Viral TikTok Video Shows How COVID-Era High School Yearbooks Had Zoom Screenshots as School Portraits

Viral TikTok Captures How Different Pandemic-Era High School Yearbooks Are

Photo: Screenshot from TikTok

It's hard to believe that three years have passed since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. While life has mostly returned to normal now, the challenges of those years will remain with many for a long time. TikToker @milaabandzz made a short video recording different pages of her 2021 high school yearbook, perfectly capturing how unusual the era was for students.

The clip has already received over 4 million views and a large amount of engagement from people who were amused and saddened by the glimpse into pandemic-era school years. While @milaabandzz highlights select pages from the album, she also includes the text “POV: you were class of '21,” which emphasizes the surrealism of the pages. For instance, in the school photos, many of the images are icons with the initial of the person's first name, similar to how users appear on Zoom calls when their camera is turned off. Similarly, on a page highlighting the Future Farmers of America club, there is a screenshot of a packed Zoom call rather than an in-person group photo.

“Covid really changed everything,” @milaabandzz writes. People in the comments largely agree with the statement, adding a mix of reactions to the startlingly different yearbook pages. “Cue the ‘back in my day you had to turn the camera ON for picture day,'” someone jokes. Another person advises, “This yearbook will be iconic in 40+ years don't ever lose it!” There were many that found the images sad, particularly the emphasis on Zoom meetings: a reminder of how isolating those school years were for teenagers. Others admired the ingenuity of the design, saying, “No but this was really creative on the yearbook staff's part. They made do with what they had!”

Although the album sparks many different feelings tied to the pandemic, it's certainly a helpful reminder of how unprecedented the era was for people and particularly young students.

@milaabandzz on TikTok captures how different high school yearbooks from the COVID-19 pandemic are in a now-viral video.

@milaabandzz covid really changed everything 😂 #fyp #covid19 #classof2021 ♬ Spongebob Sad Song Steel Lick – Some guy in the internet

milaabandzz: TikTok
h/t: [Insider]

All images via milaabandzz.

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Margherita Cole

Margherita Cole is a Contributing Writer at My Modern Met and illustrator based in Southern California. She holds a BA in Art History with a minor in Studio Art from Wofford College, and an MA in Illustration: Authorial Practice from Falmouth University in the UK. She wrote and illustrated an instructional art book about how to draw cartoons titled 'Cartooning Made Easy: Circle, Triangle, Square' that was published by Walter Foster in 2022.
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