Very confidently wrong, poor reading comprehension, poor grammar, limited vocabulary, emoji gore, catch phrase/pop culture quotes/talking points repeated with no comprehension of what they're saying, clearly not aware of how many things in life work, religious regurgitation while being surprised everyone doesn't agree with them. Very easily impressed with basic factual statements, clearly thinking confidence is the main thing that makes someone correct. Thinks their mom telling they they are handsome is a valid point. Idk, that's all I got.
I remember reading that when national parks tried to make a 'bear-proof' trashcan, they found that there was a larger overlap between the smartest bear and the stupidest human to make a viable product.
I feel like it's a similar situation here. The smartest kid and the stupidest adult are far more similar than we'd like to admit.
Extreme/insane positions on everything. Not just one or two insane positions, not just political extremism; when I say everything I mean EVERYTHING. No nuance allowed. And it has to be fully sincere, otherwise you are dealing with a Jreg.
There are milder versions of this, but I have rarely met a child that didn't have a strongly held insane belief formed from their limited experiences. My favorite was a kid who told me that eating pasta supports fascism because it comes from Italy, so loving Italian products means you support Mussolini. Pizza is fine, though, because that's American.
I don't think there is a "dead giveaway". Plenty of kids can pass as adults online and plenty of adults seem like kids online. And sometimes with stuff like word usage/grammar/etc you can't tell if it's a child or someone who doesn't speak English very well or maybe an English-speaking adult who happens to type like that. There's a lot of different people in the world.
They like people like Lenin and Stalin.
It's a wakeup call for a lot of young people when they start to recognize the absurdity of anti-communist propaganda, but a lot of kids swing too far the other direction and figure all the bad things they've ever heard about history's worst communist leaders are lies.
It doesn't mean that Communism is uniquely bad, but these men were violent tyrants who don't share values with most mainstream western leftists today.
Some never grow up and say dumb shit like that radical gender expression was common in the USSR or something...
Excessive edginess
It's important to differentiate it from like. Having extreme opinions. There are plenty of adults with extreme opinions and they are a whole other conversation. -- But only people under a certain age (not strictly kid, mind, though most people have shaken this off by their mid 20s) have a penchant to arrive at extreme opinions specifically because they are "edgy" and "cool".
This tends to also come with a particularly needless hostile attitude, where they very quickly and easily start with the verbal abuse.
Asking basic questions that can usually be answered with internet experience ("how do bans/kicks work", or "what is an administrator", "what is LAN" etc.)
Flaunting "new" features that existed on older products. ("This game let's us upload our own music to soundtrack!", "I've never seen a platformer like this" etc.)
"Redditors of Reddit, how do you sexily sex the sex out of sexy sex???"
Serious response: you can't really make a very general rule. There are a lot of people who write quite maturely since their teens, and a lot of people who are morons since their teens and have endless dedication and determination to remain in that state for as long as they breathe.
Excessive swearing, as if they just learned how to say “fuck”.
Not that any damn amount of fucking swearing means they are are a young fucker, but you can fucking tell when you read that shit and they manage nine goddamn swear words in one fucking sentence you know they’re a young bitch who aren’t allowed to swear any other damn time.
Quick to call other people kids as an insult.
Using a year as an extremely long period of time, never uses "talk it out" as a solution to anything, mentions a YouTuber you've never heard of as if they're a global celebrity.
Also related to the first point, losing their mind over something that delays their education by 4 months or more.
"Arguing" by listing a long list of fallacies that they don't really even understand.
Unfaltering loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party
A lack of understanding interpersonal interactions.
And it’s more of a feeling than it is any single behavior. You just… know it when you see it. They simplify too much, think values/morals/rules are shared, obvious, and uniform, and that getting along with others happens solely on their terms. They kind of act like everyone but them is an NPC - not realizing to everyone but them, they’re the NPC.
Crypto bros who follow ultra distorted stoicism (the only good philosophy is the ones made when slavery was normalised) that believe everyone else is unaware of what very basic knowledge they world they just learned that day.
They don't remember what life was like before Google.
Writing in short form where a lengthier reply would work better and when confronted with such a reply some form of "not reading all that" or other thought terminating clichés.
I've found that as arbitrary as it is - the ability to read a lot of information works pretty well as a mark of mental maturity. Also links to Twitter or Tiktok as discussion points. No one over the age of 19 browses TikTok lol.
Why does he look so much like Pete Davidson
The thing with a lot of the methods mentioned is that I've seen both teens that are more mature than me, and people in their thirties that should probably have their internet privileges revoked.
For me personally the first tell is when they are morally loading every statement in an argument and are unable to engage with a topic directly. Adults should be able to discuss or debate certain topics on the value of the arguments alone without feeling pressured to include a declarative virtue signal in every clause.
💀
the only dead giveaway is if they get doxxed
I wish there were dead giveaways. It would be helpful to know if I'm talking to a teen or an adult cuz my attitude in delivering how wrong they were would definitely change. Certainly i can recall some truly boneheaded beliefs i have discarded through the decades so im more forgiving if i know they're young.
On the other hand if they're pretending to be an adult they ostensibly want to have their opinions considered on equal terms, as peers; basically to not be preached to. If that's their goal then isnt it kinda the point to treat their ideas as if they were offered by one? If we think of it like that, maybe it's not super important to know someone's age. It's definitely helpful of course to know who youre dealing with but the downside of anonymity is also its upside. ideas are ideas no matter how old the brain is what thinks em.
Wait! I thought there were no kids on the internet. Men are men, women are men, kids are FBI?
Unable to understand and/or admit that both sides can be bad. It's ok to admit the "your team" did some nasty shit and it doesn't in any way cancel out what the other "team" did.
Also, Winning an argument doesn't in any way make you a winner. Actually, an argument that someone "won" often doesn't lead to a change for the better or even make anyone convinced that your arguments were valid.
Takes things personally right away and isn't yet very good at sarcasm or snark. But you know, that could just be and awkward adult too
Very weird political positions, like eg. unironic Polpotism
🔥b00bs🔥 feel like bags of sand 💯
They don't drink at all and they think consent is literally impossible after any amount of alcohol.
They play Gatcha life or that Toca boca game (forgot it's name)
Short of a birth year in their username, I'm not sure there is one. Almost everything in this thread is something millennials inflict on me daily.
I've read the lemmy.world responses, and they're all predictably trash. The real answer is there's no good way to tell if someone's a kid because they're plenty of mature 12 year olds and plenty of dipshit adults with poor writing skills (ie boomers). To rephrase the question, what is a dead giveaway that someone is actually not a kid?
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They talk about mid- to low-tier shows that your average zoomer wouldn't know about. So someone talking about The Simpsons or Batman: The Animated Series doesn't mean much, but someone talking about Biker Mice from Mars or Extreme Dinosaurs means they're some millennial.
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They namedrop social media sites that no longer exist. Remember Xanga and Vine?
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They complain about body problems. Knees that feel funny before it rains. Bad back. Nose hair that never stops growing. And so on.
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They demonstrate an understanding on how old and obsolete technology works (typewriters, payphones, VCR, floppy disks, Limewire, DOS, modems, Blackberries). Like, average zoomers don't know how to use those map guides that are in the form of a book.
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They remember how the pre-modern web was like or life before the web was like. Someone who's <18 years old was born after 2006, when the modern web was still being build.
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They remember ancient memes and fads that are obscure enough that it isn't some zoomer looking up random memes on knowyourmeme.
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They're horribly out of touch with what kids enjoy. Notice this is different from passing judgment on what kids enjoy because they're plenty of things I thought was stupid when I was a kid. But when you say shit like "only 13 year olds like Tiktok" or "only kids like Minecraft" yeah you're just out of touch.
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if you wanna tell apart american gen z from gen alpha, ask them if they know what this is:
gen z used these smartboards and the teacher always made someone recalibrate the touchscreen to the projection when it was off
afaik the new spoiled shits all get these in every classroom, they were rolling em out when i was graduating:
at least in places that can afford it. this might be more true in a few years
Many people wouldn't know I'm not a kid if they spent all day interactively standing behind me in a queue.
Kids Next Door on some recon huh
When someone explains something everyone knows or is obvious as if they just thought of it for the first time in human history.
One kid in a roblox "exposed" type of video said that he could tell adults apart because they "typed really fast" - so, if it's in a game, check if they type kinda slow? In a forum, no idea.
gulfgyhio
their and your instead of theyre and youre
They hate porn.
I'm pretty sure looking for kids on the internet will get you a nice little seat with Mr. Chris Hansen.
idk, but i wish they'd go away because i fucking hate them.
NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR VAPID DRAMA. QUIT MUDDYING THE WATERS OF DISCUSSION WITH YOUR LACK OF ANY REAL LIFE EXPERIENCE.
ask if they remember these