Degrassi Really Is Greener On The Other Side  

I spent my early childhood gambling in Las Vegas... Is what a lot of people think when I tell them that I spent the first half of my childhood in Sin City, but no, I was just like any other kid there trying to make sense of the world.

I always looked forward to when my mother and I would visit Vancouver. She grew up there and her family all lived there and I didn't have any extended family in Vegas. Vancouver was a retreat away from a city that many go to as a retreat. The ceaseless rain, biting cold and lush greenery were departures from the sweltering heat, rows of slot machines and cards of scantily clad women that littered even suburban neighbourhood sidewalks.

As you can imagine, there isn't much Canadian media to find in the barren deserts of Las Vegas. Scorching sands, red mountains, and bright lights for as far as you can see, but not a single maple leaf or moose in sight. I did eventually manage to find a show that not only helped me tap into my Canadian roots, it helped me find myself in some of my most crucial and formative years.

I spent a lot of time alone as a kid. My parents were always at work and my dad didn't like staying in one place for too long, so we moved a lot. I would come home from school after trying to make friends with people who had all known each other their whole lives (kids can be mean as hell) and be alone. I would pass my time with mostly television, movies, and video games.

Degrassi quickly became a favourite.

The show has been around for decades. It's known for its characters and willingness to explore heavier storylines for its demographic, such as teen pregnancy, suicide, they shot Drake and put him in a wheelchair, and homosexuality. It was the show that taught me what being gay even was. I think Degrassi is part of the reason why I was able to come out rather early to my friends. Marco was happy and, even though it was a show, I felt like I could make out okay too. He went through that whole crisis when Spinner outted him to everybody. I could feel how tangibly scared he was as he pleaded for Spinner to see him as Marco again. Even though it wasn't as dramatic for my friends and I, since they were like, "Yeah, duh." I was nervous as balls before I came out and scared they might react the way Spinner did.

Everything just felt so relatable. These felt like people I was friends with. It felt like they could be me. The characters were kids going through school trying to get good grades. Then having to juggle that with homelife. Craig had such a tumultuous relationship with his abusive father and put on a mask for school and acted like everything was fine. Just like me. My dad was in and out of jail, so I knew what it was like to feel the hatred he felt towards his father, but it also showed me that you can find people who love you, even if they aren't your blood.

The show gave authentic looks into the lives of teenagers going through their not-so-perfect lives. Shows like Gossip Girl sell you a fantasy. No one's life is like that, maybe for debutantes, but the 1 per cent are not the 99 per cent so those stories are unrelatable for most of the world. I saw myself going through the same dissonance Marco did, and I know people who went through things that Emma, Ellie, Liberty, and Toby went through. Emma was in love with the bad boy that just needed some love. Ellie started self-harming but stopped with the help of her friends. Liberty got pregnant and then had to deal with the death of the baby daddy. Toby was bullied relentlessly and lost his best friend. Degrassi was able to capture the experiences of real-life teenagers and it probably helped countless people find their footing throughout their teenage years. I know it did that for me. I wouldn't be the same person today without it. I have always tried to live as authentically to myself as I can and it's thanks to this show helping me see it's okay to go through stuff as long as we come out the other side stronger and that I can be exactly who I am and everyone else just has to deal with it.

The clothes were so Canadian. The toques (my brain still subconsciously calls them beanies but I dare not refer to them as such after being shamed for not knowing what a toque was) and puffy jackets were so foreign to me as a person that lived in a desert. I almost felt as if I was on those cold, damp, Canadian streets myself. I got to imagine what it was like to be in the actual, for-real snow, something I had never seen in person until I moved to Canada. Everyone was surprised at my excited anticipation of snow. Only now after many winters dealing with snow do I understand the disdain. And yet, I still don't understand how Vancouver completely shuts down anytime there's snow.

They said washroom instead of bathroom and said sorry differently than what I was used to, but was so familiar to me at the same time. I heard these things before when I would visit, so getting the accent on American TV only made me do a double take the first time I watched the show. Degrassi was able to give me the feeling of those vacations to visit my family in Vancouver all while sitting in my living room in the middle of a desert.

When I eventually moved to Vancouver when I was 13 it was not as much of a culture shock as I look in retrospect. Sure, there were things that I wasn't used to and still am not used to almost 20 years later, like using celsius and kilometres and that god damn "U" in words like "colour". I will never forget getting an essay back and losing marks for spelling, the only spelling error being that "U" in various words, the biggest culprit being "colour" of course. I'm sorry I learned a different spelling system and literally did not know that was a thing. I heard someone say "zed," and I thought I had slipped into a parallel universe. Didn't these people know that Zedd was one of the villains in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers? It was me. I was the fool. Other than those things, I managed to adjust decently well.

Degrassi prepared me, for what a Canadian school might've looked like and it did a pretty good job. I knew that they said "Grade Eight," instead of "Eighth Grade" and that I wouldn't be in middle school anymore. I went from my last year of middle school to my first year of high school in about a week. The kids were also a wee bit nicer than the ones I was used to. Fights used to break out all the time, but in Vancouver they were usually just spats between individuals like on the show, such as Paige and Heather's eternal feud, so that was refreshing.

For me, Degrassi exemplifies just how good Canadian television can be. It displays authenticity that is classically Canadian. The want to display the experiences of Canadian youth without the glam. A fearlessness to tackle such difficult topics. I didn't know that the American broadcast of some episodes had been altered. They had to dial back some of the heavier episodes because the network felt like American audiences needed something lighter, proving Canada's drive towards authentic storytelling.

When I think of Canadian media and film, the first thing that comes to mind has always been Degrassi. It debuted in 1979 and gave Canada and the world some of the best youth programming ever, until it ended in 2017. Talks of a reboot are still in the air. Hopefully it will come to fruition, so a new generation of youth can grow up with it as well.