Videos of high school life in decades past stir nostalgia and debate
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A grainy video that recently circulated on social media captured a mundane portrait of school life at the turn of the new millennium.
Students smile and wave toward the camera as they pass through a hallway of blue metal lockers and click away at clunky, outdated desktop computers.
"High school in 2002 looked so chill," said a caption on a post of the video that has accrued more than 66 million views on Twitter.
It's the kind of video that has become something of a viral phenomenon in recent years, offering a combination of nostalgia and social commentary on how times have changed. The videos are usually a montage of happy moments or interviews with students about where they hope to be in the future.
Various such videos have surfaced on the internet including Reddit threads and Twitter. On YouTube, a quick search turns up any number of videos, some of which have millions of views.Entire accounts on TikTok are dedicated to posting the archival footage.
The videos often inspire a range of comments about the way things were, which in turn has generated debate about just what exactly it is that people are nostalgic about.
This most recent video is no exception after one user retweeted the post and said, "It really feels like Millenials were the last people who got a largely apolitical high school experience."
That drew a variety of responses, including disagreement over the idyllic portrayal of the past.
"ah yes. The blissful apolitical experience of 9/11 and the aftermath," one user wrote in response.
"'High school in 2002 looked so chill' if you were white and straight,'" another replied.
A near-constant refrain on such videos centers on technology — most notably the lack of it.
"Technology and social media ruined it 
," one user wrote on another TikTok video labeled "High school in 2001."
"When people interacted with each other," another commented on the same video.
Clay Routledge,a psychologist who has studied nostalgia,said that people are sentimental toward the past because retrospection provides a degree of comfort.
"The past has already unfolded. So there's something stabilizing about looking backwards," he added.
Amid recent studies that linked social media use to mental health disorders and revealed teenage girls are facing unprecedented levels of depression and anxiety, nostalgia may be a form of "creative problem solving," Routledge said.
Of course, the past is not limited to the era before social media — meaning that internet nostalgia also exists. Gen Zers speak fondly of memes and jokes that circulated on the video-sharing app Vine, while millennials muse on what their old profiles on Myspace used to look like.
Social media companies have also recognized the power of a walk down memory lane and court consumers with features that resurface old content (posts, photographs, and videos).
When the world feels uncertain, people search for elements of the past to extract guidance and confidence for the future, Routledge said.
Whether high school in 2002 was "chill" remains a contentious point online. Twitter users found common ground elsewhere; many acknowledged the distinct experience of maturing in an online world versus a time predating common social media use.
"Being in high school is (at least partially) tough no matter where or when you grew up but in hindsight, I'm grateful that I graduated before Facebook or MySpace were a thing," one user said.
"But I also see how having social media and blogging sites could have made me and lots of other kids feel less alone (esp in our identities), and it's so interesting to hear how younger generations benefitted from those connections!" the user continued.
Another user appeared unfazed by the online discourse, instead tweeting about its familiarity: "People moaned then too about the good old days."
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If THAT one was grainy from TWO decades ago, think about how grainy one would be from MY high school days SEVEN decades ago.
Ah yes, those good ol' days when all the boys were virgins and all the gals (at least the catholic ones) were experienced.
oh yeah, I only dated catholic girls in high school. the more outwardly religious, the better. the best pickup drive-in restaurant in denver was across the street from the catholic high school for girls up north. if your car was loud and shiny, you were getting some hiney...
Not necessarily so - I lost MY virginity when I was 16, in the back seat of my father's 1952 Hudson Hornet.
This seems to be one of those "all things are equal" pieces. Thr author has acknowledged that members of the generation themselves were quick to punch a hole in the "nostalgia" balloon:
That drew a variety of responses, including disagreement over the idyllic portrayal of the past.
"ah yes. The blissful apolitical experience of 9/11 and the aftermath," one user wrote in response.
"'High school in 2002 looked so chill' if you were white and straight,'" another replied.
A near-constant refrain on such videos centers on technology — most notably the lack of it.
I think it would be fair to say that the baby boomers and all the following generations were very similar and all of the above would frown on sentimentality, which is simply not a post modern emotion.
Question for Mr Routledge:
Did retrospection provide a degree of comfort for the generation that endured the Great Depression?
Did retrospection provide comfort to the newly freed slaves after the Civil War?
Did the ancient Romans who survived the fall of Rome fondly remember those times?
Looking back on periods of relative peace and prosperity is something that not every generation gets to do. And all things are not equal.
I'm Gen X, and we did not have an apolitical high school experience. We were less divided than now, because the Gulf War was going on at the time, but politics were definitely something that we paid attention to and discussed. We watched the hearings regarding the Iran-Contra affair play out on TV, and pretty much knew that Reagan was either crooked or incompetent. We laughed at Bill Clinton's affair with Gennifer Flowers. The largest private employer in our county, where my dad worked, had a labor dispute, and we saw how ineffectual the NLRB was in regards to enforcement and mediation. My county never really recovered from that, and went from a thriving area to one of USA Today's ghost towns.
I think the perception that high school was apolitical for millennials is looking back through rose-colored glasses.
The lack of technology - well, that's certainly a huge difference. Somewhere, I still have my physics and chemistry homework, done in pencil on paper, with some problems taking several pages to write out. One button punched incorrectly on my Hewlett Packard scientific calculator could ruin hours of work. Now, kids have phones that do everything my calculator did, and more, and they're not just allowed to use them for schoolwork, but asked to do so.
I went to high school during the vietnam war. it was highly political, since there was still a draft. everyone knew someone that had gone there, or was there, and someone that had gotten killed there. we all figured we were going, and some of us weren't coming back, but we were going to live out a lifetime of our adulthood before we went. that's a dangerous concept to put into the hands of those that young. I learned a lot more from being in high school in that era than I ever did in any classroom.
decades later, I have managed to elude all the past HS reunion committees. one instance that I'm proud to be on a deceased and missing list. why would anyone pay that kind of money to sit and eat a shitty lukewarm meal with a majority of assholes you wouldn't even sit with in the school lunchroom back then. I shudder to think of what I would see there. any teachers or old friends that I would want to see are dead already. growing old is bad enough without being reminded of it.
Wow, we actually agree on something.
Yeah, I can't think of a time that would exemplify teenagers being politically aware more than the Vietnam War era.
I have to say, though, my class has only had one reunion, and we had a blast. Outdoor get-together at one classmate's family farm. Good food, good drinks, a bonfire, good music.
nice. yeah well, my graduating class was like 600-800 students, I can't remember now, so the crowd was rotating as quickly as the graduates due to a shortage of seats, hats, and gowns. I was under the influence of jose cuervo gold and blonde lebanese hashish and tripped over my graduation gown going down the stairs after being handed my fake diploma and bounced back up. the crowd went wild. my future BIL caught it all on film. I have virtually no memory of the next 2 days.
My graduating class was about 150, and I can't say anybody was drunk or stoned at graduation. Of course, I can't say for sure that nobody was, but if they were, I didn't notice. And nobody tripped over their gown. We did all roast, though. Graduation was usually outside on the football field, but there was rain most of the day, so it was inside, in the gym, with no air conditioning. Of course, it was in the upper 80s or so, with high humidity due to the rain. Polyester graduation gowns don't breathe at all. I'm kinda surprised nobody passed out from the heat. We also had one classmate who was pregnant and due pretty much any minute, so there was some worry on her account. She did fake going into labor at graduation rehearsal as a joke, and I think just about gave our class sponsor a heart attack.
Not necessarily, playing the doddering old fool counting out a bagful of pennies one by one and losing count at the cash register can be oodles of fun.
as someone that has spent decades getting around and past the elderly as quickly as possible, I'd probably suffer whiplash...
I just knew you were too young ...
There is an 800 lb. gorilla in the room (although some people mention it) concerning "2002" and what things in high school were and were not like. In 2002 high speed internet was brand new and not yet perceived to be what it would shortly become. In 2002 there were no smart phones. No instagram, you tube, facebook, twitter, tik tok, and whatever other way we obsess about ourselves and others all day long today. To an extent, this explains all of why things are different today.