Hi!

So, about 2 decades after everyone else in the world, I’ve decided to start watching the hugely popular 2006 show Friday Night Lights. It was filmed in Austin, where I live, and the pilot has their football team playing the Westerby Chaps, which are clearly based on the Westlake Chaps- my brother’s high school football team. Not that my brother played high school football at Westlake. My brother read the newspaper at lunch and avoided anything resembling school spirit while he went there.

I have also been watching Grey’s Anatomy, another mega show from the 2005 era, but FNL is having more of an impact on me. It’s a show about a football coach who has taken over a super prestigious Texas football team.

Here are three of my thoughts-

1. People used to really care about things
2. People used to look normal
3. I am SUPER lucky I went to high school in this era

Regarding point 1- People used to really care about things-

it is really hard to imagine young people caring the way the teenagers in this show care. It’s hard to imagine the students I hear about now and the children I see in the world reacting with the humility and attention these football players do. It’s also really cool to see the whole town care about the football games, the injured players, the coach’s potential. I feel like even with massive issues going on now, there is rarely unity or widespread care. Total lack of community. There is a homeless crisis going on in Austin now, and some of it has spread to my neighborhood, but it just feels like, “Whatever.” I know it’s a fictionalized show, but society seems less fractured, isolated, and adrift then vs. now. It’s been really lovely to watch something where people are willing to fight for something, come together, and don’t just give up. I try to remember that when you’re actually a teenager, having an authority figure yell at you is scary and can make you listen to them, so no wonder these players listen to Coach Taylor. But calming down and falling in line and trying to do better for the sake of something larger… that also doesn’t sound like the 2023 students I hear about from teacher tiktok or the teaching subreddits I frequent.

2- People used to look normal

This one might be controversial, but the nice thing about watching shows from ~15 years ago is that the cosmetic enhancements were pretty minimal. I know Minka Kelly, the 25 year old who played the teenage cheerleader love interest, worked in a plastic surgeon’s office and might have had nose jobs, boob jobs, all of that. But it still feels like everyone looks real. The coach’s wife, played by Connie Britton, is 38 and looks her age and still sparkling and fresh and beautiful. I see this on Grey’s Anatomy too, where people have not descended into uncanny valley versions of themselves. I’m not inherently against filler or procedures, but I do feel like so much of it is rooted in negativity like Eurocentric beauty ideals, capitalism- Botox is a product that people benefit financially from people getting, not just a peaceful, neutral salve for forehead wrinkles.

3. I am SUPER lucky I went to high school in this era

As far as being super lucky I went to high school in this era, it feels true! I think our society places so much emphasis on youth that to say I’m glad I was born in 1990 feels like sacrilege. Ew. I’m admitting I’m old, I’m a millenial, I think to be 33 today is a positive instead of a massive negative??? But if I had to look over all the years I could have graduated high school, to have done so in a year where we didn’t have snapchat, still showed up at each other’s houses in order to make plans or hang out, didn’t have to deal with something as traumatizing as the pandemic or widespread shootings… It feels like I lucked out. I had a flip phone just like the kids on Friday Night Lights. It’s sort of funny and weird feeling to look at that with rose colored glasses, because any time older people speak about the past it feels a little eye-rolly. Okay, your college experience in the 80s sounds cool but also unimaginable and I like having an iPhone… Now that’s me and I of course sort of hate to sound like that! Listen here, youngsters, having a MySpace was actually the peak of social media! It’s all been downhill since!!

What do you think about the changes in our culture since Friday Night Lights aired? Do you relate to what I’ve said at all, or think this is old man yells at cloud material?

Also no spoilers, I’m only on season 1 hehe

Clear eyes. Full hearts. CAN’T LOSE! Lol

Taylor