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5 Awkward Teenage Phases You Might Remember

5 Awkward Teenage Phases You Might Remember

We all went through our awkward, embarrassing, and cringe-worthy teenage phases throughout elementary and high school.

As embarrassing as they might have been, they shaped who we are today as adults.

I think a phase is a period of time in your life when you become immersed in a certain culture or style or activity and it impacts you in some way.

These are all the awkward teenage phases I went through myself, and are probably embarrassing phases you might be able to relate to if you grew up in the 2000s as well.

Unless you were a cool kid – then you’re an exception.

Here are some awkward and embarrassing teenage phases you might remember growing up in the 2000s!

It might be more relatable if you’re a fellow Toronto kid, but I’m sure you’ll find at least one phase you can relate to if you were born in the 90s.

Be sure to also follow me on Instagram and TikTok – I share a lot more content on those platforms that don’t make it to the blog!


Runescape from the early 2000s

1. Gamer phase

When I didn’t have many friends in real life, I turned to the friends I made in the gaming world.

For about 5 years, Runescape became my life – I spent almost every waking moment outside of school chatting with my internet friends.

I used to be ashamed of it, but I’m not anymore.

If you didn’t play Runescape, you probably played MapleStory!

Only people who’ve gamed or are gamers can understand the relationships you make with people online.

The people you meet online are as real as you are, and the friendships are just as strong as real life ones, if not stronger.

I mean, you really get to know people when you spend 20 hours a day with them daily.

Runescape is also where I discovered my passion for video editing (I made Runescape music videos), and I probably wouldn’t have studied Media Production in school if it wasn’t for Runescape.


Arm warmers are an emo kid's best friend

2. Scene/emo phase

Scene, emo, goth, whatever you want to call it.

It was mostly just the “scene” look I was going for: arm warmers, coon tails, razor haircuts, and heavy black makeup.

I think I even remember having a Facebook album back in 2008 dedicated to cool scene hair. *vomits*

The good thing about this awkward phase in my life is that this was where I began to develop a sense of my own style and express myself through my appearance.

Before this, I literally just threw on whatever I had in my closet and didn’t care about being fashionable.

I pretty much deleted every single one of my selfies (we actually called it “camwhoring” back in the day), but you can peep my less extreme “scene” looks in this tweet.


LuvSik Cwalk
I made this hat to commemorate the day I started cwalking #lol.

3. Dancer phase

You might have had a dancer phase, where you were into breakdancing, k-pop, or even cwalking.

I don’t really remember how I came across cwalking, but it was back in the OG days of YouTube.

I just thought it looked cool, so I started watching YouTube tutorials on how to cwalk in grade 8.

Also, I don’t even remember why I named myself LuvSik, but that was my cwalk name.

For the next year or two, I became immersed into the cwalk community and I met a lot of awesome people from all over Toronto and the GTA.

We hosted cwalk meets and anywhere between a few of us to dozens of us would make x-way cwalk videos.

Before anyone asks, I don’t remember how to cwalk anymore, but here’s an old video.


Stay positive shirt

4. Tumblr phase

Forever alone!!! Le omg!!!

Remember all the hypebeast outfits and troll memes?

The Tumblr days were a good time, even if I spent 12 hours a day every single day reblogging things.

The thing I liked about Tumblr was that it made you feel a lot less alone, with so many other fellow awkward teens going through the same thing as you.

I learned a lot of life lessons from Tumblr during the years that I used it!


Embarrassing teenage phases

5. Social media phase

“All Signs Point To Lauderdale” was basically my high school anthem.

During grade 11 and 12 I had a lot of teenage angst, so I turned to social media to deal with all my issues.

I pretty much spent every waking moment on social media, tweeting out all my frustrations.

This is why I have over 70,000 tweets – Twitter was the “it” thing before Instagram was, y’all.

The good thing about Twitter is that I became friends with a lot of local teenagers on Twitter, meeting via lots of #hashtags and other mutual friends.

It’s because of my Twitter phase that I pretty much became “good” at using social media, and it’s also where I learned to be funny (in my writing, at least).

Despite its unpopularity, I think this tweet is the funniest thing I ever tweeted during this time (excuse my language).


Angsty teen lyrics on notebook

Embarrassing teenage phases we all went through:

  1. Gamer phase
  2. Scene/emo phase
  3. Cwalk phase
  4. Tumblr phase
  5. Social media phase

Since all of my awkward teenage phases in middle and high school, I don’t think I’ve gone through any particular “phases”.

These were the most significant ones I went through and ones some of you can probably relate to, especially if you’re around my age (hello fellow 90’s babies).

We all go through awkward life phases, whether they be good ones or bad ones, and they’re nothing to be embarrassed about.

They obviously shape who we become in the future, and that’s more often than not a good thing.

Did you go through any of these embarrassing or awkward teenage phases? Were there any other ones you went through? Let me know on Twitter or Instagram!

P.S. if you liked this post, you might like this post on nostalgic websites from the early 2000s, or any of my other lifestyle posts.

Be sure to keep up with me on Instagram, TikTokTwitter, Facebook, and Pinterest if you aren’t already!

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Jessica Lam | Toronto lifestyle, fashion, beauty, and travel blogger | Diary of a Toronto Girl, a Canadian lifestyle blog


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We've all had our awkward life phases. Here are some of the teenage stages you might've gone through growing up as a 90s kid!
  1. joshmdmd says:

    I knew about the rs but damn you killed the cwalk scene. +1 for the Justice song. Also if you’re still into that shuffling check out Toronto Rockers Union

  2. Jessica Lam says:

    Thanks Josh! 🙂

  3. Chloe Tzang says:

    Love it. Never got into gaming but the whole emo scene thing was me back in High School and I can totally relate to that. Then I went off to College to study Nursing and I was just to darn busy for anything else….

  4. Jessica Lam says:

    Haha the emo/scene phase was terrible but it’s funny to look back on!

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