'Mean Girls' turns Sweet 16: an ode to the movie in GIF form

In a world where we weren’t all living through the Great Lockdown, we'd probably be at a cozy rep theatre with our besties right now, watching a celebratory Sweet Sixteen screening of one of the greatest films ever made: Mean Girls. Tina Fey’s adaptation of Queen Bees and Wannabes hit screens sixteen years ago, and we’ve been referencing it ever since — be honest, how many times have you said ‘On Wednesdays, we wear pink’? The movie made Canadian actor Rachel McAdams a household name, gave Lindsay Lohan her career-defining role, and supplied fans with enough meme-making material to last a lifetime — just ask Arianna Grande. Here are 16 reasons why we love this endlessly quotable movie so much.It gave us the greenlight to kick off Happy Hour a little bit early — and who doesn’t need that right now?It put Toronto’s Sherway Gardens shopping mall on the map (along with other Canadian filming locations like the University of Toronto’s Convocation Hall.It tried so hard to make ‘fetch’ happen... and it succeeded. Don’t believe us? Just ask former president Barack Obama.It tried so hard to make ‘grool’ happen…  and mercifully decided not to pursue that one.It gave us a crash-course in how to gaslight a potential enemy before they have a chance to strike first.It foresaw one of our biggest pandemic predicaments.It provided us with the skill set to recognize a cool mom when we saw one. And vice versa.It inspired us to get into scrapbooking.It opened up a floodgate for all those “special” high school memories to come rushing in.It gave ‘Obsessed’ Mean Girls superfan Mariah Carey yet another reason to wear pink.Lindsay Lohan upside down in a garbage can. That’s it. That’s the reason.It taught us how to apologize to everyone we’ve ever wronged.And we learned that literally everything can be subjected to the laws of mathematics.It weighed in on the debate around the dangers of concussions in sport — even at the high school level.It made us believe in comebacks, redemption, and above all, second chances.And finally, it came with a built-in reason to rewatch the movie every single year.[video_embed id='1948037']Before you go: Lindsay Lohan gives Harry & Meghan advice on paparazzi[/video_embed]