Nothing screams “Summer!” more than setting up that waterslide on your lawn and inviting your friends to have your knees scraped on plastic. It’s all fun and games until someone comes running inside the house all wet and grass-sprinkled.

Jumanji just came out to home video, school’s out, and it’s Friday night. Whip out the membership card because this is the reason why home theatre systems existed. The “streaming generation” cannot experience the thrill of Friday nights, especially when you forgot that your borrowed DVD is overdue.

Right after school, it’s jumping into your computer, logging into your flash games websites, and spending hours playing cards, stacking sandwiches or doing fashion trends. Back in the day, the only horror stories were viruses caught on Limewire and having the prompt “You must have Flash or Java installed.”

After Facebook, social media sites began to usher a subculture of statement posts, quotes, and selfies taken in low resolution, complete with that grainy filter before filters were even a thing. And don’t forget how that British war poster got thousands of iterations that even included “Keep calm and smell a feet.”

When flash games became big, Cartoon Network wanted to have a slice of the pie. Now, you have your usual flash games, but also newer ones with all your favorite cartoon characters in them. So many games, so little time! In fact, this is probably why you get yourself in trouble all the time.

Grocery day is considered to be the best of days now that we’re adults, but it was a different kind of heaven when we were kids. Imagine having a streak of luck when you got the snacks you wanted and then stopping by Little Caesar’s for a pizza treat. Never mind eating beside your cart! This is the best of days!

There was a time when animated films were so good they created fandoms under their names, but this era saw the merging of four different fandoms that filled Tumblr and Twitter with “The Rise of the Brave, Tangled Dragons” content. And they edit them everywhere! Fan arts, photo manipulations, and even fanfictions!

Before Cocomelon became a thing, toddlers of this era were addicted to their own TV shows. It was perfect bait for parents who were doing chores or wanting to catch a quick shuteye. Just let the Wonder Pets do some rescuing and it will keep the kids glued for 30 minutes or so.

Nobody would forget when the game was stopped for five minutes in MetLife because a big black cat ran into the stadium for a quick touchdown. The Cowboys were losing 9-3 against the Giants but ended with a 37-18 win when their luck turned. Looks like black cats bring bad luck. It’s just a matter of who’s gonna get it.

The discontinuation of Altoids Sours might be a bigger heartbreak than the 8th season of Game of Thrones. The classier candy cousins of their regular chalky mints come in raspberry, lime, apple, tangerine, and mango flavors. It was the go-to candy of every discerning teen who wants to look cool, sound cool and stay cool. We miss you every day!

The era of young adult novels was something else! Every girl on your campus has an imaginary relationship with the main leads, and every novel was eventually turned into movie franchises. We all know the “true” fans know that the books were always better than the adaptation because you know, you’re not a “real” fan.

It was the anthem of girls who “are not like the other girls”. They don’t care about posh, they don’t care about “girly” things, they don’t care about “popularity”, and they listen to Avril Lavigne like every angsty princess clad in pink and black Converse pairs. Hey, never mind that the song is about a girl trying to ruin someone’s relationship.

Playground rules were set on what you have and what you wear. And every little girl demanded respect through their hot pink sequin bags and dangly earrings that evoked peak playground sophistication. Check your old digital albums and you’ll definitely see your glamorous middle school life.

Remember when the coolest thing you’ve seen in your life is when your favorite characters appear in an episode of your other favorite show? Before Marvel could even bring their superheroes into one universe, Zach and Cody were already hanging out with Hannah Montana. The fan theories you fought your friends against will now be put to rest.

As a gamer in the earlier decades, you only know two heartbreaks. First, when your mom hides the VA cords because you’re playing on school nights, and when your CD doesn’t show the PS logo after the Sony boot up. We had to buy magazines and write cheat codes on tissue papers, and you’re telling me the kids of today are just looking it up on the internet? Spoiled!

Being a kid from the new millennium meant watching Scooby-Doo direct-to-video animated films. These top-tier movies became a staple of our formative years especially when Cyber Chase reunited the cast with their original Hanna-Barbera counterparts. Once it comes on, you’ll watch it with no questions asked!

Cable TV introduced 24/7 content, which gave rise to a channel that only showed cartoons for every hour of the day. It was the single most important channel for every kid at that point, and they all knew the cartoons by heart. Sick days meant watching Dexter’s Lab, Kids Next Door, Ed, Edd’n, Eddy, or hopping onto the rival network: Nickelodeon.

Pokémon became a big hit in the US and no one would forget the Charmander episode. The pokémon, not knowing it was left for dead by his trainer, is on the brink of death when Ash encountered him. A whole generation knew what grief felt like and they’re not even paying taxes yet!

Say goodbye to the green-screened Gameboys where you had to lean towards the car window and wait for the streetlight to hit you the right time before pressing A. The biggest releases for portable gaming were the Nintendo DS and Gameboy Advance SP for the kids, and the PSP for the classier teens. Whip these bad boys out and watch your classmates huddle around you.

Six years ago, Twitter users turned against each other as a mysterious picture appeared at the site. Some claimed the dress was black and blue, while the others rallied under gold and white. The optical illusion remains unsolved until this day.

Together with mobile game hits like Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja, Temple Run swept the gaming world with coins and a tsunami of monkeys. Every tab and every phone had one and every toddler, cousin, nephew, or niece would borrow your device just to get a taste of the thrill.

There’s always a girl in your high school who told everyone she’s a mermaid, and we have these girls to blame. The teen-oriented show garnered 250 million viewers worldwide and affected every imaginative teenager at that time. It even has an animated spin-off on Netflix.

File this under “pictures you can smell”. If you have a grandparent with an old car, chances are you’ve been into one of these and you sat your small butt in the “middle front seat”. Newer cars will never have that felt finish that smells like cigarettes and Black Ice.

While the kids of today have mobile games and YouTube, the kids back then hung out on sidewalks and scraped their knees on concrete. Bikes will be parked on the side, kids huddled up on telephone boxes, and the pavements will be doodled with colored chalk. You don’t need to look at your watch. Once the streetlights come on, you know it’s dinner time.

Almost all of us have been there. Looking over our shoulders just to see if your friends are finishing their math cards faster than you, not to mention when we had to switch our cards to green when it was supposed to be red. We felt more guilty about those than blaming our younger siblings for something we did!

You run back to the table all cold and wet, then you take a bite of that soggy sandwich and the breadsticks to the roof of your mouth. The chips hit different with that hint of chlorine from your salty raisin fingers, then you wash it off with the Capri-sun. Those were the days!

The best thing about kiddie castles is that they don’t smell like melting plastic in the summer. Just steer clear of the hornet’s nest and bring a pair of tweezers for the nasty splinters. You could almost feel it pricking your skin as you look at these!

It was the rave of your 5th-grade class back then, and you’re doing a great service to your scholastic community when you start these for them.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine has been a treasure trove of hilarious references in recent history. In this scene, a witness was looking for her brother’s murderer but failed to facially recognize them — until they came up with a genius solution to catch the culprit. All thanks to the “critically acclaimed” song I Want It That Way.

The late 2000s and early 2010s saw the era of plaid, Chucks, and skinny jeans. Everybody was angsty, everybody has a “dark side”, and everybody has a MySpace account that they probably wanted to kill with fire because it immortalized their “dark side”. It was the glorious blunder years of angst, but the music was unforgettable.

Admit it, you sang along to one of the songs from these shows. There’s no shame in it because an entire generation had a “last song syndrome” from High School Musical or Camp Rock. Everybody watched them and everybody wants to be them.

The Bring It On franchise is one of the most iconic series of the era. Kristen Dunst starred in the first comedy movie before the direct-to-video sequels came out. It might be one of the most effective cheerleading recruitment schemes of all time.

Remember having these just to show people that you’re grown? Your first “laptop”, your first “lipstick”, and your first “high heels”. Kids on your block can’t keep up with you because you’re a classy independent lady that needs to be home before Barbie and the Nutcracker.

Once in a while, we get to see advertisements that will stand the test of time, and we’re not talking about Superbowl commercials. The funny thing is, you probably didn’t see anyone drink Sun Drop but every Halloween costume that year was made to reenact the ad.

YouTube celebrities danisnotonfire and AmazingPhil rounded up a big following after they launched their merged content. The book sold like hotcakes and people bragged about their “Phandom” wrist bands like a badge of honor.

Oh, boy! It was the online drama of online dramas. It all started when James Charles promoted a product that was in direct competition with Tati’s products. James posted an apology to his “mother and mentor”, but the drama only snowballed from there. Allegations were thrown from one video to another, other YouTubers self-inserted themselves in the drama, and it culminated when fans live-streamed the follower loss and gains of both personalities!

It started when your daughter asked you to buy her some colorful bands and an organizer. Then, before you know it, she was saving more than what you’re giving her for lunch money. If this generation had their first “side hustle”, it’s these bracelets and slime, and how they “start” it for others.

There was a time when MTV made really great shows. From the claymation Celebrity Death Match to instructional TV shows like the Guy Code and the Girl Code. The show invites celebrities to discuss scenarios that invoke the unwritten rules for guys and girls. This show practically raised a generation of people!

It feels way different if you’re just looking at it. The thrill, the speed, the adrenaline, the smell of heated plastic. You really just have to be there!

Eventually, when you experience the urge to grow up, you’ll abandon your toony friends and watch real people do cartoony stuff. Remember that feeling when you had to keep Hannah Montana’s identity a secret? When you knew Selena Gomez before she became, well, the Selena Gomez? And don’t forget That’s So Raven!

Fetty Wap was everywhere! But most especially on pre-game rallies of your university team and college parties back in 2014 and 2015. It’s not officially summer until it gets a Fetty Wap theme song.

Back when YouTube was not saturated with vlogs, people were following independently produced animated shows that never and will never make it to Cartoon Network. We’ll spare you the details of Happy Tree Friends but we can go as far as it’s not really happy. Charlie the Unicorn, though. Now that’s a real otherworldly adventure.

These movies aged like wine, and we even saw previous child actors grow up like Tom Welling, Lil Bow Wow, and Hilary Duff. These silly feel-good movies dominated our childhood humor, and quite frankly, they don’t make these films like they used to. We gotta be on I-1o by 1o!

Barbie was the Every Girl for every girl! It started in Barbie in the Nutcracker, and it snowballed to 35 iterations that we thought will include Barbie as, I don’t know, Elvis Presley. It even pitted Barbie fans against each other when they argued which was superior: Barbie as Rapunzel or Barbie and the Twelve Dancing Princesses.

The kids today won’t feel the excitement of watching toy ads on TV and actually having those to play with. Not to mention competing with your friends to judge your worthiness in single toy combat! Pokemon cards, Yugi-Oh cards, Beyblade, and other collectibles decided your playground place.

Not a cumulative thought, but residents around the San Jacinto were literally there on weekends. They even remember the “smell” of the fountain and where they usually meet up with friends. Unfortunately, the place was demolished, but the memories will always stay.

There was a time where we had the “chick flick” genre, which is a total lie. We all enjoyed these films and we even understood every reference made for Mean Girls. They don’t make movies like these anymore so we’ll be rewatching these flicks until our grandsons learn the references with us.

It’s crazy how Twilight and the Hunger Games swept the world! All of a sudden, the measure of coolness is whether or not you’ve read the latest book, or if you preferred the movie adaptation over the written one. Don’t stop reminding your friends who rallied under Team Edward or Team Jacob.

Eventful. That one word couldn’t even capture the cultural impact of the 2009 VMAs. Following the death of Michael Jackson, artists made iconic tribute performances. The 2009 VMAs also saw Lady Gaga and Beyonce tying on the most awards won, and the show culminated with the “wildest” moment (according to the Rolling Stones) when Taylor Swift was interrupted by Kanye West with “Imma let you finish.”

No one would ever forget the One Direction fever. When parents had to watch five British boys singing, just so their daughters could scream their hearts out to the loves of their lives. Fortunately, these boys are the perfect bait to make sure their daughters get those straight A’s.