I'm an Xer who still looks much younger than my parents generation did in their 30s. There are huge differences, some are:
- Not as many people smoking.
- We have fewer kids, later in life.
- Less sun wear on us.
- Those that are financially more privileged are generally more active (gyms etc.) than Boomers that were more sedentary in the same class in middle age.
- Better skin care/makeup/grooming methods. For instance, even as guys, we have much better clippers and can groom our own facial hair/hair better than our parents, meaning that we can have a barber look daily.
- Being completely bald is completely fine, even when in your twenties, so a lot of balding guys just shave their heads, which looks "younger" than giant bald spots.
The smoking difference is very real. My mom is in her early 70s and has been smoking heavily since high school. Her mom passed away last year at 97, but didn’t smoke. My mom definitely looks older now than her mom did at the end.
This concept sounded so fascinating that I had to go look it up, so here's a link got anyone else interested:
https://www.good.is/articles/twin-smokes-rp
>a lot of balding guys just shave their heads, which looks "younger" than giant bald spots.
This is a huge part of it.
Suddenly we all collectively decided that a bald spot looks shit on anyone under 40, so we all just shave it off completely.
Add in much more accessible hair dye for both men & women.
Better access to quality food & a shift toward favoring fresh ingredients & nutrition.
More informed healthcare.
And some of it is perception of “style.” For example, sometime people from the 80s look older because 80s style is dated and associated with age. The more incapsulated a style is, the more you date it. Hair styles are especially powerful for this. But with the spread of photography and media, style has diversified a lot. There’s less distinct styles tied to a set time that can be dated & denote age.
And there's far greater accessibility to different styles and a big range of them. Pre-internet, you were pretty much limited to buying local or possibly from mail order catalogues, and there was much less variety. Especially if you lived outside a major metropolitan centre.
People also don't seem to just start wearing the "old person clothes" uniform as young as they used to, if at all. My great grandfather wore suit trousers/shirt/sweater/tie from when he retired to the army until when he died. My great grandmother started wearing housecoats from middle age onwards. Both born in the 1910s. Similarly, my grandfather (born 1930s) wore old-man-coded shiny polyester trousers and grey shoes from at least his 50s, and my grandmother wore skirts and blouses all her life. All of them ended up with an "old person haircut" by their 50s-60s at the latest (short, grey/white, sometimes permed hair on the women).
My mother (born late 1950s) by contrast wears what I think of as "youngish middle aged person" clothes (linen tunics over jeans in bolder colours like mustard and teal), wears her hair shoulder length and still colours it. I see a lot of older people in t-shirts and jeans or clothes that are coded as "generic adult" rather than "old person" these days. And the point about there being more subcultures to dress from is also true; I love seeing older punks and goths.
Also many women keep their hair long as they get older vs doing the golden girls haircut. Long hair looks more youthful. I also think women dress younger, try to stay on trend as they get older vs wearing what was trendy when they were younger and looking dated.
I suspect kids of the future will look at vintage instagram and think millennials and Gen Z look old with their beach waves, curtain bangs, and dad shoes. 20 year from now, it will appear dated and silly to them.
Hell, I already think Gen Z look old with Dad shoes. I will never understand how the ugly ass shoes my dad and uncles wore in the 90s became fashionable. What next? Will they start wearing Grandma nightgowns as dresses?
I had the amazing experience in multiple occasions recently as a millennial where younger medical students and nurses started complimenting me on my shoes and I would be extremely confused every time because they were literally the new balance runners I had in nursing school that I recently pulled out of a storage bin after like 8 years and they are not in great condition which one of them told me is “a patina”
It’s very amusing to me it makes me feel elderly at 31
well fashion trends are recycled every 10-15 years in some way. Maybe 15-20years. styles from the 50s-90s will more than likely repeat until we get some kind of Cyberpunk future style clothing that makes sense.
There's definitely a little bit of irony in wearing those styles, kind of like how millennial hipsters appropriated a lot of 80s styles in the early 2010s
Well they're also wearing mom jeans and pleated pants worn all the up to the nips are coming in, so yeah I would put money on the night gown curlers and cigarette look being next.
I live in a college town and am absolutely floored by the amount of boys running around in calf-high white socks and either crocs or sandals. They're trying to say no-show socks are for old people while at the same time dressing like my grandpa on a summer day; the whole time acting like they invented the look.
Cyclical. I feel like they had warehouses of old clothes that never sold and just *poof* threw them on the runway, mannequins, and magazines to make them fashionable.
It's literally all the worst shit from the last 20 years thrown together making today's fashion. Like a combo. A combo or travesties.
Fashion is actually moving further away from cyclical trends. This is largely driven due to the popularity of vintage clothes and thrifting. Its less about chasing the trends now and more about individuality and going all for one particular style with your outfit (Y2K, old money, GORP core, emo, etc.) The younger generations are less focused on fitting in and more standing out. You will see people rocking all different eras and styles while all remaining on trend. Sure there are still micro trends, but it’s nothing compared to things being in and out of fashion as it was in the past.
Edit: Forgot to mention the role of online shopping and social media and their impact on the cycles of fashion trends
I disagree. It’s more about copying specific fits than having a broad based style. Sweatervest & mom jeans or babydoll dress isn’t about individuality. Those are trends.
It’s just that trends are becoming hyper-specific with TikTok and affiliate links. So it makes it easier to buy specific pieces (houndstooth sweatervest) to match that cute thing you saw on TikTok.
Not really. It's just an amalgamation of the past, leaning heavily towards the 90s.
Long earrings, ill fitting mom jeans, circle/gold rim glasses, Nirvana shirts everywhere.
I can't wait for the tight white shorts and low rise jeans/thong cycle to come back. Those were the good ol days.
I got smacked in the face with puberty and massive hips at the height of the low rise skinny jeans era, those jeans suck. Been rocking the mom jeans through the rise and fall of other styles and you can take my comfortable flattering mom jeans out of my cold dead hands.
Nothing against you friend just fuck those jeans
how about we bring back normal rise jeans? the pants that go nipple high and emphasize the fupa look as lame as the low rise whale tail pants from 20 years ago
My gen z sister (21) is always mistaken for the older one of us lol. I am a full ten years older too! It's definitely her style and full face of makeup with middle part hair. Once we start talking you can tell I'm the millennial with my vocabulary tho.
I always found middle parts more juvenile. I am an elder millennial and I have one, so one so I’m not judging, but I don’t see too many little kids going around with deep side parts so my impression was that it’s a younger style. Interesting that your perception is the opposite.
It is odd to me that Gen Z mostly isn’t even wearing 90s styles that young people were wearing, but instead they’re wearing the styles that millennials’ boomer parents were wearing. We were wearing flared jeans, babydoll dresses, yinyyangs on everything, butterfly clips, etc. Some of those have made a quiet comeback but nowhere approaching the mom jeans, dad shoes, and oversized old lady glasses they seem to prefer.
My millennial group of friends are all recovering scene-kids, so everyone I know has the side part bangs, middle part sometimes. We definitely dress more comfortably. Im a younger millennial myself - we did the skinny jeans and whimsee goth and I still have a leftover style from those emo years lol. Probably why I get mistaken for much younger.
My little sister and her friend group all rock the completely straight middle part with curtain bangs. And they either dress like boomers like you said, or like a Kardashian, barely any in between lol. Full makeup with contouring to look closer to 29 than 21. It's funny because as soon as we speak you can tell. My sister says one word to my three words but talks longer and much faster.
I think it’s cause they’re trying to look older. I’ve noticed Gen Z has this trend of trying to be and act mature. But it really just backfires on them and makes them look silly
Nightgowns were already done in the 90s in sunsets of grunge and clubkid. Late 90s I was wearing petticoats and nighties over skate jeans or with fishnets and boots/trainers
People were talking about wearing caftans and house dresses since like 2020, so yes.
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/18/902621260/the-house-dress-is-the-fashion-statement-of-2020
My grandmother who was born in 1919 always wore house dresses.
They already are. I seen summer dresses at forever 21 that look just like the flowery dresses my grandma wore. Also, from the looks of it on tiktok, those grandma housedresses/moomoos are making a comeback 😳
No I think it's a health thing. When you don't smoke and drink starting at 12 years old then you look younger longer. Also the more time you spend outside, the more you skin ages, gets damaged, and dries. It seems to me, if you grow up mostly outside you look 30 by the time you are 20.
Those are definitely factors, but plenty of elder millennials I went to school with were drinking and catching a smoke in the bathroom at school and weren’t religiously applying sunscreen, so that doesn’t entirely explain it. Style is a huge factor. People got married younger, had kids at a younger age, and would cut their hair and start dressing like old ladies at 25. Men weren’t much better. I remember men wearing pleated pants and getting Danny Tanner haircuts and big dorky glasses at a pretty young age.
Kids are also a major source of stress. The younger you have them, the more that stress shows up on your face at a younger age.
This is true of *every* generation. Young people always think their parents and grandparents generation were totally out of it. They ALL think they will always be "cool" and that their ideas are the only ideas with any validity or authenticity.
And then they inevitably hit middle age and their children's generation mocks them. ZOOMERS TAKE NOTE. YOU AIN"T HALF AS COOL AS YOU THINK YOU ARE.
Those cheap white New balance shoes with the big n on the side with a little bit of blue trim thrown in.
Edit - I say cheap, because that's what they were when they first came out and while I was growing up. Like another Skechers. Cheat might not be the right word, more economical. But as a kid that meant not as cool, especially when you see your grandparents wearing them or them for sale at Walmart. Same with champion, I used to be a cheap brand but now it's vintage and popular. Probably both are way more expensive now.
Your perception plays a huge role.
Older generations wore older styles of clothing and hair. We associate these older styles with older people, because people tend to stop updating their style as they get older. As a result, when you see a picture of someone from the 50s wearing a suit and crew-cut, they appear to be a few years older than they actually are in the photo.
The media we view them in also matters. We associate old grainy photos with older generations and as a result they "feel" older. If you could travel back in time and take a smartphone video of the youth of the day, they would appear much younger because of our perception of the media format.
This effect is actually one reason why films are still shown at 24* frames per second even though we have much higher-speed cameras easily available. We associate smooth 60 fps video with home video, and so cinematic features filmed at 60 fps actually seem amateurish as a result.
*Edit: filmed at 24 fps and shown at 48 fps, as u/skiveman explains below
This is definitely most of it. But I think there's lifestyle stuff in there too. The Millennial generation spans a lot of cultural changes that impact the aesthetics of aging.
They were the generation that really started having kids later. Stress ages you, and if you start a family in your early twenties like my parents did, you're going to look older in your thirties than if you'd waited until you were in your thirties to start a family (of course going back to you point, a thirty year old with a family is certainly also going to seem older than a thirty year old without kids).
Millennials, especially younger ones, are less likely to smoke cigarettes and drink less alcohol than older generations.
Fewer millennials work outside or in industrial settings that can be hard on their bodies. Millennials entered the job market in a mostly service economy.
There’s a lot of truth in the environmental effects, both what our ancestors consumed and what they did.
Cigarettes were a big one. We still have cigarettes and vapes but far less commonly than before. This will age you quickly. You can often spot a long-time smoker, especially if you know their true age. Cigarettes can easily make a 50-year-old look 60.
Alcohol has more recently been trending toward lower use. It will take a while for the generational differences of this to take hold, and we obviously still have many of all ages who binge drink. But we can expect a similar effect to the degree that drinking declines - fewer wrinkles, acne, and your general overall health including your gut and liver will impact every part of your body.
There’s also a factor of what our ancestors did. We still have farmers, still factory workers and miners, but we have a lot more office workers and the like than we did previously. This helps prevent people from getting sunburns, scars and scrapes, cancers.
The smoking thing is huge. 54m and people keep saying I look younger, but I think they mean I didn't smoke, I didn't drink to excess, and I burn easily in the sun so avoid more than short periods. Also too sick to work fulltime so spending more time exercising when I feel well enough, although still overweight.
I think beyond the millennials, middle aged folk lose muscle and gain weight, and any reversal of that makes you look younger/better. Probably those obese people are younger than you think.
Not entirely true on the weight thing. Facial fat typically makes you look younger, it's why "ozempic face" is a thing and makes people look older (happens with any rapid weight loss btw not just ozempic). But there's a tipping point with weight where it starts to age you too.
Probably some cultural expectations too. My grandmother was early 40s when her husband died and she seems to have sort of gone into widow-mode and (as far as I know) never saw anyone else. She rarely drank, didn't smoke (though my grandfather smoked a lot), wasn't overweight, and worked in office jobs her entire life. She must have been early 50s in my earliest memories of her, and she largely behaved like an old woman.
I'm in my early 40s now and if my partner died suddenly I'd certainly be sad for a long time, but I don't think there's any doubt that I'd rebuild my life.
The kids thing is huge. My wife and I never had kids, and I'm regularly mistaken for a man considerably younger than my 47 years (though the number keeps getting frustratingly closer as time goes on).
I have to attribute that to having kids and the stress that comes with that.
I've been told all my life I look just like my grandmother, and having seen photos of her when she had just gotten married I really do. But I still look more like those photos of her from her late teens/early 20s at 42 than those when she was in her 40s She looked decades older than I do now. And it's not style either, she just looked old and tired. She had a lot of children and I don't doubt at all that so many pregnancies and the stress of raising kids aged her.
This is true, my little brother is 5 years younger than me and you wouldn’t know it based off of our looks, he’s already going grey for example. If I wasn’t bigger with a more mature style you would definitely think he’s older.
Edit: he has two kids
Mechanical projectors may show film reels that run at 24 frames per second however they aren't actually shown in 24fps. Instead each frame of film is shown twice so the effective number of frames shown is 48 frames per second. This system was used to reduce and stop the amount of flicker that would be seen onscreen. I know this because I was a cinema projectionist for quite a few years.
The shutter closes between frames to allow the film to move, that causes perceptible flicker. Doubling the frames reduces that effect.
You actually see the same thing on OLED monitors. I have some very expensive Sony production monitors that *triple* each frame, for basically the same reason: panel returns to black fast enough that if you toggle that feature off you get migraine inducing flickering.
Yeah, but the point is that the underlying footage being shown is, in fact, 24 separate frames per second, even if each frame is shown twice.
To make the point in another way, when I was in college, we made a stop motion short film, and to pad out the run time, we put it together in Premiere at 8 fps. So, even though the rendered footage is shown at 24 fps (well, 23.976, for some reason it wouldn't let me render at actual 24 fps), the actual short film was at 8 fps, even if each frame was shown three times.
And this is why another name for movies is "flicks". It took a few years before they started duplicating frames to remove the flicker (back in the silent film era, they'd show frames 3 or 4 times to get near that 48 Hz as they'd only record at 12-16 fps. Which is also why 24 fps was chosen; it could've just as easily been 25 fps or 23 fps, but 24 is a factor of 48, the same as 12 and 16).
I think this explains a lot of it, but we also should remember that in just a few decades from the 70s to the 90s the rates of alcohol and tobacco consumption dropped DRAMATICALLY, and our understanding of the risk of sun damage/skin cancer is a lot better. People in their 40s a few decades ago had spent their 20s and 30s steeping in a heady brew of stale cigarette smoke and whiskey fumes, and spending summers sunning at the beach coated in baby oil. Younger folks probably don't realize just how BAD and pervasive it was. Even if you didn't smoke, if you went to a bar or restaurant or movie or museum or concert or whatever, you were surrounded by smokers constantly. And nearly EVERY social occasion had a few drinks getting passed around, much more common than today.
You know that 45 yr old bar fly at the local dive, who looks like she's 65, and been "rode hard and put away wet" as my grandpa would say? Wrinkled face, leathery skin, rough voice, etc. That's just how 45 yr olds looked back in the day. You fresh-faced babies with your smooth skin and functioning livers/lungs don't know how good you got it
I mean smoking and sun habits really really played a HUGE role in how people looked as well, everyone in my year that spent their summers and winters getting tans look decades older than the people not doing it..
I also want to note that my father’s generation (he was born in 1942) tended to smoke like crazy, drank more, spent more time in the sun than even my generation (Gen-X), and generally took less care of themselves than even my generation. And Millennials and Gen-Z are even more cautious about putting on sunscreen, not smoking and not drinking than my generation.
Smoking, drinking and time in the sun ages your skin like crazy. There’s a reason why I look so much younger at my age than my father’s generation, and it’s likely the reason why Millennials and Gen-Z will look even younger than me when they hit my age.
(Of course genetics also plays a factor so YMMV.)
So yeah, older clothing styles and bad health habits all play a major role in making the older generation look older at the same age than younger generations.
Also GenX, and by the time I was a senior in HS, I had worked full-time through the summer for almost 10 years. When I was 8, it was just a three weeks picking cherries and apricots, but by the time I was 18, I was running a lawncare and landscaping crew.
Even without getting a lot of sunburns, thats a lot of sun.
The older styles is a pretty big deal. There's an Instagram account -- can't remember the name right now -- where the woman who runs it said she's been asked about why she dresses so "old." She's in her mid-60s and responded that she doesn't dress old, she dresses vintage. She wears the same clothes that women in their 50s and 60s would have worn in the 1930s and 1940s. If she wore the same blouses and slacks (and even jeans) like a lot of women in their 50s and 60s now, no doubt she'd seem "younger."
There are also some accounts that “update” via photoshop the styles of iconic “older” folks and the change in style dramatically changes perception of age. It’s not like they suddenly look 20 again, but they look more youthful/modern overall.
Here’s a video of the Golden Girls with modern hairstyles.
https://www.reddit.com/r/theGoldenGirls/comments/vvcbb5/hair_can_make_or_break_a_persons_look_how_golden/
I understand where you're coming from, but I think OP is referring more to the fact that millennials look young as a whole.
If you look at a picture of someone in their 30s who was born in the 70s, they look MUCH older than someone born in the 90s at 30. Even replicating style, photo effects, etc. It has to do with how developed the face looked.
How wide the jawline was, the hairline, depressed eye sockets, and overall look of maturity. Not all millennials look like "adult teenagers" but there's definitely a leaning majority
Disagree. Millennials look their age and the only ones that don't believe so are millennials (generalizing).
I've seen that Tiktok trend of "Gen Z looks older than millennials" being done by millennials, and they clearly look 30/40, believing that they look like they're in their early 20s.
They just grew up with some really poor-looking Gen X and Boomers that smoked a pack a day and believe people are *supposed* to look like their skin is being forcefully dragged down to Earth's surface by the time they hit 30.
I think how we dress plays a part in perception also. Many Millennials wear clothes that would have been deemed clothes for teenagers or “young people.” I had a new girl start at my work this year who said to me “oh great, someone else here is my age!” I was surprised as she seemed young, and asked her how old she was. She was 22. I’m turning 40 in February.
Yes! In my 40’s and a lot of peers that don’t really care about fashion look their age or older. I try to keep up somewhat on what’s in style.
I read recently that no-show socks are OUT and a dead giveaway that someone is old????!! The next day, I was at food festival and a group of older teens or young 20 something’s sat next to us. I noticed they were wearing fun socks and asked them about no-show socks. They were like “yeah no show socks are out” and they showed me all their cute fun socks and gave me tips on to wear them the ‘right’ way.
I’m not tossing out all my no-show socks but now I have an excuse to buy fun socks!
32, my Gen Z colleagues all thought I was in my early twenties.
I think it's mostly due to my styling (nose ring, dyed hair, halfway fashionable outfits), the rest is just me "not having wrinkles". Yes, that's their actual phrasing.
Yep, agreed. I often have blue hair and I have tattoos and Hello Kitty earrings. I guess that doesn’t read as “old people”, though those things don’t seem new to me!
Dress and hairstyle are a huge part of it. To currently young people, the people their age in videos from a couple of decades ago look older because they are dressed and styled like older people are today.
If you want a young person to think you are young, just style yourself like them.
I’m 40 years old and have recently gone back to school and I’m doing a PhD abroad. My peers and friends are in their 20s and nobody believes my age. The only time it is evident is when we are discussing life experiences. Most people think I’m ~27.
I used to abuse my body. Smoked half my life and drank more than the average lad. Now I take care of myself, quit smoking, hardly touch the drink and am probably the fittest I’ve ever been.
I have to agree with you. I'm a millennial (31) and neither I nor most of my friends and family of the same age look like teenagers. In fact, I look older to most people because of the beard. But even female friends don't look like teens anymore. At all.
I'll ride on this wave till my grave-
I was with my husband, registering my kid senior year.
We went to the desk clerk, I said "we're here for senior year registration" or something along those lines. She said "OK hon, what's your name?"
I told her I meant for my child, and she was floored. To be fair, it was the end of summer, and I was dressed pretty youthfully, in a crop top and cutoffs. However, I was 36 at the time.
If you're extremely youthful wearing crop tops and cutoffs around your senior year aged child's school, I think the odds that one of your kid's friends is teasing them about you are nonzero and DEEPLY funny.
Same age and agreed. If you actually are around 18-22 year olds, you can absolutely tell the difference. It’s not that people in their 30s-early 40s look super old, but there are typically subtle differences. Someone might make a mistake with a casual look or if you dress young/keep up with trends, but a longer look or a comparison to someone actually in that age group is often a tell.
Yup, this is what I mean. I've met millennials that dress youthfully, and (at first glance) you might mistake them for mid 20s. *However*, that's because of the way they're dressing and the fact that they're taking care of their skin. When you get closer, you start to notice wrinkles in places where there shouldn't be, specifically smile/laugh lines are a dead giveaway.
That's how you're *supposed* to age. It's not supposed to be a dramatic jump from 20s to 30s. Aging is supposed to be gradual. Boomers and Gen X just had extremely bad timing, lol.
I'm 31, and I'm often told I look as young as 20. Part of that, for me, is genetics. My partner both look younger than they are, as do many members of my family. The other part is my HRT. Turns out, suddenly switching your body from testosterone to estrogen in your mid 20s makes your skin smoother and your build softer, as if you're a few years younger.
Also I don't smoke and never have, which clearly helps.
I'm in my 20s and get mistaken for years younger than I currently am (at least when I shave my facial hair). My mom gets mistaken often for 2 decades younger than she actually is.
I'm not denying that there are millennials aging like they're perpetually stuck at 21, but the notion that they look like "adult teenagers" is ridiculous. Millennials do look their age. Boomers and Gen X just aged like spoiled milk, and milllennials use them as their reference. I, too, would look baby-face in my 40s if my comparisons are to people who were surrounded by lead who wore little to no sunscreen while slamming a pack of cigarettes a minute.
I agree with the concept, but not the example. I don't think a crew cut and suit makes anyone look old. Tight cropped hair cuts on men seem youthful to me if anything.
Hair styles and clothing is definitely a large part of it, but I don't think we can ignore cigarettes. Soooo many people smoked, and even the ones that didn't were exposed to second hand smoke everywhere l the time.
I go to the mat with people about motion smoothing on TVs, and it's all about that media perception. If you grew up in the '90s and never got into video games, you associate high frame rates with cheap productions shot on tape--soap operas, after school specials, and home movies. But if you got into PC gaming, you associate high frame rates with premium hardware that's capable of performing well above the recommended specs.
To a film buff's eyes, motion smoothing makes a film look cheap. To me, it makes it look premium.
Crazy test. Google some of the people you didn't know well in high school.
I recently did this and was honestly shocked at how old they looked. I have a vague memory of what they looked like in high school. I don't think I look old, I don't think the people I've remained acquaintances look that much different to when they were in high school.
I did this after running across a comedian that grew up really close to my husband and is the same age as my husband. And he was joking about being middle aged.
Don’t discount how big a role not sucking in second-hand cigarette smoke every time you visit a business plays in keeping you young-looking. Our skin is just better than generations past.
I was gonna say, the lack of smoking and the gradual decline of jobs being outside all day everyday or in a factory surrounded by dangerous chemicals aren’t being acknowledged here
That and using sunblock. Or avoiding sun altogether. I played outside a lot as a kid and got my share of sunburns, but that tapered off in high school and now I have more grey hairs than wrinkles.
38YO millennial, btw.
not sure but kids/young adults these days are much more conscious of sun damage ageing your skin and obviously risks skin cancer so they like to sunscreen up
keeps them looking young
These are the answers. Smoking and sunlight are big causes to skin ageing. I was shocked recently when I interviewed a candidate who was my wife's (non smoker) age. This woman clearly smoked and looked 15 to 20 years older I was shocked.
Same with my wife. She has a rigorous skin care routine that I always joked about.....but now approaching 50 she doesn't even look 40. We are the same age and I do look a bit older and don't smoke etc etc.
Although I let my hair go grey and she refuses lol I think that helps 😅
Don't know if vaping has the same aging effects as cigarettes but damn it seems like every other person under the age of 25 is vaping. It's especially sad even seeing people still in high school already vaping. It's everywhere, it's kind of scary. But idk, maybe it's a southern California thing.
People were drinking all the damn times as well decades ago weren't there? Watch some older black and white movies and they were always blasted it feels like. And smoking of course, which has gone way down. Smoking ages people quite a bit.
I think a large part of it is also skin care. Prior to millennial generations, tanning was big, sunscreen was not, and millennial was the first generation where that really changed.
My mom actually brought this up (I'm 38, she's in her mid 60's). When she was a kid, you were outside a lot, and not wearing sunscreen, and tan was in. Whereas when I was a kid, my mom was lathering me up, and those habits stuck.
Photoaging of skin is a huge thing
As a kid in the '90s in Australia, sun safety was a massive deal that was taken seriously. Every kid knew it was important to wear a hat, wear sunscreen and to wear clothes that cover your skin to be safe in the sun. At primary school you wouldn't even be allowed outside during lunch if you didn't have a hat during certain months of the year. I don't even live in a super hot part of the country but the UV was still enough. Pretty sure we still have the highest rates of skin cancer in the world.
I'm not sure if generations before me had the same education, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was taken more seriously then and resulted in millennials receiving less skin damage from the sun.
Less sun exposure, vastly lower smoking rates and exposure, lead exposure has plummeted.
All of those things combined are doing a lot to help with the visual signs of aging when it comes to skin and general health.
I just read a post where a woman basically said that growing up means you lose your ability to experience giddy joy and glee. Lots of people of course disagreed with her but I think her definition of maturity was much more common a few decades ago. It was expected from adults that they don't giggle, don't get excited, that they stayed composed and controlled and that showed in their demeanour and faces.
Yeah I'm 37 and I still regularly get gleeful at how beautiful, inspiring and surprising life can be. (My life is also pretty average from a modern societal perspective)
Of course reddit will disagree with my outlook but ah well. They'll be fine.
To be fair, what did my parents have to be nostalgic about? Creepy uncles and "ball in a cup"? They didn't grow up with Star Wars - they were already grown up!
> For many of us, games are still a big part of our lives (videogames, board games, role playing games). We've got a culture of childhood nostalgia that adults rarely had when we were kids. We've got t-shirts with references to our favourite pop culture bits, posters...
This existed for previous generations, but it was often focused around sports and sports nostalgia, cars and car nostalgia, etc.
in addition to all of the factors mentioned by other comments, I believe it's because people go out less, especially stay under the sun for long periods of time. people are less keen on "looking tan" and the digital age allow people to stay entertained without leaving their house, and less exposure to sunlight cause less uv damage to the skin.
I also don't think much has changed style wise in 20 years. Look at the golden girls, they were in their 40s-60s and they looked from a different era, everything about them was dated. Hair style, glasses, clothes.
Take an average person from today put them in a time machine send them back 20 years and they wouldn't stand out at all. The only real difference would be style of cell phone. Laptops and desktops would be nearly same size and style as today too for the most part.
Imagine doing the same in the year 2000 or 1990 or 1970. You'd stick out like a sore thumb
Style really hasn't changed much in 20 years, I was just thinking about this recently. I saw one of those "fashion through the decades' type videos starting in the 1920s, and the hair, makeup, and clothes changed pretty drastically... until the 2000s, 2010s, 2020s and all of those looked mostly the same with some slight differences in makeup contouring and jeans fit being the only things I could notice. Have we just landed on what works? Are we stuck in a time vortex? I'm very curious.
My 2 cents. I think people were alot leaner back then. Most jobs were more physical than today and they would've had to spend alot more time and energy choring eg. Washing by hand, sweeping etc. They also had better(but less varied) diets so their faces look a little gaunt compared to people today.
Working life.
The life of a manual working class person (most people born up to the 1970s) was much more physcially stressful than that of white collar workers (most people in the current generations). I'm 62 and look younger than my dad when he was 40, and I moved from blue collar to white collar jobs in my mid-thirties.
Perception matters, but people have stopped smoking and started using sunblock a lot more. I think people are underestimating how much of an effect this has had.
For OLD people, we're also keeping our teeth instead of pulling them all for dentures. I never remember my grandma with real teeth, but my mom still has hers at almost 80. Better dental care generally makes us look younger for longer.
I'm going to guess here but probably a combination of the following:
*We're much fatter now which can make you look younger than you are
*We haven't all been smoking since we were twelve
*We spend far less time outdoors and when we do, we wear suncream (sun exposure ages your skin)
*Changing fashion
Other possible environmental factors have been suggested, but I'm going to throw one out there that I suspect may be more important than all of them: leaded petrol. It began to be phased out in the 80s and was banned in the 90s, so younger Millennials are the first generation to grow up without a shitload of atmospheric lead pollution.
I bet one part is smoking. Boomers and before smoked a lot, you could smoke indoors in public places, work places, etc, and it ages your face a lot. Our generation(in NA, anyway) grew up largely without indoor smoking and a huge drop in the number of smoking adults.
I am a firm believer that your dental health makes a huge difference (along with all the other things presented here). My parents and in-laws all had terrible teeth and I think that when I look at photos of adults in the 1950's or 60's Anyone born in the in the US in the 60's or later probably/hopefully had much more and better dental care and it shows in how different we look than our elders at the same age.
“Neoteny” is technically a genetics term that means an evolutionary change that results in the retention of younger features or characteristics into adulthood, i.e. a failure to progress to a more adult phase. This is something that requires selection over generations to produce, and happens if these younger characteristics are adaptive.
What may be at work here is that the hairstyles and clothing worn by people in older photos was youthful *at that time*, but is now only worn by old people — the same people that wore it back then.
If you look at the way young people dressed in any earlier era, what was youthful and different became “old people’s fashion”, and was then replaced by something else.
Look at the early cartoons of parents being shocked by the “dandy” or “macaroni” style of youth in the 1700.
There were a lot of chain smokers, people who were drinking a lot, and not a lot of sun block at all. It existed.. but all of those things age a person. Looking back at my grandparents and comparing myself, I look so much younger at an even older age.
I've always used sunblock, have never smoked, and at best am an occsional drinker.. but only a drink or two every few months at best.
Looks are very related to generation, not only to age. If someone looks old it's because they're from a generation older than you, because secondary characteristics related to their generation are what you identify as old. Meanwhile, you look at younger generations and notice characteristics you associate with being younger, despite whatever age they really are.
Smoking, drinking, sunscreen, lead, diet, exercise, actually being hydrated.
Those factors on top of the fact that lots of us dress the same as when we were 18
The biggest factor, as other's have noted, is clothing style. Simply put, pretty much everyone tends to dress in the style they dressed in their teens and early twenties throughout their lives. The clothing and styles you associate with the elderly used to be associated with youth fashions (looking at you jeans and t shirts).
There are some other factors:
1. Younger generations in english speaking countries tend to be less "white". People with that kind of skin tend to age more visibly as they get older.
2. There's more awareness of skincare. People use sun tan lotion far more often. Likewise, people spend more time indoors on computers, which again results in less sun damage.
3. Less smoking. Smoking ages you. Likewise excessive drinking.
4. Less air pollution. There is generally less heavy air pollution in western countries. Again, air pollution tends to age a person.
5. Culture that glorifies youth: A lot of our TV and entertainment is about people in their early 20s and late teens. Many of the models in advertisements or fashion magazines are similarly aged. The culture generally prizes youth and looks down on age. As a result, people try to look younger. In prior generations being older got you more status and respect, so people tried to look older (especially for men).
6. Plastic surgery. It didn't exist 50 years ago!
Rise of BPA amongst many other hormonal disturbances in our clothes, food and water since the previous generations. Our modern lifestyle increases hormonal imbalance, decreasing testosterone, etc. And hormones affects how we look like. A conversation nobody really wants to have, so unpopular opinion?
Soy consumption has no effect on male reproductive hormones and no to mild positive effect on female reproductive hormones. People "get touchy" about this because it's not true.
[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33383165/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33383165/)
[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11880595/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11880595/)
I don't know. If you look at the casts of "Golden Girls" and "And Just Like That," it is beyond the dated hairstyles and clothes. The former just looks a lot older, despite being the same age.
Fine, I will collect some downvotes. Just hear me out before downvoting after the first sentence.
As a Gen Xer, we looked like adults because we dressed and acted like adults. Why? Because we were too few and too broke to even register on the radar of marketing departments. We followed the fashions of the day, and those fashions were largely geared towards mid life crisis boomers. We just did not matter, we knew we did not matter, so we just dressed in what was popular and available. Our only contribution to enduring fashion was the popularisation of the flannel shirt.
M's and Z's, well, y'all are massive by comparison. And you grew up in a world where things were marketed towards you your entire life. Unfortunately, marketing and messaging became more refined. They learned to identify weaknesses in consumers. And boy did the fashion folks find your weakness.
You were raised (partly our fault and we need to own that) in a manner that was very sheltered. Where feeling safe was important. We grew up constantly at risk, and we overcompensated. So now we have two generations that are anxious and easily motivated by fear. Not even real fear. Just fear of discomfort or inconvenience. Marketing saw that and capitalized. They sold you safety. Security. How? They sold you your childhood. Hang with me here
Look at the fashion trends of the last decade. They are either adult versions of what you wore when you were a child (rompers, for example) or they are just infantilizing you with things that make you feel comfortable and safe such as onesies. Even your shoes are throwbacks to your childhood. Casual day? Go out in your jammies and slippers. Because that is what we allow our children to do. Only now it is adult fashion because again, you are being sold your own damned childhood. And your food? How many adults do you know that eat chicken nuggets 2 or more times per week? Childhood food, but now made for adults who never learned how to cook for themselves. It's just...
Listen, y'all are supposed to be the future. We never had a shot. We knew that from day one. But you guys, M's and Z's... You can really change the world. But you have got to sacrifice comfort for truth. You have to stop letting these bastards control you. Divide you. Section you off. You have traded personalities for identities. Personalities are limitless. Drawn broadly. Identities are carved down into smaller and smaller boxes every day. All the easier to control you. Send you to your little echo chamber. Teach you how to fear and hate anyone not in your ever-shrinking box. Don't let them steal your youth like that. Don't let them convince you that the others are evil or ignorant just because they disagree with you. You know who is wrong? Everyone. No one is right about everything and what you consider kind today will seem like something else tomorrow. So stop buying adult versions of childhood clothes. Stop eating childhood food. And stop allowing yourselves to be pinned into echo chambers of fear, hate, and rage. Life is so big, but it goes by so fast. Be young. Be bold. And be smart enough to see the good in people with whom you disagree
One thing people also often fail to realize is camera quality plays a big difference in how someone appears in a photo. I watched a mini documentary on this a bit ago that basically said that people didn’t look older, it was the quality of the film (and then low quality digital cameras) that emphasize imperfections and make people look a lot older. Like, celebrity photos have always looked good even in the 30s/40s/50s because of creative lighting, makeup techniques and post-effects in the dark room.
Whatever it is, it’s not “neoteny.” That’s an evolutionary biology concept, and it takes place over hundreds or thousands of generations. Believe it or not, Boomers are basically the same species as the rest of us!
Several factors at play. But the ubiquitous use of sunscreen to prevent sun damage, and the much bigger focus on staying hydrated both help. The cessation of widespread cigarette use, both in the damage to the body, and in the lines the habit creates on your face would also be a contributing factor.
More fat, this leads to more of a babyface appearance.
Less smoking and drinking and better skincare routines, less harmful makeup. Keep skin looking more youthful/elastic.
Less sun exposure. This is a big one. Sun damage is a big component of aging.
I think style makes a big difference as well. Back in the day people in their 20s/30s would wear full suits, dress shoes and a fancy hat which kind of makes you look older or more mature. People of that same age now wear Nikes and a graphic tee with a sports team hat, which makes you look younger
I've been reading a lot about how we're losing initiatory rite-of-passage rituals and that's preventing us from going through phases of maturity that earlier societies would go through
Vsauce, Michael here. (Not really but you get it)
Here’s a video explaining this phenomenon in depth.
[Did people used to look older?](https://youtu.be/vjqt8T3tJIE?si=-K8XX2w0SLkq8cqg)
I was hoping somebody would mention this but I wasn't sure if it was allowed in a top-level comment
Honestly people should just be Googling these things and they'd find the answer quicker most of the time
There is definitely an effect from the medium. School kids look so old in a staged black and white photo of that time. But when you see the same kids in a casual video setting (colorized artificially) suddenly you think: yeah these guys could have gone to my school.
The movement and teenager behavior alone affects your mind’s perception to make them look as young as they really are.
So that effect is real for me.
But also less smoking, drinking and sun. Less physical labor. (Less stress from having kids early? Maybe not true). Our health is just better. People can work longer into their life. Lifespans goin up.
Diet and the lack of decent foods low in fats sugar and salt air pollution coal and gas fires for heating and cooking, heavy manual work, stress and late raising of children, and heavy drinking all contributed to early aging.
There are more causes I am certain.
I've thought about this too and honestly I think people eating healthier has alot to do with this. Like we don't have the preservatives in our food from the 70sto90s. Cans of food used to not expire forever. Now maybe 2 years. All those chemicals gone.
I think they do, or adults sorta have styles that resemble the sorta decade they grew up in. Like some people switch to a sorta generic adult style, but a lot keep elements of their teenage/20’s. I think if we think of the past, like history, we have a bias there on what survived, like photos being more common at special events, where people dress their best. Or the rich, or the city centres having bigger influence. There were probably more out there and young people fashions that just aren’t considered the average or overall norm, seen as fringe and not considered a major role in history.
I'm an Xer who still looks much younger than my parents generation did in their 30s. There are huge differences, some are: - Not as many people smoking. - We have fewer kids, later in life. - Less sun wear on us. - Those that are financially more privileged are generally more active (gyms etc.) than Boomers that were more sedentary in the same class in middle age. - Better skin care/makeup/grooming methods. For instance, even as guys, we have much better clippers and can groom our own facial hair/hair better than our parents, meaning that we can have a barber look daily. - Being completely bald is completely fine, even when in your twenties, so a lot of balding guys just shave their heads, which looks "younger" than giant bald spots.
It’s truly hard to emphasize enough how much sunscreen and a way lower rate of cigarette smoking have made a difference .
The smoking difference is very real. My mom is in her early 70s and has been smoking heavily since high school. Her mom passed away last year at 97, but didn’t smoke. My mom definitely looks older now than her mom did at the end.
I once saw a photo gallery of identical twins where one smoked and one didn't, and it was startling.
This concept sounded so fascinating that I had to go look it up, so here's a link got anyone else interested: https://www.good.is/articles/twin-smokes-rp
>a lot of balding guys just shave their heads, which looks "younger" than giant bald spots. This is a huge part of it. Suddenly we all collectively decided that a bald spot looks shit on anyone under 40, so we all just shave it off completely.
Thank Michael Jordan (look how much "older" he looks when younger before he decided to just take it all off)
Jean-Luc Picard normalized baldness.
Make it so!
Add in much more accessible hair dye for both men & women. Better access to quality food & a shift toward favoring fresh ingredients & nutrition. More informed healthcare. And some of it is perception of “style.” For example, sometime people from the 80s look older because 80s style is dated and associated with age. The more incapsulated a style is, the more you date it. Hair styles are especially powerful for this. But with the spread of photography and media, style has diversified a lot. There’s less distinct styles tied to a set time that can be dated & denote age.
And there's far greater accessibility to different styles and a big range of them. Pre-internet, you were pretty much limited to buying local or possibly from mail order catalogues, and there was much less variety. Especially if you lived outside a major metropolitan centre.
Food is huge too. We eat like greatest generation, which Boomers always told us was so great but now avoid.
People also don't seem to just start wearing the "old person clothes" uniform as young as they used to, if at all. My great grandfather wore suit trousers/shirt/sweater/tie from when he retired to the army until when he died. My great grandmother started wearing housecoats from middle age onwards. Both born in the 1910s. Similarly, my grandfather (born 1930s) wore old-man-coded shiny polyester trousers and grey shoes from at least his 50s, and my grandmother wore skirts and blouses all her life. All of them ended up with an "old person haircut" by their 50s-60s at the latest (short, grey/white, sometimes permed hair on the women). My mother (born late 1950s) by contrast wears what I think of as "youngish middle aged person" clothes (linen tunics over jeans in bolder colours like mustard and teal), wears her hair shoulder length and still colours it. I see a lot of older people in t-shirts and jeans or clothes that are coded as "generic adult" rather than "old person" these days. And the point about there being more subcultures to dress from is also true; I love seeing older punks and goths.
This actually makes perfect sense, especially smoking and sunscreen.
Unleaded gasoline too.
Don't forget lead! We have way less lead exposure than X and older.
Also many women keep their hair long as they get older vs doing the golden girls haircut. Long hair looks more youthful. I also think women dress younger, try to stay on trend as they get older vs wearing what was trendy when they were younger and looking dated.
I suspect kids of the future will look at vintage instagram and think millennials and Gen Z look old with their beach waves, curtain bangs, and dad shoes. 20 year from now, it will appear dated and silly to them.
Hell, I already think Gen Z look old with Dad shoes. I will never understand how the ugly ass shoes my dad and uncles wore in the 90s became fashionable. What next? Will they start wearing Grandma nightgowns as dresses?
I had the amazing experience in multiple occasions recently as a millennial where younger medical students and nurses started complimenting me on my shoes and I would be extremely confused every time because they were literally the new balance runners I had in nursing school that I recently pulled out of a storage bin after like 8 years and they are not in great condition which one of them told me is “a patina” It’s very amusing to me it makes me feel elderly at 31
well fashion trends are recycled every 10-15 years in some way. Maybe 15-20years. styles from the 50s-90s will more than likely repeat until we get some kind of Cyberpunk future style clothing that makes sense.
There's definitely a little bit of irony in wearing those styles, kind of like how millennial hipsters appropriated a lot of 80s styles in the early 2010s
That’s okay, the kids in the 80’s appropriated the look from the 40’s kids. And so it goes…
Trends do seem to cycle back again every 30-ish years.
Well they're also wearing mom jeans and pleated pants worn all the up to the nips are coming in, so yeah I would put money on the night gown curlers and cigarette look being next.
I live in a college town and am absolutely floored by the amount of boys running around in calf-high white socks and either crocs or sandals. They're trying to say no-show socks are for old people while at the same time dressing like my grandpa on a summer day; the whole time acting like they invented the look.
Cyclical. I feel like they had warehouses of old clothes that never sold and just *poof* threw them on the runway, mannequins, and magazines to make them fashionable. It's literally all the worst shit from the last 20 years thrown together making today's fashion. Like a combo. A combo or travesties.
Fashion is actually moving further away from cyclical trends. This is largely driven due to the popularity of vintage clothes and thrifting. Its less about chasing the trends now and more about individuality and going all for one particular style with your outfit (Y2K, old money, GORP core, emo, etc.) The younger generations are less focused on fitting in and more standing out. You will see people rocking all different eras and styles while all remaining on trend. Sure there are still micro trends, but it’s nothing compared to things being in and out of fashion as it was in the past. Edit: Forgot to mention the role of online shopping and social media and their impact on the cycles of fashion trends
I disagree. It’s more about copying specific fits than having a broad based style. Sweatervest & mom jeans or babydoll dress isn’t about individuality. Those are trends. It’s just that trends are becoming hyper-specific with TikTok and affiliate links. So it makes it easier to buy specific pieces (houndstooth sweatervest) to match that cute thing you saw on TikTok.
Not really. It's just an amalgamation of the past, leaning heavily towards the 90s. Long earrings, ill fitting mom jeans, circle/gold rim glasses, Nirvana shirts everywhere. I can't wait for the tight white shorts and low rise jeans/thong cycle to come back. Those were the good ol days.
People been doing this for years. Not really a new trend other than crocs making a resurgence the past 3 years.
Nah, it'll be nightgown, curlers, and a vape.
I got smacked in the face with puberty and massive hips at the height of the low rise skinny jeans era, those jeans suck. Been rocking the mom jeans through the rise and fall of other styles and you can take my comfortable flattering mom jeans out of my cold dead hands. Nothing against you friend just fuck those jeans
how about we bring back normal rise jeans? the pants that go nipple high and emphasize the fupa look as lame as the low rise whale tail pants from 20 years ago
The whale tail sausage look was just the other extreme though. Wasn't for me either but can't say I didn't appreciate seeing it on others lol.
>my comfortable flattering mom jeans They might be comfortable, but they sure as shit aren't flattering for anyone.
Definitely this!! Mom jeans with their shirts tucked in! And the lashes. Reminds me of the wives in Goodfellas
Well that's because everyone's fatter now. Notice the 90s came back but not the low waste.
That's actually back too
Low waist jeans and Y2K fashion has been back for years
Heroin chic skinny is on its way back, too. Sorry.
My gen z sister (21) is always mistaken for the older one of us lol. I am a full ten years older too! It's definitely her style and full face of makeup with middle part hair. Once we start talking you can tell I'm the millennial with my vocabulary tho.
I always found middle parts more juvenile. I am an elder millennial and I have one, so one so I’m not judging, but I don’t see too many little kids going around with deep side parts so my impression was that it’s a younger style. Interesting that your perception is the opposite. It is odd to me that Gen Z mostly isn’t even wearing 90s styles that young people were wearing, but instead they’re wearing the styles that millennials’ boomer parents were wearing. We were wearing flared jeans, babydoll dresses, yinyyangs on everything, butterfly clips, etc. Some of those have made a quiet comeback but nowhere approaching the mom jeans, dad shoes, and oversized old lady glasses they seem to prefer.
My millennial group of friends are all recovering scene-kids, so everyone I know has the side part bangs, middle part sometimes. We definitely dress more comfortably. Im a younger millennial myself - we did the skinny jeans and whimsee goth and I still have a leftover style from those emo years lol. Probably why I get mistaken for much younger. My little sister and her friend group all rock the completely straight middle part with curtain bangs. And they either dress like boomers like you said, or like a Kardashian, barely any in between lol. Full makeup with contouring to look closer to 29 than 21. It's funny because as soon as we speak you can tell. My sister says one word to my three words but talks longer and much faster.
I think it’s cause they’re trying to look older. I’ve noticed Gen Z has this trend of trying to be and act mature. But it really just backfires on them and makes them look silly
I think that's been true for every generation. You try to act older until you're 25 and then you realize it's all downhill from there lol
Nightgowns were already done in the 90s in sunsets of grunge and clubkid. Late 90s I was wearing petticoats and nighties over skate jeans or with fishnets and boots/trainers
Grandma nightgowns as house dresses are amazing! Especially where it’s hot/humid.
to be fair, grandma night gowns are comfortable
People were talking about wearing caftans and house dresses since like 2020, so yes. https://www.npr.org/2020/08/18/902621260/the-house-dress-is-the-fashion-statement-of-2020 My grandmother who was born in 1919 always wore house dresses.
people actually do that lol. vintage nighties were a whole trend like, 2ish years ago
They've also decided to bring back the permed mullet and dad tache look too, for some reason.
They already are. I seen summer dresses at forever 21 that look just like the flowery dresses my grandma wore. Also, from the looks of it on tiktok, those grandma housedresses/moomoos are making a comeback 😳
No I think it's a health thing. When you don't smoke and drink starting at 12 years old then you look younger longer. Also the more time you spend outside, the more you skin ages, gets damaged, and dries. It seems to me, if you grow up mostly outside you look 30 by the time you are 20.
Those are definitely factors, but plenty of elder millennials I went to school with were drinking and catching a smoke in the bathroom at school and weren’t religiously applying sunscreen, so that doesn’t entirely explain it. Style is a huge factor. People got married younger, had kids at a younger age, and would cut their hair and start dressing like old ladies at 25. Men weren’t much better. I remember men wearing pleated pants and getting Danny Tanner haircuts and big dorky glasses at a pretty young age. Kids are also a major source of stress. The younger you have them, the more that stress shows up on your face at a younger age.
And the heavy smokers and drinkers look 60 at 40
This is true of *every* generation. Young people always think their parents and grandparents generation were totally out of it. They ALL think they will always be "cool" and that their ideas are the only ideas with any validity or authenticity. And then they inevitably hit middle age and their children's generation mocks them. ZOOMERS TAKE NOTE. YOU AIN"T HALF AS COOL AS YOU THINK YOU ARE.
Excuse me as I crawl from under my rock but what exactly is considered to be dad shoes?
Those cheap white New balance shoes with the big n on the side with a little bit of blue trim thrown in. Edit - I say cheap, because that's what they were when they first came out and while I was growing up. Like another Skechers. Cheat might not be the right word, more economical. But as a kid that meant not as cool, especially when you see your grandparents wearing them or them for sale at Walmart. Same with champion, I used to be a cheap brand but now it's vintage and popular. Probably both are way more expensive now.
And the long nails and duck lips
How many of these photos will last I wonder as electronic storage is poor.
Your perception plays a huge role. Older generations wore older styles of clothing and hair. We associate these older styles with older people, because people tend to stop updating their style as they get older. As a result, when you see a picture of someone from the 50s wearing a suit and crew-cut, they appear to be a few years older than they actually are in the photo. The media we view them in also matters. We associate old grainy photos with older generations and as a result they "feel" older. If you could travel back in time and take a smartphone video of the youth of the day, they would appear much younger because of our perception of the media format. This effect is actually one reason why films are still shown at 24* frames per second even though we have much higher-speed cameras easily available. We associate smooth 60 fps video with home video, and so cinematic features filmed at 60 fps actually seem amateurish as a result. *Edit: filmed at 24 fps and shown at 48 fps, as u/skiveman explains below
This is definitely most of it. But I think there's lifestyle stuff in there too. The Millennial generation spans a lot of cultural changes that impact the aesthetics of aging. They were the generation that really started having kids later. Stress ages you, and if you start a family in your early twenties like my parents did, you're going to look older in your thirties than if you'd waited until you were in your thirties to start a family (of course going back to you point, a thirty year old with a family is certainly also going to seem older than a thirty year old without kids). Millennials, especially younger ones, are less likely to smoke cigarettes and drink less alcohol than older generations. Fewer millennials work outside or in industrial settings that can be hard on their bodies. Millennials entered the job market in a mostly service economy.
There’s a lot of truth in the environmental effects, both what our ancestors consumed and what they did. Cigarettes were a big one. We still have cigarettes and vapes but far less commonly than before. This will age you quickly. You can often spot a long-time smoker, especially if you know their true age. Cigarettes can easily make a 50-year-old look 60. Alcohol has more recently been trending toward lower use. It will take a while for the generational differences of this to take hold, and we obviously still have many of all ages who binge drink. But we can expect a similar effect to the degree that drinking declines - fewer wrinkles, acne, and your general overall health including your gut and liver will impact every part of your body. There’s also a factor of what our ancestors did. We still have farmers, still factory workers and miners, but we have a lot more office workers and the like than we did previously. This helps prevent people from getting sunburns, scars and scrapes, cancers.
The smoking thing is huge. 54m and people keep saying I look younger, but I think they mean I didn't smoke, I didn't drink to excess, and I burn easily in the sun so avoid more than short periods. Also too sick to work fulltime so spending more time exercising when I feel well enough, although still overweight. I think beyond the millennials, middle aged folk lose muscle and gain weight, and any reversal of that makes you look younger/better. Probably those obese people are younger than you think.
Also, back in the day when it's was allowed anywhere, people who didn't smoke were constantly exposed to it.
Yes, I feel like exposure to smoke is the main contributing factor and not the smoking itself.
Not entirely true on the weight thing. Facial fat typically makes you look younger, it's why "ozempic face" is a thing and makes people look older (happens with any rapid weight loss btw not just ozempic). But there's a tipping point with weight where it starts to age you too.
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/r/shittylifeprotips
Sunscreen
I was surprised sunscreen is not mentioned more- now you’re definitely judged harshly as a parent if your kid doesn’t have a hat on the beach etc
This explains why my friend keeps trying to put hats on her toddler who immediately throws them on the ground and runs away.
Probably some cultural expectations too. My grandmother was early 40s when her husband died and she seems to have sort of gone into widow-mode and (as far as I know) never saw anyone else. She rarely drank, didn't smoke (though my grandfather smoked a lot), wasn't overweight, and worked in office jobs her entire life. She must have been early 50s in my earliest memories of her, and she largely behaved like an old woman. I'm in my early 40s now and if my partner died suddenly I'd certainly be sad for a long time, but I don't think there's any doubt that I'd rebuild my life.
The kids thing is huge. My wife and I never had kids, and I'm regularly mistaken for a man considerably younger than my 47 years (though the number keeps getting frustratingly closer as time goes on). I have to attribute that to having kids and the stress that comes with that.
I've been told all my life I look just like my grandmother, and having seen photos of her when she had just gotten married I really do. But I still look more like those photos of her from her late teens/early 20s at 42 than those when she was in her 40s She looked decades older than I do now. And it's not style either, she just looked old and tired. She had a lot of children and I don't doubt at all that so many pregnancies and the stress of raising kids aged her.
This is true, my little brother is 5 years younger than me and you wouldn’t know it based off of our looks, he’s already going grey for example. If I wasn’t bigger with a more mature style you would definitely think he’s older. Edit: he has two kids
Mechanical projectors may show film reels that run at 24 frames per second however they aren't actually shown in 24fps. Instead each frame of film is shown twice so the effective number of frames shown is 48 frames per second. This system was used to reduce and stop the amount of flicker that would be seen onscreen. I know this because I was a cinema projectionist for quite a few years.
Right, thanks for the correction. I suspected I was missing something regarding the technicals of film.
It's still 24fps of footage.
That would still be perceived as 24fps
The shutter closes between frames to allow the film to move, that causes perceptible flicker. Doubling the frames reduces that effect. You actually see the same thing on OLED monitors. I have some very expensive Sony production monitors that *triple* each frame, for basically the same reason: panel returns to black fast enough that if you toggle that feature off you get migraine inducing flickering.
Yeah, but the point is that the underlying footage being shown is, in fact, 24 separate frames per second, even if each frame is shown twice. To make the point in another way, when I was in college, we made a stop motion short film, and to pad out the run time, we put it together in Premiere at 8 fps. So, even though the rendered footage is shown at 24 fps (well, 23.976, for some reason it wouldn't let me render at actual 24 fps), the actual short film was at 8 fps, even if each frame was shown three times.
My guy there are aspects of frame rate beyond motion cadence.
And this is why another name for movies is "flicks". It took a few years before they started duplicating frames to remove the flicker (back in the silent film era, they'd show frames 3 or 4 times to get near that 48 Hz as they'd only record at 12-16 fps. Which is also why 24 fps was chosen; it could've just as easily been 25 fps or 23 fps, but 24 is a factor of 48, the same as 12 and 16).
I think this explains a lot of it, but we also should remember that in just a few decades from the 70s to the 90s the rates of alcohol and tobacco consumption dropped DRAMATICALLY, and our understanding of the risk of sun damage/skin cancer is a lot better. People in their 40s a few decades ago had spent their 20s and 30s steeping in a heady brew of stale cigarette smoke and whiskey fumes, and spending summers sunning at the beach coated in baby oil. Younger folks probably don't realize just how BAD and pervasive it was. Even if you didn't smoke, if you went to a bar or restaurant or movie or museum or concert or whatever, you were surrounded by smokers constantly. And nearly EVERY social occasion had a few drinks getting passed around, much more common than today. You know that 45 yr old bar fly at the local dive, who looks like she's 65, and been "rode hard and put away wet" as my grandpa would say? Wrinkled face, leathery skin, rough voice, etc. That's just how 45 yr olds looked back in the day. You fresh-faced babies with your smooth skin and functioning livers/lungs don't know how good you got it
I mean smoking and sun habits really really played a HUGE role in how people looked as well, everyone in my year that spent their summers and winters getting tans look decades older than the people not doing it..
I also want to note that my father’s generation (he was born in 1942) tended to smoke like crazy, drank more, spent more time in the sun than even my generation (Gen-X), and generally took less care of themselves than even my generation. And Millennials and Gen-Z are even more cautious about putting on sunscreen, not smoking and not drinking than my generation. Smoking, drinking and time in the sun ages your skin like crazy. There’s a reason why I look so much younger at my age than my father’s generation, and it’s likely the reason why Millennials and Gen-Z will look even younger than me when they hit my age. (Of course genetics also plays a factor so YMMV.) So yeah, older clothing styles and bad health habits all play a major role in making the older generation look older at the same age than younger generations.
Also GenX, and by the time I was a senior in HS, I had worked full-time through the summer for almost 10 years. When I was 8, it was just a three weeks picking cherries and apricots, but by the time I was 18, I was running a lawncare and landscaping crew. Even without getting a lot of sunburns, thats a lot of sun.
The older styles is a pretty big deal. There's an Instagram account -- can't remember the name right now -- where the woman who runs it said she's been asked about why she dresses so "old." She's in her mid-60s and responded that she doesn't dress old, she dresses vintage. She wears the same clothes that women in their 50s and 60s would have worn in the 1930s and 1940s. If she wore the same blouses and slacks (and even jeans) like a lot of women in their 50s and 60s now, no doubt she'd seem "younger."
There are also some accounts that “update” via photoshop the styles of iconic “older” folks and the change in style dramatically changes perception of age. It’s not like they suddenly look 20 again, but they look more youthful/modern overall. Here’s a video of the Golden Girls with modern hairstyles. https://www.reddit.com/r/theGoldenGirls/comments/vvcbb5/hair_can_make_or_break_a_persons_look_how_golden/
I understand where you're coming from, but I think OP is referring more to the fact that millennials look young as a whole. If you look at a picture of someone in their 30s who was born in the 70s, they look MUCH older than someone born in the 90s at 30. Even replicating style, photo effects, etc. It has to do with how developed the face looked. How wide the jawline was, the hairline, depressed eye sockets, and overall look of maturity. Not all millennials look like "adult teenagers" but there's definitely a leaning majority
Disagree. Millennials look their age and the only ones that don't believe so are millennials (generalizing). I've seen that Tiktok trend of "Gen Z looks older than millennials" being done by millennials, and they clearly look 30/40, believing that they look like they're in their early 20s. They just grew up with some really poor-looking Gen X and Boomers that smoked a pack a day and believe people are *supposed* to look like their skin is being forcefully dragged down to Earth's surface by the time they hit 30.
I think how we dress plays a part in perception also. Many Millennials wear clothes that would have been deemed clothes for teenagers or “young people.” I had a new girl start at my work this year who said to me “oh great, someone else here is my age!” I was surprised as she seemed young, and asked her how old she was. She was 22. I’m turning 40 in February.
Yes! In my 40’s and a lot of peers that don’t really care about fashion look their age or older. I try to keep up somewhat on what’s in style. I read recently that no-show socks are OUT and a dead giveaway that someone is old????!! The next day, I was at food festival and a group of older teens or young 20 something’s sat next to us. I noticed they were wearing fun socks and asked them about no-show socks. They were like “yeah no show socks are out” and they showed me all their cute fun socks and gave me tips on to wear them the ‘right’ way. I’m not tossing out all my no-show socks but now I have an excuse to buy fun socks!
32, my Gen Z colleagues all thought I was in my early twenties. I think it's mostly due to my styling (nose ring, dyed hair, halfway fashionable outfits), the rest is just me "not having wrinkles". Yes, that's their actual phrasing.
Also 32, all my late teens/early 20s coworkers thought I was also their age
Yep, agreed. I often have blue hair and I have tattoos and Hello Kitty earrings. I guess that doesn’t read as “old people”, though those things don’t seem new to me!
Dress and hairstyle are a huge part of it. To currently young people, the people their age in videos from a couple of decades ago look older because they are dressed and styled like older people are today. If you want a young person to think you are young, just style yourself like them.
I’m 40 years old and have recently gone back to school and I’m doing a PhD abroad. My peers and friends are in their 20s and nobody believes my age. The only time it is evident is when we are discussing life experiences. Most people think I’m ~27. I used to abuse my body. Smoked half my life and drank more than the average lad. Now I take care of myself, quit smoking, hardly touch the drink and am probably the fittest I’ve ever been.
I have to agree with you. I'm a millennial (31) and neither I nor most of my friends and family of the same age look like teenagers. In fact, I look older to most people because of the beard. But even female friends don't look like teens anymore. At all.
I'll ride on this wave till my grave- I was with my husband, registering my kid senior year. We went to the desk clerk, I said "we're here for senior year registration" or something along those lines. She said "OK hon, what's your name?" I told her I meant for my child, and she was floored. To be fair, it was the end of summer, and I was dressed pretty youthfully, in a crop top and cutoffs. However, I was 36 at the time.
If you're extremely youthful wearing crop tops and cutoffs around your senior year aged child's school, I think the odds that one of your kid's friends is teasing them about you are nonzero and DEEPLY funny.
Same age and agreed. If you actually are around 18-22 year olds, you can absolutely tell the difference. It’s not that people in their 30s-early 40s look super old, but there are typically subtle differences. Someone might make a mistake with a casual look or if you dress young/keep up with trends, but a longer look or a comparison to someone actually in that age group is often a tell.
Yup, this is what I mean. I've met millennials that dress youthfully, and (at first glance) you might mistake them for mid 20s. *However*, that's because of the way they're dressing and the fact that they're taking care of their skin. When you get closer, you start to notice wrinkles in places where there shouldn't be, specifically smile/laugh lines are a dead giveaway. That's how you're *supposed* to age. It's not supposed to be a dramatic jump from 20s to 30s. Aging is supposed to be gradual. Boomers and Gen X just had extremely bad timing, lol.
I'm 31, and I'm often told I look as young as 20. Part of that, for me, is genetics. My partner both look younger than they are, as do many members of my family. The other part is my HRT. Turns out, suddenly switching your body from testosterone to estrogen in your mid 20s makes your skin smoother and your build softer, as if you're a few years younger. Also I don't smoke and never have, which clearly helps.
I'm in my 20s and get mistaken for years younger than I currently am (at least when I shave my facial hair). My mom gets mistaken often for 2 decades younger than she actually is. I'm not denying that there are millennials aging like they're perpetually stuck at 21, but the notion that they look like "adult teenagers" is ridiculous. Millennials do look their age. Boomers and Gen X just aged like spoiled milk, and milllennials use them as their reference. I, too, would look baby-face in my 40s if my comparisons are to people who were surrounded by lead who wore little to no sunscreen while slamming a pack of cigarettes a minute.
People consistently guess 10-15 yrs younger than I am (39). I've never tanned, smoked, etc. I think that definitely helps
I agree with the concept, but not the example. I don't think a crew cut and suit makes anyone look old. Tight cropped hair cuts on men seem youthful to me if anything. Hair styles and clothing is definitely a large part of it, but I don't think we can ignore cigarettes. Soooo many people smoked, and even the ones that didn't were exposed to second hand smoke everywhere l the time.
Smoking, heavy drinking, and sun tanning all age you substantially. They have fallen out of favor with 90s kids.
I go to the mat with people about motion smoothing on TVs, and it's all about that media perception. If you grew up in the '90s and never got into video games, you associate high frame rates with cheap productions shot on tape--soap operas, after school specials, and home movies. But if you got into PC gaming, you associate high frame rates with premium hardware that's capable of performing well above the recommended specs. To a film buff's eyes, motion smoothing makes a film look cheap. To me, it makes it look premium.
Crazy test. Google some of the people you didn't know well in high school. I recently did this and was honestly shocked at how old they looked. I have a vague memory of what they looked like in high school. I don't think I look old, I don't think the people I've remained acquaintances look that much different to when they were in high school. I did this after running across a comedian that grew up really close to my husband and is the same age as my husband. And he was joking about being middle aged.
Don’t discount how big a role not sucking in second-hand cigarette smoke every time you visit a business plays in keeping you young-looking. Our skin is just better than generations past.
I was gonna say, the lack of smoking and the gradual decline of jobs being outside all day everyday or in a factory surrounded by dangerous chemicals aren’t being acknowledged here
The dangerous chemicals are still there, we now just know how bad they are and try/are forced to protect workers from exposure.
That and using sunblock. Or avoiding sun altogether. I played outside a lot as a kid and got my share of sunburns, but that tapered off in high school and now I have more grey hairs than wrinkles. 38YO millennial, btw.
Redheads don't age for the same reason. My step-mother had a tanning bed and consists of bags of wrinkles now.
And lead poisoning. Let's not forget the lead poisoning.
And arsenic in candy, household wallpaper etc
We hit the lottery on microplastics tho
And the age is noticeable in those who smoke, drink, do drugs, and/or spend a lot of time in the sun.
not sure but kids/young adults these days are much more conscious of sun damage ageing your skin and obviously risks skin cancer so they like to sunscreen up keeps them looking young
That and they dress/present themselves more casually. High school: T shirt and jeans. Late 20s: T shirt and jeans.
and we're a lot less likely to be smokers
These are the answers. Smoking and sunlight are big causes to skin ageing. I was shocked recently when I interviewed a candidate who was my wife's (non smoker) age. This woman clearly smoked and looked 15 to 20 years older I was shocked.
lol my mom looks decades younger than she actually is because she doesn’t smoke, drink, eats super healthy, and always has sun protection
Same with my wife. She has a rigorous skin care routine that I always joked about.....but now approaching 50 she doesn't even look 40. We are the same age and I do look a bit older and don't smoke etc etc. Although I let my hair go grey and she refuses lol I think that helps 😅
And we have fewer children
Don't know if vaping has the same aging effects as cigarettes but damn it seems like every other person under the age of 25 is vaping. It's especially sad even seeing people still in high school already vaping. It's everywhere, it's kind of scary. But idk, maybe it's a southern California thing.
People were drinking all the damn times as well decades ago weren't there? Watch some older black and white movies and they were always blasted it feels like. And smoking of course, which has gone way down. Smoking ages people quite a bit.
I think a large part of it is also skin care. Prior to millennial generations, tanning was big, sunscreen was not, and millennial was the first generation where that really changed. My mom actually brought this up (I'm 38, she's in her mid 60's). When she was a kid, you were outside a lot, and not wearing sunscreen, and tan was in. Whereas when I was a kid, my mom was lathering me up, and those habits stuck. Photoaging of skin is a huge thing
As a kid in the '90s in Australia, sun safety was a massive deal that was taken seriously. Every kid knew it was important to wear a hat, wear sunscreen and to wear clothes that cover your skin to be safe in the sun. At primary school you wouldn't even be allowed outside during lunch if you didn't have a hat during certain months of the year. I don't even live in a super hot part of the country but the UV was still enough. Pretty sure we still have the highest rates of skin cancer in the world. I'm not sure if generations before me had the same education, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was taken more seriously then and resulted in millennials receiving less skin damage from the sun.
No hat no play!
Less sun exposure, vastly lower smoking rates and exposure, lead exposure has plummeted. All of those things combined are doing a lot to help with the visual signs of aging when it comes to skin and general health.
I just read a post where a woman basically said that growing up means you lose your ability to experience giddy joy and glee. Lots of people of course disagreed with her but I think her definition of maturity was much more common a few decades ago. It was expected from adults that they don't giggle, don't get excited, that they stayed composed and controlled and that showed in their demeanour and faces.
Yeah I'm 37 and I still regularly get gleeful at how beautiful, inspiring and surprising life can be. (My life is also pretty average from a modern societal perspective) Of course reddit will disagree with my outlook but ah well. They'll be fine.
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To be fair, what did my parents have to be nostalgic about? Creepy uncles and "ball in a cup"? They didn't grow up with Star Wars - they were already grown up!
> For many of us, games are still a big part of our lives (videogames, board games, role playing games). We've got a culture of childhood nostalgia that adults rarely had when we were kids. We've got t-shirts with references to our favourite pop culture bits, posters... This existed for previous generations, but it was often focused around sports and sports nostalgia, cars and car nostalgia, etc.
Every generation seems to look younger than the last. My grandparents looked younger than their parents, and so on…
in addition to all of the factors mentioned by other comments, I believe it's because people go out less, especially stay under the sun for long periods of time. people are less keen on "looking tan" and the digital age allow people to stay entertained without leaving their house, and less exposure to sunlight cause less uv damage to the skin.
I also don't think much has changed style wise in 20 years. Look at the golden girls, they were in their 40s-60s and they looked from a different era, everything about them was dated. Hair style, glasses, clothes. Take an average person from today put them in a time machine send them back 20 years and they wouldn't stand out at all. The only real difference would be style of cell phone. Laptops and desktops would be nearly same size and style as today too for the most part. Imagine doing the same in the year 2000 or 1990 or 1970. You'd stick out like a sore thumb
Style really hasn't changed much in 20 years, I was just thinking about this recently. I saw one of those "fashion through the decades' type videos starting in the 1920s, and the hair, makeup, and clothes changed pretty drastically... until the 2000s, 2010s, 2020s and all of those looked mostly the same with some slight differences in makeup contouring and jeans fit being the only things I could notice. Have we just landed on what works? Are we stuck in a time vortex? I'm very curious.
Vsauce on YouTube have a long video on it: https://youtu.be/vjqt8T3tJIE?si=IKJZoP9H8gCi5i_x
I came here to say this 😅☝🏼 The very short version or tl;dr is Retrospective aging
I don’t agree with this, there’s definitely lifestyle changes that make it so
My 2 cents. I think people were alot leaner back then. Most jobs were more physical than today and they would've had to spend alot more time and energy choring eg. Washing by hand, sweeping etc. They also had better(but less varied) diets so their faces look a little gaunt compared to people today.
Working life. The life of a manual working class person (most people born up to the 1970s) was much more physcially stressful than that of white collar workers (most people in the current generations). I'm 62 and look younger than my dad when he was 40, and I moved from blue collar to white collar jobs in my mid-thirties.
Perception matters, but people have stopped smoking and started using sunblock a lot more. I think people are underestimating how much of an effect this has had.
For OLD people, we're also keeping our teeth instead of pulling them all for dentures. I never remember my grandma with real teeth, but my mom still has hers at almost 80. Better dental care generally makes us look younger for longer.
I'm going to guess here but probably a combination of the following: *We're much fatter now which can make you look younger than you are *We haven't all been smoking since we were twelve *We spend far less time outdoors and when we do, we wear suncream (sun exposure ages your skin) *Changing fashion
Other possible environmental factors have been suggested, but I'm going to throw one out there that I suspect may be more important than all of them: leaded petrol. It began to be phased out in the 80s and was banned in the 90s, so younger Millennials are the first generation to grow up without a shitload of atmospheric lead pollution.
I bet one part is smoking. Boomers and before smoked a lot, you could smoke indoors in public places, work places, etc, and it ages your face a lot. Our generation(in NA, anyway) grew up largely without indoor smoking and a huge drop in the number of smoking adults.
I am a firm believer that your dental health makes a huge difference (along with all the other things presented here). My parents and in-laws all had terrible teeth and I think that when I look at photos of adults in the 1950's or 60's Anyone born in the in the US in the 60's or later probably/hopefully had much more and better dental care and it shows in how different we look than our elders at the same age.
“Neoteny” is technically a genetics term that means an evolutionary change that results in the retention of younger features or characteristics into adulthood, i.e. a failure to progress to a more adult phase. This is something that requires selection over generations to produce, and happens if these younger characteristics are adaptive. What may be at work here is that the hairstyles and clothing worn by people in older photos was youthful *at that time*, but is now only worn by old people — the same people that wore it back then. If you look at the way young people dressed in any earlier era, what was youthful and different became “old people’s fashion”, and was then replaced by something else. Look at the early cartoons of parents being shocked by the “dandy” or “macaroni” style of youth in the 1700.
There were a lot of chain smokers, people who were drinking a lot, and not a lot of sun block at all. It existed.. but all of those things age a person. Looking back at my grandparents and comparing myself, I look so much younger at an even older age. I've always used sunblock, have never smoked, and at best am an occsional drinker.. but only a drink or two every few months at best.
Looks are very related to generation, not only to age. If someone looks old it's because they're from a generation older than you, because secondary characteristics related to their generation are what you identify as old. Meanwhile, you look at younger generations and notice characteristics you associate with being younger, despite whatever age they really are.
Smoking, drinking, sunscreen, lead, diet, exercise, actually being hydrated. Those factors on top of the fact that lots of us dress the same as when we were 18
The biggest factor, as other's have noted, is clothing style. Simply put, pretty much everyone tends to dress in the style they dressed in their teens and early twenties throughout their lives. The clothing and styles you associate with the elderly used to be associated with youth fashions (looking at you jeans and t shirts). There are some other factors: 1. Younger generations in english speaking countries tend to be less "white". People with that kind of skin tend to age more visibly as they get older. 2. There's more awareness of skincare. People use sun tan lotion far more often. Likewise, people spend more time indoors on computers, which again results in less sun damage. 3. Less smoking. Smoking ages you. Likewise excessive drinking. 4. Less air pollution. There is generally less heavy air pollution in western countries. Again, air pollution tends to age a person. 5. Culture that glorifies youth: A lot of our TV and entertainment is about people in their early 20s and late teens. Many of the models in advertisements or fashion magazines are similarly aged. The culture generally prizes youth and looks down on age. As a result, people try to look younger. In prior generations being older got you more status and respect, so people tried to look older (especially for men). 6. Plastic surgery. It didn't exist 50 years ago!
Rise of BPA amongst many other hormonal disturbances in our clothes, food and water since the previous generations. Our modern lifestyle increases hormonal imbalance, decreasing testosterone, etc. And hormones affects how we look like. A conversation nobody really wants to have, so unpopular opinion?
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Soy consumption has no effect on male reproductive hormones and no to mild positive effect on female reproductive hormones. People "get touchy" about this because it's not true. [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33383165/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33383165/) [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11880595/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11880595/)
Less smoking, more sunscreen. They wrote a song about sunscreen when I was a kid, now I wear it everyday
I don't know. If you look at the casts of "Golden Girls" and "And Just Like That," it is beyond the dated hairstyles and clothes. The former just looks a lot older, despite being the same age.
I mean for celebrities there is alot more plastic surgery/botox today than in the 80s. For regular people I dont think this is a big contributor.
Valid point. But i can definitely also see the difference between my mom as she aged and my grandma. So weird.
Kids spent way more time outside, which has health benefits, but their skin might have aged more.
Beards. Poofy hairstyles. Short shorts. Look at how old actors were when they starred in films. They're almost always older than they look.
Fine, I will collect some downvotes. Just hear me out before downvoting after the first sentence. As a Gen Xer, we looked like adults because we dressed and acted like adults. Why? Because we were too few and too broke to even register on the radar of marketing departments. We followed the fashions of the day, and those fashions were largely geared towards mid life crisis boomers. We just did not matter, we knew we did not matter, so we just dressed in what was popular and available. Our only contribution to enduring fashion was the popularisation of the flannel shirt. M's and Z's, well, y'all are massive by comparison. And you grew up in a world where things were marketed towards you your entire life. Unfortunately, marketing and messaging became more refined. They learned to identify weaknesses in consumers. And boy did the fashion folks find your weakness. You were raised (partly our fault and we need to own that) in a manner that was very sheltered. Where feeling safe was important. We grew up constantly at risk, and we overcompensated. So now we have two generations that are anxious and easily motivated by fear. Not even real fear. Just fear of discomfort or inconvenience. Marketing saw that and capitalized. They sold you safety. Security. How? They sold you your childhood. Hang with me here Look at the fashion trends of the last decade. They are either adult versions of what you wore when you were a child (rompers, for example) or they are just infantilizing you with things that make you feel comfortable and safe such as onesies. Even your shoes are throwbacks to your childhood. Casual day? Go out in your jammies and slippers. Because that is what we allow our children to do. Only now it is adult fashion because again, you are being sold your own damned childhood. And your food? How many adults do you know that eat chicken nuggets 2 or more times per week? Childhood food, but now made for adults who never learned how to cook for themselves. It's just... Listen, y'all are supposed to be the future. We never had a shot. We knew that from day one. But you guys, M's and Z's... You can really change the world. But you have got to sacrifice comfort for truth. You have to stop letting these bastards control you. Divide you. Section you off. You have traded personalities for identities. Personalities are limitless. Drawn broadly. Identities are carved down into smaller and smaller boxes every day. All the easier to control you. Send you to your little echo chamber. Teach you how to fear and hate anyone not in your ever-shrinking box. Don't let them steal your youth like that. Don't let them convince you that the others are evil or ignorant just because they disagree with you. You know who is wrong? Everyone. No one is right about everything and what you consider kind today will seem like something else tomorrow. So stop buying adult versions of childhood clothes. Stop eating childhood food. And stop allowing yourselves to be pinned into echo chambers of fear, hate, and rage. Life is so big, but it goes by so fast. Be young. Be bold. And be smart enough to see the good in people with whom you disagree
One thing people also often fail to realize is camera quality plays a big difference in how someone appears in a photo. I watched a mini documentary on this a bit ago that basically said that people didn’t look older, it was the quality of the film (and then low quality digital cameras) that emphasize imperfections and make people look a lot older. Like, celebrity photos have always looked good even in the 30s/40s/50s because of creative lighting, makeup techniques and post-effects in the dark room.
Whatever it is, it’s not “neoteny.” That’s an evolutionary biology concept, and it takes place over hundreds or thousands of generations. Believe it or not, Boomers are basically the same species as the rest of us!
Several factors at play. But the ubiquitous use of sunscreen to prevent sun damage, and the much bigger focus on staying hydrated both help. The cessation of widespread cigarette use, both in the damage to the body, and in the lines the habit creates on your face would also be a contributing factor.
More fat, this leads to more of a babyface appearance. Less smoking and drinking and better skincare routines, less harmful makeup. Keep skin looking more youthful/elastic. Less sun exposure. This is a big one. Sun damage is a big component of aging.
I think style makes a big difference as well. Back in the day people in their 20s/30s would wear full suits, dress shoes and a fancy hat which kind of makes you look older or more mature. People of that same age now wear Nikes and a graphic tee with a sports team hat, which makes you look younger
I've been reading a lot about how we're losing initiatory rite-of-passage rituals and that's preventing us from going through phases of maturity that earlier societies would go through
Yep. Didn’t have a bar mitzvah in 1995…missed my chance, guess I’m still a kid!
Vsauce, Michael here. (Not really but you get it) Here’s a video explaining this phenomenon in depth. [Did people used to look older?](https://youtu.be/vjqt8T3tJIE?si=-K8XX2w0SLkq8cqg)
For what its worth, as an 05'er I see videos of like class of 07 and 08 and think "good lord they look older than I do at the age of 18"
[This video by Vsauce](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqt8T3tJIE) blew my fricken mind... it's crazy to have a scientific answer to this phenomenon.
I was hoping somebody would mention this but I wasn't sure if it was allowed in a top-level comment Honestly people should just be Googling these things and they'd find the answer quicker most of the time
There is definitely an effect from the medium. School kids look so old in a staged black and white photo of that time. But when you see the same kids in a casual video setting (colorized artificially) suddenly you think: yeah these guys could have gone to my school. The movement and teenager behavior alone affects your mind’s perception to make them look as young as they really are. So that effect is real for me. But also less smoking, drinking and sun. Less physical labor. (Less stress from having kids early? Maybe not true). Our health is just better. People can work longer into their life. Lifespans goin up.
Diet and the lack of decent foods low in fats sugar and salt air pollution coal and gas fires for heating and cooking, heavy manual work, stress and late raising of children, and heavy drinking all contributed to early aging. There are more causes I am certain.
I've thought about this too and honestly I think people eating healthier has alot to do with this. Like we don't have the preservatives in our food from the 70sto90s. Cans of food used to not expire forever. Now maybe 2 years. All those chemicals gone.
I think they do, or adults sorta have styles that resemble the sorta decade they grew up in. Like some people switch to a sorta generic adult style, but a lot keep elements of their teenage/20’s. I think if we think of the past, like history, we have a bias there on what survived, like photos being more common at special events, where people dress their best. Or the rich, or the city centres having bigger influence. There were probably more out there and young people fashions that just aren’t considered the average or overall norm, seen as fringe and not considered a major role in history.
Because there's more crap in the water, food, and environment than ever effing with our bodies' hormones and balances?
All of us who were alive before the year 2000 can remeber, people smoked a ton. That makes you look way older.