TREND ALERT | BODY IMAGE
Y2K Beauty Standards Made Me Feel Like Hot Garbage
The 2000s are back and I’m feeling my feelings.
When I hit puberty in the late 90's, jeans rode so low hipbones were an accessory. Teen pop stars were everything, and if you didn’t look too closely it seemed like they were having the time of their lives.
Britney Spears was a few months from turning 18 when she released her first album, …Baby One More Time in August of ‘99. Meanwhile, I was dreading going back to school for 8th grade and oblivious to, well, most things. Yet I was still aware that grown men had started a countdown to when Brittney would be ‘legal.’
Critics were mixed on Britney’s debut, calling it “silly” and “premature” (who had the last laugh?), but Britney made an undeniable impact on teens everywhere. For better or worse, Britney, her peers, and their management set a very high (and confusing) bar for teen sexuality.
Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s amazing when women own their sexuality and have a blast expressing their femininity through makeup, haircare, or clothing. It’s just that…
