It was the year we saw violence in Tiananmen Square and the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. The year we got Meg Ryan in "When Harry Met Sally" and Michael Keaton in Tim Burton's "Batman." The year "Seinfeld" and "The Simpsons" debuted on TV, with no clue as to how successful they would become. The year that gave us New Kids on the Block and Paula Abdul while Madonna and Janet Jackson were enjoying their heyday. The jeans were pegged, the shoulders were padded and the hair was feathered and huge. It was 1989—the peak of Gen X youth coming of age. A viral video of a group of high school students sitting at their desks in 1989—undoubtedly filmed by some geeky kid in the AV club who probably went on to found an internet startup—has gone viral across social media, tapping straight into Gen X's memory banks. For those of us who were in high school at the time, it's like hopping into a time machine.The show "Stranger Things" has given young folks of today a pretty good glimpse of that era, but if you want to see exactly what the late '80s looked like for real, here it is: \u201cHigh school students, 1989.\u201d — A SLICE OF HISTORY (@A SLICE OF HISTORY) 1659831504 Oh so many mullets. And the Skid Row soundtrack is just the icing on this nostalgia cake. (Hair band power ballads were ubiquitous, kids.) I swear I went to high school with every person in this video. Like, I couldn't have scripted a more perfect representation of my classmates (which is funny considering that this video came from Paramus High School in New Jersey and I went to high school on the opposite side of the country).Comments have poured in on Reddit from both Gen Xers who lived through this era and those who have questions.First, the confirmations:"Can confirm. I was a freshman that year, and not only did everyone look exactly like this (Metallica shirt included), I also looked like this. ??""I graduated in ‘89, and while I didn’t go to this school, I know every person in this room.""It's like I can virtually smell the AquaNet and WhiteRain hairspray from here....""I remember every time you went to the bathroom you were hit with a wall of hairspray and when the wind blew you looked like you had wings."Then the observations about how differently we responded to cameras back then."Also look how uncomfortable our generation was in front of the camera! I mean I still am! To see kids now immediately pose as soon as a phone is pointed at them is insanity to me ?""Born in 84 and growing up in the late 80’s and 90’s, it’s hard to explain to younger people that video cameras weren’t everywhere and you didn’t count on seeing yourself in what was being filmed. You just smiled and went on with your life."Which, of course, led to some inevitable "ah the good old days" laments:"Life was better before the Internet. There, I said it.""Not a single cell phone to be seen. Oh the freedom.""It's so nice to be reminded what life was like before cell phones absorbed and isolated social gatherings."But perhaps the most common response was how old those teens looked. "Why do they all look like they're in their 30's?""Everyone in this video is simultaneously 17 and 49 years old.""Now we know why they always use 30 y/o actors in high school movies."As some people pointed out, there is an explanation for why they look old to us. It has more to do with how we interpret the fashion than how old they actually look.Ah, what a fun little trip down memory lane for those of us who lived it. (Let's just all agree to never bring back those hairstyles, though, k?) This article originally appeared two years ago.

Our bodies are so amazing and weird. The fact that human beings have gone from banging rocks together to creating the most intricately detailed works of art is a testament to what our bodies can do. Just think about the kinds of physical feats we (well, some of us, anyway) have mastered, from brain surgery to playing musical instruments to Cirque du Soleil-style acrobatics. Humans are marvels. Through coordination and balance and muscle training and practice, there are so many incredible things our bodies can do. But honest to goodness, I cannot make my foot not change direction while doing this stupid physical trick. It goes like this:Sitting in a chair, lift your right foot off the ground a few inches and rotate your foot to the right (clockwise), making a circle in the air. While making that circle, use your right finger and draw the number "6" in the air.I tried this a dozen times. A full 12 in a row. And every single time, no matter how hard I would concentrate, my foot would change direction as soon as I started to draw the "6." I tried it fast. I tried it slow. I tried concentrating only on my foot or only on the "6." It didn't matter. My finger influenced what my foot was doing no matter what. It's not a new trick, but it was new to me and to the people who responded to a tweet sharing the trick with various iterations of "What is this sorcery?!?" Mind. Blown. I may need to stay off twitter for the rest of the day.pic.twitter.com/vTAOetW7Uk — Cheri Jacobus (@Cheri Jacobus) 1648415374 Say a prayer for your sole. — Nick (@Nick) 1648431573 I made my 90 year-old dad try it. He may not recover. — Cheri Jacobus (@Cheri Jacobus) 1648426846 If you are one of those people who were able to do it without any problem, congrats. You have some kind of superhuman coordination.That's what I'm telling myself, anyway. My teen and young adult children were somehow able to keep their foot going clockwise. One of them is a musician and one is left-handed, so maybe that's why? Drummers and ballet dancers in the comments said they didn't have any problem with it. As it turns out, there is a scientific explanation for why it's pretty much impossible for most of us. The Curious Crew folks at Michigan State University explain why it works:"The cerebellum part of the brain manages body movements, like the circling of the foot or the drawing of the number 6. However, the nerve fibers from the right side of the body cross the brain stem and connect with the left side of the brain, just as the fibers on the left side of the body connect with the right side of the brain. When you try to draw the number 6 with your right hand, those signals are coming from the left side of the brain. Even though circling your foot is easy to do in either direction, you cannot rotate your foot in the opposite motion of the drawn six at the same moment. The left side of the brain cannot manage two opposite movements in the same moment, so the brain combines the movement to a similar motion. When you switch to the left foot, there is no problem because the right side of the brain controls your foot movement, while the left side can focus on drawing the number 6."So there you have it. The old brain controlling the two sides of your body thing. Clearly, there must be a way to train yourself to not have your foot wig out when making the "6" in the air, so pardon me while I spend the next six hours trying to make my body do my bidding. This article originally appeared two years ago.

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