With, wholesome hilarity, plenty of heart, and edifying lessons, the unsurpassed sitcom Boy Meets World raised a generation of 90s kids. Laugh-out-loud funny yet wholesome, it managed to root itself in the real world and its many adversities by organically packing valuable, relatable life lessons into each episode through the wisdom of Mr. Feeny.  As Cory, Topanga, Shawn, and Eric grew up facing new problems, us 90s kids did too. Truly a product of its time, it couldn’t have existed in today’s fragile media where being didactic is the art without the artform. Or were reality tv fights, promiscuity, and drama are considered entertainment. This powerful show managed to be heartwarmingly-entertaining and provide valuable lessons through the powerful perspectives of young kids friendships through their coming-of-age. 

 Boy Meets World is a show where a young boy actually meets the real world through all its adversities — without sacrificing his personality or morals. Children today should be so lucky to grow up with great role model friendships of Cory and Shawn, relationships like Cory and Topanga, hilariously wholesome older brothers like Eric Matthews, and a mentor like FE-HEE-HEE-HEE-EEENY. 

It not only provided us examples of healthy friendships, relationships, but also dealt with classism, broken families, self-image, sexism, loss, failure, and facing these adversities despite roadblocks and others’ opinions. “If you let people’s perception of you dictate your behavior, you will never grow as a person. But if you leave yourself open to experience, despite what others think, then you will learn and grow.”

Cory Matthews was very idealistic character — he ignores reality when his newborn brother Joshua has complications, he enters marriage believing he should be living in a white-picket fenced home during college and hilariously tries to get his parents Amy and Alan to co-sign a mortgage, and most of all he has faith in his relationships and people. He has faith in Shawn when he didn’t have it in himself to get into college, he has faith in his relationship with Topanga when she lets her parents’ divorce inform her outlook on love (even has faith he can get her parents back together), and he has faith in himself despite previously feeling dismayed over being “average.” (We later learn just how much privilege average entails.)

1. Hold On to Your Naivety, Idealism, and Dreams. Protect them from the world and do not succumb to it or settle; lest you become like the thing you sought to change. Seek not success but to do good.

Mr. Feeny taught us to never lose that idealism as we enter the “real” working world — to never lose that Cory-like lust for life. When we’re young we think we’re gonna change the world — be politicians, doctors, wildlife veterinarians, fight injustices. As we grow we lose that sense of grandiosity that the world truly is our oyster and hard-work determines where we go. We settle for the conventional and secure over the risk of failure but possibly having it all. Our idealism becomes disgruntled and turns into cynicism. But we should guard our hearts and passions from the world. 

Have the generosity of Eric when he gave away money in season 7, episode 5 to a man and his monkey. When Jack tried to get him to conform to be like him, but Mr. Feeny tells Jack to be more like Eric.

Jack: “All this time you didn’t want me to rub off on him you wanted him to rub off on me.”

“See, it’s not enough to leave school and just desire to succeed in this cold, cruel world. Because then you’ve simply become a part of it. You must also have the desire to change it. And to change it, you’ll need a fine mind, and a good heart.” — Mr. Feeny

Mr. Feeny taught us to have a good heart and do good. Yes, good not “well.” 

“Believe in yourselves. Dream. Try. Do good.”

“ Don’t you mean do well?”

“ No, I mean do good.”

2. Be Your Unfiltered Self and Do Not Conform to Others’ Standards

“If you let people’s perception of you dictate your behavior, you will never grow as a person. But if you leave yourself open to experience, despite what others think, then you will learn and grow.” — Mr. Feeny (2×16)

3. Love and Friendship Transcends Classism and Labels

This show didn’t have to sanctimoniously preach about injustices to represent them, and to represent different backgrounds as normal people. Angela’s race was never really acknowledged in the show because why would it be? To acknowledge it is to say white is the norm and anything other is an aberration. She was just Angela. And that is proper representation — treating characters as complex human beings, and equally as white characters without letting their race become their story line. Hollywood nowadays believes a skin color is all a person is — they can’t just be a lead character or a friend they must become a token. 

In fact, Angela had no insecurities about being the only black friend. Even joking about her college paper, “How To Maintain Your Black Identity While Having Three Very White Friends.” And proclaiming her soap opera name would be “Shawnene Martin Luther King Boulevard.”

Moreover, never has a family sitcom addressed classism so well. Shawn Hunter grew up in a trailer park with absentee parents who wove in and out of the young boys’ life but upper-middle-class Cory and Topanga just saw Shawn. And so did the audience. Perfectly epitomized in the Thanksgiving episode were Cory and Shawn’s parents’ prejudices are revealed and the kids prevent class warfare from ensuing. Then seasons later, Cory’s family asks Shawn to adopt him.

Thanksgiving Episode:

Shawn: “I’m thankful that you’re my friend.”

Cory: “And I’m thankful my parents taught me to like people for who they are even if they weren’t lucky enough to be raised that way themselves.”

“They come from different worlds. Think of them as the Hoodoos and Tootsies. Living with hatred and prejudice passed on from parent to child because it’s what they’ve grown accustomed to.” 

Cory: “You know we’re the only two people on this planet who don’t know who they are?”

Shawn: “You know Cory I think for once our ignorance may be working for us.” 

Cory: “What, you mean if we knew better we wouldn’t be friends?” 

Shawn: “Yeah, I’m glad we don’t know better.” (4×10)

In season 7, Shawn’s step-brother reminds us of their dad’s old saying, “Money don’t make you rich life makes you rich.” Telling Shawn, “You never even had an inkling in your pocket and that didn’t matter to you.”

4. Platonic Love is Underrated, Friends Can Be Soulmates. By Depicting a Healthy Platonic Friendships Both Meaningful and Intimate, This Show Challenged Today’s Standards of “Fragile Masculinity” 

We as a culture put too much emphasis on romantic relationships when “soulmates” can be friends. The friendship between Shawn and Cory is one everyone should aspire to have even as they fought like a married couple. Their friendship was really the heart of the show through their coming-of-age into a “brave new world.” Cory always believed in Shawn when he didn’t. He was the only consistent thing in his life.

“Topanga was the one person I could never live without but she’s gone and you’re here and I’m alive. So it must be you.” – Cory Matthews

“It’s the time of year that you can think back and appreciate the real gifts you received. Friendship, for example, is a real gift. And it’s given with no expectation and no gratitude is necessary. Not between real friends. You think about that.” (1×10)

When Eric is trying to figure out what to do with his life Shawn gives him some advice reminding him of this insignificance of our existence in the universe and how what’s important to spend it with the people you love.

Shawn: “I was looking at the night sky, and I could see everything- the stars, planets, galaxies…”

Eric: “You must have felt so small.”

Shawn: “I did, I felt like a speck who was here for one moment in time and then gone, and I decided that while I’m here I want to be with my friends and the people I love because when I’m with you guys, I don’t feel that small.”

5. On Gender Equality

This show even addressed sexism in a sincere way. From Topanga’s hippy phase quips, to the time Shawn and Cory dressed up as girls and put out a biting journalistic expose on the female experience and harassment, to more seriously, the episode where Cory punched a predatory professor for hitting on Topanga. 

It even derailed “internalized misogyny” concepts of female workers:

Angela:”Women don’t choose to work in a place like that. They’re forced to do it by circumstances.”

Cleavage worker: “I work there”

Angela: “I know the profile….forced into a life of financial chaos and a life of degradation and sin.”

Worker: “I’m a cook…It’s harmless, the girls wear more there than you see them wear at the beach.”

To even the time Shawn helps Claire, a girl from school, get away from her abusive father. Has any show done anything like this in the past two decades? No.

It even highlighted unrealistic standards when Topanga began having low self-esteem about her weight.

“Unfortunately we live in a society where they tell us we have to look a certain way, so we’re all under pressure to live up to unrealistic expectations,” — Mr. Feeny 

 

6.  A job isn’t a person. All you need is passion, drive, and courage to succeed in life.

Boy Meets World also perfectly depicted that existential career dread many of us experience nearing our young adulthood and even in mid-life as we experience failure and disappointment. It encapsulated feeling like a failure after not getting an opportunity, or even feeling average when comparing yourself to others.

When Cory and Shawn get jobs in high school but Shawn gets promoted and he feels like a failure. 

When Eric doesn’t get accepted into college and feels worthless and destined to become a “townie.” These sentiments mirrored my own when I didn’t end up going out of state to college, and became a college “townie.” Despite trying to run away to another town to work at a dinner that makes him feel important for the first time — a big fish in a small pond, Mr. Feeny ultimately breaks through his crisis. 

Eric (during his one-man play): “My life is meaningless my own parents are sleeping through it.”

Feeny:”Eric, in the play of your life all your greatest scenes lie ahead of you.”

 Eric:”Where does my life go from here?” 

Feeny:”Well now you have passion, you have drive, you certainly have guts…and I can’t wait to see where your life goes from here.”

 Eric: “What about my life as an actor?” 

Feeny: “Get a college education.”

Eric goes through a rut and is forced to get a job — as a security guy were he realizes the things he’s taken for granted through the story of his immigrant security guard co-worker.

He reveals he’s studying to be an engineer for the second time and Eric comments about how hard it is to which he replies, “..it’s lots of work but anything of value is worth that hard work and in this country there are so many opportunities…look at you fulfilling your dream of doing that work – you’re a security guy.”

Then later in the season 4 finale, Eric finale does well enough on his SAT to get into college. Mr. Feeny tells him, “You can do anything if you don’t take the easy way out. See Eric I knew you could do it.” Eric thanks Feeny, “I heard you tell my parents you thought I was smart. That was worth about 1000 SAT points.” Sometimes, a positive self-fulfilling prophecy is all the encouragement you need.

There’s also the third episode of season 4 dealing with (Alan’s) career dissatisfaction, complacency, and regret. After winning an award as manager of the grocery store, he looks back with regret for settling for the path he stumbled into as a teenager.

Alan: “I’m just a kid that took a summer job and kept getting promoted then 27 years later I’m a grocer – the pinnacle of my career.”

To which Amy correctly responds, “What you do for a living is only a little of what you are.”

Alan thinks, “It’s very easy to find someplace that’s comfortable and stay there..Settling is something you stumble into and one day you realize all you’ve done is settle and you will not like yourself.”

But despite thinking it’s too late to change, Alan makes a complete career 180 and buys an outdoor gear store.

The show taught us that a job isn’t a person. But if we want to continue growing, if we feel we’ve stagnated, we should let passion, hard-work, and courage determine how far we go.  We should not become complacent. We all have to start someplace, and face adversities, but that doesn’t mean they’re the destination. But rather the path to get there. Never settle. Never choose comfortable complacency out of fear for the sake of security like Eric almost did before graduating college and wanting to work for his dad while Rachel and Jack dreamed big.

7. Always Be Proud and Grateful of Your Roots. It takes generations of hard-work to feel just “average.” Family, not job prestige is what’s important. 

“A firefighter can be a hero. I knew a man who worked in a factory for 30 years at a job that he hated. It was the only way he could support his family. I felt that he was a hero. But to me, a real hero is someone who does the right thing when the right thing isn’t the easy thing to do.” — Mr. Feeny

Never be ashamed of the hard work of previous generations that allows you to stand where you are today. This shallow world which sees poverty as a moral instead of a policy failure would have you believe that the hard-working blue-collar laborers that make America great are a failure to be derided.  Boy Meets World challenged this concept by teaching us that all honest jobs are worthy of respect and family (not prestige) is what makes one successful.

Shawn once fell victim to this mentality in season 4 episode 6 after kids mocked him for his dad being a janitor at his high school. He even went as far as to beg Mr. Feeny to fire him. That is until he realized the value that hard-work brings to his finally reunited family as he brings home a paycheck. There is no shame in honest work. It is the backbone of America.

In episode 5 of season 6, Cory has an existential crisis questioning his self-worth after feeling average in comparison to talented people around him. I personally have been there and placed the blame on my circumstances instead of myself, thinking “what if” I had been forced to take piano lessons, put in private school, if my parents had approved advancing me a grade, etc. An inane rabbit hole to fall down. It makes you realize how shallow, and arrogant it is to partake in the rat race of success and superiority.

Cory: “I could’ve been one of the greatest ukulele players…I could’ve been great at something and you stopped me.”

Amy: “We didn’t stop you, you lost interest.”

Cory: “How come you didn’t you give me a painting set at age two…Why didn’t you ever push me to be anything great? …I did not want to be one of these people who has no first place trophies and no special talents. I mean why didn’t you want to make me better? ”

Alan: “Better? Better than what?”

Cory: Better than what I am..I’m saying better than this.

Alan: You mean better than me?

Cory: Yeah better than you..I’m never gonna be great at anything because I was raised to be average and I’m average because you’re average.

Later they take a trip to Alan’s father’s grocery store and he explains just how much hard-work it took for his son to feel average.

Alan: “My first job was sweeping up this store. I took over after my father retired he spent 40 years with a broom in his hand. I wish he could see all that I have now. Why are you so ashamed of being average? Touch it. Get some dirt on your hands. Try to see what average looked like from here. To me average was a dream. My father worked his butt off so maybe his son could have something more. And I learned from him Cory, and I respect him because he did the best that he could. And I was proud of him. And he would have been proud of me too. Idk maybe if my son thinks average is nothing maybe I’ve done my job. And I’m sorry you’re not proud of me, him, and of yourself.

8. We Are a Product of Our Decisions Not Our Circumstances

In season 4, episode 12, Shawn unwittingly falls down the path of working for a mob while working at an Italian restaurant. Shawn feels like his upbringing has brought him to a life of crime and that’s all he’s destined for, but foiling Mr. Feeny’s assigned poem that week “The Road Not Taken,” Cory reminds him of his human autonomy.

Cory: “I guess that’s They find a guy who feels like he’s nowhere in this life so they make him feel like where he should be is in a street corner holding a box in the middle of Christmas Eve.” 

Shawn: “Well maybe this is my street no matter what I do this is where I end up.” 

Cory: “No, no, the poem says we have choices. Every choice we make means something.” 

Shawn: “I knew all about them too. I didn’t walk away. I  figured I’d just make some coffee make some money and walk away before it’d come to this”

Cory:  “You know Shawn I didn’t see this coming at all. I thought the devil was supposed to be some guy with horns and a tail.” 

“Ah, the old nature vs. nurture conundrum. Personally, I believe that a man, no matter where he comes from, chooses his own path.” — Mr. Feeny

9. On Love

 “I believe that when you find love you hold onto it and cherish it because there is nothing finer and it may never come again. And that, my dears, is the most important thing I could teach you.” — Mr. Feeny

Cory and Topanga taught us that love transcends disagreements and worldly trivialities. Despite their personality differences, Cory and Topanga were made for each other.

Cory: “Topanga would never have an aluminum tree. How did Jack get her to do that? 

Mr. Feeny: “Perhaps he never ran out of the house like a coward. Perhaps he realized that the spirit of love brings compromise, that when two people grow together, they start their own traditions.” (5×11)

10. On Imposter Syndrome

When Eric worries about failing in college and that he’ll be discovered not to be worthy enough to be there Mr. Feeny assures all of us that we’re never imposters and should look back on the merits that brought us to where we are.

Eric: “What if they find out we’re fakes?”

Mr. Feeny: “Gentlemen, getting accepted into college is not a random act you both were accepted on your merits.”

11. On tribulations and living with hope

In season 6, episode 17, Cory has difficulty facing the severity of the situation when his brother Joshua is born with complications. He expects Topanga to change these things that were real for him. Topanga believes his idealism is a coping mechanism and he needs to snap back into reality. But we later learn just how important maintaining hope in during adversity.

 

Cory: “I want you to make everything better.” 

Topanga: “I dont know how to belike that anymore..There isn’t anyone that can make it better.” Cory:”Shawny!!” 

Shawn:”Look everything’s gonna be alright.”

Topanga then realizes the importance of maintaining  hope.

“No matter how difficult life gets the important thing is to live it with hope.”

Here’s to one of the best shows of all time.