- Everyone say AOL Instant Messenger!
- [Eugene] Today, the Try Guys are going to be recreating
photos that we took in middle school.
- Oh wow.
This is really similar.
- [Zach] We are going to try
to recreate the looks perfectly.
We have disposable cameras
because all of these photos
were taken on disposable cameras.
(imitating disposable camera)
Oh yeah.
Backstreet's back, all right.
(chuckling)
(theme song music)
My most lasting memory of middle school
is someone calling my house and me answering the phone
and going, hello?
And they go, oh hi, Mrs. Kornfeld?
And I go, oh no, I'll go get her.
They just thought I was a woman
'cause my balls were mid dropping.
- Ah, middle school.
Time of awkwardness and exploration.
- 11 to 14 is about the time span.
10 to 14 years old.
It's the worst years of your childhood.
(upbeat music)
- In a lot of ways, I was similar to who I am now.
In a lot of ways, I was way more ridiculous.
It's like when we had pep rallies,
I wore a cape and I had like a seashell
that had like the top like sawed off
so I could play it like a horn.
- In middle school I think I was just kind of a goober.
(laughing)
Most of my hobbies were like learning about computers.
Me and my friends would mess around with programming,
graphing calculator games and, you know,
we'd make like little flash animations.
- Sixth and seventh grade, I was just an awkward mess.
It wasn't that I didn't feel welcomed,
I just didn't feel capable of hanging.
So instead, I just went home
and I made weird movies and I created universes for myself.
- I was in middle school from 1997 to 2000.
Yeah, I'm the oldest Try Guy.
Isn't that crazy?
My natural personality I think you see a lot in videos
which I had when I was a young child, very creative.
But then in my upbringing
when the world decided to let me know
that being Asian and gay was bad, I really, you know,
bottled up a lot of my feelings and my personality.
I went from being a pretty precocious, rambunctious child
to being a very awkward, very sad preteen.
(somber music)
- I love this picture.
This is me and my cat Cooper.
Everyone knows I love cats.
It begins and ends with this
little mother (bleep) right here.
There were years where he was my best friend.
In my mind, I looked like Shawn from Boy Meets World.
I think in reality I looked like a young Dwight Schrute.
Come on.
- The photo that I'm recreating
is me playing Yahoo! Chess on my family's computer.
So this is me like looking over the shoulder.
I guess my mom's like, oh it's cute he's playing chess.
I'll take a photo.
And I'm like, Mom, I'm like busy.
- I mean look at this guy.
I thought I was (bleep) cool as shit.
This was from a Homecoming Week
and I wanted to look like a greaser
'cause I liked the movie Grease.
The flash on this camera
has blown out my equally pale skin to the white shirt
to make it look like I'm not wearing a shirt.
I am wearing a shirt.
- I wanna say this is probably a candid photo.
We were probably outside somewhere
and they just maybe turned the camera
and I was probably just standing there
staring off into the distance being depressed.
I always felt like every situation I was in
I had to shrink myself smaller.
Especially since I grew up in Texas,
I was already dealing with being Asian
and then when I realized that I was gay,
I was I think in the sixth grade.
Also my parents got divorced when I was in middle school.
(fake sobbing)
This was the worst time.
This was the absolute worst time for me.
- All right.
Time to transform.
(bright music)
- I always try to match my socks and underwear
and today I was able to match my shirt too,
so how funny is this?
- Let's see, this is an extra extra large.
Sounds about right.
- Listen, it was the late 90s.
The sizing of everything was large.
The shirts were baggy, the jeans were big.
Oh my God, it's taking me back.
- I look like a weight loss commercial.
(chuckling)
But the after. - These aren't quite as baggy
as the ones I was wearing at the time,
but they're pretty loose.
- Okay, these are--
Can't actually see myself.
These are a little thinner than my glasses were,
but equally unattractive.
- All of the guys and girls were wearing puka shells,
Polynesian style beading.
Oh my God.
- [Cast Member] I still wear them.
(laughing)
- Oh yeah, very convincing.
Is this from the Sonny and Cher costume?
- Okay, how do we get the hair
even close to this nightmare?
It's basically just all pushed back, right?
- Perfect.
- I didn't know what hair product was in middle school
or high school or college.
- What the hell is this?
Ew. - Oh yeah.
It's been a while.
Oh my God, this smell is so nostalgic.
- Oh yeah.
(laughing)
- [Cast Member] You definitely have mousse on your face.
- Oh no.
- So I'm just gonna kinda try and mess up my hair.
Oh yeah, this is getting good.
- When in doubt, more hair gel.
That's the middle school way.
Yeah, just get it nice and slimy.
Oh yeah!
Now I'm Alfalfa.
- How do I look? - Ooh, look, the ring
just slides right off. - No!
I have to take off my wedding ring.
Sam, could you make sure not to lose this?
- My precious. - Don't, (groans).
So we've got a computer with an accurately-sized monitor.
It's like you would be playing this complicated game
on like a computer screen that was this big.
Okay, so my hand was here, mouse is here.
I had a lot of fun in middle school.
I had a good group of friends.
Three other guys, actually kinda similar to the Try Guys.
Um, hmm.
Me and these three other guys would hang out
almost every weekend together playing computer games
and generally making mischief.
We would, like, light fireworks
and, like, ring people's doorbells.
One time I was hosting everyone over
and my mom was like worried
that we were gonna disturb the neighbors,
so she made me, like, go to people's houses
before my friends came over and say,
hey, me and my friends are gonna play a prank on you later.
Is that cool?
Ridiculous!
- [Crew Member] What did they say?
- Some of them said yeah
and then I went to those houses.
(laughing)
- Okay, so where do I do, Rachel?
Head is slightly tilted.
A very relaxed smile, very cool.
My ears, I've just noticed, are ginormous.
Me at this time, I was much shorter.
I had not gotten my growth spurt yet.
I did have a girlfriend.
Yeah, I mean, we were in a small town.
There wasn't much to do
so it's pretty much we'd go over to each other's houses
and when the parents aren't looking
we try to make out.
I also made and sold my own candy at the time.
I was bringing home about $150 a week.
It was a lot of work, though.
It took me about four hours every night
to make the candy.
I didn't know what I was doing.
I was a child.
When the school caught on, they were like,
Keith, you can't do that.
And I said, what if it's a fundraiser?
And the said, okay, you can do it then.
At the end of the year, they gave me a trophy.
- [Zach] Where is my arm, like this?
- [Rachel] Yeah, you're holding him and then yep.
And then you've got the rest of his body under here.
- [Zach] Classic disposable camera
where you don't realize that you're blinking
until you develop it a couple days later.
- [Rachel] Eyes a little more open.
- I have a vivid memory of being in class one day.
It was a health class
and we were learning about mental disorders.
We got to the chapter on OCD.
At this point, I was about six months
into having been diagnosed.
And it was a list of some of my favorite artists
throughout history.
The thing they all had in common
was they all had some form of mental illness.
It was this revelatory moment where I went, oh my God,
people that I love and adore are (bleep) up just like me.
I guess I've never talked about this.
Even in the book, I only really briefly touched on it.
It was really tough.
Cooper, I need you to look at the camera.
(imitating cat meow)
(laughing)
I think I was meowing.
I think that's what was happening in the photo.
- [Eugene] Is my arm the right--
Should I be closer like this?
- Your arm is really tucked-- - It's like tucked like this,
right? - It's almost
like right behind the trellis.
- Like here.
Before my mom left after the divorce,
my dad worked for many years
a few hours away from where we lived.
So he actually wasn't home most of the time.
It was pretty much my sisters and my mom,
a very female dominant household.
I was always trying to go unnoticed.
And for like a closeted gay Asian kid in the south,
that was pretty difficult.
You know, the only fond memory I have in middle school
was because I retreated so much into myself
I really focused on my artistic passions.
So we're just gonna have fun now.
I wanna go do it on the street real quick.
And a really wonderful seventh grade teacher
was the one who actually directed me
towards considering filmmaking as a career.
And that was Mrs. Kohler.
Mrs. Kolher, if you're out there watching,
I don't know if you are, thanks for that.
But she spotted me being like a very creative person
who didn't have many outlets
and told me I should go into film
and then that's when I decided I was gonna go to USC.
And I did 'cause I studied my ass off.
- So now we're going to take these
to our photo printer of choice.
We're gonna get these photos developed.
We're gonna pick 'em up on Monday,
then we're gonna look at 'em and see how we did.
I chose a photo of me in eighth grade.
It was sort of like a basketball Homecoming Week
and I was dressing myself up as a cool 50s greaser.
- [All] Wow.
- Look at that jacket!
- Look at this boy. - You look like a character
in Uncut Gems. - Thank you.
I haven't seen the movie.
I hear it's a romp.
- [Eugene] I'm more interested in all the creepy tchotchkes
you have on your house.
- Yeah, they're-- - What?
- My mom collected a lot of weird stuff for a while.
There's like a clown, there's like a baby,
there's like some dogs.
A bunch of weird knickknacks.
We were a knickknack family.
- Did you smile in photos normally
or was this like an intentional?
- [Keith] I'm being cool, Zach.
I'm a 50s greaser.
- Well let's check out your recreation.
- So we did a whole reel of these,
so I've gotta flip through
and see how they came out
'cause I don't even know.
Oh, that's pretty good. - Pretty good.
Strange seeing you with, like, clear glasses, not smiling.
You look psychotic. - I love the quality
of the disposable camera.
- Here's the thing.
It wasn't that cool of a pose, right?
So I've got like 100 pictures
that look exactly the (bleep) same.
I got a classic mouth shot.
That's my mouth.
- When you see this kid
and you, as that kid, do you still feel like that same kid?
- I think I have a lot of that same kid in me, like yeah.
I'm still like goofy, trying to be everybody's friend,
trying to make people laugh.
Not quite sure what it means to look cool.
(all laughing)
- So I'm recreating this photo!
- [All] Yay.
- [Zach] Ned, is this the same family computer
where you first discovered pornography?
- [Ned] Uh, yeah.
(all laughing)
Let's see how I did with my recreation.
Wow. - Nice!
(all laughing)
- Wow. - Yeah, got the hair!
- This kid looks cool.
This man I am keeping away from schools.
(all laughing)
Stay far away! - I have extreme
child molester vibes with me.
(all laughing)
Deepness and my heavily exposed thigh.
- Nothing's on the computer
'cause he just turned it off.
He's like, whoa!
No mother. - Wow, it's funny.
- Now he's a little more-- - What a fun smile.
- The beard also. - The beard is wild, yeah.
I thought about shaving for this, but I didn't.
- This cool guy is young Zach.
- [All] Oh yeah.
- [Eugene] That's one of my favorite photos of you.
- With a cat. - I don't know why
I look so stoned in this photo.
(all laughing)
All right, so my first photo is a recreation of Ned's photo
and I think-- (all laughing)
I think that I nailed it.
- Oh wow, that's funny.
- Oh no, we should have thought about this,
that wearing a black shirt and having a black stuffed animal
would mean that you can't see what I'm holding at all.
There's something in my arms, you can't (bleep) see it.
(fake sobbing)
- Oh, you can kinda see it. (all laughing)
- Oh no. - This is pictures
of me with my eyes closed!
- How do you feel looking at these side by side?
- I didn't love who I was at this age
and I also was dealing with a lot of mental health issues
and this is when my OCD was really in its fullest swing.
I think I'm ready at this age to accept and embrace and love
the past me and all his awkward glory.
Like I know that he was going through some shit,
bu his life wasn't all that bad.
I mean, there's a lot of happy memories from this time.
There was a lot of fun and I think a lot of who I was then
made me who I am now.
- So this was me.
- [All] Whoa.
- Probably eighth grade.
I can't think of a single positive emotional thing
about this time.
I was always true to my creative self.
I certainly found that most of my creative inspiration
is derived from my experiences,
so I can't ever,
I would never erase this person.
Okay.
Different-- - Ooh, I love
the black and white. - Yeah.
- [Eugene] Yeah, so this was a black and white camera.
We tried different backgrounds.
It's funny 'cause now here as an adult
it looks like I'm like posing for a shoot.
- [Zach] I know, this is like the saddest kid ever
and this is (bleep) Shawn Mendes for Calvin Klein.
- Hottest dude ever. - Yep.
- That is crazy seeing this side by side.
- [Zach] I can see the sadness behind our eyes in this photo
and it's gone.
You look strong.
You look indignant.
You look like you're gonna stand up to the world.
- Burying your feelings translates well to modeling.
(all laughing)
- [Keith] It was fun recreating this.
I suggest people recreate photos
'cause it's just like it's fun to dip back into, you know,
different times of your life.
- [Zach] The biggest change for me
is I just became secure with my insecurities.
I embraced who I was instead of trying to run away from it.
- That's a good lesson.
- I guess hearing the stories,
it doesn't totally surprise me that these four guys
then went on to dedicate their lives
to showing the beauty within each person.
Oh gross, okay, let's cut, let's cut.
(singing)
(theme song music)
There was so many more amazing stories from middle school.
If you wanna hear about the time that I was on SNL
and almost lost a testicle within a two week period,
go to Patreon for a little bonus story time.