#tbt: Laguna Beach

 

“Don’t Stop Believin’”  will always remind me of Stephen picking up Lauren aka “LC” for their date on the hit MTV Reality Series ‘Laguna Beach’. That episode, made the Journey song popular again to an entirely new demographic of high school idiots (myself included). Laguna Beach was one of my all-time favorite shows in high school. I was obsessed with the fact that real humans lived their life this way in our country. Yes, the conversations were prompted and they probably had to do a few scenes over but the cars, the houses, and the wealthy high schoolers were completely real. The worst thing these kids had to worry about was who was going to ask them out to Prom and when they were going to be able to replace their old “shitbox” Land Rover for a brand new Range Rover.

 

There were a few common themes to this well-received reality show; senior year, love and hookups, and the Lauren/Kristin/Stephen love triangle. The characters were what made this show an instant hit. A more memorable moment was when Morgan aka the “D.U.F.F.”(Designated ugly fat friend, I’m sorry, every group has to have one so by default it was her. I don’t feel she’s fat or ugly but the other girls were just thinner and more attractive.) went down to the beach with her friend to open her college admission letter. Before opening it, she reveals that this is the only school she has applied to and it is her dream to go there so if she doesn’t get in, she’ll have no idea what to do and “die”. Alright Morgan, go on, you have my attention. She opens the letter to find out she didn’t get in and I couldn’t help but cringe and laugh all at once. Who guided her to only apply to one school? Her parents were okay with this? Why was she putting all of her eggs in one basket? I guess money can’t buy brains. My favorite part about Morgan though, had to be her commitment to herself. She mentioned multiple times throughout the show that she was saving herself for “Mr.Right”. I could never really tell if that was really the case, or if she just wasn’t getting any anyway.

 

I’m almost 100% positive this show made my Senior year more sentimental than I could have ever naturally made it. We (my poor friends and I) were going through the same motions that these reality stars were going through minus all of the money, of course. When it came time to open our acceptance letters, we went to a location to do it and when a guy didn’t give us a promposal, we sulked for days. We sanded holes into our jeans, organized weekend getaways, went camping, had themed parties, and repeatedly spoke about how we couldn’t wait to go off to college. We tried so hard to have the “best Senior Year EVER” and I won’t lie, it went pretty well so maybe I have MTV to thank for it. When graduation rolled around, I wanted to feel how I felt while watching the cast of Laguna’s graduation speech — both that life was now over but also filled with promise in the future.

For me, the love triangle was the most difficult thing to watch. Kristin liked Stephen, Stephen loved  Kristen but  kind of (barely) liked LC, and LC loved Stephen. If you do the math correctly, you’re right, LC got no love. It was a lopsided triangle that was never going to equal out. Poor LC was just there to console Stephen when Kristin left him to go hook up with various men. In the end, nobody ends up together but Stephen does get to sleep with both of them so I guess that’s a large win for him. You can’t really blame Stephen though, LC is about as vanilla as they come and Kristin was fun and didn’t have to throw herself at a guy. Okay, so I’m a little envious that LC has a successful career but that’s neither here nor there. Her desperation for male attention carried on through all seasons of “The Hills”.
Laguna Beach will always be nostalgic for me and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care that it is now available on hulu plus. It’s always nice to be reminded of how easily persuaded I was when I was a Senior in high school. My values may have changed but my love for Laguna never will.

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