Updating "Reality Bites" for the Millennial Generation

You still relate to unemployed chain smokers in flannel.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Reality Bites is 20 years old today. Basically about the same age as some of you reading this. For those of you who were still in Pampers when this movie came out, Reality Bites followed the lives of four recent graduates who dared to fight the man, tried to find love, and smoked what seems like six packs of cigarettes a day. An aspiring filmmaker, Lelaina (Winona Ryder) captures the struggles of Generation X through firsthand accounts from her friends: the handsome coffee-house guitarist, Troy (Ethan Hawke), her promiscuous roomie Vickie (Janeane Garofalo), who might be HIV positive, and Sammy (Steve Zahn), who struggles to come out to his mother. 

Like all good things, the '90s had to come to an end. Gone are the days of car phones and finding simple enjoyment in coffee and cigarettes (sans an iPhone in your other hand). Garage bands take a backseat so the musicians can get real jobs. And those real jobs wouldn't be found in printed-out classifed ads.

Now wrap yourself up in flannel, here's what would change if Reality Bites was made for the Millennials

Written by Hope Schreiber (@HopeSchreiber)

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Lelaina wouldn't film on VHS but would have a series of Vines.

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Michael's car phone, headset, and map are all relics of the past, replaced with an iPhone.

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Lelaina makes $400/week at her—in theory—dream job. Now it would be an unpaid internship.

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There would be less chain smoking and laying in bed thinking, and more chain smoking while writing Thought Catalog pieces.

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This is what the cast would look like now:

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Lelaina would end up with Michael, not Troy.

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Lelaina's dad would never give her a gas card and pay it for a year. Today, gas costs $3/gallon in Houston.

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There'd be less focus on Vickie's almost-AIDS story and more focus on Sammy's coming out story.

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The movie would be called a Girls ripoff.

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The credits wouldn't role to Lisa Loeb's "Stay (Miss You)."

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