In this post-2000s era we live in today, a time in which flip phones have become gag gifts, while Eminem is probably experiencing his mid-life crisis, there’s still a considerable number of us who enjoy the guitar riffs and prepubescent voices of now classic bands such as Fall Out Boy, Sum 41, and Simple Plan. However, among all of us who risk being judged every day for still having these bands on our Pandora playlists, there’s the one group of guys who have always been there at every phase of our adolescent years, a band who truly knows the ins and outs of growing up: Blink 182.
Whether you’re struggling through your early-teen years of being understood, experiencing your first breakup, or simply living on your own for the first time, learning how to grow up, Blink 182 has related all of these factors together in their music that not only helps us to make sense of life’s inevitable chaos, but also learn the valuable lessons we carry with us today.
With our current generation, we have more on our plates than ever before. We need to keep up with succeeding in our education and the rigorous coursework that comes with it. We need to secure that internship so that it can later turn into that job that we need to have. Not to mention, we need to keep up with our social lives and the leisure that we are expected to have for someone our age, and the only way this can happen is by finding a way to fund everything on the side. Such pressures can leave us anxious about life and how well we’re trudging along with what we need to maintain compared to others.
When feeling this, Blink 182 has offered me some sort of consolation that not having your life together and embracing your failures and mishaps is supposed to be a hilarious truth. For example, “What’s My Age Again” highlights the crazy sh*t we should still feel comfortable enjoying and not be afraid of. Maybe not as extreme as the lyrics suggest, if you’re familiar with them (go ahead, look it up), but at the same time, the song highlights the immature shenanigans we gladly and rightfully take part in because our lives and roles are stressful enough for someone to suddenly undertake at a certain age. After all, we are only 21 once. And if we are judged on this mentality, forget it, we are young enough to enjoy certain antics that turn into the great stories in their songs, yet old enough to discount any negativity that is meant to affect us.
In something sort of relevant to this aspect, their ‘99 song, “All the Small Things,” preaches the truth behind the happiness provided by the simplest of things we overlook.
Blink 182 also had a knack for bringing light to the tribulations that people our age were indeed susceptible to and suffering from, and had a great way of sympathizing with such. At the age of 16, we are dealt with the deepest lifelong emotions for the first time, that most often come with a first relationship, that may ultimately lead to a first breakup, or confusion over one’s purpose in life, that we have never thought about before; which is terrifying for a youth to manage all at once.
There is no rookie guide to tell us how to handle these complex feelings. However, Blink 182’s “I Miss You” adequately portrays the mindset of when we are experiencing our first breakup and the dark places that exist in our mind that we’ve never had to encounter before. Because of this, we know that we are never alone, although we know that we must move on from any despair in our lives because that is the reasoning behind their songs and the message that they want to convey in the first place.
In their 2000 single, “Adam’s Song,” the band dedicates their song to a victim of suicide and highlights the decision that plagues so many adolescents along with the lowest points in one’s mind that precede it. The song was recorded because of a band member that experienced depression and Blink 182 set out to not just preach against suicide but also go inside the mind of our friends or maybe ourselves who struggle with a will to live.
They end up providing a light at the end of the tunnel by reiterating the joy in life laced in every song regardless of tone.
If reflecting on what Blink 182 really has to offer, it’s resilience. The stories and characters portrayed in their jams portray being strong and not giving a rat’s a** about the people that usually judge us or the things that hold us back.
Blink was always a big brother; he could relate and reassure while at the same time providing a good time. He taught self-esteem. He made it okay to take pride in immaturity because without it happiness wouldn’t have the same definition.
But somehow, he managed to work a lesson on how to grow up, he was the first one to pioneer the struggle of what we now call “adulting.” He was our first push without training wheels.
And with these I leave you wishing that all who come across the virtues found with listening to Blink 182 may realize their own worth and place in this world and that society is not a stressful or lonely place after all, even after you turn 23.
