36 Pieces of Pop Culture That Hit a Little Bit Different Today

Have you ever seen an old yearbook photo and thought, “What was I thinking?” Well, we just asked that exact question about roughly three full decades! The aughts thought they were more “lit” than the ‘90s, and the ‘90s thought they were more “fresh” than the ‘80s. But looking back from the 2020s, good god was it all so “cheugy.” Are we saying that right? If not, then maybe it's “sus?” 

We’ll stop now.

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36

Dodgeball C Lance Armstrong randomly appears to give Vince Vaughn's character a pep talk, telling him that he never quit despite huge adversities. Today we know that drugs helped him quite a bit with that. CRACKED.COM

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35

CRACKED.COM The Naked Gun Oh, my poor Nordberg! his wife weeps as Nordberg lies in a hospital bed. Не was such a good man, Frank! Не never wanted to hurt anyone! Nordberg is played by O.J. Simpson. (On the other hand, that makes the scenes of Nordberg's comic suffering even better).

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34

Free Willy After the movie came out, pressure mounted to free Keiko (the movie's cetacean star) for real and not just in fiction. Keiko could not adapt to living in the wild. Не died the following year, always seeking the company of humans. CRACKED.COM

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33

... TELL US NOW. REVENGE OF THE NERDS Merrit В. says, Lewis flat-out rapes Betty, and I was in my 30s when I suddenly processed that. CRACKED.COM

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32

... TELL US NOW. SHALLOW HAL Jennifer K. says, The whole movie is just so cringe now. The movie is about a superficial man who is given the ability to only see people's inner beauty, so he unknowingly falls for an overweight woman. Fat jokes galore. CRACKED.COM

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31

... TELL US NOW. AMERICAN BEAUTY The award-winning movie stars Kevin Spacey pining after an underage person. Nina J. says it definitely doesn't hold up because it feels like, especially when you watched it as an underage girl, that those creepy guys are cool and if they assault you, you're going to be guilty. CRACKED.COM

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30

CRACKED YOUR VILLAIN'S PLOT CAN'T BE EASILY THWARTED BY GOOGLE. TOMORROW NEVER DIES ILL BACK ST This Bond villain is a media mogul who plans to manipulate the news to incite war between China and the UK. Today, social media and a quick googling of countless news sources would label this fake news within a few minutes.

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29

CRACKED BLACK FACE CAN'T BE YOUR ENTIRE PLOT ANYMORE. SOUL MAN In the 1986 movie, a spoiled white kid pretends to be black to nab a Harvard scholarship exclusive to black students. It does raise awareness of prejudice and racism, but all the blackface made it wildly offensive, even for 1986 standards.

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28

CRACKED YOUR ENTIRE PLOT CAN'T BE ONE BIG TRANS JOKE ANYMORE. ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE The Einhorn is Finkle, Finkle is Einhorn plot has one big reveal of Einhorn's bulge tucked between her legs. This would never be played up as a joke today, and we wonder why it was even needed to tell a stolen dolphin story.

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27

CRACKED YOUR ENTIRE PLOT CAN'T INVOLVE RIGID GENDER NORMS. MR. MOM A laid-off man becomes a stay-at-home dad while his wife returns to work. Jokes about a man changing diapers and ironing shirts couldn't be seen as ridiculous today. Don't worry, in the happy ending, he returns to work and his wife gets back to the homestead.

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26

SI AND AM The Lady and the Tramp antagonists rely on heavy Asian stereotypes to taunt Lady and cause havoc. CRACKED.COM

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25

PEPÉ LE PEW The cartoon skunk stalks and sexually assaults Penelope Pussycat, in a weird French stereotype. CRACKED.COM

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24

GRACKED THE DEPLORABLE PRIME MINISTER. LOVE ACTUALLY Hugh Grant as The Prime Minister is essentially Tony Blair with a Bill Clinton libido. Grant might be lovable in '90s rom-coms, but he abuses his power to sleep with a young aide. Relentless, he and his security guards even crash her family Christmas.

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23

In the '90s we 994 1995 15 1992 1993 1994 watched crime dramas 1996 199 like 1990 Diagnosis: 199 Murder. 1999 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 ДАЛА AWARD And Jake and the Fatman. 1998 1999 1997 Because there's nothing more 1995 entertaining than formulaic 1993 crime-of-the-week bro dramas. 1999 991 1995 1996 1997 CRACKED.COM NOW YOU KNOW: THE '90s

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22

SUPER TRENDY HAIRDOS (FROM ANY DECADE) JOM BON JOVI www.ru cock LOOK RIDICULOUS NOW GRACKED.COM

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21

CRACKED.COM adidas Lost Tropes Going postal After a series of incidents during the '80s, '90s comedy was full of mailmen just losing it and shooting up people. You know, before shootings got a bit too real for laughs.

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20

Miss Cleo wasn't Jamaican, named Cleo, or toll-free. 100 EAT TING ME? Unlike her clients, Youree Dell Harris avoided any charges. She died of cancer at 53. CRACKED.COM

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19

The Spice Girls got their names because of a lazy journalist. A journalist who couldn't remember their names assigned the nicknames of Baby, Sporty, Posh, Ginger, and Scary. Which explains why Scary is so racist. CRACKED.COM

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18

Skydancers were recalled in 2000. 8.9 million were recalled after about 150 reports of injuries, from eye injuries to facial lacerations to a broken rib. CRACKED.COM

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17

Sea-monkeys are actually brine shrimp. THE LIVE Inc. ES Sea-Monkeuse OCEAN-ZOO The World's Only Include Port E TIME JIME Institut Sea-Monkeys Life Parch OCEAN-ZOO The Morid's Only Instant Pits! Commenteed to adidas The species (a cross-bred version of brine shrimp) doesn't exist in nature. They breath through their feet and grow a second eye in maturity. Gross. CRACKED.COM

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16

The creator of Beanie Babies was charged with tax fraud. The billionaire creator Ty Warner had to pay a $100,000 fine but no jail time (?!) for hiding millions of dollars. CRACKED.COM

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15

CRACKED DIRTY HARRY NEEDS A BODYCAM TO KEEP HIM IN CHECK. DIRTY HARRY In one of Clint Eastwood's most iconic films, this rogue cop is supposed to follow a strict code of conduct, but he violates civil rights, abuses prisoners, and kills at will. He's portrayed as good, but he's a menace to society.

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14

CRACKED JAKE RYAN OFFERS HIS PASSED OUT GIRLFRIEND UP AS A PLAY THING. SIXTEEN CANDLES He's played up as the perfect high school good guy, but why, because he likes the nerdy girl? His infatuation becomes outright stalking, and he hands his drunk, passed out girlfriend to the perverted Anthony Michael Hall saying, Do whatever you want.

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13

SETH'S CRACKED ENTIRE PLOT IS DATE RAPE. SUPERBAD His master plan is to get Emma Stone's character drunk enough to sleep with him. When he discovers she doesn't drink, he whines, gets grabby, and vomits on her. Worse, he seems to be practicing for a string of similar assaults in college.

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12

CRACKED MAUI TRIED TO MURDER MOANA. MOANA Не starts by dooming the world for selfish reasons, then when Moana needs him to rectify this, he shut her in a cave without food or water, and sails off on her boat. Then he leaves her with those murderous coconuts.

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11

POWER RANGERS Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was a lesson in racial stereotypes, starting with the Rangers' color choices. CRACKED.COM

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10

FLASHBACK MONICA Almost any character wearing a fat suit for the laughs is just cringey. CRACKED.COM

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9

LONG DUK DONG Sixteen Candles is a rough nowadays, but nothing is quite as insufferable as the racist stereotypes the character emobodied. CRACKED.COM

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8

MANGO RIA DE - den COSTUMES MANAGEMENT The Saturday Night Live character (arguably) now reeks of using homophobia for laughs. CRACKED.COM

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7

CRACKED HIKE UP YOUR SKIRT A LITTLE MORE AND SHOW YOUR WORLD TO ME DAVE MATTHEWS BAND A whole lot of us had formative middle school dance moments to a song about peeping tommery.

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6

CRACKED BLACK, WHITE, RED, BROWN, FEEL THE VIBRATION MARKY MARK AND THE FUNKY BUNCH YEYYORK The I don't see color vibe is bad enough, but there's a key color missing there, and if you know Wahlberg's history, it's... glaring.

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CRACKED PURE BLACK PEOPLE, MAN, THAT'S ALL I MAN KNOW SNOW Dear white dudes: 1) Never say this under any circumstance. 2) Definitely not right before admitting you come from Toronto.

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4

Cringey lyrics from the '80s Poison I Want Action I can't wait to get my hands on them. I won't give up until they give in. If I can't have her, I'll take her and make her. You're gonna make her, Bret Michaels? Well, no means no, Bret Michaels! We'd say this didn't age well, but it wasn't acceptable back then (or ever!). CRACKED

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Cringey lyrics from the '80s The Beastie Boys Girls I asked her out, she said 'No way.' I should of probably guessed her gay. If a girl isn't into you, she must be gay! Lyrics for the fragile ego of the rejected bro. And it's have, Beastie Boys. You should have probably guessed that she is gay. CRACKED

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Cringey lyrics from the '80s AC/DC Let Me Put My Love Into You Don't you struggle. Don' 't you fight. Don't you worry. 'Cause it's your turn tonight. If the title of the song wasn't cringey enough, they really doubled down with a good ol' take on consent in the '80s. CRACKED

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Cringey lyrics from the '80s DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince Parents Just Don't Understand And this girl's hand was steadily moving up my thigh. She had opened up three buttons on her shirt so far. I almost had a heart attack that day. Come to find out the girl was a twelve-year-old runaway. Will Smith was 20 when this was released, and even if the song was about his younger self, he picks up this girl while driving his car. Do we need to keep listing reasons this is problematic?! CRACKED

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