Now that we are engulfed in a sea of frat parties, early classes, and job searching, it is important to look back on the days when we were surrounded by puberty, butterfly clips, and T-Pain. As if your middle school days weren't painfully awkward enough that they are imprinted on your brain forever, here's 25 of the many impossible-to-forget components of the average 2000s middle-schooler.
1. The sound of the door creaking open or slamming shut on AIM
Finally, footballManDude__xx_2, your crush for the past three days, has signed on. It's time to put your font into your classic magenta Comic Sans, take a few deep breaths, and say, "Hey, who do you like?"
2. Perfecting your away message
Song lyrics, being annoyed at your mom, and obnoxious quotes like "[real eyes] REALiZE [real liesss]" were so cool until the popular kids started just putting "614.555.2218 txt it."
3. LiveStrong bracelets and silly bands
If your LiveStrong bracelets didn't at least make it past your elbow, you were a straight-up dweeb. LiveStrong bracelets went away about as fast as they came, but they were replaced with everyone's favorite bracelet that could somehow transform into a heart.
4. Stressing over the perfect Top 8 on Myspace
For some reason, friendships were contingent upon who was in those damn top eight slots. For some reason, despite that, everyone still left Myspace creator Tom in their top.
5. Hoping on your next upgrade that your mom would let you get a Voyager
"But mom, this orange EnV 2 isn't cool anymore! I need the front screen so I can see myself make duck lips and a backwards peace sign!"
6. Agonizing over what Abercrombie top you'd wear to the school dance
Of course, you didn't want to look like an absolute fool while lining up with a bunch of 13-year-olds and doing the Soulja Boy dance in front of your teachers.
SEE ALSO: 11 Things You Remember If Alex Russo Was Your Middle School Style Icon
7. Your AIM screen name
Mine was "batnballgurl2213." It later changed to "saraheartsyouuu22" which remained my primary email address until I was embarrassingly far into high school.
8. The least stylish clothing trends
Including, but not limited to, double popped collars, jeans under dresses, T-shirts under tank tops, or shorts with words across the butt.
9. Axe
It's the smell of puberty-ridden middle school boys who didn't understand the concept of "less is more."
10. Bringing your digital camera to everything
Back in our day, we couldn't just take a photo and upload it in seconds. We took 400 pictures on our digital camera, went home, put the memory card into the family computer and took two hours out of the day to upload every single one of them to MySpace with individual captions such as "me &+ muh franz" or "gettt like ussss!(:" on each one.
11. Getting on MySpace and having "new mail"
Your whole stressful day of learning basic algebra and reading "Fahrenheit 451" was instantly better because someone commented "~let me have ur face~" in your newest selfie.
12. Becoming a professional coder for your perfect Myspace layout
You had to channel your inner computer science nerd when you wanted your name to be <bold> or you wanted to add a scroll box to your profile.
13. Writing "hello" or other words on your calculator by turning it upside down
Ha, your clueless teacher thought that you were doing math, but you were really writing "5318008" to show to your friends.
12. Owning photos
There was no logical reason for this, but every time that you uploaded an excessively over-saturated picture taken with your digital camera's self-timer, your friends would race to comment "I own dis pic<3" and you would then change the caption to "Mary owns dis pic<3."
13. Taking middle school sports more seriously than the professionals
14. The world's strangest photo edits
A picture of you and your friends wasn't a picture of you and your friends if it didn't have "Friends" written on it in huge, colorful letters.
15. Signing your friends' yearbooks with "hags"
"Have a good summer" was apparently too much work. The only people who took it seriously were your best friends who took up an entire page writing down all of your inside jokes in various colors.
16. Putting "Aaaaaa" in front of your best friend's name in your phone
Apparently, where they were in your contact list was highly indicative of the merit of your friendship.
17. Averaging two-week-long relationships
During the average relationship you started dating over text via your best friend, talked in person maybe two or three times, you hugged once, and then you broke up over AIM.
18. Writing your favorite song lyrics on your arm or your shoe or the loose leaf paper in your Trapper Keeper
We literally just drew all over ourselves, regardless of how many times our mom told us we were going to "get ink poisoning." Sorry, mom, writing, "Just dance, gonna be OK <3" was worth the possibility of below the elbow amputation.
19. The music
Akon, P!NK, and Timbaland were truly the gifts that just kept on giving. Your parents couldn't even scold you for inappropriate music because it's not like you knew what "U + Ur Hand" or "Promiscuous" was even about. I can tell you exactly where I was when I found out Akon's "I Wanna Love You" was really "I Wanna F*ck You."
20. All of the Lip Smackers
Was an extra pencil pouch just to keep them all together too much?
21. Using the most awkward camera angles
22. The awkward hell hole that was health class
It was where you kind of learned the science behind a period and everybody laughed at the word "sex."
23. Hoarding highlighters and gel pens
You got bonus points if your highlighters were scented.
24. So many peace signs
25. Shutter shades
Were they cool-looking? No. Could we see out of them? No. Was there any appeal to them? Not at all.
