Sixth-grade teacher shares students' hilarious reactions to The Smashing Pumpkins: 'Sounds old'

"1979" by The Smashing Pumpkins is not a song most kids these days would know. But for the ones who grew up in the 1990s, it was something they heard while driving with their friends in a car or danced to at parties.

A sixth-grade teacher got a very unexpected and hilarious outcome when he decided to play the song for his students. In a TikTok video posted by @jonfishman8, he shared the youngsters' thoughts and feelings about the song.

The video starts with the caption, "I played the song for my 6th graders that were all over the radio the year I started teaching. Here are their responses."

The first note read, "It reminds me of depression," and the next read, "Nice rhythm, great beat." Some other students wrote, "It is the bestest song in the whole wide world. My mummy and daddy listen to it," "very cringe, sounds old, no offense, Mr. Fishman," "It's not the best but I could listen to it. Very chill" and "I can't even understand what it's saying, very emo."

Some students didn't like it at all. They wrote, "Cringe, weird words, old" and "Did he lose his voice? Nothing to do with smashing pumpkins." 

The video soon went viral with 2.5 million views and 369k likes. It is captioned, "6th grade vs the '90s." People on social media enjoyed the kids' responses. @j.o.c.e.l.y.n.s commented, "'It’s giving summer and cool kids' AW I LOVE IT."@petedavidsonsrightleg wrote, "'Nothing to do with smashing pumpkins' is so real LMFAO." @georgies_orgies227 expressed, "'This reminds me of a song you would listen to after school' - this kid gets it."

@baileyyjordann pointed out, "Ok but the 'my mommy and daddy listen to it' is so cute." @felixbosquesh commented, "Just wanted to say you're doing wonderful work! We need to preserve and educate older music to the younger so we can ensure the safety of it." @_blue92_ wrote, "A perfect depiction of different people having different opinions on the exact same thing. Love this."

Teachers sure have a lot of fun going through all the responses of their students. In another story, a teacher, @fairyniceofyou, shared questionnaires with her students to check how their day went when she was absent and it did give her some interesting insights about them.

She says in the video, "I'm going to read their responses because they had me laughing." One student responded, "The sub is very snippy and rude and takes her job way too seriously. I miss you." Another student wrote, "I walked in on time and she said I was late when the second bell never rang yet. I respectfully told her 'no' because it was true and she called me rude. Overall my day is going pretty good."

The student added, "The class is on good behavior but the sub was just a little cranky." One more student complained about the sub. "She left the door unlocked and people from other classes looking for you walked in and walked right out after they saw the sub." According to a different student's response, the discipline administrator called Miss Blank and “started telling people to go take off their shoes if they had crocs on,” further writing, “it was so stupid lol.”

Mandie mentioned that out of 250 kids, only 26 submitted their responses. "But what I learned is that this method gives quiet students a way to communicate," she says in the video. "Almost all the responses that I got are from students that never talk in class," she added.