28 Iconic Degrassi Moments That Shaped Your Adolescence

The dangers of the internet are put front and center in the pilot episode, which sees naïve Emma (Miriam McDonald) meeting up with her online boyfriend in real life, who turns out to be much older than she thought. Like, much, much older, and also dead set on raping and/or kidnapping her. Luckily Manny (Cassie Steele), Toby (Jake Goldsbie), and J.T. (Ryan Cooley) suspect something's up when the guy lures Emma to a hotel room, and they're able to get her help before it's too late.

Liberty (Sarah Barrable-Tishauer) starts off the show as a quirky, uptight overachiever, so when she tries to revamp her image, it has hilariously cringy results. Step away from the neck scarves, Liberty.

After Manny gets into a big fight with her father, she shows up to a party and gets drunk, leading her to take off her top as Peter (Jamie Johnston) videotapes it. The next day she begs him to delete the video, but he gets angry and shows it to the whole school. Poor Manny. On the somewhat bright side, Peter ends up getting hit with child pornography charges. That's what you get for slut shaming, dude.

Paige Michalchuk (Lauren Collins), patron saint of the word "hun," did mean girl better than Regina George ever could. She's sassy and hateable all while still being one of your favorites.

THE SAVAGERY. Speaking of slut shaming, have you met Jimmy Brooks (Aubrey Graham aka Drake)? He greets his girlfriend, Ashley (Melissa McIntyre), with this rude hello after he hears a rumor that she cheated on him (she didn't). The shock on Ashley's face is so real, and so painful.

Manny decides the best way to come across as "hot, not adorable," is by hiking up her smallest pair of underwear for all to see. Everyone in that hallway, as well as everyone watching, had their jaws on the floor.

Despite the fact that Craig (Jake Epstein) has a horribly abusive father, it's still a shock when his dad dies in a car crash. At first Craig seems fine, but it's clear the loss affects him in devastating ways.

In a desperate attempt to get Manny to fall for him the way she likes Craig in season four, J.T. invites her over for a romantic date. Things are going pretty well until she walks into his bedroom and catches him using a penis pump. Yes, a penis pump.

Darcy (Shenae Grimes-Beech) goes to a party with her boyfriend, Peter, but they get into a fight and she gets drunk to blow off some steam. In a disturbing turn of events, a fellow party-goer ends up slipping roofies in her drink and rapes her. The way the show depicts Darcy struggling to cope with what happened to her afterwards is heart-wrenching and realistic.

Sean (Daniel Clark) and Emma have one of Degrassi High's most memorable relationships. They go through awkward phases, pregnancy scares, and plenty of romantic ups and downs before Sean finally decides to join the army. Before he ships off to Afghanistan, he and Emma share an emotional goodbye that feels just as bittersweet as if you were saying goodbye to your own first love. #SeanandEmma4eva

In the later seasons, Liberty and J.T. have a tumultuous relationship thanks to J.T.'s wild side and Liberty's tendency to be controlling. Still, they love each other, and Liberty gets pregnant. When she tells him the news while they're driving to school, he immediately crashes the car.

After years of being bullied, Rick (Ephraim Ellis) finally loses it and brings a gun to school in an episode called "Time Stands Still," which is one of the best of the entire series. In an incredibly tense moment, Rick approaches Jimmy at his locker, gun in hand, after a prank gone wrong. Then he shoots Jimmy in the back as he tries to run away, and later on we discover Jimmy is paralyzed from the waist down. Nothing on Degrassi was ever the same.

Emma's eating disorder finally gets so out of control that she has to be hospitalized after falling unconscious from starving herself. If that doesn't break your heart enough, Manny visits Emma in the hospital, where she begs Emma to get healthy again. Are you crying? WE'RE NOT CRYING. (We are definitely crying.)

Spinner begins Degrassi as an insufferable bully, but with each episode he becomes more and more sympathetic. This all comes to a head in season seven when he discovers that he has testicular cancer.

Not only is Manny single-handedly dealing with the fact that Craig has bipolar disorder, but she also makes the tough choice to get an abortion at only 14 years old. The episode was so intense that it was only allowed to be aired in Canada, and not the US.

As the first transgender character to ever be featured on Degrassi, Adam Torres (Jordan Todosey) certainly leaves a mark on the series. There are plenty of powerful scenes with Adam before his untimely death in a car accident in season 13, but the scene of him coming out is definitely high on the list.

Remember those differently colored rubber bracelets that were really popular back in the day? Well, Emma ends up taking her obsession with them a little too far when she agrees to hook up with Jay in his creepy van in exchange for a blue one. At first Emma is proud of what she's done, until she (and the entire school) finds out that Jay gave her gonorrhea. Yikes.

After being paralyzed, Jimmy has all but given up hope on anything working south of his waist. And then, the boner happens. We've never looked at gray sweatpants the same way again.

Before hitting the stage for the school's battle of the bands competition with her girl group, Hell Hath No Fury, Ashley finally gets revenge on Craig for cheating on her with their song "Mr. Nice Guy." If you didn't raise your fist in the air in solidarity, then WHO EVEN ARE YOU?

Emma gets her period for the first time at school while wearing a white skirt, resulting in her walking around school with a little bit of blood on her butt. After getting teased for it, Emma, a budding feminist, makes one hell of a speech taking down the stigma that surrounds women on their periods.

Marco (Adamo Ruggiero) tearfully comes out to Spinner, one of his closest friends, only to be met with disgust and bullying from him. Thankfully Jimmy later stands up to Spinner, and the friends reconcile.

In season 10, K.C. and Jenna find out that they're pregnant. Although they desperately want to keep their baby, they're just too young to handle it all, and end up having to give little Tyson up for adoption.

To quote Kelly Kapoor: Number one, how dare you, Degrassi writers? How are you just going to pair Emma and Spinner together when clearly Sean is her one true love? There's nothing we can do about it now, but we fully embrace the right to be bitter about the fact that Emma and Spinner get wasted and have a quickie marriage while visiting Niagara Falls one night, and then just decide, "Eh, why not be married forever now?" Sigh.

After Paige is raped, she decides to go after her attacker in court. Not only does actress Lauren Collins do an amazing job with this traumatic storyline, but the fact that she's unable to prove it happened in court adds a painfully realistic touch in this day and age.

Rick and Terri's abusive relationship comes to a head when he shoves her backwards and she cracks her head on a rock, goes into a coma, and is never heard from again. While we don't understand why Terri had to disappear from the show, we have to give props to Degrassi for showing the dangerous reality of what it's like to date someone physically abusive to their young viewers.

As an attempt to deal with her rough family life and alcoholic mother, Ellie turns to self-harm, and Paige eventually finds out. The show does a great job of showing how self-harm and mental illness can't just be swept under the rug with it popping up throughout the course of Ellie's time on the show.

To say that Clare (Aislinn Paul) has it rough is an understatement. In addition to weathering cheating boyfriends, her sister's suicide attempt, and a miscarriage (this is some Grey's Anatomy-level bad luck, we're telling you), she is diagnosed with cancer. It's awful.

Degrassi writers must have sat down one day and thought to themselves, "What eternally scarring thing can we whip up to rival Jimmy getting shot and paralyzed?" and then immediately have come up with this scene. J.T., one of the show's biggest characters, is stabbed to death by a Lakehurst student in the middle of Liberty's birthday party. Nope.com. Nope.org. Nope.gov.