Video Time-Warp: Wheatus – Teenage Dirtbag

Let’s take a trip down memory lane, shall we? A journey to a simpler era. Everyone was still making jokes about Bill Clinton gettin’ it in in the Oval Office, Eminem was terrifying parents across the land, and people still thought that one day, Allen Iverson could win an NBA title.

It was an interesting time. A fun time. The internet was booming (until the dot-com bubble burst 6 months later). The best way to ask a girl out was by sending her flowers. On AIM. Like this:

------<-----<---@ wanna go out? lol

The year was 2000. I was a young man in the 7th grade, just trying to survive health class so I could get home and play Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 with my friends Jason and Ward.

Okay. Sorry. I'm back now. I had to take a moment to weep openly at the beauty and majesty of that game. I still dream about it. I have the soundtrack as a playlist on my iPod. I'm not kidding.

But speaking of listening to things, my friends and I would listen to WRRV while playing said games or generally just killing time as kids are wont to do. And one song seemed to get requested every five minutes:

This song was featured on the soundtrack to the forgotten by many, beloved by few Jason Biggs/Mena Suvari film Loser.

For anyone youngsters out there that don’t really remember 2000, let me just emphasize: No. We did not all look like this dude.

I have many questions about his choice in eyewear accessory: Are those glasses? Goggles? X-ray vision? Is this an homage to great 90s NBA power forwards?

And his bucket hat—okay, yes, some people did have a bucket hat, but unless you were Ol’ Dirty Bastard (was he going by Dirt McGurt at this point?) or the dude from New Radicals, it wasn’t exactly the sign of the coolness.

It's a bummer when Jason Biggs is wearing a weird winter lumberjack cap around and you, the dude in the rock band, are the one that looks like a dweeb.

Props on the Adidas track suit, though. HA! You didn't say what kind of suit I had to wear to prom, did you Mr. Lippman? Got you on a technicality.

Anyway, good luck getting this song out of your head. Hope you enjoyed it, maybe it inspired you to go watch Loser on Netflix. I'm going to be busy thinking about that bucket hat for the next several days. Maybe he liked to go fishing when he wasn’t singing about Iron Maiden.

Well, thanks for joining me on this trip down memory lane! And as always, kids: stay off my lawn.