Bring Back These Brands
There are a few things I miss from my teenage years. Holding a girl’s hand being the height of eroticism. Having joints that don’t hurt all the time. Hanging out in tree forts that were built from scratch. Ah well, those days are long gone. But! There are a few things that can be brought back without the help of a time machine. BRANDS! Here are a few products that I wish were around today. I hope they make you feel as nostalgic as I do. Feel free to share any that hold a special place in your heart…
OK Soda
Do you remember OK Soda? I do. They had really odd ads, at least in my teenage memory they did. Let’s see if that’s still the case.
Yep! Still pretty odd. But I think they were on to something. They tried to make their soda go viral before “going viral” was ever a thing. Do you remember calling the hotline and leaving a message? For a summer or two, that was an EVENT for my friends and me. I have no idea what it tasted like. That part of my memory is gone. Rumor was that its flavor was a combination of ALL THE SODAS. Not sure if that’s true. But man, I would love to taste it today!
Fruitopia
How do you get teenagers to drink juice when there are so many excellent soda options (like OK Soda) available? Make it trippy, hippie, and super cool. Oh, and give the flavors cool names like Strawberry Passion Awareness, The Grape Beyond, Tangerine Wavelength, Citrus Consciousness, Fruit Integration, and Strawberry Kiwi Ruckus. Was there actual fruit juice in these beverages? Not really! Did we all convince ourselves there was? ABSOLUTELY! Man, were we having a good time drinking Fruitopia!
Far out. I want some Tangerine Wavelength! I want my Strawberry Passion Awareness! Bring it back, baby!
LA Lights
Made by fashion company LA Gear, these shoes did something no other shoe had done before. They lit up! Sure, we’d had shoes with air pockets and shoes with pumps. But what about lights?? Good news pardner, I’ve got just the thing for your shoe-light needs.
Were these made for children? Of course. But with the LED technology we have today and the small size of batteries, I don’t see why I can’t have an adult pair of these. Plug them in overnight, and baby, you can walk in the dark! If you offered me a pair of rechargeable LA Lights now I would buy them. All of them.
dELiA*s
OK, so technically, this does still exist. But it’s all-new clothing now and none of the cool 90s gear that chicks in high school dug. I don’t want a cherished brand slapped onto some modern, overpriced garbage. I want the ORIGINAL clothing that was in dELiA*s. I want it to come in a paper magazine. I want chokers and patterned minidresses and cute hair. Basically, I want this:
I was in love with pretty much every model in the magazine and every girl who wore this stuff. I had a type in high school, for sure. Bring this back, please!
Sam Goody
Every mall had a CD store. They all went by different names but were basically the same thing. There was Sam Goody. There was FYE. There was Strawberries, Camelot, Coconuts, and Tower Records. But they all did the same thing: sold overpriced CDs, music posters, and various drug culture-related stuff like psychedelic mushroom candles (yes, I had some) and blacklights. With the recent resurgence in people buying actual records again (over $1,000,000,000 in sales in 2021 — the highest since 1986) maybe we can bring some of these places back.
Looking for some cool music? GOODY GOT IT!
What did I miss? What did I leave out? Let me know in the comments!