Every week, there seems to be a new trend going viral on social media. Some can be questionable, while others are hilariously bad, like that whole “healthy coke” thing. One of the most recent trends, though, is actually pretty amazing. Under #teenagedirtbag on TikTok, people are posting current pictures of themselves then running through a bunch of their awkward teen photos, all while “Teenage Dirtbag” by Wheatus plays. This trend is really for us millennials.
As usual, a bunch of celebrities jumped onto the trend, and their videos are some of the best, showing that everyone has had those awkward times—but we should love ourselves for our awkwardness, not in spite of it.
Teenage Dirtbag
The song “Teenage Dirtbag” came out in 2000. For those of us who were teenage dirtbags when the song first played on the radio (yes, I said radio), it was a beautiful and hilarious anthem. It is about a teen who thinks of themselves as kind of a loser while pining away for someone who is way “out of their league.” His love already has a boyfriend, who drives a car, no less. By the end of the song, his dream girl approaches him to go to a concert with her because she is just a “dirtbag,” too. It was a song that really spoke to the masses, and now it is coming around again to show how uncool most of us are—and how we should all bond over it rather than deny it. Here are some of the best celebrity contributions.
Some of my favorites came from celebrities who were famous in the early 2000s—Christina Aguilera, Paris Hilton, and Tara Reid fully embraced their early 2000s dirtbag status.
AJ McLean of Backstreet Boys, Joe Jonas, and Dawson’s Creek star James Van Der Beek jumped in to represent the 2000s heartthrobs.
Brandon Boyd of the band Incubus (who was insanely popular during the early 2000s) got involved, too.
Everyone is loving how perfect Jennifer Garner’s video is.
Sam Heughan (who plays everyone’s favorite Scotsman Jamie Fraser on Outlander) had an adorable addition.
Let’s face it, Tony Hawk is eternally cooler than most people will ever be.
The same goes for Dante Basco.
So just remember, folks, famous or not, we have all been teenage dirtbags.
(featured image: Columbia/Sony Pictures)
