The cringe things you’ll remember if you were a scene kid in the mid-2000s

Rawr XD

7 years ago | UPDATED 7 years ago

Why does nobody talk about scene kids any more? Sure, they weren’t as enduring as goths or as controversial as emos, but us ex-scene kids are legion – and those luridly pink and orange years of our lives are something we’ll never forget.

The bright blue fingerless gloves. The Motion City Soundtrack mixtapes. The endless days spent down the market, looking for the perfect retro ’80s belt buckle to match your new bright orange checkerboard studded belt.

Yes, those were the days – and if embarrassment and guilt are causing the world to forget The Scene, then here’s a big old list of reasons we should probably let them. Lol jk XD.

You started off as an emo before seeing the neon light

No-one was as surprised as your parents, seeing this black-clad proto-goth with a Myspace name like XxMonicaMurderxX suddenly descending the stairs in purple jeans and a garish yellow shirt with “RAVE! RAVE! RAVE!” emblazoned on it.

For you, though, it was an obvious transition – the original rebellious streak which turned you emo had now caused you to rebel against your very emo-ness, and thus black turned to bright neon and your nihilistic attitude become a painfully twee love of all things bright and sparkly.

Your painfully cultivated MySpace profile was the shit

Out were the Pon and Zi cartoons, the Panic! at the Disco profile songs and the backgrounds blacker than death itself; in were All Time Low, heavily animated profile themes and a top friends list with more hair shades than there are colours in the rainbow.

And there was no greater high than logging in to a barrage of notifications

Heaven.

You’d take selfies with an actual digital camera

This was before smartphones, so using your mum’s Nikon Coolpix to get that ultimate mirror pic was your only option. Quality didn’t matter, as it was going to be edited to shit anyway.

You perfected that slightly surprised, just woken up, reaching enlightenment look so everyone knew how candid you were in your painstakingly-taken selfies.

Either that, or you’d close your eyes, stick out your tongue and throw up a sideways peace sign. Obviously.

You dabbled with the idea of raccoon hair for a while

Your parents and your school ultimately made the decision for you, and you sort of still resent them for it. How come Jeffree Star didn’t have to listen to listen to his teachers???

But you still insisted on making the back of your hair as big as physically possible

I will choke to death on these hairspray fumes before I go into school without my hair looking like rodents live in it.

And drinking Monster energy drinks as part of your ‘look’

Creating a drink more-or-less specifically for scene kids is arguably the greatest trick the corporate machine has ever pulled.

They were literally called “Monster,” and they had neon claw marks on the can. Who’d have thought a mass-produced Red Bull competitor could be so you!

Everyone you fancied looked like this

Or this.

Tbf you still sort of do.

The sound of skinny white guys rapping was like a drug to you

Remember 3OH!3? There was a time pre-Katy Perry where you thought you were hot shit for knowing who they were, and knowing exactly when to yell TELL YOUR BOYFRIEND, IF HE SAYS HE’S GOT BEEF, THAT I’M A VEGETARIAN AND I AIN’T FUCKIN’ SCARED OF HIM.

But not as good as the sound of skinny white guys whining

You couldn’t listen to Head Automatica or Metro Station or Hellogoodbye without putting on that falsetto whine so coveted by scene frontmen, and you dreamt of the day the guy from Cute Is What We Aim For would rock up with his perfectly dome-like Lego hair and tell you you had the Curse of Curves.

Objectively terrible music became really appealing to you

Everything was fair game in The Scene, which meant you were free to love bands which were just obviously really, really awful. Take Cobra Starship, for example – a band who were literally created as a marketing device for underwhelming 2006 B-movie blockbuster Snakes On A Plane.

Still, at least they weren’t Brokencyde.

You dabbled in chiptune for way too long

In the same vein, there was a three or four month period during which you got really, really into music which DJs with clunky plastic sunglasses would cook up on a modified Game Boy.

You were probably introduced to the genre by the likes of I Fight Dragons, Hadouken! or Crystal Castles, but it wasn’t long before you went full Henry Homesweet, Shirobon or Sabrepulse and started spending your walks to school listening to tunes straight from a Pokémon Yellow cutscene.

You knew every single lyric to that bit of Fer Sure Maybe by The Medic Droid

JKJKJK LOLOLOL, I heart your fucking makeup oh my God I love your hair. Is that a new tattoo? Did that piercing fucking hurt? No JKJKJK LOLOLOL.

All your T-shirts had ridiculous graphics and woefully cringe slogans on them

They were probably designed by the guy from Bring Me The Horizon, or bought at an extortionately high price from Lazy Oaf. It would probably declare you a “NERD” or a “GEEK,” because that was super cool at the time.

Your only bigger waste of money was obnoxious belt buckles, of which you had many. A cassette tape, Pac Man, Optimus Prime’s enormous face – one to fit every mood, you know.

You had at least one pair of extremely brightly coloured jeans

Let’s be honest, you had more than one pair, and you’d never match them up with the right colour scheme.

Bright red jeans? Lime green T-shirt. A vomit-inducing green pair? They’ll definitely go with an orange hoodie.

And one extremely brightly coloured high-vis jacket

Chris from Skins wore them, and he was like a messiah for scene kids. Praise you, Chris, for shining light on a subculture which never got the recognition it deserved.

Also, desert scarves. Always desert scarves.

And many, many extremely brightly coloured belts

They would be so bright and so glorious and so studded, and you’d buy them from Low Life and wear two at a time.

The pesky holes they created would also be the cause of ruin for the bottom third of most of your T-shirts, and they wouldn’t do anything close to holding up your jeans. How could you show off your Snakes & Ladders patterned Topman pants otherwise?

And every single colour of Converse All Stars

Once again, you’d never match them properly with the colour of the jeans.

And, of course, a stupid fucking hoodie like this

Yeah in hindsight these dated really fast.

Watching your skinny jeans fade in the wash was a fate worse than death

Omg MUM my red jeans are now a slightly paler shade of red, verging on PINK or maybe even SALMON? HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?? My life is ruined.

You’d always hang out in skate parks, despite never having skated

It was the best place to sit and get papped and play Boys Like Girls songs on your polyphonic Nokia, before the scary kids who made fun of your clothes would come and you’d retreat to the safety of your parents’ garden.

You and your friends briefly started a band, which failed

It was called We Are The Androids, and its inevitable failure was due to your bloated insistence that you needed two guitars, a keyboardist and someone fucking about on an Enter Shikari-style Electribe to get the sound you really needed.

In reality, it was a fucking shambles, and after two gigs to empty rooms and a half-hearted “EP” you decided to leave the music to proper bands, like Cobra Starship.