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New video shows Gen Z kids trying to emulate the best of iconic 1980s and 90's dance moves

Kids are learning to Vogue, do the Roger Rabbit and wear Hammer pants again.

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File:Voguing Masquerade Ball (30471230845).jpg - Wikipedia

Something was in the water back in the mid-80s, almost as though dance itself was rebelling against common sense. And it was glorious. Moves like the Running Man popped up and were made super popular by all the greats: MC Hammer, Milli Vanilli, Janet Jackson, and, of course, the beat-master himself, Vanilla Ice. You had Bobby Brown busting out the Roger Rabbit dance, which, yes, was simply the Running Man done backward.

But it was the early 90s when things got REALLY sexy. And by sexy, I mean, picture a man wearing parachute pants. Now drop the crotch down, taper the ankles and insert more air into the sides and then pop them - like a slightly deflated balloon.. Now stop. Hammer time.

TikTok kids are here to bring those good vibrations (c'mon, c'mon, c'mon) in every way possible. (If you're not currently picturing Mark Wahlberg in a tank top, you should be.) First, the New Kids on the Block showed us how it's done. The hats! The vests! The bouncing! The style of dance can only be described as being electrocuted while drinking a triple shot of espresso.


Madonna took things up a level when she released "Vogue," complete with a sexy video where she was, in fact, "voguing." This is a dance trend that goes back to the '60s and has evolved and gained popularity, specifically through the LGBTQ community. Check this amazing kid out…

Later in the decade, the boy bands exploded. Now all of those Backstreet and *NSYNC lovers are teaching their children spins and moves that put Justin Timberlake to shame.

Some of the parents have taken part in the craze, too. Jevin Smith put together the ultimate compilation on TikTok/Instagram of all the times he showed off his '90s moves while picking up his daughter, Jayna, from high school. We're talking "2 Legit 2 Quit" – complete with the aforementioned Hammer pants and a crazy gold jacket, obviously.

Jayna was initially mortified, but she later told Today.com, "Now I think it's hilarious. There's never a time when I'm upset. He's like a celebrity at school now. Everyone loves his TikToks."

And she does mean everyone. After Jevin (known online as wealthyjev) popped and locked for a bit, one of Jayna's classmates joined in, and they had the coolest dance-off in recent history.

And don't think for one second that the Boomer generation doesn't want their moment in the spotlight! TikTok is chalk-full of them, and they might actually have the best moves yet. They certainly all have the swagger and why wouldn't they? They were the original kings and queens of swagger!

The comments were especially uplifting, with one person sharing, "Your moves make me want to get up and dance. Every move was on point. I love it! I'm a fan." Another gushed, "One of the last generations to just actually enjoy and groove to the music without being distracted by phones."

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Pop Culture

Millennials reveal the phrases they heard growing up that kids are never going to hear today

A fun trip down memory lane on "the information superhighway."

Photo by cottonbro studio/Pexels

Do kids these days even know what "rewind" means?

Every generation has its slang and catchphrases that eventually become outdated. But in the modern age, there are also some totally normal, everyday phrases that become totally obsolete by the time the next generation comes along.

Millennials are still viewed as young by a lot of the boomer generation, but they're solidly hitting the middle age stage where the Gen Zers and Gen Alphas don't know what they're talking about when they reference their own childhood in the 90s: "What do you mean your phone was attached to the wall when you were a kid? And you really had no idea who was calling you?" Yep and yep, youngsters.

In the digital age, with technology moving incredibly fast, this generational phenomenon has become even more marked. Just for funsies, millennials on Reddit are sharing phrases they heard growing up that kids today will never hear, and it's quite a nostalgic trip.

"We'll look it up when we get home." – Wazzen

Ah, the days before smartphones and cellular data. That's right, kids. We only had internet at home and at internet cafés, so if we were curious about something, we had to wait to look it up. (And we also had to wait for the dial-up internet to connect, complete with the screechy-scratchy garbley noise we'll never forget.)

Speaking of which:

"You've got mail!" – Nate16

There was a whole movie based on this phrase, which was how AOL (America OnLine—one of the big internet companies of the 90s) let you know that you had email in your inbox after you got connected to the internet. A cheery voice announced, "You've got mail!" Can you even imagine? So quaint.

man on a landline phone

Cell phones as we know them were just a futuristic idea.

Photo by Jimmy Jimmy/Pexels

"“I got it!!!” When the house phone rang. – KatyDid749

See, the "house phone" was the landline telephone—the one connected to the wall—that the whole family shared. When we knew a friend was going to call, we'd clamor to be the one to answer because otherwise your friend had to go through the mortifying experience of saying, "May I please speak to so-and-so?" Saving our friends from such horror was a mark of true friendship. Plus if it was a love interest that called, there's no way you wanted your mom or dad to answer.

Someone is "calling long distance" – shakeyjake

Back in the olden days of the 90s, if you wanted to call someone outside of your town, you had to pay extra money for it. And the farther away they were, the more expensive it was. It was called "long-distance calling," and it was a standard feature of our lives. Want to call someone internationally? Might have to sell a kidney to pay for that. The ability to not just call but video call people in other countries, and without paying anything extra, the way we do now? We barely even dared to dream we might see something like that in our lifetimes.

Describing the internet as an "information superhighway" – TheKnightsTippler

Oh, we had several ways to refer to the internet: the information superhighway, the Worldwide Web (or just "the web"), cyberspace, etc.. If we could go back and tell ourselves that in the future the kids would just call it the internet, we could save ourselves some now cringey phrases.

"Gotta check the want ads for jobs" - Didntlikedefaultname

Yep, jobs were listed in the newspaper in the "classified ads" aka "want ads," and that's how you found out who in your local area was hiring. Some localities had a separate publication just for such a purpose, while in other places it was part of the standard newspaper.
ash tray full of cigarette butts

Smoking used to be ubiquitous

Photo by Alexas_Fotos on Unsplash

"Smoking or non-smoking seats?" – heatherista2

This might be one of the biggest shifts from the 90s to now in terms of being out in public. It used to be that every restaurant had a smoking and non-smoking section, frequently only separated by a wall of glass that didn't even go to the ceiling. Smoking was allowed on airplanes, too, up til it was phased out from 1988 to 2000. Yes, we used to inhale a heck of a lot of second-hand smoke and considered it just part of life. Wild times.

"Did you remember to print the directions to our destination?" – dexterstrife

Ah, MapQuest, the revolutionary direction-creating website that marked the beginning of the end of road atlases and fold-out maps, but preceded Google Maps and real-time GPS. It was a specific era some of us will always remember fondly.

"Check the Yellow Pages" – muchlovemates

I think the Yellow Pages still exist most places, but kids these days likely never see them. Every business in town was listed in the Yellow Pages under different categories. So if you wanted to find out what movies were playing at the local theater, you'd open the Yellow Pages, look under "movies" or "theaters," find the theater and get the phone number. Makes you appreciate how much easier the internet has made our lives.

vcr with vhs tapes piled on top of it

If you didn't rewind your video rental, you sucked.

Photo by cottonbro studio/Pexels

"Be kind, rewind." – Gubble_Buppie

Oh my. The days of the VCR and renting VHS tapes from Blockbuster. Not only did we have to physically take ourselves to the movie rental store to rent a movie on tape, but if you watched the movie and didn't rewind it before turning it back in, you were deemed a bad person. Period.

"You won't always have a calculator." – Wizard_of_Claus

This phrase was drilled into kids in math class and turned out to be the biggest lie of the 20th century. Who knew?

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Joy

Hilarious lost gem from the early '90s wants to sell you a headset for your landline phone

The '90s were a wild ride!

YouTube

The phone headset that wanted to change the world

What was even happening in the '90s? I'm not sure we know. Somehow everything was beige but people wore all the colors of the rainbow at the same time. Everything seemed to be in some sort of geometrical shape or pattern. Overlapping triangles, random trapezoids. It was madness I tell you, madness. But nothing encompasses the chaos of the '90s like this unearthed and unintentionally hilarious advertisement for a headset to connect to your phone.


The idea seems to be to stop consumers from holding their phones between their shoulder and head. For some reason avoiding a crick in your neck was very important. How long were those phone calls? Boy would people from the '90s be shocked if they were dropped into 2022 where people avoid phone calls at all costs. The ad isn't completely useless in our current place in the space-time continuum. It's certainly good for a much-needed raised eyebrow chuckle. You can always count on 1993 being weird, no matter how far in the future we go.

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Culture

Extreme yo-yo's, high rise jeans and fluffy blowouts show the '90s are officially retro now

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I'm a millennial. One of my greatest joys is making my Gen Xer boyfriend feel ancient. I love to remind him how I was in high school when he was enjoying Phish concerts. When he mentions his pop culture icons, I revel in saying "who?" as I watch him appear dumbfounded. And oh, you should see his face when I remind him that I have never, not once, seen "The Breakfast Club." Nothing brings me more sadistic delight.

Well, it looks like I'm about to get a heaping serving of humble pie. Karma is real folks, and it got me.

It all started with a viewing of this yo-yo commercial from the '90s.

This Yomega yo-yo commercial—with background music reminiscent of "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air" theme and some in-your-face teenage boys sporting Beastie Boys hairdos—was going viral.

The video received a flood of comments remembering the yo-yo craze:

"I went crazy and bought one called the metallic missile. It's the coolest yo yo I swear"

"Ah man, totally remember using baby oil to grease the axle on my fireball."

"Back in elementary school we had a school assembly because a 'yoyo artist' was coming to visit."

As I thought back on my own pride at having accomplished my first "walk the dog" yo-yo trick back in 7th grade, I thought about other trends I've seen recently. Ones that were all too familiar. Butterfly clips. Mini skirts. Velvet. Then I tasted the bittersweet flavor of nostalgia, dread—yes karma—as it slowly dawned on me that…

…the '90s are now retro.

OMG. It's true. Things that appeared not only in my childhood, but in my teenage years, are resurfacing. "Making a comeback," as the headlines say. As I list these out, I feel a newfound sense of empathy for older generations.

Low-rise jeans

Are you kidding me? I only just bought my super high rise mom jeans! How many waistlines can one woman sport? Is it just me, or do fashion styles come and go at a super speed pace nowadays?

I was relieved to see the universally flattering bell bottoms trending once again. But I'm not ready for this. One, I'm not ready to accept that low-rise is considered "vintage." Two, I'm not convinced anyone finds this fit actually comfortable. And three, on a more serious note, many women don't remember this style fondly, for reasons that InStyle made a great article about here. Let's just say, the '90s were a time where hypersexual culture and purity culture came to a head in a weird way.

Fluffy blowouts

90s, 90s hair, 90s comeback

Topanga from 'Boy Meets World' and Kylie Jenner.

Instagram, Disneywiki

Even though Gen Z has dubbed the side part as "old," this voluptuous hairstyle is apparently in and ready to serve some serious Topanga vibes and I'm psyched about it. (Do I have to explain that Topanga is from "Boy Meets World"? Do I have to explain what "Boy Meets World" is?)

Blockbuster


Sorry for the mislead, readers. No, Blockbuster is not coming back. And probably never ever ever ever will. But it is making a comeback of sorts. Randall Park will be starring in a comedy series, aptly and simply titled "Blockbuster," that takes place at (you guessed it) the world's last remaining Blockbuster. The ultimate irony? This show will be on Netflix, the company that put Blockbuster out of business. One final twist of the proverbial knife.

Barbed wire: tattoos and more

Hulu recently released its trailer for the new Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee biopic, starring Lily James and Sebastian Stan. Though I'm not entirely sure why anyone needs this show, the transformation that Lily and Sebastian undergo for the roles is pretty incredible. But that's not the only place where barbed wire is becoming trendy. Arm bands, wristlets and ankle tattoos have been popping up featuring the once hot design. Lets not forget the classic barbed-wire-paired-with-delicate-flowers combination, a classic symbol for "strong, yet vulnerable."

Dua Lipa even got a heart-shaped barbed wire tattoo. And she's in her 20s, so you know it's cool!

'90s are the new '70s?

Gosh, I remember watching episodes of "That '70s Show" thinking how odd and caricatured those teenagers looked. Still hilarious, though. To think that there will be a spin-off set in the '90s puts a whole new perspective on things. My childhood generation is now a potential scene for a period piece? Stop the world, I wanna get off!

Pretty soon we'll be seeing yo-yos trending on TikTok. In a retro, ironic way, might I add. But I suppose that's how the passage of time works. And really, it only stands to make me appreciate some symbols from my younger days. Hopefully we can bring back some wholesome '90s classics, like just going to the mall with friends or going to a concert and just being there, without having to film it.

As I watch my old clothes turn into costumes, and I surrender to the fact that time stops for no one, at least I can take solace in one thing: I'll still always be younger than my Gen X boyfriend.

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