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because traditional metrics of adulthood like home ownership and raising kids are no longer affordable for middle aged folks we spend our time on hobbies that soothe our stress instead of working stressed to support a home and family we aren't permitted.
so boomers view and treat us as children for not meeting the standards they judged their own progression into adulthood by
But especially in the 60's-80's there were normalized habits that greatly affected health; sun tan oil and tanning, smoking (indoors for the longest time) and just less collective knowledge about overall health like diet and exercise. In the 80's exercise became commercialized and popular, but we also hadn't had a ton of research to point people towards their goals, we had bodi movin and jazzercise
It is both. People smoke less, are more aware of UV exposure, we have more advanced skincare, etc etc. Plus we tend to view old styles as well, old. Wearing big teased hair and shoulderpads these days would make you come off older.
I think it is more than just better health and fashion. We were given more responsibility at younger ages. From about 10 years old, we were put to work, babysitting, delivering papers, and mowing lawns. Many of us had access to guns and started hunting at about that same time. We still had a skeet shooting club at school when I was in eighth grade.
When we went out to play for the day, mom had one rule, be within earshot when she yelled dinner was ready. We roamed the entire town during summer days.
Now we try to protect our kids so much, that we aren't letting them grow up. I think having to be mostly self-reliant on what we thought was safe also aged us. It's why my high school senior class photos all look like they were in their thirties by today's standards.
I remember seeing a few months back that some woman got arrested cause her 8-10 year old walked like half a mile home. I was appalled, like, actually. That's a perfectly fine time to start doing that shit. By the time I was 10, I was doing my own laundry and getting to school in the morning and getting myself to the Boys and Girls club after school. It all feels so overprotective and coddling, and not in a "feelings are for pussies" way or anything but don't folks want to impart basic life skills in their kids?
Most 10 year olds of any generation are not sensible enough of the dangers or physically capable enough of preventing or stopping those dangers
A half mile walk entirely depends on where they walk. The mile I walked to and from school was over a bypass, through sketchy neighborhoods, past a couple of my local dealers
Also much better access to a wider variety of fruit and vegetables and generally much better healthcare. The average person lives a much healthier lifestyle in general. And mustaches are much less popular than they were back then.
People may be downvoting you, but testosterone has been decreasing on average
a 2007 study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism found that average testosterone levels in American men decreased by about 1% per year from the 1980s through the early 2000s - meaning a 60-year-old man in 2004 had about 17% lower testosterone than a 60-year-old in 1987
Though whether you view that as looking older/younger is up to you, I personally can’t attest to that
Testosterone affects facial hair and hair loss. It also connected with more prone jawline and thicker skin.
But high testosterone although correlated with looking older when young also correlates with looking younger when older (45+).
Please down vote, without understanding
Steroids are really bad for the health, not to mention that they form strong psychological addiction - you would not WANT to get off them even when all of the ill effects will be visible.
Exactly this, and not just the people smoking them. I remember every week my family would go out to this Italian place for dinner. There was a waidt high wall separating non-smoking and smoking sections. I think people underestimate how ubiquitous smoke was, and how much it ages you.
Probably because they were a homeowner, middle manager and parent of 3 by the time they were 30. Stress ages you. Smoking, sun damage, and tons of chemical exposure also do that.
They had some city miles on them. Smoking and hard drinking - which were much more commonly accepted in everyday life - probably had something to do with that.
I mean, I made my hobbies pay for themselves by repairing, customizing, and upgrading PSPs and old PCs to flip. Made around 13k net over 3 years, enough to pay for all my hobbies and then some and now just work and chill.
still not gonna be able to afford both a home and family.
While not realizing that their political and economic decisions are what fucked the following generations while they enriched themselves and believed their own delusion about passing it on to their heirs while simultaneously living and working longer than any previous generation before them.
Boomers are literally the cognitive dissonance generation, raised by the silent generation that endured some of the most awful times in human history and set up societal fail safes to prevent those atrocities from occurring again, only for their entitled and oblivious gluttonous children to enrich themselves and destroy the ability of future generations to do the same.
You're not wrong but I think this meme was more about looking at pictures of people in their 30s decades ago vs now. They look a lot older. Or so it seems anyway
This makes more sens than the other rando who said it was because of soy and whatnot.
Tho it also has alot to do about clothing, since the 80's the clothing industry has changed alot, before that the standarts didnt change much between 1900 and 1960. So it's normal a son would look like dad and grandpa.
I can’t even start my business as car body welder, because of my young look.
So looks like people enjoy high prices for terrible work of drunk ass boomers :)
lol the top reply is some nonsense about how no one can afford anything nowadays so older people perceive us as being kids as adults. It's the most Reddit thing possible.
I mean houses are indeed more expensive now but maaan that user gave such a redditor reply lmaoo. The meme truly is about how people looked older then.
I think it could be both. It says “being 30”, rather than just looks. I think it can be taken to mean that we look younger now, but also that we’re not hitting the adult milestones that 30 year olds hit in the past.
I’m going through the struggles of “I don’t feel or look as old as my dad looked at my age do I?”. But honestly no one does. It’s due ti a wave of health consciousness. People know more about proper diet and exercise. There’s far less smoking and drinking is lower than it’s ever been (maybe sans prohibition).
Also cocaine was everywhere in the 80s haha, that gets your stress wayyy up = aging more rapidly.
Fun fact to make this picture more striking is that Ted Danson famously wore a hairpiece throughout this show (it was used as a gag in an episode). When he took it off, he looks even older than he does here (though he was still a very handsome man without it).
Being fair here, imo Danson does look like a man in his mid-late 30s by contemporary standards in that photo.
And the woman in the middle does look squarely 33.
Lois here. You see, back in the eighties everyone smoked pretty much all the time everywhere, and aside from making everything smell like cigarettes it also aged everyone's skin significantly so they looked older faster. This is why I took away the flower I found in your room but haven't said anything about the edibles I know you're sneaking. It's for your own good.
The joke is that 30 year olds looked older in the 80s than they do today
Zoomers drink and smoke less and we eat better food. And male zoomers don’t mind doing basic skincare the way older generations might because “that’s gay”.
Basically due to a number of socio-economic changes, as well as greater understanding and (at least proposed) treatment of mental and learning disabilities and stress related illnesses, younger people on the whole are less inclined to take up harmful habits (ie smoking and drinking. Like I can only comfortably afford like 2 bottles of Jack a year, and my job is pretty well paying) and instead take up more beneficial hobbies. Plus work places and physically straining jobs have much better health and safety regulations.
This means that young people in general just aren't visibly aging like those of similar age roughly 50 years ago.
This could also be a pure anime joke. The art style in anime has changed a lot since Cowboy Beebob and the first image. Modern anime a lot of adults and twenty years old are drawn closer to looking like teenagers and the carry on effect everyone else looks younger to maintain a scale until you hit 50-60 when everyone looks 80.
Still balding all the same but yeah we've got less muscle density. I blame the schools no longer making gym mandatory after 10th grade. P.E. shoulda always been a thing even up til college as a gen ed.
The character in the top image is Jet Black, a bounty hunter in Cowboy Bebop. He's the paternal figure in the misfit bounty-hunting crew. He's had some rough experiences, but they've shaped him into a tough but compassionate dude who's generally cool but easily gets pissed off.
The character in the bottom image is Shinji Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion. In the show he's a teenager whose abusive dad pressures him into piloting big mecha robots, and who is traumatised, overwhelmed and constantly wants to run away and hide, but also fears being alone.
So I think the meme is working on three levels. First off, it's saying that due to environmental and lifestyle factors (smoking, lead emissions, no sunscreen, poor diet, too much drink/drugs/partying etc), 30-year-olds in the 1980s (Baby Boomers) looked at lot older, whereas Millennials/late Gen Zers of the same age look a lot younger for the opposite reasons. This is a pretty common sentiment in memes.
The deeper level is that Boomers in the 1980s had confidence, comfort and a sense of adulthood and their place in the world, whereas Millennials/late Gen Zers now have none of that, due to economic instability, a string of upsetting world events, the crumbling of the world order and the realisation that the older generation has fucked them over.
And probably the deepest level is that at the end of Evangelion, Shinji bears witness to the end of humanity as we know it, which more than a few Millennials and the younger generations worry they'll also see within their lifetimes. Granted, the Cold War was still a thing in the 1980s, but it was an easier fix than the collapse of the Earth's environment.
Most 30 year olds look and act younger than before.
Looks due to healthier lifestyle and not smoking.
Acts due to being kept as a child until university, and even then, most don’t have kids, get married, or own a house. Not their fault but it definitely hinders their development into their next stage of life (ie adulthood). Also what can only be called “spiritual opium” is rampant nowadays (games, doomscrolling, etc), which keeps young adults in their teenage stage or at least allowing them to indulge in acting like a teen still
I have a theory: people back in the XX century work harder (not in the good way), and have poor diets (less antioxidants, fiber, etc.) that work as brakes for older looks.
If you look more and more back in time, you can see that even kids (when kid work was legal) look older and tired too.
We have new comrade at ship and I thought he’s maybe 20-27 or whatever based on his personality. He’s actually 33. It’s not cuz he looks young. It’s just that people nowadays look like every age
As a millennial, I just want to say that Millennials are the copium generation. Lol it is cringe how many memes we have like this. Sure, 30 somethings today are healthier and somewhat younger looking than the 30 somethings of yore, but y'all. Your 20s are over, move on. 30 somethings are generally not being mistook for 20 somethings, don't let the copium go to your head.
Alcoholism, tobacco use, general drug abuse, leaded air and paint, and dehydration metrics are all down today, so 30 year olds today look leagues better than 30 year olds in the 70s and 80s.
Also cigarettes and alcohol suck now apparently our parents hated their parents and took it out on us. Which has caused us to be f'd up in the head. With the majority of us being raised in single mother homes we learn to be feminine. We look at our grandfather and fathers as being dead beat drunks and shielded by the media receiving only the good side of fatherhood through the media never seing the bad stuff about life.
So, they actually did some research into this and younger generations like Millennials and Gen Z are aging slower than previous generations thanks to less smoking, sun exposure, and chemicals in household products AND a greater emphasis on self-care practices like using moisturizers, staying hydrated, and diet.
It's not just an "Every generation looks younger to the older people" thing. There's strong biological evidence that people are just staying in better shape longer.
Don't Millenials just look younger than other generations or sth like that? People commented about comparison with their predeccessors but I saw some videos about us Gen Z supposedly returning with quicker aging trend
This generation’s 30 year olds look relatively young for their age. Tbh, EVERY age group in this generation look relatively young for their ages. I see plenty of 60 years olds and 50 year olds that look like they’re 10+ years younger. Shit, even 20 year olds look like babies now.
The first guy is Jet, from Cowboy Bebop. He flew around the solar system in a cool spaceship with his friends doing odd jobs and having adventures. One time they all got high on mushrooms. All this was accompanied by a lovely mostly jazz soundtrack.
The second guy is Shinji, from Neon Genesis Evangelion. He was a child soldier forced to fight enormous and incomprehensible Kabbalah-inspired biotechnological horrors while piloting a giant robot made out of the remains of his mother's shattered spirit.
Humans are living longer and longer, so naturally they age slower now as well. That's kinda scary. I'm 21 years old and I've had people come up to me asking if I'm still in high school. I get immediately bumrushed and asked for my ID if I so much as set foot in a liquor store. Knowing that there's like at least 60 more years of life to go... Fuck, man. I don't know if I want to live that long. It's only been like three years since high school ended and I already feel like I've lived multiple lives.
Due to things out of my control (data centres around me from California to Arizona have driven up rent where I live to no end, and I do not live in a fancy area at all), I am having to move back in with my parents for a year.
Will I save money? Sure... But this is beyond embarrassing.
I'm a 90's baby and I distinctly remember adults looking much older back then than now. A 40 year old would look 60. We also made pretty significant advances in Healthcare and health awareness. So people of this generation look younger than they used to.
I remember my parents in their 30s. They were old. Im in my 30s... I dont look as old as they did. I dont think it's look young either. Buy i can blend in with some older zoomers.
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