you may not know this, or you may not have made the connection yet, but we are proud daughters of the 2000s superstar, gwen stefani.
to be fair, we haven't actually had the confirmation come through yet. we have always been waiting for, ever since we could remember, the moment for our mom to sit us down at the age of eighteen and tell us of her secret identity. that has yet to happen. maybe she just thinks we're not old enough yet?? that seemed to always happen in the early 2000s show, where this concept is heavily inspired by. anyway, just like how we knew michael from princess diaries was the lead singer (robert schwartzman) of the band rooney, who so kindly sings one of our favorite songs ("when did your heart go missing"), we know deep down that our mom is gwen stefani.
for all of you who are reading this, thinking that this is some joke, it's not. we have believed this since we were able to form a thought, and we still believe this to this day. and even after our mom has repeatedly told us that she is not gwen stefani and would never marry blake shelton, we still stand by our factual theory.
when we say "our mom is gwen stefani", usually with some bravado and a lot of our aries confidence, most people assume we mean that they look alike. to be fair to our theory, this would be true, but, as we see it, the similarities are closest with their general vibe and coolness. (plus, our mom, *the one who is denying the gwen-connecton*, is trying to obviously hide her identity, so trying to not look like the known-gwen is understandable.)
like stated above, we've been studying this ever since we could form a thought. from a very early age, we were introduced to the glorious media format that are music videos. our love from them went way beyond just being mindless entertainment for babies. and it was here that we were introduced to gwen stefani. we watched "now that you got it", "rich girl", "the sweet escape", "what you waiting for?", "what you waiting for? the extended version, "wind it up", "4 in the morning", and, of course, "luxurious". we also viewed the hits during her no doubt days with "it's my life", "just a girl", and "simple kind of life". we watched these videos over and over and over and over. we watched them a lot!! and it was here that we first made the connection - though, it was more like a keen, gut feeling. our first look at gwen, and it was, BOOM, amanda gibby peters!! (that's our mom's name, if you didn't know,....or maybe her cover-up name).
the most compelling evidence in our young brains was the physical complexion similarities. it may not be tit-for-tat to you, but we've seen more agp, than y'all, so you're just gonna have to trust us it's there. nonetheless, like we said above with the 'vibe', the most prominent comparison is gwen and our mom's attitude. besides just having that cool, hipster-ness going for them (specifically the early 2000s kind - not today's "hipster" of "i read books at coffee shops, know where all the good places to eat are, and collect vinyls" - like the one that truly meant you were just cool, because you were cool), our mom definitely is the one to have been tom-boy-ish to hang with the boys but popular enough to glam up and lamb it out, going all hollaback and luxurious. primarily, we know this to be true, because our mom is the definition of cool. she just always has been and always will be. plus, we don't know what our mom was like in high school, but, from what she's told us and from what we can put together, she was a bad b!tch, so, truly, "hollaback girl" is so not far fetched. however, kids are not always the brightest.
what made this factual theory of ours "unbelievable" - or, at least, "unprovable" - in our youthful eyes, was the fact that our mom was not blonde. of course, if she were trying to hide her true identity this would make sense, so we just thought of it as a hannah montana sitch. that was until, year and years later, we stumbled across this music video.....
for the life of us, we do not know why we never watched this video as kids. it was probably because our parents never bought it, and we never asked if "cool" had a music video. you know, how kids are very surface-level humans. that's not the point, though. our dad freakin' loves this song, and one night we wanted to watch this music video (a part of our early 2000s music video throwback watch party). the video is outstandingly standing-ovation-worthy, and the editing was 😘😘😘😘!! yet, the first thing we did when we watched this was turn to one another with serious eyes. the dialogue went something like this:
ANNIE
gwen stefani is so mom!!
KATIE
yeah!! yo, if we saw this when we were young, this wouldn't have helped our cause. i would've been totally convinced mom was gwen stefani!!
ANNIE
ohmygosh, yes!! mom is so gwen stefani!!
it's actually pretty funny, looking at it now, how the soul reason that makes our mom gwen stefani is because of her undeniable, genuine coolness, and the music video that finally disproved our one flaw in our theory was the music video for "cool".
so, gwen stefani is a brunette. we bet you still have some questions about this, which is okay, since you haven't grown up with her as your mom. you see, for us and like everyone, the early 2000s was a time warp of an era where people had very different personalities than they do today, simply because you could in the double 'o's. owing to this behavior, we see our mom in two lights, and we're going to explain those to you.
in order to respect her privacy, we won't go out and explain all the o.g. 'mandy' stories from her youth. that's for her to tell you, if you are lucky. yet, to still keep you in the loop, we will simplify the basics. our mom was brought up in san angelo, texas. for those who don't know where or what that is, it's the tough-crowd of texas. if someone tells you that they are from san angelo, that means they aren't ones to mess with. for our mom, it's the same. our mom went to two high schools. lakeview and central. she transferred over to central, because of some pretty messed-up bullying. we told you, it's the tough-crowd. anyway, after her transfer, our mom was done being messed with. she became mean (her words, not ours). this is what we see as the no doubt and "hollaback girl" era. this would continue on throughout college and her days in dc. also to our mom's cred, she was wicked smart. we mean, she still is. she has a masters in communication, and basically can put anyone in check. hence, the "hollaback girl" era (no doubt - specifically being high school - and hollaback being college+)
the second version of our mom is, yes, the early 2000s one. the mom we know personally. we cannot account for high school & college time, due to our lack of birth. but, after we were born we got to meet the more glam and the sweet escape era. again, we don't know how to stress this enough without sounding egotistical and annoying, but our mom is someone that everyone wants to be. she is literally, l i t e r a l l y the coolest person you will ever get the honor to meet. and she truly, t r u l y doesn't have to try. her coolness is natural. it just is. and you can sense it when you see her. growing up, our mom was always effortlessly chic and sophisticated, and totally given off the sweet escape vibes. she totally wore that black turtle neck (like the one that's in the bottom left photo below) and couldn't be caught without her red lips (like the bottom right photo below). at home, she was more chill and gave off the ambience of the top photos below. she was more focused on being our mom, but always managed to be cosmopolitan, which was kinda hard not to admire and (sometimes) envy.
if you have just read the two paragraphs above and still don't see it, maybe it's just because we know our mom more, and her personality bleeds into her physical appearance when we look at her, making her more similar to gwen stefani to us than others. all we know is taking this up with us would be dangerous. you would be in the "danger zone". and for our mom aka gwen stefani, it's better than debby gibson, ay??
to end, here are some photos of our lovely mother throughout the years.
HOLD UP??
⬇️
LOOK AT THIS!!
this is the first time we are seeing this comparison. 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯
this is over.
we are vindicated.
goodbye and have a good day.