Turning 30 in 2024

What do me and all these things have in common

Author

Medea Giordano
March 15, 2024

When I heard that a new Mean Girls movie was coming out, I was confused. Why would they remake a movie that only came out a few years ago? Then I realized the original actually came out 20 years ago.

Time is strange. I’m turning 30 at the end of the month, which is hard to wrap my head around. Half the time I still feel 16, so how am I old enough to have been alive and fully coherent enough to remember when Mean Girls came out in 2004?

I knew 30 would come with certain feelings, but I thought part of it would be feeling adult. Growing up, you think that one day, you too will check your watch and suddenly be the kind of person who doesn’t watch teen dramas or refer to other people as adults and not yourself.

I’m the youngest of four kids. Up until recently, I was a part of the younger generation at my jobs. I’m a capable human who takes care of herself, but I’ve always been the baby. Then, all of a sudden, I’m 30 and married, with forehead wrinkles that I stare at in the mirror. I’m not the youngest person in the room and now I’ll never be on the 30 Under 30 list. Is this what everyone has been feeling this whole time?! Everyone is just winging it?

Most people across age groups say they feel younger than they are, but it’s also true the world has changed. This simply isn’t the same 30 that our parents were when they were raising multiple kids, owned a home, and had a retirement fund. As this article from Vogue says, “Your parents and grandparents didn’t post photo dumps, wear athleisure in the workplace, or DM their colleagues ‘lmao’ in their 30s.”

We often talk about aging in terms of beauty, and how to fight off things like wrinkles or grey hair. But we don’t talk enough about how scary it can be emotionally and just how fast it happens. I don’t want to be a kid again. If I had to go back to high school, I’m not sure I’d make it through. But I just want time to pause to let my brain catch up.

The years really don’t stop comin.

Whether I’m happy to be 30 or not is yet to be determined, but in celebration of it, I’ve rounded up some of the things I love that are also turning 30 in 2024.

Movies Turning 30

The Crow (May 1994)

The Crow is one of those movies that makes me both excited and genuinely heartbroken to watch. It is a tragically beautiful tale about love and grief, that was both based on real-life tragedy and endured its own during filming. James O’Barr created the original comic after his fiancé was killed by a drunk driver. And just before filming ended, Brandon Lee, who expertly portrays the grief-stricken Eric Draven, was killed when a firearm malfunctioned during a scene.

I read a review that said the first time you see The Crow, you don’t watch it, you experience it. That’s how I felt watching it for the first time so many years ago and again, on a recent rewatch. It’s not just a movie. Watching it as an adult, I understand it on another level. I too would literally rise from the dead to get revenge on someone who hurt my husband and he would do the same.

A reboot of the film has been in the works since 2008, but is actually coming this year with Bill Skarsgard as Eric Draven. The trailer dropped yesterday as I was reading through this draft, and it’s better than I expected—I love a Skarsgard, and I love a Skarsgard covered in tattoos even more—but sometimes we need to leave perfection alone.

More Movies Turning 30

  • The Lion King (June)

  • Forest Gump (July)

  • Pulp Fiction (October)

  • Richie Rich (December)

  • The Little Rascals (August)

  • The Mask (July)

TV Shows Turning 30

My So-Called Life (August 1994)

I obviously wasn’t able to watch My So-Called Life when it aired, but when I watched it back in my 20s, it elicited visceral feelings of being a teenager again. This show deserved way more than one season. Still, it continues to exist in the zeitgeist of the 90s—as does fellow single-season show Freaks and Geeks.

I love a teen drama, but so many of them are over-polished and over-dramatic. Girls are wearing high heels to homeroom and solving murders during lunch. Real teenage life is dramatic, but it’s often full of minutiae that feels supremely intense. (This is what I think parents forget when their kids get to be teens.) It’s rare to get that feeling so right, but this show did it. Did we all not have our own Jordan Catalano?

More TV Shows Turning 30

Music Turning 30

Green Day, Dookie (February 1994)

Green Day was one of my childhood obsessions and in February, their third album, Dookie, turned 30—the trio were all only in their early 20s when it was released. I spent hours on fan sites in the early internet days learning everything about them (specifically Billie Joe). I’m a little less psychotically devoted, but my actual love for their music hasn’t faded.

The band is currently on a world tour where they will play Dookie and American Idiot (which turns 20 this year) in their entirety. I love a lot of older music, but sometimes you can hear that music is from a different decade. Dookie doesn’t sound old. If I’d never heard it, I’d believe it came out today.

More Music Turning 30

  • Hole, Live Through This (April)

  • The Offspring, Smash (April)

  • TLC, Crazy Sexy Cool (November)

  • Biggie, Ready to Die (September)

Tech Turning 30

Mirabelle and Me

1994 was apparently considered the year of the web. Big things were happening, but what I really want to talk about is the Mirabelle and Me doll from Tiger Electronics.

I was in love with my Mirabelle doll, so I was surprised to find out she came out the year I was born and not when I was already a few years old. You may be wondering how a doll is considered tech. Mirabelle came with a movie, and if you sat her in front of the TV while you watched, her earrings lit up and she would say phrases coinciding with what was happening on screen. Her mouth even moved slightly when she talked.

As is explained in this long and incredible Tumblr post, the doll used VEIL technology, or Video Encoded Invisible Light. WIRED reported in 2000 that VEIL “allows digital information to be invisibly delivered by an ordinary television signal, which is then picked up by a device — such as a cell phone or PDA — with a receptor chip.” For Mirabelle, the movie interacted with her pendant, signaling her to react to specific scenes.

The movie, a cute tale about what friendship really means, plays constantly in the depths of my brain, specifically images of the villain Gwendolyn’s playhouse. A Mirabelle doll is currently going for $499 on eBay.

More Tech Turning 30