Let’s be real – most of us have spent so long forcing memories of high school out of our brains that it takes a television show to remind us just how hellish that whole experience was.

The braces, the haircuts, the fashion and the pop-punk band obsessions (anyone else have a lever binder plastered entirely with pics of Blink 182? Let us know); they’re all things we’d probably rather forget.

TV doesn’t forget, though. At least in 2018, we have great shows to help us unpack everything about that tumultuous time. Here’s everything we’ve learned about high school from our favourite shows.

Standing Out Is Hard (But Totally Worth It In The End)

Being the only witch at school might sound like a dream (hello, love potions), but when you’re trying to balance the day-to-day of being 16 with the demands of your bloodthirsty coven on the reg, you might find yourself wishing for a bit of wallflower serenity every now and then.

Sabrina Spellman (a character who first appeared in the Archie comics in the early ‘60s but who lives in most of our minds as Melissa Joan Hart) is back on Netflix this spring in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and she’s weirder (read: witchier) than ever, doing her darnedest to convince a dark demon overlord that hers and her friends’ humanity is actually worth something. As if being a teenager wasn’t hard enough – half-witch, half-mortal, Spellman has to continuously hide her powers from her friends and boyfriend at Baxter High every day. EXHAUSTING.

On the other hand – SHE’S A WITCH. Sabrina learns being different is actually pretty cool, especially if that difference comes with magical powers. Cute boy Harvey Kinkle will stand by you no matter what, Sabrina!

The Internet Has Completely Changed The Game

Remember when you would do something dumb and it wouldn’t end up on Twitter within 20 minutes of said dumb thing happening? That time is 100 percent over, and high school is a scarier place for it.

Gossip Girl called it back in 2007, and shows like Pretty Little Liars and Big Mouth carry on the tradition of teen foibles ending up all over the Internet or being texted around to every person in school. It’s scary out there and everyone should throw their phones into the ocean.

Romantic Relationships Are Impossible Because Teens Are Hopeless

Raging hormones + literally no experience or emotional maturity whatsoever = six years of an unending hot mess. Urgh, can we fast forward to the part where we’re flirty and thriving in the bedroom, please?

If you got to the end of Big Mouth and weren’t reminded of your own awkward sexual encounters, you’re in denial. We were all Andrew Glouberman, Nick Birch, Jessi Klein and Missy Foreman-Greenwald at some point in our lives, blindly rubbing fronts and hoping for the best. And, yes – some of us were Lola.

High school is when we’re at once the horniest and the most clueless, which doesn’t bode well for meaningful, or even good, sexual relationships. There’s no use pretending it was any different for you; the world knows it wasn’t.

…And They’re Also Really Mean To Each Other

 

Teenagers are so rude! Betty literally buries Archie alive on Netflix’s Riverdale, and while she may have had her reasons, it’s nevertheless a pretty mean thing to do. Not a good way to handle your problems, Betty.

In the same show, Cheryl Blossom is so shattered by her brother Jason’s death she bullies everyone around her in an attempt to exert some sort of control over her life. We’ve all seen Mean Girls and Gossip Girl; being an asshole never ends well. When will Cheryl learn?

High-Schoolers Are Not Funny

But they will never not think they are. No matter how much progress we make as a society, dick drawings and poo jokes will always be the bread-and-butter of high school humour. It’s fine, though, because TV shows like American Vandal totally take the piss out of unfunny high-schoolers. The show takes simultaneously takes aim at the true crime genre and the inescapable facets of teen life – a mysterious dick-drawing graffiti artist in season 1, and the Turd Burglar, who terrorises a catholic school with poo-themed pranks, in season 2 – and we are here for all of it.

It doesn’t make us less worried about the youth of today, but at least (unlike dick drawing), it’s kind of funny.

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(Lead image: Netflix)

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Chilling Adventures of Sabrina drops on Netflix on October 26.