Top 5 ’90s Shows That Lied To Us About Life

Saved By The Bell


High school was an age of raging hormones, out-of-control pimplage, short attention spans, awkwardness — you remember, you were there.  It was a culture of segregation where best friends broke up at the drop of a dime.  Only in Saved By The Bell, a melting pot of buddy-buddy goodness, could Zack sabotage his friends repeatedly and still live to call them besties?  How often did he punk Slater, Screech — even his precious Kelly?  Try doing that in real life and you’d end up sitting at the losers’ lunch table with zero “K.I.T.s” in your yearbook and a nasty rumor written on the walls of the girls’ bathroom.  And as much as you might have wanted to, yelling “Time out!” didn’t freeze the world around you.  I tried it, Zack.

Dawson’s Creek

Dawson’s Creek was a little more true to life.  That is, if you were a witty, snide, verbose teen.  Only in a fictional world could teenagers talk the way Dawson, Pacey, Joey and the rest of the Creek gang did.  And while I was busy fantasizing about my first kiss, these guys were busy sleeping with teachers and falling in and out of love.  But in reality, nobody in your high school was getting it on or talking about getting it on as much as this bunch — and if they said they were, you knew they were lying.

Felicity

College was a different beast.  It might have seemed romantic, but enrolling in college just because the guy you like who barely knows you exist goes there, is called stalking.  And yet, it’s what Felicity did.  You would never admit to doing that in real life, by the way.  At least, I would hope not.

A Different World

I always thought I’d meet my husband in college.  It’s how my parents met, after all.  And if Dwayne Wayne from A Different World could do it, so could I.  It took him years to win Whitley Gilbert’s heart, but never mind that.  In real college life, people were hooking up left and right.  You didn’t have to wait until the person of your dreams finally woke up and saw you for who you really were.  Not when there were so many options and so little time.  Why find forever when “right now” was tapping you on the shoulder and passing you notes during lecture?

The Real World

Speaking of hooking up, no other ’90s show depicted the lives of ready-to-take-on-the-world 20-somethings living under one roof like The Real World.  It was, and still is, no holds-barred.   Only, you never got the chance to air your grievances with your annoying, racist, addicted, fill-in-the-blank roommates for the whole world to see.  Because that’s not how real life works.   

So thank God for television because if these wholly entertaining yet completely fictionalized depictions of young adulthood didn’t exist, where would we be now?

What was your favorite ’90s show that didn’t prepare you for high school/college?