Celebrities Are Flooding Instagram With ’90s Throwbacks Set to ‘Iris’ by The Goo Goo Dolls — Here’s What’s Going On
A massive nostalgia trend has taken over social media, with celebrities posting photos of themselves from the 1990s paired with The Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris” as the soundtrack — and the posts keep coming.
The format is simple, which is part of why it’s spread so fast. Participants post curated photos of themselves from roughly 30 years ago, set to the iconic song. The result turns each post into a mini cinematic experience — less of a standard throwback Thursday, more of a love letter to an entire cultural era.
The celebrity lineup reads like a ’90s pop culture hall of fame. Reba, Darius Rucker, Drew Barrymore, Scott Wolf, Brooke Shields, Marla Sokoloff from Boy Meets World, Sex and the City’s Kristin Davis, Kevin Bacon and Joe Mantegna have all taken part.
Tiffani Thiessen, who played Kelly Kapowski on Saved by the Bell and Valerie Malone on Beverly Hills, 90210, posted the trend on Instagram with the caption: “Did someone say 90’s? 👋🏻”
Sharna Burgess, wife of Brian Austin Green — best known for his roles in Beverly Hills and 90210 — posted one for her own husband. She wrote as the Instagram caption: “You were never gonna make this for yourself @brianaustingreen so I (gladly) did it for you 😘 and DAMNNNNNNN 🤤”
If one post truly broke through beyond the trend’s original audience, it was Drew Barrymore’s. She posted hers on February 24, writing: “Oh the 90s! I went down memory lane looking at these photographs.”
What made it blow up wasn’t just the throwback photos — it was the comments section. SZA showed up in the replies and wrote, “Blueprint ✨.” Another commenter wrote: “Literally the original ‘it girl’”
Melissa Joan Hart, best known for starring in Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Clarissa Explains It All, also took part in the trend and leaned hard into the fashion. She posted several photos of her own ’90s fashion choices with the Instagram caption: “The fashion was wild.”
The comments under her post were peak fan energy. They included: “She WAS the 90s ✨✨,” “An entire generation of women wanted to be you. Icon,” and “Loved Clarissa BUT SABRINA!!!! ✨✨✨ THAT WAS MY GWORL!!”
Hart also shared a fun wrinkle while chatting with People earlier this year: the last time she watched one of her old shows was “a few years ago.”
“I’ve never watched the shows, really, ever, except Melissa and Joey, because I had to live-tweet them. So I did watch those,” she shares at the Feb. 1 event. “But I recently watched, like a few years ago, when I had my podcast, I would watch an episode here and there for whoever was coming on, just to refresh my memory about certain things.”
“Apparently, I was on Boy Meets World, and I didn’t even remember. I had to watch it,” Hart jokingly adds, pointing to her 1997 guest appearance on the series.
“I don’t have memories of a lot of these things, so it’s fun to watch them back sometimes, but it’s also a little cringe. Sabrina is 30 this year, which is crazy,” she adds.
The combination of personal photos, a universally emotional song, and cross-platform celebrity participation has turned this into one of those rare trends that doesn’t live on just one app. It’s on Instagram, it’s being discussed across social media, and every new celebrity post adds another chapter.
Production of this article included the use of AI. It was reviewed and edited by a team of content specialists.
