10 Turning Red Moments That Brought Us Right Back To Middle School

Movies Disney/Pixar Millennials felt this movie deep in our 30-something bones by Jamie Kenney Updated: Feb. 20, 2024 Originally Published: March 18, 2022

Turning Red is set in 2002, so Millennials felt pretty nostalgic watching it. But it wasn't just the early '00s vibes — the mother-daughter moments from our middle school days hit us in the feels. Here were our favorite "too true" moments.

#1. Teen Fan Magazines

Whomst among us didn’t have a stack of these in our rooms. Of course most of them were pretty cut up, of course, since we decorated everything from doors, notebooks, and lockers with the faces of our most beloved celebrity crushes. Disney+

#2. Sassing Back To Your Mom & Immediately Regretting It

Watching Mei snap at her mom, we immediately tensed up because we remember doing exactly the same... and how that went for us. Disney+

#3. This Feeling

When you have something to hide and you know for a fact that you are going to do something to give yourself away... Disney+

#4. Getting Thoroughly Embarrassed By Your Mom

Our mom may not have shared our fan art with our crush or announced in front of the whole class she’d brought our pads, but no one gets through the teen years without at least one traumatizing story like this... Disney+

#5. Burning CDs

Whether it was a mix (we had one very every emotion, naturally) or pirating an album, there was nothing quite like creating the perfect playlist, likely waiting 10 hours for it to download from LimeWire before burning your CD for your Discman entertainment. Disney+

#6. Arguing About What Constitutes “Appropriate” Clothing

OK, in our case it wasn’t whether our mystical red panda ears and tail should be visible, but remember when your mom told you there was no way you were leaving the house in a belly shirt and low-rise jeans? Disney+

#7. Feeling Like You Absolutely Know What It’s Like To Be A Mom Because You Have A Tamagotchi

“I’m responsible! I’ve kept Justin Timberlake Jr. alive for three and a half weeks!” Disney+

#8. Getting This Emotional About Your Crush

It absolutely didn’t matter if it was someone who sat next to you in math class or a celebrity you’d never met who was a decade older than you. The intensity was always the same. Disney+

#9. First Period Horrors

Now that we Millennials have been menstruating for a couple of decades it’s not a big deal. Or if it is we’re at least used to it. But those first years getting the hang of things? Whoo boy, we’re glad we’ve moved on from that. Disney+

#10. Parental Cluelessness

Once we hit a certain age, our parents just stopped understanding our music, our clothes, our favorite movies, and, well, kind of everything. But that won’t happen to us when our kids are teens... right? Disney+

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