15 Songs You Must Know To Be Socially Relevant at Pop Punk

By Tarika Narain | 10/8/15 7:08am

For those of you who don’t know, Pop Punk is a dance party at Sigma Phi Epsilon (aka Sig Ep). It celebrates the songs that colored the early 2000’s — the glory days of raging hormones and enigmatic AIM statuses (on accounts named princessdogluvrxoxo, or in my case, scribblestarz) like “do u like me or like like me….” or “brb, cryin bout u, U KNO WHO U R.”
Essentially, Pop Punk is what you’d get if you took the Heorot Highlighter party and then changed literally everything about it. There are no “bumping bodies” and nothing “tight and bright” allowed. Instead, you’ll dance on a pong table and throw inordinate amounts of shade while sobbing the words to “Mr. Brightside.”

Youths, there are three crucial things about Pop Punk that you must know. The consequences of failing to respect the sanctity of these three things are almost as dire as the consequences of failing to forward those chain emails from your middle school Hotmail account (your crush will never luv u and the ghost of a blind girl wit black hair will haunt u in ur sleep!!!111!!11!).

One: sexual repression, not sexual aggression. Pop Punk isn’t the time to hook up with that girl or guy you’ve been eyeing — middle-school-you wouldn’t have had the guts, and neither should present-day-you.

Two: wear as much eyeliner/guyliner as you can humanly fit on your face.

And most importantly: make sure you know the lyrics to the following 15 songs. Study up, angst-migos.


  1. “Ocean Avenue” (Yellowcard)



  1. “All The Small Things” (Blink-182)



  1. “Dirty Little Secret” (The All American Rejects)



  1. “The Anthem” (Good Charlotte)



  1. “American Idiot” (Green Day)



  1. “Hey Juliet” (LMNT)



  1. “The Middle” (Jimmy Eat World)



  1. “1985” (Bowling for Soup)



  1. “Sugar, We’re Goin Down” (Fall Out Boy)



  1. “Sk8er Boi” (Avril Lavigne)



  1. “Semi Charmed Life” (Third Eye Blind)



  1. “Stacy’s Mom” (Fountains of Wayne)



  1. “Check Yes Juliet” (We the Kings)



  1. “Teenage Dirtbag” (Wheatus)



  1. “Mr. Brightside” (The Killers)


Tarika Narain