askchapo @hexbear.net ButtBidet [he/him] @hexbear.net 5 mo. ago

Old farts of Hexbear, is there something about younger people that you don't get? [no punching down!]

OK this is my list. But first, I need to say that this isn't a condemnation of those into such thing. They just don't vibe with me.

Cannot get into ASMR. I've tried. Often its women 20 years younger than me, rubbing their fingernails on hairbrushes. The intentional sounds they make with their lips and fingers are things that would make me want to change seats on a bus.
Instagram. I was maybe the last person to get a smart phone. It was probably 2016. I'm just fully lazy to take photos of stuff. This is a real issue when I'm single and I need to start putting photos on dating sites, as all pics of me in my phone are me squeezing carrots in my nostrils and similarly goofy things.
My students' taste in anime. I try to be all cool and show off my cool taste in anime, maybe drop a Azumanga Daioh clip. It's all ancient history for 17 year olds.
Photo and videos done in portrait mode. I guess I don't watch videos on the go. See #2

Things that the kids these days do better:

Usually better opinions on current events than people my age
I wish that cosplay existed when I was a teen. The default when I was younger was drugs.

If anyone insults the kids, I will visit you at your home and do an adventure-time

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I tend to like the young folk and identify with them way more than people my age, not in a creepy way I hope. Probably because I don't have kids and am terminally online. I'm optimistic about everything. I don't think there's anything about younger people I fundamentally don't understand.

I don't get sending huge amounts of money to streamers, but I also don't have huge piles of money to throw around.

I actually like how younger people are going more minimalist in their fashion taste. Lots of reappropriation of stereotypical work clothes, like Dickies pants, overalls, stuff like that. That's a neat trend I've noticed.
- identify with them way more than people my age, not in a creepy way I hope.
  
  Soapbox moment for Frank;
  
  Folks should ID with younger people and it is a huge problem that society has stigmatized healthy relationships between adults and young people or children. Kids need mentors and positive adult role models. They need support from adults who understand what they've been through and can offer support and perspective. Kids need adults in their lives and it is a problem that having any kind of relationship with a young person outside your immediate family is almost inevitably viewed as predatory or exploitative.
  
  I actually like how younger people are going more minimalist in their fashion taste. Lots of reappropriation of stereotypical work clothes, like Dickies pants, overalls, stuff like that. That's a neat trend I've noticed.
  
  Skinhead (real skins, not boneheads) 3.0 or 4.0. I dig it.
  
  I work with teenagers every day and it definitely helps prevent boomerfication
  
  Listening to people younger than yourself also keeps you grounded in the present. Too many people get stuck in the past, or get isolated from wider society. I really don't want to become a detached old person, that's one of my greatest fear. I don't ever want to have the feeling that time has passed me by and I'll never understand the world.
  
  I haven't had that feeling so far, thankfully. You're right about younger people needing mentors and stuff, I hadn't seen it much from that angle. I think older people need to listen to younger folk as well, to keep them grounded in reality. Younger people aren't aliens out to ruin society and they're not naive confused toddlers either. They're people sharing the present and we don't need to have such a generational gulf or apprehension if we're all on Earth and alive at the same time.
  
  Word. Ideally mentoring would be listening to problems kids are having and offering your experience and knowledge as a resource they can use to find solutions for those problems, rather than trying to tell them what to do with your withered Millenial brain.
  
  I just don't see that much a difference between young people and me. For very obvious reasons, MSM stress incredibly minor differences in aesthetic tastes to the point where generational difference is almost exclusively about what type of slop you consume. I don't think my high school experience is that different from a current zoomer who's still in high school. Yeah, we didn't have smartphones, but we still chatted with flip phones and AIM. Apparently, they changed how the SAT is scored so their max score is different from my max score. We watched different TV shows, played different games, and masturbated to different porn, but those are just types of slop. It's not like my generation think all music is satanic or completely abstain from touching ourselves.
  
  The actual differences I see are:
  
  We didn't have to face so many school shootings nor do any school shooter drills. I remember having to do a single bomb drill when I was a senior, and nobody took that shit seriously. The bullshit zoomers have to go through now like pigs pretending to shoot at them with fake guns or having to drill on how to carry a peer shot in the stomach is trauma inducing.
  
  I didn't have to cancel graduation because of a global pandemic nor watch people around repeatedly getting reinfected by Covid.
  
  The political causes people rally to are different. For us, it was how Dubya sucked and the Darfur genocide. Current teenagers have Palestine. Of course, the war on terrorism intimately tied to Palestine, so it's not as different as it seems. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out the Darfur genocide is also tied to Palestine as well.
  
  Zoomers would actually walk out of classrooms and actually do shit while millennial teenagers didn't have that in them at all. There's at least some understanding of politics even among zoomer teenagers.
  
  Zoomers aren't as uptight about conforming to cishet and NT standards of beauty although they still conform to them in the end. The 90s to late 00s was horribly restrictive in how your gender expression has to completely conform to a cishet hypermasculine or hyperfeminine ideal, no doubt related to the AIDS epidemic. It only started to break down with emos and scene kids, and they were constantly bullied for being f-words.
  
  Everything else like what type of socks you like to wear is completely superficial.
  
  I don't think my high school experience is that different from a current zoomer who's still in high school.
  
  From what I've heard, compared to twenty years ago, conditions have greatly degraded at many US schools. massive churn on teachers, bigger classes, fewer teachers overall, fewer resources like nurses, counselors, and librarians. Much more militarized or prisonized school buildings, much more rigid control of students movements. It sounds fucking grim. Plus social media has enabled cool, horrible new kinds of bullying. Like there are apparently a lot of very real, very substantial differences that go beyond shooting drills.
  
  But otherwise, yeah. It's different, but not so different as to be unrelatable. especially if you try to remember how much bullshit there really was and not get nostalgic about shit.
  
  Much more militarized or prisonized school buildings, much more rigid control of students movements.
  
  Columbine changed everything. I think the effect is most sharply felt if you're a xennial, but I wasn't old enough to experience a pre-Columbine high school experience. There are plenty of millennial high schoolers who walked through metal detectors. I see the difference between millennials and zoomers as more of a quantitative difference than a qualitative one. The stuff about pigs pretending to be school shooters to "prep" students is a more recent development and a huge wtf for me.
  
  Plus social media has enabled cool, horrible new kinds of bullying. Like there are apparently a lot of very real, very substantial differences that go beyond shooting drills.
  
  Yes, that's true. I think social media bullying already existed when I was in high school, but owning to us not having social media as kids, we didn't really incorporate our online persona as part of our concept as self to the extend of zoomers. In other words, we differentiated between cyberspace and meatspace and we can "walk away" from our online troubles.
  
  But otherwise, yeah. It's different, but not so different as to be unrelatable. especially if you try to remember how much bullshit there really was and not get nostalgic about shit.
  
  It's interesting to compare zoomers here with my gen x coworkers who are old enough to be their parents. The funniest story was some gen xer who tried to start a conversation by asking whether I watched a bunch of zoomer cartoons and after seeing my blank expression, he then started asking if I watched a bunch of gen xer cartoons that I'm even more clueless about lol. He went from asking about Steven Universe to asking about the Star Trek Animated Series, two cartoon series separated by 4 decades. And the real funny thing is that the midpoint between the two would be shit that I actually watched as a kid, so cartoons like Animaniacs or Darkwing Duck. It was a really trippy experience to be asked about cartoons that you're simultaneously too old and young when they came out.
  
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  The standard profile of a sexual abuser is a kid's dad, followed by sports coaches and pastors. Men who have access to a lot of kids, can get them away from other adults, and hold institutional power over them. But it's mostly men who are either in the immediate family or close members of the family. A lot of what people believe about child abuse is media hype propaganda. The most straightforward answer is don't be alone with kids you don't know. Meet them at a community center or something. But we've got to figure this out. Creating a culture where everyone is afraid of adults who interact with kids, and afraid of the wrong adults, ie not watching for abusive behavior coming from fathers, cousins, uncles, coaches, pastors, is a problem for everyone. It's gonna lead to even more alienation and we're going to keep being neurotic and isolated.
- I actually like how younger people are going more minimalist in their fashion taste. Lots of reappropriation of stereotypical work clothes, like Dickies pants, overalls, stuff like that. That's a neat trend I've noticed.
  
  Ngl, I unironically love rugged workwear, especially winter clothes. When I was 18-19 I had a Craftsman duck canvas jacket that i found at a thrift shop. It was heavy as hell but warm and comfortable. It became my preferred style even though I don't work construction or anything like that.
- Lots of reappropriation of stereotypical work clothes
  
  Cool and all, but like, trying to get a pair of lined jeans for working in the cold now costs 2x as much because of this trend. Zoomers you're great but please leave some for the rest of us.
  
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  Have you tried Duluth Trading? They're pricey, you're going to spend 70$ for a pair of work pants, but they use good materials and have good construction, plus cool stuff like stretch DWR fabrics that are very abrasion resistant. I just bought new pants for the first time in, idk, maybe 7, 8 years? because the crotch gusset in my cargos finally gave out. And it's a repairable rip, too.
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