Ah, the 90s

I just spent the last few weeks binging Dawson’s Creek and I am not embarrassed about it. The world is a dumpster fire and I’ll take any balm I can get, even if it’s in the form of a late nineties-early two-thousands teen drama that lacks diversity and is peppered with wildly problematic phrases and concepts, like using the r-word and slut shaming.

It started because cast member Michelle Williams instigated a “Dawson’s Creek Class Reunion” as a fund raiser for cancer research in honor of actor James van der Beek, who played the lead role in the teen soap and who’s currently getting treatment for Colorectal cancer.

After clips from the reunion kept circulating on my various social media apps, I decided the track the show down and watch. It gave me a strange mix of melancholy, nostalgia and comfort. It’s surreal and thought-provoking to watch van der Beek on the show, young and healthy and with zero clue of what is coming.

The characters live in a fictitious Cape Cod town called Capeside, and the entire show is a will they won’t they love triangle with all the teen drama that orbits around it. It ridiculous. It’s schmaltzy. It makes fun of itself. I loved all of it (well, except season six when they really ran out of what to do with these characters).

The show first aired in 1998, my senior year in college. I don’t suspect I was into it then since I was too busy angsting over my own life, but I do know I was into it a few years later. Now, I love it because of the nostalgia it brings for me. In 1998 we weren’t on our phones. If we were going to meet a friend somewhere and they were running late, we just waited. Waited! Maybe even chatted with a stranger who was also waiting for someone.

Our heads weren’t in cell phones, we were not constantly checking email. As teens we weren’t worried about what people were saying about us on facebook or how many likes we were getting on our IG posts because neither had poisoned our worlds yet.

This entire show, save the tail end when cellphones and internet are introduced, consists entirely of attractive young people talking and having experiences with each other.

And now I’m experiencing that super weird loneliness that comes from finishing a show who’s characters kept you company for weeks, reminding you of a time when people knew how to interact with each other.