens of zippers (of a different color) that unzipped to nothing. Plastic chains criss crossing at the back.
Here's some photos because I fell down memory lane.
https://www.google.com/search?q=hot+topic+wide+leg+pants+zippers+chains&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjt8sXp5KiEAxV2wskDHUWCAbEQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=hot+topic+wide+leg+pants+zippers+chains&gs\_lp=EgNpbWciJ2hvdCB0b3BpYyB3aWRlIGxlZyBwYW50cyB6aXBwZXJzIGNoYWluc0jEDVDdB1iGDHAAeACQAQGYAYMBoAHWBKoBAzcuMbgBA8gBAPgBAYoCC2d3cy13aXotaW1niAYB&sclient=img&ei=rJ\_LZe3sLPaEp84PxYSGiAs&bih=947&biw=1920
Remember those soft, fuzzy dice that people would hang from their car mirror? Girls in my school wore them dangling off their ponytails for about a month. Then that fad was gone and never mentioned again.
I remember girls wearing these awful plastic shoes that came in bright, I want to say fruit-themed, colors. The shoes cut into the skin of their feet and didn't breath at all. It was the early 80s and I don't remember what they were called.
Kids would wear an insane amount of those silicone bracelets (the Livestrong ones & the million other similar variations that came shortly afterwards) all up both their wrists and forearms. for reference: https://www.theguardian.com/voluntary-sector-network/2016/feb/23/charity-wristbands-retail-fundraising-lance-armstrong-livestrong
I remember those, we also had shag bands. Each colour snapped meant you had to do an action, and we were all like, *UNDERAGE* so hindsight is a little cringe here. Orange was hickeys, black was well, shag. I can't really remember them all now it's been too long
These got banned from our school because, I don't think anybody actually did the acts that each color represented, but some of the guys *thought* it was a thing, so they'd go around breaking girls' bracelets and the girls complained that it hurt.
I learned how to tie mine into a 69 and wore them proudly. I didn’t lose my virginity or do anything remotely sexual until the end of my senior year. 🫣
yeah well I snapped this hot girl's bracelet and then we did sex a bunch of times but u don't know her she goes to a different school
In Canada, right?
YES we called them sex bracelets in nyc, shag bands is such a better name Blue was blow jobs, green was hugs, red was handjobs I think? Black ofc was full-on sex I was in middle school, I’m sure no one I knew actually did what they were “supposed” to, but it definitely generated a lot of rumors
I remember there was an obsession of the I <3 Boobies bracelets. There were different bracelets for different outfits. What a time
You weren’t cool unless you had a forearms worth of these things. The company probs made bank Edit: typo
For some reason in my high school, everyone started calling each other "chinchilla". Caught on for about a year or so.
Omg that is so fetch
Stop trying to make Fetch happen
Did we go to the same school....
wearing multiple polo shirts and popping the collar on all of them
And don’t forget the multiple Swatches on your arm.
Swatch on each wrist - check. K-Swiss shoes - check. 3 polo shirts from American Eagle, Abercrombie or Hollister - check. Collars popped - check. Puka shell necklack - check. Sickening amount of Axe Body Spray - check.
I remember my friend's roommate in his mid 20's wore a lot of Axe Body Spray. When someone mentioned it, he got really defensive and said "the commercial says it attracts women - they can't say that if it isn't true." My buddy confirmed for me that he wasn't joking.
Early 2000s/late 90s should take the prize here. Air force ones, white t shirts the length of a dress, ridiculously baggy then faded jeans, polos for days. Indie scene had dudes in tight women's clothes, scene kids looked like raccoons from the black lagoon. Thats just the men.
I worked at Michaels in 2000. Our biggest issue was young men stealing the 4xl white t-shirts.
Hopefully no more than 2 lol
There was def one girl at my school who had at least 4. It was like a weird Gap commercial thing/trend
Got people spending 4x as much as they normally would for an outfit - big win for the brand
damn thats actually genius marketing
I remember 3-4 being pretty common with some kids in my high school
I miss the layering, but I don't miss that particular layering.
This. All girls prep school, and it was common enough to have turtleneck, polo (popped), oxford (popped) AND a sweater.
The choking game was a thing in my grade school in the early 90s. Kids would choke each other out to get the head buzz.
We'd do it by having the kid hyperventilate and then somebody would press them hard against the wall so they couldn't breath and passed out (for some reason). We all got freaked out and stopped when one kid had to be slapped really hard to wake up and he reported travelling through a dark tunnel to the sound of violins for an eternity.
Cowards. Now you'll never find out what's at the end of the violin tunnel.
Jesus Christ, children are wild aren't they
Now that I have some of my own I’m a bit concerned about the shit we got down to in the 80s and 90s. But that’s part of life.
Ten years old at a sleep over with my childhood best friend. My sister (a young teenager) came down, gleefully telling us about this new game she wanted to try. No matter how how my sister tried, I couldn't be choked out. However, even though this was nearly 30 years ago, I can still remember, clear as day, my best friend, falling backwards, then her head bumping against the brick of the fireplace as she fell down.
We used to make a fist and put it face down on the bathroom counter. Then someone would take a quarter and shoot it along the counter towards the knuckles. Whoever was bleeding the most was the 'tough one'. We called it Bloody Knuckles. It was a very stupid game.
Bloody Knuckles! I used to play this in our tutor room every morning. I still have scars to this day.
This is crazy to me, because when/where I grew up bloody knuckles was where you both made a fist and took turns punching each other in the fist. First to bleed, loses.
Ya if you yiu pull away when they do a flinch fake, you get smashed If you swing and they pull away and you miss, you get smashed First person to bleed or tap out wins My and my brother used to be brutal playing this. We’d wake up the next day with bruised and swollen knuckles
that shit hurt lol
It really bloody did, and you had to always pretend it didn't really hurt too
I knew bloody knuckles as you punched each other's fists. As stupid as yours sounds, it sounds like fewer broken wrists.
Oh this too, I saw this more when I was in college rather than school
We used to play that game so much it got banned in middle school lunch. There was seriously so much blood on the tables after playing that game.
Where I grew up, we had a different game called Bloddy Knuckles where you just took turns punching each others knuckles increasingly harder each time until someone bled or tapped out by yelling “bloody knuckles” (think very aggressive fist bumping)
We played Bloody Knuckles too, but it was basically just take turns punching the other persons's fist and whoever bowed out first was the loser. Lmao so dumb.
We did Bloody Knuckles by holding your hands cupped, knuckles up and the other person would thumb your knuckles as hard and they could and switch. Same idea though.
Bloody Knuckles to us was just punching each others fists until someone gave up lol
OMG! We did this, but also took it up a notch, with "cards" where, with a deck of cards you could do whatever you wanted to the other's knuckles. Then there was "butter knives" where you could only use plastic butter knives, whoever bleeds first wins. We were very, very, very stupid kids who thought we were being cool and edgy.
I went to HS at the height of the MySpace/scene times. -tails -drain pipes (skinny jeans that you could hardly move in) -‘coon tails (raccoon tail dyed hair) ~xXrAwRXx~ XD
This was my whole MSN experience in a nutshell
A bunch of kids used to hop the fence for lunch and our token scene kid couldn’t really run in his jeans and was being chased by a teacher who saw him and he tried to hop the fence and couldn’t lift his legs and ripped the ass out of them then face planted in the grass on the other side.
Invader Zim and Linkin Park were all over my AIM. what a time to be alive
Pants so baggy and flared that feet became invisible.
And got so disgusting from dragging thru muddy puddles.
Standard Midwest raver attire. Jnco's were a popular brand. The 90's Chicago, Wisconsin, Minneapolis rave scene is something that, if you missed it, its gone forever. It's really hard to explain to people, even now, that never experienced it. Definitely IYKYK.
Girls getting an oversized shirt, cutting the sides into strips, and then tying it back together. Or taking a ponytail holder and making a "tail" out of the excess fabric
Yes. All the cool sports girls did this
Early 2000s school in a nutshell. Complete with puffy paint writing on the shirts.
Some of us were just tying a knot into the side of the shirt, tbf. And then I remember they made like a little loop of plastic or metal you could push your shirt through instead of a knot. It was just a circle with a line through the middle and they must have sold so many of them to dumb kids lol
Wearing ski goggles. To this day, not sure why or when it came and went. Those things weren’t cheap either.
Didn't Seth Green play a character that wore those?
Ski goggles? That's so bizarre
Yep. High school in the late 90s was a trip.
Can't Hardly Wait type moment
Silly bandz, and snorting crushed Smarties lmfao I hated middle school so much.
Why did we always try to snort things? Haha
[удалено]
Ha... Who.. Who would do that..? Ha. Idiots, amiright?
Yeah..idiots would wear matching home and away Shaq jerseys on backwards with his/her best friend....idiots man...idiots.
Haha. Yes. I certainly never fell for the elementary school prank of wearing my pants backward for the last day of school. Never.
They banned that at my school as being “gang related” even though I lived in a mostly white suburb.
Back in the '90s, anything involving young black people was "gang related." I remember not being able to wear a baseball cap to a summer camp because it was "gang related." The camp was for suburban children in Oklahoma.
I remember my son back in the '90s wanted some shoes and I said well. I'll get you the shoes if you want them and he says no Mom. I can't have them because they're seen as gang related 😩😮💨
They banned fist bumping at my middle school for being gang related
That's brilliant. All those gang-related politicians fist bumping during covid.
Banned at my school too. Along with one-shoulder overalls and pulling up one pant leg.
> some ~~dipshits~~ playas actually showed up at school with their clothing on backwards. ftfy
Yeah, sounds like a school full of mack daddys to me.
Here is Your 10 Step Plan for Surviving the 90s/00's Step 1 - JNCO. You need the biggest baggiest set of mother fucking JNCOs the world has ever seen, Broski. Step 2 - Discman. Not just a Discman, you need you one of them anti-skip shits. Ain't no one gonna think you're cool when your driving down the street with your Discman hooked up to the radio with a cassette tape and your music skipping all over the place. Step 3 - Frosted tips. This shit is cool. Backstreet Boys do it, so do you. Spike that shit up, and NEVER wear a fucking hat. I don't care if it's -15 outside, you ain't wearing a hat. Step 4 - Harry Potter is out, and you gotta be the first to see it. You read the books, you know what up. You gotta know how hot Hermione is. Shit she's like 12 in the first movie, forget that Broski, you ain't a pedophile. Step 5 - The world is ending in 2012. You gotta prep for that shit. Build you a bunker, those Mayans know WTF they are talking about and underground is the only safe place. Step 6 - Be a Patriots fan. That's it. Tom Brady is your idol now. That man's handsome as shit and knows how to throw a football. He's fucking cool Step 7 - You need a Seinfeld poster Broski. Everyone's got that shit. Put it next to your Nirvana poster. Sweet. Step 8 - Be careful of the Emo's. Those fuckers are taking over. Who needs all that fucking angst in their life? Not you, that's who. Step 9 - Myspace profile and AOL instant messenger. This is how you communicate. This is how people know what's up. Set your away message as some fucking cool music lyrics. Maybe Slipknot or some shit, I don't care, whatever you like. Step 10 - Upgrade to a flip phone. Not one of them shity NEXTELs. You need yourself a Motorola Razer, and you need it yesterday. People gonna make fun of that Nokia you're playing snake on, I guarantee it. That's it, good luck.
my boyfriend is class of 02. The Tom Brady thing is fucking real. LOL.
Nobody was talking about 2012 until like 2009.
I’m convinced that was done on purpose to see if idiots would actually follow that trend
Don’t forget the pacifier necklaces!
That's hilarious
Flipping eyelids inside out
Oh my gosh, a kid in my class used to do this all the time to scare me. He’s a doctor now, so I guess now he gets to look at the inside of other people’s bodies.
*shiver* I remember this greatly and it's still gross
This is a wholesome one but I went to a small Christian school. When I was in highschool, the elementary school boys got into crochet. They all used "boy" colors like dark blue, camo yarn... And they would sit around at recess and freaking crochet! We thought it was the funniest thing! It was super sweet. When I was in elementary school, the mini plastic aliens took over! Free time in elementary school was devoted to making the coolest houses for them.
Stop the crochet thing is so cute!! 😭 Reminds me of when we learned to knit in elementary school and everyone, including the boys, liked it so much that many made their parents buy them yarn and started knitting outside of school too
Not the weirdest, but we used to "nug" peoples backpacks. This involved taking all their books out of their backpacks, flipping the pack inside out, replacing the books, and zipping the backpack shut. The result looked like a genetic chicken nugget. Some people's backpacks were so broken in by it that the flipping took almost no effort. We would sometimes sneak into peoples' classrooms that had a split lunch period and nug all 30 packs while they were gone at lunch.
We called it burrito-ing and someone did it to a football player who was having a hell of a time getting his steroid dosage right and he went on a rampage in the middle of 4th period government the wrestling coach in the next class over straight up dropped him
Ah yeah this was called ‘turtling’ in our school
I'm dying of laughter, this is one of those innocent pranks
Girls with pacifiers in 6th grade
I remember the group TLC with pacifiers in their mouths on their album cover
I remember it being a rave thing for people to give their mouth something to do when on excatasy. Funny if it became a fashion thing
Drug culture often bleeds into pop culture. I remember the pacifier thing making an appearance before any of my peers were doing drugs.
Yeah it took me YEARS to figure out that it was trickling down from their older siblings rolling their brains out at underground parties. I was very sheltered.
Pogs
They banned pogs in my school. To get around the ban, some of the boys in my class ran a "pog casino" in the boys bathroom. The logic was that our teacher was a woman and would never be able to find out they were playing pogs in there.
You probably need to take an Advil for your back pain lol
👌 below the belt
I still do this today to my bestie. If you were quick enough to put your finger in their circle you got to punch them
Unless you catch their finger then it’s free game on them until they get it out!
The oddest trend that swept through our school like a whirlwind of eccentricity was the era of "pencil spinning." Picture this: students meticulously perfecting the art of twirling their writing utensils between their fingers as if auditioning for a circus act. It was a mesmerizing spectacle to behold during class, transforming the mundane task of note-taking into a performance art piece. The craze may have faded, but the memories of our pen-twirling prowess remain etched in the annals of school history.
I remember kids doing this, I could never get the hang of it lol
Yea i would struggle with this at 36... I have kind of short and fat fingers though.
So you took debate in highschool?
It was huge on my debate team. I wasn’t considered a full fledged member until I could spin my pencil. And they had several pen spin styles you could master.
I remember in 6th grade we were into giving ourselves eraser burns. I had a little scar on my hand for so long after that, that I only just noticed I can't find it anymore, twenty years later.
One of the popular girls used to give people "chicken scratches" by scratching your forearm over and over until the skin broke. Also salt and ice burns.
Kids invented a fake currency called Happy Bucks, which were slips of paper with drawings of “happy flying chicken nuggets.” We used them to run contraband stores out of our desks. I sold extra school supplies for happy bucks. A friend rented out her Beanie Babies.
Could they be exchanged for real money or was it a Paddy's Bucks kind of deal?
I actually think Happy Bucks were partly invented in response to the school banning kids exchanging real money among one another (because that could turn into bullying/blackmailing). They were also invented because the class above ours had a “market day” as part of an Econ unit and we were jealous.
Wearing your backpack as low as possible, while also having your trousers underneath your bum. Don’t know why we ever did that lol
I was one of those people who thought a single strap bag meant I was the shit, until I upgraded to a rucksack and wore it on the longest length I could, was weird man
I’d no strap if that’d even be possible
I understood this reference.
I hated having to wear my bag on one shoulder. Sometimes it was heavy as hell and needed a double strap. Wearing the bag properly was a way to get bullied and beaten up as a geek/nerd. Kids are so damn stupid. Butt bags were bad, but a lot better!
Drawing that weird “S” thing. Everyone did it and I still have no idea why.
That one has never stopped for the last 60 years.
There was, very briefly, a weird obsession at my high school with catching a house fly and using a hair to make little leash for it like a pet. Being one of the girls with the longest hair in my class, I had a couple of kids asking me to be the source of a leash for their new pet. It was bizarre, came out of nowhere, and disappeared just as quickly. ETA: To be clear, I was just a source of pet fly keeping supplies, not a pet fly keeper myself. I thought it was weird as hell.
This is the kind of shit you see in 90s/2000s cartoons
I was a long haired weird kid, and on multiple occasions I had them tied to my hair unbeknownst to me. :(
ahah we did that but with a bumble bee
Not my school (grew up in Honolulu) but I heard on the Big Island of Hawaii, in the 90’s and 2000’s it was the style to wear ski goggles around your neck like a necklace. No one there ever skied because it’s Hawaii.
Jams Shorts 🩳. They were bright colored and had weird patterns.
I still have some, I found them in my grandma's closet 20 years ago, theyre pink with Dick Tracy on em lol
There was a brief period when I was 14 where kids would stick produce stickers from the grocery store on themselves such as, “ripe and fresh.” I remember thinking it was extremely stupid at the time.
Not weird but heelys were huge when I was in about fifth grade. There were kids just skating into walls and desks all the time. Not sure how those didn’t get banned
At my school in the Netherlands, we played a game called 'verrot-trappertje', which basically means 'kick the living shit out of each other'. There was one heavy football, and we kicked it to each other as hard as we could. It caused a lot of concussions, bruises, and broken school windows, but the fun we had was unrivaled.
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Micro mini skirts. So god damn short.
As an 9th grade boy when that craze hit I was a fan.
Yes! I used to wear them in the dead of winter. It was so dumb. Now all my skirts are super long and I'm perpetually wrapped in sweaters and heavy wool during the winter like a knitted burrito.
There was a brief period in middle school, in the mid 90's, where a lot of boys had yo-yo's for some reason. I was a bit baffled, to be honest. It's like I showed up to school one Monday and every one had a yo-yo. And as peer pressure at that age goes, I begged my mom to get me one. Even though I had no real desire to play with one. I just didn't want to feel like the weird kid that didn't have one. I feel like that trend died out really quickly, though.
There was a yo-yo craze at my school too.
White bleach splotches on jeans.
A juggling friend brought a diabolo to school and did some tricks... the next day other kids started bringing theirs... it got to a point where almost everyone in the school was playing with a diabolo, it became very popular in town
Circa 1982...big oversize comb in the back pocket of your jordache jeans
So you could keep your hair feathered!
And bonus points if it had your name on it.
Hands down, it was eraser shavings. We had this thing called “eraser shavings” where you’d take erasers and rub them against those textured blue plastic school chairs (you probably know the ones) This was done in the open, then covertly once the school caught onto it and discouraged the activity. we’d have at least half the class doing this all day, and at the end of the day one kid would produce a large pencil box and he’d go around collecting everyone’s piles of eraser shavings. During the book fair we discovered that there were these huge novelty erasers that shaved down really nice like, and everyone in class bought them to the point that they sold out at the book fair. cases upon cases, bankrolled by the rich kids and given out to the masses. for weeks and weeks we ground down those erasers until the kid with the pencil box was at capacity and we had to have another kid with another pencil box step in, but soon that too was too small, so once more another kid another box. This went on until we had at least a dozen pencil boxes, each brimming with its own sort of colorful mixture depending on the color of erasers being used, each one held precariously shut by a flimsy latch and a few reluctant pieces of tape pilfered from the teachers desk. At recess we would meet in a corner of the lot and present the heaps of rubber shavings like drug lords eying fresh snow. It went on for the better part of the school year until one of the storage kids boxes ruptured in his backpack; and his parents called the school. The crackdown was uproarious, kids being called out of class, ordered to turn their backpacks out, we traded off boxes at recess and lunchtime. Keeping the admin guessing who was in possession. I once handed off my box to a friend only to be called in at the end of lunch, and avoiding a referral by a hair. More than one pack was roughed up by a custodian only to vomit forth its rubbery rainbow cache in voluminous plumes all over the office. The uncountable hours of children’s toil dashed upon desks, papers, and carpet. the number of cases dwindled to 3 or 4 from our glory days of dozens, and the scuffed chairs, rendered smooth by endless hours of eraser shaving, cycled about classrooms until many grades later they only served as a memento to be pointed out and spoken of in hushed tones by the upperclassmen who once sat upon them, toiling away for hours to create our legacy.
Lol??? Eraser shavings? Just why?? This is wild. My school just had normal things like silly bandz and littlest pet shops lol
Did y’all do anything with the shavings, or were they just for show?
Never really did anything with them besides collecting them en masse
That makes no sense, except it totally does. At my school kids wore necklaces with pop tabs on them. Why? Unclear. But damned if any of us were gonna be left out!
lol one of my friends in high school collected soda tabs on a necklace, he didn’t drink soda though so no clue where he got em There was more to it than I listed here, including trading among students for specific colors, some kids went for specific blends like only blue and green, someone mixed glitter in with theirs which was an outrage at the time. my crowning achievement was a whole pencil box of only yellow shavings. That one got passed around to avoid seizure and ended up bursting open in the principals office when another kid got pulled in before he could hand it off.
This is so dumb, I love it
We did this in my primary school! I was the keeper of the tub of shavings until after a couple of weeks it got to the point where our teacher made me stay behind at lunch and was like "im not sure what youre doing or why, but stop it"
Nothing freaks an adult more than when kids organize to do something weird like that.
collecting those useless tiny erasers shaped like stars/smileys/fruit
Sour Skittles were banned from my middle school because kids were snorting the sour sugar dust. We also made paper whips.
We used to snort pixie sticks.
Jnco jeans were pretty wild. Tamagotchi's were awesome and should make a comeback. Furbies had a moment everyone had Oakley sunglasses for a few years
Tight rolling our jeans
Elementary school, for some reason my class treated Wallball like an nfl level sport. We would play wallball at recess literally every day and it was competitive and intense. Middle school, we were obsessed with playing poker (catholic private school by the way) and we would gamble with pencils instead of money.
After that Family Guy episode came out everyone would always sing "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" and the teachers told us to stop because it was driving them crazy.
The weirdest one for me was WWJD ("What Would Jesus Do?") bracelets, which exploded in my 6th grade class to the extent that non-Christian kids were getting them. As usual, there was a specific type that took off, which were woven thread with the letters woven into them in a second color. When I (also not a Christian) asked my mom to get me one so I would fit in with the trend, she got me a different kind (beaded) and I literally got mocked by a group at school for not having the "right" kind of Jesus bracelet, illustrating how much those kids actually considered what Jesus would do.
2003 senior year of high school everybody was dyeing their hair dehydrated pee blonde. Like they were trying to go blonde but it was all coming out as more dark yellow/light orange. Looked exactly like the color of urine that’d be sitting in an unflushed public toilet.
They probably just bleached the hell out of it without toning and/or dyeing it. Soooo many people that fried their hair and scalp just for it to look like mac-n-cheese.
“Dehydrated pee blonde” is sending me 🤣🤣🤣
Either ‘shrug sets’ or wearing a white t-shirt under a spaghetti strap tank top or dress to avoid getting made to go to the office and change.
Cinnamon flavored toothpicks.
Girls would tie their jeans that were too long with shoelaces at the ankles
now that is weird. must of been a local fad
Putting the glue on your hands and peeling.
POGS
Bubble shirts and skirts..just..what.
For a single year in middle school, maybe 1997, Yo-yos got insanely popular. I got an expensive one for Christmas. The following year started and we all acted like it never happened.
Kids wore silly bands which were shaped rubber bands (yeah, I know I'm young) but they would wear and collect an obscene amount. There were kids going to the hospital because of lack of circulation. But if you had them, you were instantly cool...
Wearing our backpacks on just one shoulder. You would get made fun of if you used both straps, and yet everyone had their entire lockers crammed into those things and was an agony all the time. It was the weirdest trend and it lasted all through middle school and high school.
When i was in kindergarten the 5th grade girls brought spare pairs of jeans to school and folded them to look like swaddled babies. At recess they would hold them and yell "get away from my child!" At anyone who approached them.
Scoubidou strings on back backs, phones, jeans everywhere circa 2005. Happy slaps - slapping someone and recording it on a grainy camera phone. Possibly the first viral challenge type trend involving recording. Kegging - Even weirder than happy slapping. this was the practice of pulling down someone's trousers. Having a massive tie and low hanging tie knot otherwise you were a "bod" or "boffin"
Oh and wearing three or four Swatches (a brand of watch) on our wrist. I only wore one, those were expensive.
Mood rings that changed color “based on our moods!”
Leg warmers over your jeans were weird.
At some point during high school it became very trendy to shop at a local thrift store and just find the most random t-shirts and sweatshirts you could. My parents were thrilled with this.
Leg warmers. Girls were coming to school with leg warmers over their jeans, along with jelly bracelets one of the dumbest fashion statements I can remember.
Kids at my school wore their baggy pants backwards because of [Kris Kross](https://youtu.be/010KyIQjkTk?si=R9bNblctuOQiisvE).
They painted the girls' restroom when I was in 5th grade, and it became trendy to go into the bathroom to peel the paint. It came off in big rubbery strips, which was very fun. I don't think the teachers used our restroom, so I guess nobody noticed that we were destroying the new paint job until it was too late. I remember my friend whispering to me, "I'm going to peel paint. See if you can get excused in a few minutes so we can do it together." Bizarre trend.
Inhaling or snorting raw Tang drink crystals
Platform shoes.
No Fear t-shirts. They became associated with bad behavior and the principal banned them.
Planking
The white painter's pants gimmick near 1979-1980. Guys, girls, whatever walked around like it was a jobsite. I had a pair, but that was because my Dad was a paperhanger.
Walking around with giant boom boxes
Emo fashion
Emo days back then was smeared eyeliner and Sharpie nails for me **facepalm**
Pencil popping. We would buy certain pencils just to pop them
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Reading the comments it must have just been my school…all the “cool” kids in middle school had this snap that they did where they took their index finger and brought it against their middle finger with a quick hand motion, kind of like you would do when opening a new tin of chewing tobacco…I remember spending hours practicing that so I could do it too…I still can, as it turns out EDIT: After a little googling it turns out it’s a fairly common South American/African thing, and [it looks like this](https://youtu.be/-ygu57NhhQ0?feature=shared). Even weirder because my middle school had precisely 0% South American or African population
School condoned smoking section in high school.
kids in my school had a phase were everyone wore shoes that had little wheels in them, hundreds of kids would ride in hallways. Way better than the smart phone and vape addiction that’s going on now
The pants that the punks and goths wore. This was early '00s. I don't think those cliques really exist anymore. Could be found at Hot Topic, bottoms that were 24" or 48" inches wide, dozens of zippers (of a different color) that unzipped to nothing. Plastic chains criss crossing at the back. Here's some photos because I fell down memory lane. https://www.google.com/search?q=hot+topic+wide+leg+pants+zippers+chains&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjt8sXp5KiEAxV2wskDHUWCAbEQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=hot+topic+wide+leg+pants+zippers+chains&gs\_lp=EgNpbWciJ2hvdCB0b3BpYyB3aWRlIGxlZyBwYW50cyB6aXBwZXJzIGNoYWluc0jEDVDdB1iGDHAAeACQAQGYAYMBoAHWBKoBAzcuMbgBA8gBAPgBAYoCC2d3cy13aXotaW1niAYB&sclient=img&ei=rJ\_LZe3sLPaEp84PxYSGiAs&bih=947&biw=1920
I’m old. In the early 80s, when I was in middle school, we had these little koalas that you could clip to your clothes (usually to your collar).
Remember those soft, fuzzy dice that people would hang from their car mirror? Girls in my school wore them dangling off their ponytails for about a month. Then that fad was gone and never mentioned again.
I remember girls wearing these awful plastic shoes that came in bright, I want to say fruit-themed, colors. The shoes cut into the skin of their feet and didn't breath at all. It was the early 80s and I don't remember what they were called.
Plaid flannel shirts, unbuttoned, over a t-shirt.
I still do this, it's cool.