A sixth grade teacher shared nostalgic 90s songs with students — and TikTok is obsessed with their responses

• Sixth-grade English teacher Jon Fishman played "1979" by The Smashing Pumpkins for his students.

• Fishman shared their responses to TikTok, from "cringe" to "nothing about smashing pumpkins."

• Viewers loved the series and begged him to continue, offering suggestions for the next listening session.

Jon Fishman, a sixth-grade English teacher in Coconut Creek, Florida, sometimes plays "nostalgic" 90s tunes for his classroom — and their responses are pretty priceless.

The middle schoolers, born around 2012, write their reactions to the tracks on sticky notes.

Fishman has played the class a range of number-one songs from 1978, when he was their age, to varying success. (Student responses to Blondies' "Heart of Glass" included colloquial praise such as "happy, catchy, vibey," to the denouncement of "old person music," and the absolutely scathing: "interesting...?")

But TikTok, with its broad and deep-seated love of '90s ephemera, is particularly obsessed with how Fishman's class reacted to the alt-rock song "1979" by The Smashing Pumpkins.

In 1997, the tune was nominated for Record of the Year at the Grammys. Rolling Stone readers ranked it as the second-best Smashing Pumpkins song, after "Mayonaise."

In a March 28 TikTok, Fishman shared his classroom's discerning reviews. The video has since been viewed more than 1 million times.

"Did he lose his voice?" one student wrote of legendary frontman Billy Corgan, before observing: "Nothing to do with smashing pumpkins."

Some recognized the song from their parents' playlists. Others noted it was noticeably "not autotuned." ("Bro, we barely had computers then," one commenter pointed out).

Children are the future, and the mediators and diplomats of tomorrow described the song with equanimity — "It's not the best, but I could listen to it. Very chill."