on wednesday’s we wear pink!
The early 2000’s were so iconic that they seem to make a comeback every year but in different ways. Welcome to my version of the early 2000s back to school comeback, a month late, naturally. That early 2000s glow was so different compared to the glum of the 2020s. The back-to-school fantasy: flip phones, wedged heels, mini skirts, too much lipgloss, and pink lockers.
That high school experience we were promised in all our favourite movies and TV shows still lies in our hearts, despite the fact that it was a bigger lie than Santa Claus. What the majority of us got (at least those that are my age), is COVID, depression, a nicotine addiction, and a really bad year of hair. Despite the false image reflected in cinema, the reality of the high school experience and the promised one are two unfortunately, very different things. However, something about this era still feels nostalgic, almost like we lived through it, although the majority of us were 4 years old and just pretending and wishing that we were Sharpay Evans, with her pink outfits, car, and locker. Pretending the family dog was Boy. I know I was.
As I said a couple posts back, high school was DEFINITELY not my time to shine lol. I have spent the past years since I first started with a personal vendetta against High School Musical for being such a liar. Yet, I still loveee the whole back to school vibe, it was always such a fun transition, and the movies made it look so much better than it ever actually was, so I choose to live through them instead.
Now, imagine you took a Time Machine and went back to 2005. You wake up to get ready for school. Your room is covered in posters of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, JLO, Mariah Carey, Avril Lavigne, ALL the popstar icons, but also all the cool edgy bands like Paramore or Green Day. As you get ready at your Hollywood glamour vanity in your pink palace, you play the new album by Beyonce on your pink CD player, curl your hair with a clamp and some pink velcro rollers, while sharpening your square shaped French manicure.
You throw on a tiny Coach shoulder bag, your favourite low-rise jeans and a fitted top, finish off the look with fruity scented lip gloss and way too much of that Victoria’s Secret vanilla body spray, and head downstairs. Your flip phone is sitting in your handbag, your iPod is charged, and you have absolutely no idea what the day is going to bring. Maybe you'll run into your crush in the hallway. Maybe your best friend has some hot gossip. Maybe today is the day you finally get invited to the party everyone's been talking about.
This is the back-to-school fantasy the 2000s sold us. And honestly? I kind of get why we bought it.
WHAT ICONIC 2000s GIRLS ARE YOU?
It’s the first day of school! Pick an outfit.
A. Something that makes sure everyone remembers you walked in, ideally pink.
B. A slightly unexpected outfit that feels completely you.
C. A polished, put-together outfit that looks expensive.
D. Something trendy, cute and perfect for taking pictures with your friends.
E. An oversized sweater, boots and something comfortable.Your ideal autumn afternoon would be …
A. Shopping with friends, followed by gossip and face masks in your room.
B. Going somewhere interesting, listening to music and doing your own thing.
C. A coffee shop, bookstore or library where you can actually get something done.
D. Wandering around town with your friends with absolutely no plan.
E. Going somewhere quiet, listening to music and enjoying the fall weather.Pick your dream bedroom.
A. Glamorous, pink and perfectly coordinated.
B. Eclectic, artistic and covered in things you've collected.
C. Classic and sophisticated with books everywhere.
D. Cute, colourful and filled with photos of your friends.
E. Cozy, moody and softly lit with candles and blankets.There’s a party tonight at Glen Coco’s! Your first thought is …
A. OMG, what am I wearing?
B. Maybe … who is going to be there?
C. I have homework... but I'll make it work.
D. YES. Who else is coming?
E. Maybe... I'll see how I feel.Someone at school starts spreading a rumour about you. What do you do?
A. Make sure they regret starting it.
B. Call the bitch out and move on.
C. Get all the details, panic, and then figure out exactly where it came from before doing anything.
D. Tell your friends immediately and turn it into a different story.
E. Pretend you don't care, even though you definitely do.Choose your fall essential.
A. Lip gloss and a cute bag.
B. Headphones and a journal.
C. A planner and your favourite book.
D. A digital camera and your flip phone.
E. An oversized sweater and a playlist for rainy days.What role do you usually play in your friend group?
A. The leader.
B. The creative one with the unusual ideas.
C. The organized one who keeps everyone on track, the ‘motherbird’.
D. The social butterfly who keeps everyone together and always has the stories.
E. The listener everyone comes to when they need a shoulder to cry on.Pick your ideal Saturday.
A. Brunch, shopping, getting ready and going out to some cool bar.
B. Thrifting, music, exploring and finding somewhere new to hang around.
C. Coffee, books, studying and a nice dinner with family.
D. Mall, photos, food and a sleepover with your BFF’s.
E. A cozy day at home followed by a late-night movie.Your relationship with school is...
A. School is just another social scene.
B. I'll participate when something actually interests me.
C. I take it seriously. I have goals.
D. It's mostly about seeing my friends.
E. I do my best, but there's more to life than grades.Someone describes you as...
A. Confident and charismatic.
B. Creative and independent.
C. Ambitious and intelligent.
D. Fun and outgoing.
E. Loyal and sensitive.
Mostly A’s - The It Girl: Regina George, Alison Di Laurentis, Summer Roberts, Sharpay Evans
You're confident, charismatic and probably very aware of your presence. You know what you like, you know how you want to be perceived, and you aren't afraid to stand out. You bring a little drama, a lot of confidence and an undeniable main-character energy wherever you go.
Your 2000s fall: pink Wednesdays, lip gloss, shopping trips, cute outfits, sleepovers and knowing exactly where you belong.
Mostly B’s - The Cool Girl: Aria Montgomery, Jade, Kat Stratford
You're independent, creative and a little unconventional. You aren't interested in looking or acting like everyone else, and you'd rather develop your own style than follow a trend. You're probably the girl with the most specific music taste and a camera roll full of random artistic, yet aesthetic, pictures.
Your 2000s fall: black eyeliner, vintage finds, headphones, Polaroids, rainy afternoons and Tumblr at midnight.
Mostly C’s - The Academic Girl: Blair Waldorf, Spencer Hastings, Rory Gilmore, Elle Woods
You're very ambitious, organized and super determined to make something of yourself. You love a good outfit, but you also appreciate a good GPA. You probably have a stacked planner, many goals and true determination with absolutely no intention of letting anyone get in your way.
Your 2000s fall: plaid skirts, headbands, coffee, books, libraries, handwritten notes and romanticizing your academic comeback.
Mostly D’s - The Social Butterfly: Sasha, Hanna Marin, Serena Vanderwoodsen, Cloe
You're super fun, social and charming without even trying. You love your friends, love getting dressed up and probably turn even the most ordinary plans into a full event and fashion show. You're here for the memories and you're documenting all of them on your digital camera.
Your 2000s fall: digital cameras, mall trips, lip gloss, sleepovers, tiny bags, friendship bracelets and way too many pictures.
Mostly E’s - The Soft Girl: Bella Swan, Emily Fields, Yasmin, Marissa Cooper
You're more sensitive, loyal and feel deeply connected to those you care about. You notice the little things and probably romanticize moments that everyone else overlooks. You don't need to be the loudest person in the room to make an impression.
Your 2000s fall: oversized sweaters, rainy days, forests, candles, handwritten notes, emotional playlists and watching the leaves fall from your bedroom window.
The 2000s media created some of the most iconic characters to date, with very recognizable archetypes. Like the popular girl, the alternative girl, or even the academic girl. This gave many girls watching from home a multifaceted definition of girlhood in a way. It showed how different girls were across different series and movies, and made them look super fricking cool for just being themselves, with the different personalities, styles, and identities. Ones we could recognize ourselves in, helping us to pick our favourite characters and hold them in our hearts until we were old enough to let them out.
I have always loved how connected their appearances and personalities were, how you could often tell who the character was just from small hints like clothes, music, interests, before she even spoke. Pink and polished might signal the It Girl, while dark eyeliner could signal the alternative girl and oversized sweaters could signal the quiet and soft romantic. These archetypes made female characters feel aspirational and relatable at the same time. Girls would look at Regina, Blair, Aria, Hanna, Bella, Rory or the Bratz girls and think, “That's me,” or “That's who I want to be.” This gave audiences different versions of femininity to experiment with, which has helped shape the fashion, aesthetics, personalities and stereotypes that became so strongly associated with 2000s pop culture.
Now, let’s talk about how we got super lucky with all the iconic movies we got from this specific timeframe. Mean Girls is honestly my favourite of all the options, it is my diehard and I can go line for line with it. But what did make it truly so iconic? The exaggerations for sure, but also the realness of it. It did a great job showing just how rude and malicious people in high school could be, but has become such a staple of popculture that will never go away, thankfully, it’s just THAT iconic. Not even 22 years later, with the October 3rd trend still being popular, me being a personal victim of it (another iconic line that we were fed). From “On Wednesdays we wear pink” to the Burn Book, that movie gave us lines, outfits, characters, and scenes that have survived even two decades later. Especially the cliques, the popular girls, the cafeteria hierarchy, the crushes, the gossip and, of course, the extremely specific fashion rules. It captured that early 2000s idea that high school was its own little universe with its own rules.
And honestly, the fashion alone deserves its own conversation. Pink polos, miniskirts, ballet flats, tiny bags, headbands and glossy lips made the Plastics instantly recognizable. Even today, dressing in pink on a Wednesday is enough to make people immediately think of Regina George. I have to throw this in here btw, because it is THAT ICONIC, but my best friend Sofia (shoutout sofi) got to go to a Mean Girls themed party ON October 3rd, where everyone was wearing pink. HOW AWESOME IS THAT!? Goes to show how iconic this movie really is.
What is funny to me is that in reality, we did very much have the cliques, but it wasn’t as generic as they painted it to be. We had the guys who played football (the Jocks), those who were artistic gravitated towards each other (the Artists), more academic students also found their way to each other, and the various groups of different kinds of girls. The only difference is that our reality was a whole lot messier than the movie. But that’s why this movie is so ‘plastic’ but so real in a way, because while a lot of the social dynamics were recognized, reality was that the volume was turned up a bit more. Below I put my favourite lines from Mean Girls, although there are just too many lol.
But Mean Girls wasn't the only iconic movie or show that made this version of adolescence so memorable. We got an entire decade of movies and shows that each showed us a different side of being a teenager in the 2000s, which is probably why so many of them have remained so relevant whenever September and back-to-school rolls around.
Pretty Little Liars took the idea of high school drama and made it a mysterious where did she go? plot. Rosewood High was practically its own character. The lockers, hallways, school events, secrets, outfits and endless gossip created this strange little universe where everyone seemed to know something about everyone else. It also gave us four completely different versions of the teenage girl through Aria, Hanna, Spencer and Emily. Aria was eccentric, artistic and effortlessly unconventional. Spencer was studious, determined and domineering, always pushing herself to be the best. Emily was shy, quiet and always a little on edge, while Hanna went from being overlooked to becoming the queen bee almost overnight. Even though the story was a lot darker than a typical back-to-school plot, it still perfectly captured that feeling of entering a new school year knowing that anything could happen. And to be honest, the early 2010s Tumblr obsession with PLL only made the aesthetic that much more unforgettable.
Then there was Gossip Girl, which took the high school social hierarchy and made it glamorous. Constance Billard and St. Jude's were basically the fantasy version of high school, where the hallway was a runway and everyone somehow looked perfect on their way to class, as if it totally wasn’t 7am. Blair, Serena, Jenny and the rest of the Upper East Side girls made school uniforms, headbands, tights, dresses and designer-inspired fashion feel about as important as the actual plot of the show. But underneath all the overly expensive clothes and petty drama, Gossip Girl was still obsessed with the same things as Mean Girls. Things like popularity, friendship, romance, reputation, gossip and the constant fear of being left out. It traded the crappy cafeteria table for the glamorous Upper East Side.
And then we have Bratz, which might be one of the most y2k things ever created, I actually foamed at the mouth when it became available to rent at the public library and I got to watch it for a week straight. Cloe, Yasmin, Jade and Sasha represented a completely different approach to girlhood. Instead of having one “perfect” version of what a cool girl should look like, each girl had her own personality, style and interests. Cloe was the bubbly, confident and romantic one, Yasmin was the thoughtful and compassionate one, Jade was the cool cat with the creative and edgy style, and Sasha was the confident, energetic and ambitious one. The tiny bags, miniskirts, platforms, glossy lips, colourful accessories and iconic Y2K fashion make it almost like a time capsule of the era. Bratz reminds us that the 2000s were about having killer style while having your friends beside you while you did it.
And then, as the seasons got darker, came Twilight. It might not be a very traditional version of a back-to-school movie, but somehow it has become permanently connected to that September and October feeling, probably because Bella arriving in Forks does feels like the “new school year, new life” storyline. New town, new school, new people, new crush, new version of herself. Add the rain, oversized sweaters, forests, cold weather and moody soundtrack, and suddenly school doesn't just feel like school anymore. It feels like fall, although it was the dead of winter. Twilight created that darker, more romantic side of autumn that we still see all over Pinterest and social media today, and was booming on Tumblr back in the day.
The movies were definitely right about the reinvention aspect of going back to school, at least. September has always been a time for us to become someone new for the school year - hair cuts, new nails, new shoes, new back to school necessities … Just like how it was in the movies. Cady went from an unsocialized homeschooled girl, to a Plastic. Or Bella Swan, for that matter. Moves from Arizona to Forks, a usually quiet and mysterious girl suddenly meets a vampire and well, life becomes a lot more interesting.
What makes all of these movies and shows so iconic is that they didn't all give us the same version of teenage life. Mean Girls gave us the social hierarchy. Pretty Little Liars gave us mystery and secrets. Gossip Girl gave us fashion, wealth and drama. Bratz gave us friendship and Y2K individuality. Twilight gave us the quiet, rainy, romantic side. And altogether, they created a fantasy of what being young in high school and in the fall could feel like.
And maybe that's why they still come back every September, or even year round. We aren't necessarily watching them because we genuinely think high school looked exactly like this. We watch them because they turned something as ordinary as going back to school into an entire event, one worth looking forward to. A new outfit, a new crush, a new friend, a new secret, a new playlist, a new chapter. Somehow, September always felt like the beginning of something. And I think that's what made the 2000s so good at creating nostalgia before we even realized we'd be nostalgic for it.
