There will come a day when we Millenials have to answer a lot of tough questions for our children. No, not the “where do babies come from?” ones, but the “what is a selfie?” and “who is Kim Kardashian and why is she in my history book?” ones.
We remember the days when our parents used to tell us the tales of their bell-bottoms and the exact day they nailed every move of The Hustle, but before we know it, 25 years will have come and gone and we are going to owe our kids a whole lot of explanations for the ridiculous things we do and love now.
1. Our super classy and appropriate dance moves
“No, I swear the Wop was a real dance! It was a lot more complicated than it looks. Want me to show you how I used to do it?”
2. Ombre hair
“No, honey, my roots weren’t grown out. It was just the style, you know, like dark at the top, light at the bottom.”
3. Leggings and UGGs
“I mean, they weren’t technically pants… but if you just tucked them into your UGGs and wore a big sweater, you could barely tell.”
4. Reality TV
“They would take eight people, stick them in a house, pay for all of their alcohol and put cameras in the corners to see what happened next.”
5. Our deep, sentimental music
*2 Chainz comes on radio* “Oh, honey, this was my jam when I was your age! An oldie but goodie! In fact, it was almost my wedding song…”
6. Selfies
“Our cameras even had these settings where you could flip the screen so you could see what your picture would look like before you took it!”
7. Vampire romances
“One day, they just ran out of ideas. Then this thing Twilight happened.”
8. Instagram
“No, first you took the picture and picked the filter, then you ate the food. Get it now?”
9. The duck face
“If you were really serious, you would throw up a peace sign, too.”
10. Hashtags
“You see, way back even before I was a kid, the pound sign was something we used on a phone. Then it became so, so much more.”
11. The sloth/cat/corgi epidemic
“And then we would spend hours watching these things called YouTube videos of them doing things like dancing and riding scooters. It was so funny.”
12. Tweeting
“Honey… explaining your entire day in 140 characters isn’t as easy as it sounds.”
13. YOLO, FOMO, swag, ratchet, SMH, cray, crunk and other lingo
“When I was in college, everyone used to go get crunk at the bar and it was always so cray – some girls would get pretty ratchet. Sometimes I would think about not going, but then I knew I would have serious FOMO. That’s when I would just say YOLO and go. Luckily I did, because that’s when I met your dad. Let me tell you, he had so much swag.”
14. Fifty Shades of Grey
“No, it wasn’t porn, it was fine literature!”
15. Everything about the Kardashians
“Well, there was this guy named Ray J…”