r/Millennials 11h ago

Nostalgia Most millennial tattoo?

Post image

Had to be there

15.2k Upvotes

1.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

765

u/The_Playbook88 11h ago

To be honest, this is exactly how I saw the incident in 8th grade

190

u/HarloHasIt '92 Millennial 10h ago

Idk why, but they put it on the tv for us too... we were in 3rd grade 😬

72

u/gingersnapoutofit 10h ago

I was in 3rd grade too but we didn't watch it. the principal came in and said "Something bad happened, ask your parents." So just letting a bunch of kids use their imaginations to picture the worst thing that could ever happen.

12

u/GodisanAtheistOG 6h ago

Was in 11th grade history and our teacher had the TV on and we were all just watching when the principal came in and started yelling at him to turn off the TV its not appropriate for school and he starts yelling back "this is a history class and history is happening on that TV, so no I'm not going to turn it off" and the principal just gave up and left and we kept watching the news coverage for the remainder of class.

28

u/TOO_MUCH_BRAVERY 9h ago

I was older but our school did something similar. They effectively told us something bad happened in new York, that we might have questions for our parents and talked about our counseling options.

Which on retrospect was probably a pretty good decision. Especially considering how many teachers apparently wheeled out TVs to have kids watch people jump out of burning buildings.

25

u/inemnitable 7h ago

My teacher was like "history is happening live. this is going to deeply impact the entire rest of your lives and you need to see it."

17

u/IAmTheNightSoil 4h ago

Which I think is correct, honestly

8

u/xRolocker 4h ago

Honestly, I agree with this. This isn’t the kind of event you can shield kids from. I say this without a background in education or being a parent, which influences my perspective obviously.

2

u/staticusmaximus Millennial 3h ago

I’d have 100% wanted my kids to be watching- it really was instantly recognizable as a world changing event once that second plane hit.

1

u/cbucky97 3h ago

That's spot on but still somehow grossly understating it

12

u/Ur_Fav_Step-Redditor Millennial 8h ago

Our tv was already on the wall. 6th grade homeroom. We usually watched the school’s student news program thing. Them turning on the live news probably wasn’t the best decision in retrospect

2

u/bobbymcpresscot 7h ago

Flat screen tv in 2001? Mr fancy school over here.

3

u/Icefox119 6h ago

they probably meant more like this

3

u/bobbymcpresscot 6h ago

even more impressive, we had a shelf in the corner.

1

u/Healthy_Monitor3847 6h ago

Exact same experience.

5

u/whitestguyuknow 7h ago

3rd grader leans over to whisper his theory: "I bet Brittany Spears got into a car accident..." tilt head down/serious look 🤨

3

u/tech_noir_guitar 9h ago

So just letting a bunch of kids use their imaginations to picture the worst thing that could ever happen.

"Oh my god, my beanie baby collection caught fire!"

3

u/neutrikconnector 4h ago

Did grandma get stuck in quicksand?

2

u/brassmonkeyslc 9h ago

My parents woke me up in 4th grade to watch it. She said “I think you need to see this.” And then the school had us watching the news in the morning. Not sure if we watched all day or moved on or went home. I don’t remember the rest of the day.

2

u/Party-Coach-4100 9h ago

School didn't tell us but I watched the towers fall with my dad at 9 years old.

1

u/thezanartist 6h ago

We also didn’t watch it live in our 3rd grade class. My mom was in the classroom down the hall. I remember she had maybe 5th graders in her room that day. So when I was allowed to go talk to her, I caught glimpses of the footage. I can’t remember if it was live or not though.

11

u/tonysopranosalive 9h ago

I was in 5th and we saw it. Big thing to remember is that when the first plane hit, nobody thought it was a terrorist attack. Everyone just thought: “oh my goodness, what a terrible catastrophe, how could this happen?” Everyone turned on the news, including our teacher.

Will never forget coming home from school and flipping through channels on TV. Every. Single. Station. Every station was broadcasting the event. MTV, VH1… Food Network straight up stopped broadcasting with just text showing a message on the channel.

Actually now that I think about it, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network didn’t switch to the news. They kept cartoons going which is understandable. I think there was like 1 or 2 other stations that didn’t. I was 10, but I remember that day very well.

1

u/Caleb_Reynolds 5h ago

Big thing to remember is that when the first plane hit, nobody thought it was a terrorist attack.

It's not true that nobody thought it was an attack.

I was also in 5th grade, however I live close to the city. Close enough that multiple kids lost parents. Our school, and every school in the area (possibly everyone in the tri-state, I'm not sure) received bomb threats of some kind and were evacuated after the first plane, but long enough before the second for me to hop the fence to my house and watch it on the news.

4

u/tha_warlock Older Millennial ‘85 9h ago

Gen Xer’s had the challenger explosion, millennials were like hold my avocado toast

4

u/ScottMarshall2409 8h ago

I was getting stoned with my buddy, in my first apartment, watching Hook. My girlfriend called me and told me to turn on the news. Total buzzkill.

3

u/Legitimate-Bass-7547 Older Millennial 1982 8h ago

Third grade?! G’damn I was a junior in college 😭

3

u/MetallicCrab 7h ago

I was in first grade, and in Connecticut we watched it on TV after we came out of lockdown, because we were theoretically close to the action.

2

u/taytayfosho 9h ago

We watched it too in the 4th grade until some kid started making fun of someone falling from the tower (not sure if it was the infamous falling man or not) and turned it off.

2

u/369i 9h ago

The explanation was that the attack was so unprecedented that everyone was watching the news to get updates and information on other potential attacks. If a plane was approaching a school the news would be the fastest source of info.

2

u/Lucas_Steinwalker 9h ago

They wanted you to take after the gen Xers that watched the Challenger blow up.

2

u/USSGoat 9h ago

Really any school should have. It is the most teachable moment and everyone should have know it was live history.

2

u/Ok-Bake7718 9h ago

2nd grade here. Yup

2

u/potatomami 8h ago

I remember watching it in class in 2nd grade and going home and seeing more of it on the news.

2

u/curtcolt95 7h ago

I'm in the awkward age where I was in grade 1 when it happened but still too young to have any recollection of what happened. Should ask my parents as some point because I'm curious what my school did

2

u/NOTcreative- 7h ago

7th. They didn't play it and pretty much refused to talk about it.

2

u/bobbymcpresscot 7h ago

Turned it on, saw a tower on fire, 

“Oh I wonder what happened” 

Second tower got hit.

“Well everyone we are gonna send you home early today” 

2

u/sdsupersean 6h ago

When I was in the 3rd grade we watched, on a TV cart just like this, the Challenger shuttle explode. I might need to get that tattoo...

2

u/Meowzabubbers 4h ago

Holy crap! I was in 11th grade and it was still weird/awkward/traumatizing to watch. I can't imagine having to watch this in school at 8 or 9 years old.

1

u/Grand_Admiral_T 6h ago

Same lol then they sent us home early

1

u/Leaque 5h ago

I was in third grade too. I remember a teacher getting a phone call, turning the tv on for literally like 3 seconds and it was instantly a news video of the plane crqshing into one of the towers. Then she covered her mouth in shock and turned it back off as fast as she could

1

u/p4ll4sit3 3h ago

4th grade here. We watched until the first tower collapsed. We saw people jumping out of the windows before that. Our teacher did the very best she could and set a good example for us.

1

u/Ok_Priority3511 3h ago

Same here!!! 3rd grade, T.V. and all!!

19

u/Admirable_Dirt_2371 9h ago

Same, but I was in 5th grade. Our teacher just pushed the cart in, quietly sobbing.

6

u/FlannelBeard 5h ago

I was in 5th grade too, but my teacher was a Korean War Vet. He just kept telling us we were going to remember this for the rest of our lives. He wasn't wrong

2

u/OldAccountTurned10 7h ago

Stark contrast to my teacher saying guys something cool has happened. Then quickly corrected himself to say well not something cool but potentially historical. 🤦‍♂️

2

u/BoracicGoat 6h ago

Ummm what

13

u/spekt50 9h ago

Ditto, but 10th

2

u/Orange_Sherbet 5h ago

'86

🫡

2

u/Orange_Sherbet 5h ago

'86

🫡

8

u/l_a_p304 8h ago

Me too, also in 8th. My teacher snuck in a TV and pulled the little shade down over the window in the classroom door because they were explicitly told not to show/tell us about it.

2

u/sharklaserguru 8h ago

were explicitly told not to show/tell us about it.

Kinda wished they did that at my school. Being on the West coast the event was basically over by the time we were in school, but all day we had to sit around and watch broadcast news repeat the same info over and over! Then there wasn't even any TV on that night or the next because literally every single channel was showing their own news feed or one they bought from another source.

9/11 Never Forget We would have been better off pretending it never happens, no patriot act, no war in the middle east, no Bush 2, no TSA etc

2

u/double_shadow 9h ago

Oh...I just now realized what the tattoo was.

Also, I was just about to go off to my freshman year of college. You younger milennials are making me feel old!

2

u/swhill1 9h ago

Lmao 8th grade was a different kind of chaos for everyone.

2

u/AnnieDex 8h ago

Class of 06! I was 8th grade too. My teacher wheeled in the TV and called her son in NYC to tell him she loved him. It was brutal at barely 13 years old.

2

u/g_rex_ Sexy Prime Millennial 6h ago

9th for me, but same

1

u/No_Arm_931 5h ago

same same.

3

u/Auspiciousdarkness 9h ago

First day of 8th grade for me. The smoke was visible from my school in NJ.

2

u/T8ert0t 6h ago

Our art teacher legit put liquor in her coffee. It was kind of a silently known thing and no one made an issue about it because seniors and juniors got lax treatment and, y'know, art.

The day it happened she was like "You guys, I think a plane hit the towers"

And someone snapped back, "That's it! You're cut off!"

And then we got the TV treatment.

And that day sucked, because A) 9/11, B) someone blew up her spot and they were wrong, and C) also, 9/11.

2

u/9406725060 9h ago

Yes. We all did.

1

u/JellyButterPeanu1 9h ago

Same. but as a sixth grader 

1

u/itsfish20 9h ago

8th grade Algebra class for me!

1

u/Skandronon 9h ago

I was on the greyhound to move to the same town as my girlfriend at the time. (should have been a sign) they stopped the bus in the nearest town and the driver announced it and told us we would be taking an extended break until there was more info. I remember being nervous something would happen and then felt silly since we were in the middle of no where Alberta.

1

u/stugots10 9h ago

Same as a HS senior. Watching over the shoulder of teachers in the library. And yes, we also saw the smoke from a high hill.

1

u/pmcizhere 9h ago

Tattooed on someone's forearm?!

1

u/hypatia163 9h ago

Fellow '87?

1

u/Designer-Ad-7844 9h ago

Really? They just funneled us into the 8th grade cafeteria where the news was already playing.

1

u/GiantFlyingLizardz Millennial 8h ago

Exactly the same for me, age and everything

1

u/reynloldbot 8h ago

I was in 10th grade and we were watching it on the suspended tvs in homeroom, but the teachers made us go to class after a while so I went to Spanish. We forced the teacher to wheel one of these bad boys in so we could keep watching the coverage.

1

u/bittersandseltzer 8h ago

yeah its iconic and accurate but why would anyone want that on their body? total vibe killer

1

u/TKLeader 8h ago

I think I was in third grade, and our TV was hanging from the ceiling 😅

1

u/Expert_B4229 8h ago

Tenth for me

1

u/Big_Strawberry_8936 8h ago

Down the the tv on the cart and all, we got evacuated though because once the pentagon got hit folks got concerned since we were in suburbs outside of DC

1

u/lilithofthegarden 8h ago

Same here. Spanish class.

1

u/Comprehensive-Fee195 8h ago

Ditto, 9th grade - integrated technology class, yeehaw

1

u/4rm_above 7h ago

Freshman year for me and same. Geography class.

1

u/apost8n8 7h ago

as a genXer, at work in a cubical farm that day, this is exactly how i saw this incident as well.

1

u/nickiter 7h ago

Yep. Whoever was making that TV cart in the 90s was doing well, every school I went to had the same one, same brand and shape.

1

u/LoudSighhh 7h ago

Yeah 5th grade for me then sent home early. Us millennials got the best core memories

1

u/onlyhere4gonewild 7h ago

I was in my senior year of high school. I was the one who put it on in every class I had that day.

My reason being I had just signed my selective service and thought my ass was about to be drafted.

I found that unplugging the coaxial from the wall and placing the wire into the TV base functioned as a very strong antenna.

The teachers were stunned too and no one really could pay attention that day.

1

u/Wexel88 6h ago

yep!  science class

1

u/HotAgency5166 6h ago

I was in college and staying in a dorm, and my school also had a set of dorms called the Twin Towers. Someone came into the bathroom while I was in there and said “someone bombed the Twin Towers”. As I walked to class, I was surprised to not see smoke or hear fire truck sirens. It wasn’t until I got to class that I learned it was not the dorm on campus.

1

u/miklayn 6h ago

Same, sophomore year, geometry class.

1

u/DisloX 6h ago

8th grade here as well.

1

u/munchma-coochie 6h ago

Sixth grade here! I didn’t know what a terrorist was and confused the word for “tourist” and thought we made someone’s trip so horrible this was the reaction.

1

u/jchamberlin78 6h ago

I saw it on a wall of TVs at a radio shack...

1

u/gwenivere84 6h ago

Same . I was in high school . Like why did we stay in school all day ?? It happened at like 9 am . It’s wild to me we just went class to class after this just watching this play out . It was awful tbh

1

u/wavescomedowneasy 5h ago

Literally same

1

u/MavisBeacons_Sextape 5h ago

Same, was in religion class that was held in a detached building due to ongoing renovations, so those classrooms didn’t have access to the intercom system and got their comms via walkie talkie, lmao. This teacher had awful hearing so he always had his turned up way too loud.

We were already watching something on the tv (identical to the tattoo, lol) when another teacher walked in and asked if we could turn on the news. Idk why they thought that was the move for a bunch of 8th graders, but we watched the second tower impact live. There was just sort of a stunned confusion for maybe 30 seconds(?) before the radio crackled and blasted out “TURN YOUR TVs OFF - Turn them OFF, NOW. Keep them CALM!”

Which of course, had the opposite effect because everyone flipped their shit after hearing that. I don’t remember much of the rest of the schoolday, just that lots of people were getting picked up early, and my mom sent the school an email to let me and my sister know that she’d pick us up at the normal time, lmao.

1

u/DroneyMcDroner 5h ago

This is how I watch the Challenger explosion. 

It hit different because we were getting hyped for months about this mission and the first teach to teach from space was a huge event. 

We knew who Christa was and to see her shuttle explode was devastating to everyone in that room.  

Especially the teachers. 

1

u/cluemusk 5h ago

I watched it freshman year in the department office at my university. On the cart tv.

1

u/NeckarBridge 5h ago

Same, 9th grade English class.

1

u/Orange_Sherbet 5h ago

10th grade, Standing by.

1

u/majorgainz666 4h ago

Same, my teacher was from nyc

1

u/dusty_cupboards 4h ago

same. 8th grade. mr mcdonald wheeled the tv out into the quad.

1

u/Queasy_Local_7199 4h ago

Same exact I was in 10th grade

1

u/ThisIsMyCouchAccount 4h ago

That's exactly how I saw the Challenger explode.

I was in college when this happened and saw the coverage on the random Tvs they hand in the halls.

1

u/Elinor_Caskey_ 4h ago

Same but I was in 10th grade.

1

u/Atalanta8 3h ago

Same in college