Rewatching Buffy

As most people who read this blog know, there's a great Buffy Rewatch happening in the Whedon fan (and "aca-fan") community.  Nikki Stafford is heading up a Buffy Rewatch segment on her blog which features (and will be featuring) some awesome guest bloggers, many of whom come from the Slayage conference 'verse (including David, who's first post went up yesterday, and myself).  We're working our way through Season 2 right now and I've been having some wicked flashbacks to watching the show while it was in broadcast.

When Buffy began airing in March of 1997, I was a sophomore in high school who had transferred in part-way through the previous semester.  Pair that with the fact that I had watched the 1992 movie an embarrassing number of times since its VHS release and you can see how I quickly identified with the our heroine and became a fan of the show.  So while I'm watching Buffy again, from the very first episode to the very last, I'm not only flashing back on fashion and pop culture, but on being 16 itself.  It's incredibly weird to look at this as a 30 year old and remember just how much I empathized with Buffy when I was that age — the same age being portrayed in the series throughout its run.

For example, 30 year old me is somewhat creeped out by the Buffy & Angel thing.  16 year old me was all "ZOMG ROMANCE!" (if "ZOMG" was something the kids would say in 1997... which it wasn't).  I guess now that I'm watching it all over again, I'm getting back in touch with my angsty, hormonal, super-emotional teenage self.  This show really is a melodrama!  No wonder we all loved it in the late-90s (and early aughts).  It's totally formative years stuff.  Also, it helps that all these flashbacks are underscored by my high school playlist (wait... we didn't have "playlists" back then — we had mix tapes, on actual tape cassettes).  This experience is very weird.