If you ever had an awkward stage in life, chances are that it was during your middle school years (at least it was for me). Now it’s time to take a trip down memory lane and look at the top seven most cringe-worthy things we all did in middle school.
1. Facebook
When MySpace went downhill, Facebook became a middle schooler’s new favorite pastime. Forget the Facebook you know and love today— I’m here to talk about the good ole’ days.
Back then, it was cool to post mirror selfies, play FarmVille like it was a daily ritual, post random status updates that made absolutely no sense, comment on "like for a tbh" statuses, and create your own Tag My Pals to share with 25 of your closest friends. Don’t deny you didn’t do at least one of these things either, it’s too good to be true.
2. Messaging Sites
When most current, popular social networking sites such as Instagram and Twitter were nonexistent, we all turned to AIM, Omegle, and Kik in our time of need. Who could forget sending messages like, “11:11 make a wish! <333” or trolling people on Omegle just for the fun of it? Whenever it came messaging sites like Omegle, the first thing you’d always see someone type in was “Age/Sex/Location”.
There was always a 50/50 chance that you were either going to talk to someone completely normal or someone completely crazy. For those of you who were brave enough to go on Omegle via video chat, there was also a decent chance you’d wind up seeing something inappropriate on the screen and proceeding to hang up the call immediately. Talk about a scary experience!
3. Slide Cell Phones
I still remember the days I had my slide phone by my side and thought that using it was the coolest thing ever. Every middle schooler must have had one and every middle school parent carried a Blackberry at their side. However, there was a rare exception: If your parent is like my mother then they would fit in the category of eternal flip phone users. Yes, she still uses to this day. No matter how many times I tease her about it, she is always adamant about keeping her flip phone (it’s a miracle her phone hasn’t broken yet).
When we sent text messages with our hip slide phones, we could never forget to add written emojis at the end like, “:P”, “:-o”, and “xD”. We also took some “quality” pictures on our slide phones of things such as all of our friends feet placed together in the middle of a circle. To top it all off, we edited them all via Picnik with captions you wouldn’t believe you came up with today if you saw it.
4. Questionable Clothing Choices
During our tween years, girls flocked to Aeropostale, Hollister, and Abercrombie like no other. Don’t forget about the numerous trips you made to Juicy Couture in order to purchase their super cute jumpsuits! It’s pretty hard to forget the amount of bedazzling that came with every Juicy jumpsuit.
While we’re at it, I should mention the obsession over Tory Burch shoes. There wasn’t a nice day that went by that I didn’t see someone outside of school in a pair of Tory Burch sandals. Another trend nobody could forget is the shorts and Uggs look. Looking back, I am so confused as to why everyone, including myself, thought that was such a good look to wear in public. Essentially, you’re mixing summer and winter as a "cute" outfit choice. I find it hard to understand why anyone would willingly choose to do this.
5. The One Hair Style
If anything was popular throughout middle school, it was the side bang phase. At least half of the girls in my middle school wore the side bang look and loved it. If you were one of the few girls that didn’t love the side bang look, I’m sure you loved the iconic Snooki poof. It might as well have looked like you had a bump it in your hair…or maybe you actually did. Between the two of these looks you, couldn’t go wrong.
In addition, nothing said, “Look at me” more than coming back from a tropical beach vacation with beads and feathers in your hair. Yes, that’s right, I’m bringing that back. Except perhaps dying your hair with a bunch of Kool Aid. If you didn’t just come back from a beach vacation or dye your hair with Kool-Aid, the go to look was always using pre-wrap as a headband for your hair and using foam rollers to curl your hair instead of a curling iron. Sadly, I still have my own foam rollers in a drawer at home.
6. Copycat Makeup And Accessories
We all know that braces were the hottest accessory a middle schooler could have. To kick it up a notch, using colored bands for you braces made it even better. It’s what made you think you were that much cooler.
That isn’t the only accessory middle schooler’s loved. Girls carried Vera Bradley purses and wore Silly Bandz on their wrists as if it was a universally known thing to do. To match your hot accessories, you were always ready to wear your blue eyeliner and have at least three layers of sugar lips because one was never enough.
7. Trying To Look Cool For Your Crush
There’s no middle school without awkward middle school dances! Especially when you attended a Catholic school and were told to “make room for the Holy Spirit” while you danced. If you thought that wasn’t bad, remember trying to pass by the boys locker room every day after gym class and having it reek of Axe? That was truly horrible. To make up for it, we always decorated our lockers to the extreme.
We played foursquare with our friends and crushes during recess. Everyone went all out and if you didn’t it was considered strange. Another way you tried to be too cool for school was by occasionally saying a few swear words… until it actually turned into a habit (oops). Finally, there was one thing the boys and girls could both agree on: There was no better way to pass time during class than by drawing the S symbol in your notebook.
