Blink-182: All the Big Ways ‘All the Small Things’ Still Resonates 25 Years Later
As pop culture convention ‘90s Con took over Florida last September, two of the decade’s biggest musical stars, NSYNC’s Joey Fatone and Backstreet Boys’ AJ McLean, joined forces to belt out their biggest hits. But the energy buzzing through Tampa Theatre exploded as they burst into Blink-182’s “All the Small Things.” Jumping around like raging teens, it was a full-circle moment for Fatone and McLean, who 24 years earlier were being parodied by Tom DeLonge, Mark Hoppus, and Travis Barker in Blink’s music video.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, covering your imitators is a whole other level of adulation. And Fatone and McLean aren’t the only ones—98 Degrees, another ‘90s pop act among those Blink parodied in “ATST”—have also covered the track.
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It’s just one testament to the enduring resonance of “All the Small Things,” as the song and video mark their 25th anniversary. Written about DeLonge’s then-girlfriend Jennifer Jenkins, the track was released as the second single from 1999’s Enema of the State. The anthem climbed the charts globally, while its video became a ‘90s time capsule.
Producing couple Shirley Moyers and AJ Schnack and director Marcos Siega were fresh from Blink’s “What’s My Age Again?” video when they were brought on-board for “ATST.” A rock fan with his own band, Siega wasn’t into pop, but couldn’t escape videos like Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way” and *NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye” on MTV. “They were all doing the same thing—selling a product,” he tells SPIN. “That was our job, and it was the peak of boy-band videos, which seemed prime for parody. We weren’t attacking them but acknowledging how huge they were. They infiltrated every corner of pop culture.”
Blink didn’t jump at the idea. “I remember Mark saying, ‘I don’t think this is funny,’” recalls Siega. “And when I told Tom, ‘You’re gonna run down the beach with a dog chasing you’ [parodying Britney Spears’ “Sometimes” video], he went, ‘I don’t get it.’ The biggest challenge was getting them to understand what they were making fun of. They were hesitant. We had to really rehearse those dance sequences.”
That choreography came courtesy of Donielle Artese, whose brief entailed a “cheeky, campy” boy-band spoof and referenced mimic-style moves like New Edition speaking on the phone in “Mr. Telephone Man.” “So, when he sings ‘carry me home,’ I had him pretending to carry a baby,” laughs Artese. “They were the boy band of rock and were all fresh—not tattooed up like Travis now—so it was also a play on them looking like a boy band.”
Their style, however, wasn’t as clean-cut. Transforming the San Diego rockers into pop heartthrobs was the job of Jeanne Yang, now known for styling Keanu Reeves and George Clooney. In pre-social media days, music videos were Yang’s fashion bible, so she knew all the pop clips but also wanted to ensure the wardrobe had Blink’s spin on it—hence skater touches like DeLonge sporting a checkered durag instead of the black hat McLean wears in “I Want It That Way.”
“They lived in cut-off Dickies, Vans, and Hurley, so to put on a long, fancy coat and get into character was so fun for them,” Yangs recalls about the “outrageous” costume fitting. “I was peeing my pants laughing. The guys got really into it. Mark was most enthusiastic and kept pushing things. During the white [Backstreet Boys] outfits [scenes], he took everything off and went, ‘I’m just gonna be in my underwear.’”
Add Moyers: “Mark was in his underwear, dancing in the airport—it’s ludicrous! Marcos didn’t have the guys go outside their natural tendencies. Sometimes a label’s pushing someone a certain way and they look uncomfortable, but the sensibilities of Marcos’ concept matched what they were comfortable with. They enjoyed themselves.”
Premiering on 20 September 1999, the video was a hit, even with those it mocked. 98 Degrees, whose “I Do (Cherish You)” and “Because of You” videos were parodied, feels “ATST” is part of their history. It’s why they love covering the track.
“It’s a flagship Total Request Live song, and TRL played a huge part in breaking 98 Degrees,” says band member Jeff Timmons. “To be mocked by Blink-182 added to making us ‘official,’ and we thought the parody was hilarious. We loved when they mocked the tattoo!”
As for boy-band followers, a video that had potential to alienate them saw many discovering EOTS and becoming lifelong fans. Never was that more apparent than onboard New Kids on the Block’s 2023 fan cruise. During an album-cover theme night, “Blockheads” came dressed as Mariah Carey, Madonna, and other mainstream legends, but amid them was a surprising dominance of the nurse from EOTS’s cover.
Cruiser Nicole Valiente, who dressed as the nurse, says the image represents her entry into lifelong Blink fandom. After hearing “ATST,” EOTS became a “poignant, on-repeat” album and she loved the “ATST” video. “I thought, ‘Thank god someone else notices the cheese of this genre.’ It made me love them more,” she says.
Porn star Janine Lindemulder provocatively donned a nurse’s uniform and blue glove for the cover. Photographer David Goldman, who captured the image, was thrilled to land his first album shoot, but he panicked as Blink arrived announcing a title change.
“The album was [initially] called Turn Your Head and Cough, and usually if the doctor says that they’re holding your nuts and seeing if you have a hernia. That was the idea behind the nurse and glove,” says Goldman. “Then they changed the name and I thought, ‘Fuck, I’m not sure this makes sense now.’ But it made as much sense as anything else!”
Goldman pocketed around $5,000 for the gig and never fathomed that, 25 years later, people would be sending him videos of a man painting the cover on a New York sidewalk. “I didn’t talk about it for a long time because I’m a documentary photographer now, and if I’m shooting for human trafficking in India, it doesn’t have any bearing. But I’ve realized how lucky I am to have a piece of work like that. Most photographers never have that.”
With so many fans recreating Goldman’s cover shot, there’s social media tutorials on achieving the look. “ATST” has meanwhile generated 52,000+ TikTok videos and other parodies, and 48-year-old Barker’s wife, Kourtney Kardashian, even reenacted a scene (showing a fan holding a “Travis, I’m pregnant” sign) to reveal her pregnancy at Blink’s L.A. concert in 2023. As for “WMAA?” The video’s been recreated by bands and by Blink themselves with 2016’s “She’s Out of Her Mind.”
It’s not just EOTS’s songs and videos that have retained their place in pop culture. Yang notes how, whether they were sitting on a toilet or rolling around the sand with daisies in “ATST,” Blink tapped into the same humor and preposterousness underlying today’s viral content.
“If you look on TikTok, that humor’s what goes viral. It’s about making fun of yourself or pointing out things you find humorous. Marcos pinpointed cultural touchpoints, and that’s what makes people laugh today—pointing out parts of our culture and taking it to the extreme. Blink didn’t take themselves seriously, which is what we see in short-form content now.”
Ultimately, Siega had the same goal as much of today’s content—creating something kids would talk about at school the next day. What he didn’t imagine was that, 25 years later, his own 11-year-old son would be asking to attend Blink’s tour behind One More Time—their first album since DeLonge, 48, returned to the band and Hoppus, 52, overcame cancer.
The project’s title single spawned the trio’s first entry into Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart. They’ve since released deluxe edition One More Time … Part-2, with eight new songs – two of which hit the Billboard top 10 following a double single release. But it’s a new generation of pop-punk lovers, like Siega’s son, who some argue are taking over their fandom.
As younger fans bolster Blink’s following, “ATST,” which has surpassed 1 billion Spotify streams, continues to inspire newer acts. L.A.’s Beauty School Dropout grew up listening to Blink and never dreamed they’d get to work with Hoppus, who signed the group to Verswire—a venture capital-style artist incubator that he formed with Veeps co-founder Sherry Saeedi, music manager Nick Lippman, and Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz.
Bassist Brent Burdett says “ATST” was one of the first songs he learned for the backyard barbecues his band Wedgie played when he was 8. “Blink and Enema are the reason I play the way I do,” says Burdett, 27. “My friends and I would learn whole Blink albums before rehearsals. We even tried to replicate the banter from The Mark, Tom, and Travis Show. I don’t think I’d be the musician I am today without Mark and Blink.”
Working with Hoppus has further stamped Blink’s legacy onto BSD. “When we write together it’s a whirlwind of cracking jokes in-between every serious idea,” says Burdett. “We have super-immature humor, and whether Mark’s with us or not, we carry the Blink energy throughout BSD.”
The music, humor, and artist influence of EOTS aren’t the only remnants of the era prevalent today. Yang points out how the paperbag pants and crop tops her daughters wear are what she was sourcing for “ATST.” However, one wardrobe item was harder to find: the nude-colored G-strings the guys wore while racing down the beach. The scene was a nod to their “WMAA?” video, where they ran around L.A. naked. Luckily, Yang had thongs leftover from “WMAA?,” having scoured a Hollywood men’s stripper shop for them.
“The guys went, ‘Wait, we’re wearing what?’” she recalls, of presenting the thongs at the “WMAA?” fitting. “Mark and Travis were like, ‘What did we get ourselves into?’”
Artese was instructed not to tell dancers about the nude stunt. “I said, ‘They’ll be doing light tricks. No matter what happens, keep dancing.’ They kept dancing, but their faces were priceless.”
“It was startling seeing them running down Third St.,” adds Moyers. “Then they ran [fully] naked down Flores St. They had to!”
Siega says parodying “WMAA?” in “ATST” was an acknowledgement that Blink were “just as culpable as boy bands” for trying to sell a product. Reflecting on his time with the group, he considers such music videos to be “film school,” preparing him for working on movies and shows like Dexter and You.
The others also carried all the big lessons of “ATST” with them. Artese says she choreographed the late Prince’s 21-night L.A. run and is now acting, while Yang has dressed Hollywood’s hottest stars. “I got my 10,000 hours in working music videos. They gave me the knowledge which made it easy when I then had to dress Brad Pitt for Ocean’s Twelve. The only difference was I was used to having $1,500 per person, not $15,000!”
As for Moyers, she and Schnack moved into documentary work with their production company Bonfire Films of America. She fondly follows Blink and was devastated hearing about Barker’s plane crash and Hoppus’ cancer battle (which prompted another “ATST” recreation).
“I’d just come through breast cancer, so my heart ached for him. When you’ve seen their wonderful spirit, you become invested. You’re rooting for them.”
“I could say ‘ATST’ still means so much because it’s a catchy song or because the ‘90s are back so hard my daughter just took a college class in them. But why it still resonates for me is because life can be harsh—as evidenced by their personal stories—yet here they are touring and triumphing with the same youthful joy, ridiculousness, and cleverness they had in that video. They’ve matured but still hold that spirit within themselves and their performances, and it’s even more touching now they’ve gone through hardship. It’s lovely seeing the joy we captured in that moment still evident as they’re out there rocking today.”
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