24 Popular Trends Among Younger Generations That Older Adults Are Officially Sick Of Seeing
I graduated from high school 14 years ago, and I can confidently say that if I were to walk the halls of my high school today, I would feel like a dinosaur. Many of today’s popular trends feel totally foreign to me and even confusing. So redditor u/Fyre-Bringer asked, “What’s something you heard the younger generation is doing that absolutely baffles you?” Here’s what people (plus some members of the BuzzFeed Community) said.
1. “I guess there’s, like, elementary school-aged kids with full skincare routines now? That’s wild…”
—u/retrosnot86
Iryna Veklich via Getty Images
2. “Young people seek information by watching TikTok content rather than Googling the answers. If you have a lot of time to spare, you will often get good info, but I’m middle-aged, and I’ve always been a big reader. I will do almost anything to avoid having to watch stuff (or listen, for that matter) when I can more quickly visually skim and immediately determine if the information is relevant to me and seems legit.”
—mimib4fdb36f95
3. “That they use phones instead of laptops. I use my phone a bit, but it’s hard to imagine it being my only computer. I need at least 20 inches of screen, a trackball, and a keyboard with physical buttons just to think properly. I don’t want to budget my battery to last all day if an important text comes through. I want my internet signals sent over a hard wire. When my computer stops working, I want to open it up and swap the broken part with a better one.”
—u/gameryamen
Klaus Vedfelt via Getty Images
4. “I’m almost 28, and an 18-year-old I work with mentioned how guys ask for her Snap. I guess the days of asking for phone numbers are completely gone. I’m not too surprised because I prefer Facebook Messenger over the texting app, but it’s still so weird that we don’t get phone numbers anymore, apparently.”
—puertorican
5. “Gen X here. I don’t understand the eyelash thing where they’re so long and fluffy that you look like Snuffleupagus. I also don’t understand the nails that are so long you can’t function. Like, how do you wipe?”
—nrkelly
Olena Rudo / 500px via Getty Images
6. “They are allowing every one of their friends on Snapchat to know their location at all times. My 23-year-old coworker and her friends are constantly revoking and then reinstating their visible location depending on whether they’re happy or mad with each other. If someone notices that they can’t see where another person is, they’ll bring it up, wondering what they did to upset them. Her best friend will ask her friend to check her boyfriend’s location and whichever friend he told her he’d be with to make sure they match.”
“At least I can kinda understand family members knowing, but even then, my siblings don’t need to know where I am at all times, and my parents should maybe stop constantly checking once I hit 18. 21 surely. IDK, I guess if you grow up with it, you don’t think it’s weird. I’m 43, and I certainly didn’t grow up with people who didn’t have the ability to know where I was at all times unless I told them or called them.”
—u/CallejaFairey
7. “All the self-labeling. When I was young, we avoided labels at all costs!”
—u/1mamapajama
Witthaya Prasongsin via Getty Images
8. “I find many younger people to be very fearful. Hyper-fixating on the worst possible outcomes even though the actual chance is so low it’s not worth worrying about.”
—u/sonicfluff
9. “Refusing to learn to drive. I understand not wanting to, preferring to live where you don’t have to because of good walkability/transit/likability, etc. But just being unwilling to learn at all? It’s an important life skill, and there might be an emergency where you have to!”
NickyLloyd via Getty Images
10. “Not dating someone because of the phone they have...”
—u/SaveusJebus
11. “Kids making fun of other kids because they don’t have a specific water tumbler. It sounds like somebody is trying to parody ‘making fun of other kids for having the wrong brand of clothes or phone.’”
—u/shf500
12. “Binge-watching short videos compiled so you never watch anything with a plot or storyline. Just tons of 10–60 second videos, and most of them are awful.”
—u/hey_nonny_mooses
13. “Making fun of kids for ‘no show’ or ‘ankle’ socks. What on earth is that about?”
—u/Tangboy50000
Ana Maria Serrano via Getty Images
14. “Making every phone call via speakerphone, especially when holding the phone directly next to the side of their head because they can’t hear.”
—u/veni_vidi_vici47
15. “Getting addicted to nicotine. I thought younglings would be a little less foolish than we were.”
—u/computer_crisps_dos
designer29 via Getty Images
16. “Creating GoFundMe pages for cosmetic surgery and/or procedures.”
—marcellad4d6dcad63
17. “Committing crimes as part of social media trends. Especially the challenge of licking ice cream at the store and putting it back. That’s a straight-up health code violation.”
—u/Heroic-Forger
Lisa J. Goodman via Getty Images
18. “I’ve trained three co-workers in their early 20s who don’t use the shift key to capitalize letters. They hit caps lock, type the letter to be capitalized, and then hit caps lock again. I can’t wrap my head around it.”
—u/mowglimg
19. “That they’re bringing back those thin ’90s brows again. It seems it’s a lesson we all must learn the hard way.”
—u/dontaskwhatitmeans
Yulia-Images via Getty Images
20. “I can’t understand why today’s kids want to watch YouTube videos of kids or adults opening up new toys and playing with them! Why would any kid want to watch someone else play with toys instead of their own?”
—jennies4783ed5b8
21. “That literacy rates are plummeting. This one is so confusing! How can you be the chronically online generation unable to read?”
—u/Tough_Music4296
FatCamera via Getty Images
22. “Not knowing how to use punctuation. The lack of punctuation drives me nuts. I shouldn’t have to read something 50 times because you don’t know how to place a period or a comma when needed.”
—meandtwoboys
23. “I listened to a 23-year-old (more than a decade younger than me) say she wanted to start ‘preventative Botox.’ Girl...”
—u/Kholzie
ttart via Getty Images
24. “Vaping. Isn’t it clear by now that inhaling fumes is not really a good idea?”
—u/LordGigu
What is a trend or behavior prevalent among another generation that you find confusing? Tell us in the comments.