There is a part of all of us children of the ’90s (and by that, I mean anyone who enjoyed the ’90s in any capacity) that screamed harder than Buddy the Elf finding out Santa is coming when we heard the Spice Girls were going to bring the wonder of platform shoes and pop music perfection to the 2012 London Olympics closing ceremonies. Now, with only a day to go until the fearsome fivesome take to the international stage, our nostalgia is firing on all cylinders. We can’t take it. It almost makes us wanna… wanna… zigazig ha.
“My friends and I loved reenact Spice Girls music videos at recess. Unfortunately, I always got stuck being Baby Spice. Damn you, blonde hair!”
Sigh… Reluctant Fandom -Matt Patches
“I was forced to see Spice World during a father-sister-brother movie outting where my sis got to choose the movie. At that point, it was the worst day of my life — until Spice World’s chase bus chase scene after which it became the best day of my life.”
Slam Your Body Down, The Party’s All Around… on Nintendo -Brian Moylan
“Do you remember The Spice Girls video game? I do! But now I wish I could forget all the time I spent making my own video and learning their dance moves on Super Nintendo. Oh, the ’90s.”
Never Forget -Marc Snetiker
“I guess this isn’t too great of a story, but my best friend’s AIM screenname has “Spice” in it, so I’ve subconsciously thought of the Spice Girls almost every day for the last eight years.”
“I never knew much about popular music. All I ever listened to for the first ten years of my life was my dad’s copy of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. But when the Spice Girls made an appearance on All That, I realized that they were all right. They appeared as themselves during a Mrs. Fingerly sketch (one of my favorite recurring bits), spouting their wisdom and parodying their own personas. They were in on the joke. They were out to have fun. This spoke to me.”
The Life-Long Fan -Shaunna Murphy
“My favorite was maybe my parents letting me cut school with my cousins Erin, Sam, and Christie (because Erin was in town from New York) to see Spice World. The theatre stopped the film mid-way because we all had our feet on the seats. We were the only ones there. A giant add just popped up saying ‘please remove your feet from the seats.’ We did, and were thus able to continue watching.
Then there was the time in 2007 when they did the reunion tour and we entered the lottery, and we were all eating at Veselka and got the email that it was our turn to go online and pick our seats and we started screaming and threw cash on the table and ran home like we were Kenyan.”
Fandom to the Point of Losing Your Mind -Kelsea Stahler
“I too “played” Spice Girls with my friends and was always forced into the Baby Spice role. All I wanted was to be a little cool. Couldn’t I be Posh Spice or Ginger Spice for once? And one day, I did earn the privilege, the glory, of taking on the Ginger Spice role, but only after I “proved” my fandom by learning the entire “rap” section of “Wannabe” by heart and losing my tiny little mind pestering my parents until I collected every last Chupa Chups Fantasy Ball Spice Girls lollipop. At that point, I was clearly a worthy Spice Girls fan to be Ginger Spice, but still not with it enough to play Posh “Is my skirt too short” Spice and it haunts me to this day.”
The Mega Fan Who Puts the Rest of Us to Shame -Kate Ward
“For some, the Spice Girls represented the morally corrupt hyper-sexualization of women. For others, the Spice Girls represented the empowering hyper-sexualization of women. But for a 10-year-old Minnesotan like me — unaware that “slam your body down and wind it all around” wasn’t referring to breakdancing —the Spice Girls represented nothing more than hip, colorful, 2-D versions of Barbie dolls. And though I couldn’t play with them, I made sure to memorize Spice‘s liner notes, in which each member of the band had a page dedicated to their signature and their signature look that would later define them up to this day. (I still remember the order: Posh — whose red-tinted page hosted my favorite tune, “Say You’ll Be There” — Baby, Ginger, Sporty, and Scary.)
But it wasn’t enough that my CD player constantly spun hits like “Wannabe,” “2 Become 1,” and “Love Thing” (but not “Something Kinda Funny,” the album’s clear weak point) — my four friends and I decided to use our perfect number to our advantage on October 31, 1998. Strangely forced to play the Ginger of our fivesome for Halloween — considering the one friend who insisted on being Posh was a redhead while I had straight brown hair — I scrapped together the clothes in my closet my 13-year-old self most represented Geri Halliwell: A white tee-shirt and black miniskirt. Clearly, I was not Spice Girl material (where could one find a British flag tube dress in the Midwest?!) and would never boast their rad wardrobe, but I made up for it later that year when I convinced my mother to buy me a pair of 6-inch platform shoes. Sure, I wore them approximately 1.5 times before I realized how ridiculous I looked (and they weren’t so practical on the Minnesotan ice), but I made sure to channel my favorite band in other ways: With girl power-fueled confidence… and plenty of Chupa Chups. Strawberry Cream FTW!”
