Current Youth Trends That I, As a Withered Old Crone of 23, Am Too Old To Understand
Hello, loves! It's TKOG over from Not That Kind Of Girl, absolutely thrilled to accept a posish as Secret Society of List Addicts' new contributing Wednesday writer! Being all Web 2.0 and twitterific, I occasionally find myself getting puffed up with the technological know-how and hubris of youth -- then I accidentally call a DVD player a VCR and a four-year-old is like, "wtf, n00b?" and, uh, I guess what I'm saying is, without further ado, here are some:
Current Youth Trends That I, As a Withered Old Crone of 23, Am Too Old To Understand
The Jonas Brothers. It's so cute how they taught those embryos to hold guitars!
Tumblr. So it's like a blog, but ... nobody can comment? And you repost other people's entries? And entries are legally required to be 75% song lyrics? Fine, but why do they scroll horizontally instead of vertically?!
Autoerotic Asphyxiation. Okay, technically adults do it too, but this trend is so popular on MySpace that it's about three months away from being the subject of the next Disney Channel Original Movie. Why don't kids these days masturbate like we did back in the day? Furtively and shamefully.
Skinny jeans on dudes. Look, I know you kids are too young to have to start worrying about infertility, but just remember what happened to Chandler and Monica on -- oh dang. You guys don't know what Friends is either, do you?
I give up. Class dismissed. Just stay the heck off my lawn. For extra credit, though, what youth trends confuse and disturb you fellow sticks-in-the-mud? Or are you guys hipper than me and actually like these things? Discuss in the comments.
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29 comments:
Hilarious
Now I feel even older. I tried to think of some youth trends I hate and I realized I don't even know what the kids are doing these days...I figured I had a while to go before I reached this point.
Does 10 year olds dressing like tarty little whores count? Because I cannot abide that.
Oh I know! The sneakers on wheels thing. I still see kids/tweens gliding around on those. I just don't get it. I remember when Roller Blades became The Thing.
'Shortening' words via text speak but using the same number of letters - what is the point?! You're not saving space, just confusing people!!! Actually text speak in general pretty much goes over my head, it seems to be the domain of 14 year olds and parents that are trying to hard... Why bother?!
x
http://sparklesmiledance.blogspot.com
I'm 25, so a bit older than you, but here are trends I do not understand:
1. The Twilight series
2. American Apparel
3. Skinny jeans on anyone. Granted, they look really good on some people. I'm just obsessive about comfort and fail to see how those jeans are comfy on anyone.
4. Starbucks
5. Any kind of diet/weight-loss trend
tYp!nG lyKe ThIS oN Fac3bo0k. I fear that at 29 I sound a little like my Grandmum here, but why do kids these days go out of their way to bastardize the our language? It takes longer to type and read, and it is essentially the internet's version of a dunce cap. Anyone partaking in such lunacy should be banned from the internet until they can properly work a keyboard.
Brilliant list - made me laugh out loud! Completely agree with the Twilight series and TyPiNG LiKe THiS....it drives me mad (at the old old age of 22!)
My youngest sister is fifteen. She has embraced the pantsless trend obviously, but she also wears OnePiece suits. They must be seen to be believed: http://www.onepiece.no/index.php?cPath=136
She and the kids she hangs out with wear these baby-like clothes to school! A one-piece is probably the least sexy thing you could possibly wear, and while I guess I'm glad that my little sister isn't dressing to look sexy at school, you would think she would want to look attractive.
Anyone else creeped out by Miley Cyrus and her man-voice and her pole-dancing antics on whatever-the-hell-awards-show-that-was? Yeah, I don't get it.
Great post. :)
HOLY BALLS, Julie, seriously with the one-piece things? It looks like a color-block shirt and footie pajamas mated and had a horrible love child. Bleh!
Adding extra letters to your text or facebook status:
"Cheyenne Darling is superrrrrr exxxxxxcited about seeing her swwwwwwwwweetie today!"
Just stop.
Also, the duck-kissy face thing that alot of girls do in their profile pictures. Is that attractive?
I can get behind Tumblr, cus for the most part it's photo based.
Let's ban: Tights/Leggings as pants, the aforementioned duck kissy face and extra letters in their Facebook statuses, and the way these kids on Facebook like to mutilate the English Language. Holy crap! I can't read half the sh!t they say.
Brilliant.
Oh my - yes, that duck kissy face!!! I wouldn't have known what to call it - but that's totally it! It makes the girls look all smug and self-important. HATE IT!
And maybe this is too general, but the fact that these kids never notice the world around them because they're eyes and thumbs are attached to some random electronic device. Texting has gotten completely out of hand. But then again, I'm nearing 40, and it takes me 10 minutes to text anything to anyone!
Totally followed/stalked you here from your blog! And I agree with you on autoerotic asphyxiation, though that one's been going on for a hella long time. I saw the movie the Notorious Bettie Page where the Senate hearings blame BDSM photos for a kid who hanged himself to death by accident.
Also, autoerotic asphyxiation figures in one of my fave detective novels of all time--an Unsuitable Job for a Woman.
I'll be sure to check back every Wednesday for more of your lists--love anything you have to say!
As a seventeen year old who does none of the so called terrible, terrible things mentioned above, I submit to you:
Sometime during the 1950s, teenage culture began to emerge as a separate group, a bridge between children and adults.
But I'm assuming you don't disapprove of rock music.
And I'm also assuming that at least some of you wore acid wash jeans and too much hairspray.
And that is a glorious, wonderful thing!
So please: leave the youth of today alone. I promise we will eventually wear suits and get respectable jobs, all the while looking down on the trends of our children.
Ah, I am vouching for the skinny jeans and tights/pants... they are so comfy! I was totally in the other camp until my conversion. Now I live in skinny jeans.
A trend that also confuses me is a game my friend and I call 'Hobo or Hipster'. You see a guy from far away and think he might be cute, but then closer up you see that he is a homeless man! I know this shows some of my weakness for hipster men.
There are some Tumblr's that I follow, but the people who use them I have found think that 'any image on the internet is free for anyone to use'. I don't have a problem with format, just the complete lack of credit given to the artist/photographer/magazine/etc
It's o.k, I'm 14 and I don't get it either! Maybe I just grew old before my time....
Being 22 and slightly hipster-ish, I get (and love) the skinny jeans, both on girls and guys, and the jonas brothers are enjoyable in a weak moment (but then, hanson IS my favorite band) but the others... not so much. I text like the rest of them, but hate the lack of actual communication (as well as the butchering of the English language, as so many others have mentioned).
I laughed out loud at the Jonas Brothers comment and then cringed at the fact that I am more enthused by 90210 at 30 than I was at Beverly Hills 90210 as a tween/teenager in the early nineties.
I'm sorry...
I'm also 23 and don't understand Tumblr, either! So glad you addressed this.
Another thing I don't understand: how looking dirty, like actually filthy, is a cool style. I work at an art school and the hip thing here is to have your clothes covered with dirt and filth. Ummm...what am I missing.
Man, I didn't even know about this strangling thing. What??? And, man, I had forgotten about AOL chat rooms and how popular they used to be! I remember my dad blocking my AIM as punishment, but I'd invite my friends into chat rooms as a loophole. LOL!
I'm not really a part of the current teen world, but there's a lot of childhood trends that I don't get... like this animated stuffed pets... and those little stuffed animals they dress? Are those like Beanie Babies???
Well I am a teen but I don;t understand these either
Lady Gaga and leotards
Leggings without a shirt that covers your butt
Shortening words like ridiculous to ridic
text speak in real life omg jk
uggs with northfaces and jeans
jonas brothers, miley cyrus
texting every waking minute
Oh my gosh, I just read all these comments and was laughing out loud! I want to hug all of you guys! Especially those who commented on the duck-kissy-face! Dang, dudes, that didn't even occur to me, but the second y'all said it, I DIED. 'cause one generally sees that face in a myspace profile, accompanied with some nonsensical caption like: "idk,r?" Lordy.
(Also, to Anonymous, who reminded us that we all participated in our own youth trends: I totally feel that. I'm not so much speaking out about these particular trends as bemourning the fact that I'm getting to the age where I no longer do things that others find bewildering. Enjoy your strange, enigmatic youth and all the dumb duck-kissy-facing it brings!)
So please: leave the youth of today alone. I promise we will eventually wear suits and get respectable jobs, all the while looking down on the trends of our children.
I don't understand youth culture, but I do not wear suits and I hope to never have a respectable job, whatever that is . . . .
As a 20 year old, I'm totally with you on all of these things! Jonas Brothers ain't got shit on Hanson.
I hate Heelies, those stupid shoes with wheels. (We called those roller skates in my day!) I got way too much pleasure the day I was at work and this little boy came in crying because he'd wiped out on them. Damn shoes.
i dont get the skinny jeans either, i have a kid that walks down my street from high school and he wears pink washed, skinny pants, and sags them...
I like a good pair or jeans that fit, but how do these kids even get into these jeans? are they shrink wrap?
I agree with pretty much all of TKOG's list and as a young-ish person of 25 I find myself more and more everyday slightly perplexed by the kids these days.
I don't understand how or why wearing fur and taxidermy became cool (again?)....wtf?
I don't understand hip hop/rap anymore at all and for the matter, all the pop music I hear makes me cringe more than ever.
Who said leggings qualify as pants?
When did looking like a major nerd (unicorn tees?!neon?!) become the fashion statement of choice?
I also don't understand the use of non-words like "prolly" used in real face to face conversation. I actually have to answer to a 20 year old manager who speaks like this on a regular basis...why?!
Hahah! Being a girl of 17, this made me laugh a lot :) I love the way you write, btw. Oh! And do give Tumblr a try, it took me a while too. But if you take time to discover the website, you'll fall in love with it :)
hi
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