The early ’00s were a wild time. Cell phones weren’t must-haves, boy bands ruled the MTV airwaves and Netflix was still a mail-based DVD rental service. Anyone who was anyone then — especially in high school — had to know the hippest, hottest slang, lest anyone think they weren’t phat as hell. Just ask Stephanie, the protagonist of the new movie Senior Year. Played by Rebel Wilson and Angourie Rice (as her younger incarnation), Stephanie rules the school with her cheerleading prowess, hotter-than-hot boyfriend and totally dope Cabriolet.
But what does it mean to be “phat as hell,” and what in the world is a Cabriolet? This helpful glossary covers all the vintage terms and references thrown around in the wildly hilarious new comedy. Read on and you’ll never again wonder what the difference is between “supes” and “shiznit” or what it means to She’s All That yourself. Squeeze into a pair of super-low-rise jeans, throw on a Nelly CD (if you can find a CD player) and get ready to be educated...
“The Bad Touch”: 1999 song by Bloodhound Gang that made many, many kids take a sudden interest in the Discovery Channel.
1999: The year of Y2K panic, She’s All That, and Britney Spears’ scandalous Rolling Stone cover.
Rollin’ with their homies on a Saturday night: A reference to Coolio’s 1995 hit “Rolling With My Homies,” which was also famously featured in Clueless, starring Alicia Silverstone, who, as it turns out, has a cameo in Senior Year.
VMAs: The must-watch awards show in an era when those were still popular. In 1999, the MTV Video Music Awards, then held at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and hosted by Chris Rock, broke the record for the highest-rated entertainment program in TV history.
Jenga: A game played by slowly removing wooden pieces from a precariously stacked tower. The first player to make the whole thing topple over loses. (Hey, you had to do something in the days before streaming!)
CK One: Unisex Calvin Klein fragrance launched in 1994 and the official scent of a million frosted tips.
Photos: Tangible, physical copies of photographs created by capturing moments on film with an analog camera, and then developed and printed by a professional.
She’s All That yourself: To give yourself a complete makeover, or if you’re She’s All That star Rachael Leigh Cook, simply remove your glasses.
Darrin’s Dance Groove: 2001 DVD by celebrity choreographer Darrin Henson, who shaped the moves of Britney Spears, NSYNC and The Spice Girls.
Infinite Jest: A red flag. Or, in the case of young Seth, a 1996 novel by David Foster Wallace that he thinks will make him look deep.
Fatone your hair: To follow in the footsteps of NSYNC style icon Joey Fatone and dye your hair a fiery shade of red.
Phat as hell: An as-yet-unparalleled level of cool.
Blockbuster: A building that smelled of stale popcorn where you could rent VHS tapes and DVDs.
“Wherever You Will Go”: 2001 song by The Calling, and performed live in the cult classic 1999 movie Coyote Ugly.
Jäger, Mike’s Hard Lemonade, Smirnoff Ice: Alcoholic beverages favored by, ahem, certain underage persons who don’t like the taste of alcohol.
MTV/VH1: Sister channels that introduced popular music videos before YouTube. Like all siblings, they enjoyed a healthy rivalry.
“Don’t go chasing waterfalls”: Lyric from TLC’s 1995 hit “Waterfalls” that translates to “don’t take unnecessary risks like throwing an after-prom party when Tiffany is already throwing one.”
“So our CD doesn’t skip”: A problem that became obsolete once we all switched to Spotify and Apple Music. When you needed hard discs to listen to your favorite album — as if! — any scuff, scratch or jostle would ruin playback of the track.
No. 1 on TRL: The most requested music video of the day played on MTV’s Total Request Live and the dream for every performer from 1998 to 2008.
Von Dutch: Only the coolest brand, like, ever! Purveyor of mesh trucker hats, low-rise jeans and many other early aughts trends we’d rather forget.
Freaky Friday’d: To switch bodies and lives with another person, á la Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis in the 2003 remake. Although, as Stephanie's coma dates back to 2002, she’s likely referring to the 1976 version starring Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster.
Ally McBeal: A Fox-network legal procedural prone to stirring controversy over tiny skirts and horny storylines, starring Calista Flockhart. There was also that one creepy dancing baby.
Total Miranda: Did you honestly think Buzzfeed invented that Sex and the City quiz? There are only four types of women in the early aughts, and their names are Carrie Bradshaw, Miranda Hobbes, Charlotte York and Samantha Jones.
Shut your face: The early aughts upgrade to Cher Horowitz’s “as if!”
Cabriolet: Stephanie’s beloved red Volkswagen Golf Cabriolet convertible.
Destiny’s Child: The holy trinity of Beyoncé Knowles, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams, formed in Houston, circa 1990.
Mr T. / “Pity the fool”: Gruff mohawked actor festooned in gold chains and best-known for his role as B. A. Baracus in the hit 1980s television series The A-Team. We’ll let you guess what his catch-phrase was...
Abercrombie: As in Abercrombie & Fitch, the legendary preppy mall store famously guarded by large shirtless models and an overpowering olfactory blast of the brand’s signature musk.
The total shiznit: The highest of compliments, despite the barely-concealed reference to bodily functions.
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, and The Waves by Virginia Woolf: Exactly the kinds of books — physical, paper books — that a high schooler would be assigned for summer reading in 2002... and forget to crack open with a new small-screen phenomenon called American Idol sucking them toward the TV.
Tamagotchi: Plant Babies before Plant Babies were a thing for millennials. These handheld digital pets were all the rage — and would famously die if you forgot to feed them.
Crib: Something to welcome MTV into, or a trendy way of saying “house.”
The Real World: New Orleans: The chaotic and emotional 2000 season of the iconic reality TV franchise. New Orleans introduced the world to Danny Roberts, one of the world’s first gay reality TV stars, following in the footsteps of previous Real World-er Pedro Zamora. Also, a show suddenly back in the news as the basis for a new reunion series.
Deep Impact: Director Mimi Leder’s splashy disaster-oid movie, released long before The Morning Show was a glint in anyone’s eye. Think of it as the Backstreet Boys to Armageddon’s NSYNC.
The Fast & Furious movies: Today, a franchise that can take its heroes to space. In the early aughts, however, it was a simple cops-and-robbers saga about car thieves and the undercover police officer who joins their family.
“(You Drive Me) Crazy” by Britney Spears: A BritBrit single not as famous as “Baby One More Time” or “Oops!... I Did It Again,” but with just as much sparkle to permanently worm its way into your brain. The song is so powerful that it inspired the title of the Melissa Joan Hart rom-com Drive Me Crazy and an iconic music video. Any cool girl worth her scrunchie had the choreography down cold.
The bomb diggity: A synonym for “the total shiznit,” with its roots in Blackstreet, Dr. Dre and Queen Pen’s “No Diggity.”
“Strike It Up” by Black Box: Just the thing to get you moving at the club (or local pep rally) after its 1990 release.
“Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” by Shania Twain: The power anthem, whether it’s 1999, 2022 or 2299. Let’s go, girls!
Hogwarts without the magic: A sad educational situation without floating candles or self-creating banquets — but a lot of unspoken infighting between cliques.
Téa Leoni and her Austrian dad: Two of the lead actors in Deep Impact (Austrian-Swiss Maximilian Schell plays Leoni’s father). Tiffany is correct that their characters, Jenny and Jason, do in fact get gotten by that big tidal wave at the end of the movie (26-year-old spoiler alert!).
Supes: A quicker way to say “the most” or “extremely” when one is too busy worrying about the Y2K computer rebellion to use words with multiple syllables.
Boy band: The peak of male vocalized pop, once embodied by the aforementioned Backstreet Boys and NSYNC, now taken to new heights by the likes of BTS. Also, a style of posing for photos, based on the group-shot album covers of these musical groups. If someone isn’t pointing, you’re doing it wrong.
Brie: When Stephanie asks Tiffany if her daughter’s name is “spelled like the cheese,” it’s only a slam if you hate things that are delicious. (Tiffany’s daughter is Bri, by the way.) Brie is actually a delicious, soft, French cow’s-milk cheese that’s great baked, on a cracker or in a nice toasty sandwich.
“The Power of Love” by Jennifer Rush: First released in 1984, “The Power of Love” was famously covered by Celine Dion in 1993 and has become one of the Canadian chanteuse’s most beloved non-Titanic-related ballads. In Senior Year, viewers get to hear the original version by Rush, which was, to its credit, the best-selling single in the UK the year it was released.
Alicia Silverstone as Deanna Russo: As the star of 1995’s Clueless, Silverstone unquestionably resides in the teen queen hall of fame. Senior Year gives a nod to Silverstone’s iconic legacy by casting her as former high school icon Russo, who Stephanie always believed had the perfect life.
“Hot in Herre” by Nelly: This first single from Nelly’s 2002 album, Nellyville, was a certified hit when it was released. Nelly went on to win a Grammy for the song — the first ever awarded for best male rap solo performance.
“Come On Over (All I Want Is You)” by Christina Aguilera: Released in 2000 as the fourth single off Aguilera’s self-titled debut LP, this was one of the first songs that the singer actually had some degree of creative control on, which could explain those sick vocal runs.
“A Moment Like This” by Kelly Clarkson: The very first single from the now omnipresent Clarkson, this was first performed during the finale of the inaugural season of American Idol. Interestingly, all of the American Idol Season 1 finalists recorded the song prior to the finale, but only Clarkson’s was released when she won.
No duh: An expression used to suggest something is totally obvious, “No duh” is generally communicated in a mildly insulting fashion, as if to suggest the person should have known better. For example: “Try not to stick that pencil in your eye.” “No duh.”
“C’est La Vie” by B*Witched: The debut single from the Irish girl group, which is chock-full of cheeky double entendres. Senior Year isn’t its first movie placement: It’s also been in Smart House, What Women Want and Life-Size.
By Anne Cohen, Ariana Romero, and Marah Eakin
