what's in my bag? 2008 edition

one of the things I love about making these videos is all the forgotten memories I've uncovered. 2008 was 3rd and 4th grade for me. I now remember browsing the book fair with my mom and running into my friend's mom and older sister, who gushed the entire plot of twilight to me as I stood there awkwardly. 

I remember begging for an ipod nano (I wanted to be like the cool, older girls at ballet who left their candy-colored ipods on top of their tokidoki dance bags), and being disappointed when I got an ipod shuffle instead. 

I also remember phones becoming more common place. when I visited my cousin, she showed off her new blackberry, and my dad surprised my mom with an iphone for christmas. some of my friends were starting to get slider phones which I was supremely jealous of. they seemed so cool and mature with their cellphones, but no matter how hard I begged, my parents refused to get me one. To be fair, I was nine and had no use for a phone, but still. 

even though I was initially disappointed by the screen-less ipod shuffle, I soon became enthralled by it. My mom downloaded a handful of songs--I remember so what by pink, love story by taylor swift, bleeding love by leona lewis, and pocketful of sunshine by natasha beddingfield. There's something about the latter's music that's still remarkably relevant to younger gen-z and gen alpha kids, as shown in this vice mini doc about the song unwritten:

(definitely watch if you haven't already, it's soooo good)

anyways, the continued relevancy of natasha beddingfield is why I choose pocketful of sunshine as the soundtrack to my WIMB 2008 video. the memories I have of watching it on mtv with my mom and dancing to it with my friends are distinctly 2008, but it's still an absolute banger today. I wish I had listened to more of her music, but whatever I guess. 

here is a sample of what flickr users kept in their bags during the year 2008. what did you carry back then?

not linking to this one bc they posted their driver's license and address lmaooo the internet was so different back then

welcome.

this blog has been started on a complete whim and will be an extension of my tiktok account (I think.) I plan to post more long form writing, stolen images, and general musings on internet culture from the late 00s to early 2010s....but we'll see how that goes lol. 

the tiktok account has been doing fairly well, which is exciting and also depressing. each time I post, comments come trickling in that share a deep nostalgia, overburdening sadness, and longing for the past. "life was so much better back then." "I'd risk it all to go back to 2012." "I would do anything to relive those years."

maybe I'm projecting, but it genuinely bums me out to see so many young people who share the same sentiment that I do. I resent that we live in a world that makes an imperfect past so tantalizing, and one that allows us to dip our toes into the pool of nostalgia through forgotten images and neglected pixels, but forbids us from truly immersing ourselves in the past (as time travel is still not yet possible.) And while I too feel the temptation to drown myself in hipster triangle galaxy edits and bokeh, I worry that I am erasing the complications from my own history, as nothing is ever as good as we remember it. Akin to a tormented Greek king, I roll my boulder of longing up a mountain of flickr images, blogs, and tumblr archives, pause for a brief moment to fully feel thirteen again, then watch it roll down and crash back into reality.

something something we must imagine sisyphus happy.

if it's not already apparent, I am pretty fucking depressed. This whole *gestures wildly at my blog and tiktok accounts* thing is actually born out of depression-induced nostalgia, and also out of a curiosity of mine: why do I feel so compelled by my tweens and early teens? was it something in the atmosphere back then? is just brain chemistry? did I peak in middle school? 

god, I really hope I didn't peak in middle school. 

anyways, whether you have a healthy relationship to the past (unlike me) or not, I hope you find some level of solace in these images, essays, and other digital fragments. Please remember to keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times as we are only ever moving forwards not backwards, and that you can come back to the past at any time, but there is no one here for you anymore.