Life

Why You & Your BFF Weren't Cool In The '90s

by Kat George

There was plenty of stuff you and your BFF did in the '90s that you thought was cool, but really wasn't. Amidst all the dorky things you did to proclaim your friendship in the '90s, the general awkwardness of the era, and the fact that you were a cute kid or teenager (I'm guessing you were about that age in the '90s), there were a lot of cringeworthy missteps. Yes, a lot of them revolved around your bad fashion sense. If only you'd actually been cool, you would have been way ahead of the curve on mom jeans and purple lipstick, but alas. Your life was more neon butterfly clips and hair mascara than any of the trends that have been revived today.

Rolling around the local mall, copying the hand slap and hair flick routine straight from Clueless, you thought you were the height of cool. Unfortunately, everyone else just saw two adorkable dummies in silly hats with flowers stuck to the front doing some ridiculous secret handshake from a movie. That's OK — as uncool as you were, at least your naivety about that level of cool was endearing. Here are 15 reasons you and your '90s BFF weren't as cool as you thought you were at the time.

Because You Actually Spent Way Too Long Trying To Synchronize Your Clapping To The Friends Theme Song

You thought it was cool to not miss a beat. But what was not cool was the hours you can your BFF spent trying to get that synchronicity just right.

Because You Weren't Actually The Spice Girls

Sure, running around in platform sneakers, shouting girl power and throwing up peace signs might have seemed cool, but it wasn't clear to other people whether or not you knew you weren't actually the Spice Girls...

Because Not Only Was Your Matching Hair Mascara Adorkable, It Made Your Hair Crispy, And Not Really That Blue

You thought it would be cool to paint each other's hair with hair mascara, but really you both just wound up with matching dirty looking crispy bits.

Because Between You, You Could Stock The Hair Butterfly Section At Claire's

You didn't know it at the time, but there is such a thing as "too many clip in hair butterflies".

Because Of Your Head To Toe Matching Tie Dye

Like, you guys looked like you just fell into the same pot of dye.

Because You Thought You Were Cher And Dionne, And Acted Like It, Even In Public

To yourselves, you were the baddest babes at the mall. To everyone else, you were off in your own little world that was quite incomprehensible from the outside.

Because Literally No One Believed You When You Pretended To Be Long Lost Twins Who Found Each Other On Summer Camp

You guys thought you were scamming everyone with this story. But no one believed you. Your reality was much less cool than your fake story, and you didn't even tell the story well enough to make it believable (and therefore cool).

Because Your Older Sibling Could SEE YOU Spying On Them Despite The Fact That You Covered Yourselves In Leaves And Hid In A Bush

You and your bestie thought you were being cool by spying on your older siblings and seeing all the cool stuff the big kids did, but really, you just looked super silly covered in leaves sitting next to that bush like you were invisible.

Because Your Friendship Bracelets Were More Like One Sleeve Of A Sweater

One friendship bracelet was cool. Two or three were cool, too. But 78 friendship bracelets were just overkill!

Because No One Ever Booked Your Babysitter's Club Services Despite All The Flyers You Photocopied And Distributed

You and your BFF thought your Babysitter's Club was dead cool — even though you never had any clients. You put more time into marketing than babysitting.

Because Your Bird's Eye View Babysitter's Club Photo Made You Look All Squinty And Double Chin-y

Not only did your Babysitter's Club get no business, the promo pic you took of you laying on the grass, heads touching, from above just made your faces look weirdly flat like pancakes and your eyes look like they were being burned out by the sun.

Because Your Matching Shimmer Lipstick Made You All Look A Little Bit Vitamin Deficient

Remember that pinky-white metallic lipstick you two thought was so cool? It really just made you look a little sick.

Because Inventing A Secret Language Just Vaguely Derived From Pig Latin Is Not, In Fact, Cool

It seems cool to be able to talk to each other in a secret language like you did in the '90s (very close to pig latin, but slightly personalized), but turns out its the height of uncool.

Because You Thought You Were Two Rachels When Really You Were Just A Ross And A Monica

It's cute that you thought you were cool enough to be two Rachels. A real Rachel wouldn't even say they were Rachel. No, you were really just a Ross and a Monica, trying to be cool. (For the record, Monica is my fave.)

Images: NBC; Giphy (8)