The Bizarre Theory That Explains Why Millennials Look So Much Younger Than Gen-Z, Despite Being Way Older
It's not just good skincare, although that helps.
Shahin Khalaji | Unsplash Editor's Note: This is a part of YourTango's Opinion section where individual authors can provide varying perspectives for wide-ranging political, social, and personal commentary on issues.
A while back, my husband and I went out to hang out with our friends. We were outside when we ran into a pair of really cool car guys. The guys were all talking about what it was like in high school a couple of years ago.
“Can’t relate,” I said. “You’re homeschooled or something?” asked one.
“I wish. I’m approaching 40,” I said. “I haven’t been in high school for about 15 years.”
“That’s cap,” he said.
My husband had to tell him that, no, I’m not lying. I’m 10 years older than everyone else in that friendship group. It just so happens that they were all my husband’s high school friends that night.
The guys looked at me, and the younger one said, “You don’t look that old … I thought you were like 25 or something.”
“I’m almost old enough to be your mom, kid,” I said. He was barely 20 years old, so I wasn’t off-base when I said that. We all shrugged and continued the conversation.
This is not an isolated incident among Millennials. That entire humble-brag story? Yeah, I’ll admit it was a bit of a brag, but the truth is that I mentioned it for a reason.
This is far from an isolated incident, and most other Millennials are getting similar remarks. It’s become an ongoing joke about Millennials versus Gen-Z.
Millennials look far, far younger than Gen-Z, despite our generation being older.
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There have been several reasons suggested as to why Millennials look younger than Gen-Z:
- Health consciousness is common among Millennials. It’s no secret that Millennials are a very health-oriented bunch. We’re more likely to hit the gym, more likely to eat organic, and more likely to read (and act) on health studies.
- Millennials waited longer for cosmetic procedures. This is true for most of us. It was still taboo to get Botox at 20 back then. Whether or not this contributed to our rapid aging, though, is strongly up for debate.
- An article in Vogue suggests that our ideas of what adults look like might be outdated, making us appear like “forever kids.” I’m not sure I buy this. There is a cultural portion of what makes a person look older than they are, but it’s often clothing and attitude. If you take away styling, we’re still a little more “puppy-faced” than other generations.
- Millennials don’t spend much time outdoors. Our generation was one of the first to go hard on sunscreen use when outdoors, too. It’s no secret that UV exposure is one of the biggest links to premature aging.
Even so, it seems like all of this still doesn’t explain everything about the “ageless Millennial, aged Gen-Z” phenomenon. There may be something a lot more obvious as a major cause of Gen-Z’s seemingly accelerated aging.
Believe it or not, I’ve noticed that most Millennials had at least one or two years of carefree fun in their young adult era. Most Millennials I know and grew up with also got to enjoy a fairly basic, safe high school experience.
School shootings were not as common in my time as they are now. There wasn’t as much doom and gloom. There was a literal decade’s worth of time when you could just freak out, act cringeworthy, or be a loser and not have it be forever catalogued in your time. That doesn’t exist now.
Here's my theory about why Millennials actually look younger than Gen-Z: Much of the freedoms that we enjoyed as kids, including the freedom to be able to live down embarrassing stunts we did, are gone.
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Everything is on the internet now. For all to see, judge, and pick apart. The earlier part of Gen-Z was the last cadre to potentially experience a handful of years without the internet. And oddly enough, they tend to look younger than earlier Gen-Z adults.
Journalists are starting to cover some of the most bizarre, striking differences between how later generations are growing up. If you’re a parent like me, you’ve already heard of “Sephora kids,” or preteens who go to Sephora to experiment with makeup and skincare products. Some nine-year-olds tout their skincare routines right now.
A scary number of kids these days have started to feel crazy amounts of pressure to:
- Get a partner or boyfriend/girlfriend by any means necessary. I’m hearing about kids as young as 11 freaking out because they’re worried they’ll never get any. It’s so common, it was even a major theme in Adolescence. This is scary.
- Have a personal brand. Kids now want to be influencers. As a person who works in content creation, this is disturbing on so many levels. You shouldn’t have to have a personal brand at 10 years old!
- Avoid being cringey or doing awkward things. This was around when I was young, too, but it seems to be 10 times worse now. It’s gotten to the point where many people from Gen-Z are afraid to dance at nightclubs out of fear of being seen as “cringeworthy.”
- Worry about a job and finances before they even get a college acceptance letter. I mean, it’s harder and harder to even break into a job these days. I can’t blame them.
Not only that, but they grew up in a world where school always came with the sinister connotation of being a potential place to die from a mass shooting. They came into a world where everything always seems out to get them, where nothing ever seems to feel stable or safe.
I don’t think Gen-Z has ever truly felt a sense of security or community, and I think that stress is prematurely aging them.
The more that I talk to people younger than me, the more they seem awestruck when I tell them I used to have a community where people would just let you crash whenever you wanted. In many cases, they’re shocked I took the risks I did.
In my childhood through my teen years, there was a sense of normalcy. It was normal to give troubled kids the benefit of the doubt. It was normal to be able to have a record for acting out, only to be able to walk away from it and start anew.
Some places felt safe to most Millennials. School was generally one of those places where you felt safe, within reason. I never experienced a shooter drill. When I saw my first school shooter drill at my old middle school, I freaked right out.
I don’t know many teenagers or young adults who grew up feeling like they had a shot at a great future. Millennials, for the most part, did. There was a great chunk of our childhood, teen years, and young adult years where we were all told we could be anything we wanted to be.
The attitude Millennials soaked in — that attitude of anything is possible — is part of the reason that generation is youthful and idealistic.
Millennials are filled with can-do #boss energy. And you know what? I don’t see much of that in Gen-Z or Gen Alpha.
People don’t recognize how much a lack of security can age a person, especially in one’s formative years. Maybe it’s just my life experience, but I’ve noticed that people who lived rough lives as kids tend to look older as adults. They also act older. While this isn’t always a perfect rule, it seems to hold water more often than not.
Stress ages people prematurely by increasing long-term cortisol, which encourages weight gain, increases wrinkles, and increases sensitivity to a wide range of skin stressors.
This isn’t a new belief or a new observation. Even in antiquity, there were stories of people who got white hair prematurely as a result of the trauma they endured.
And trauma? That’s something all of Gen-Z and Gen-A have endured. They’re watching fascism rise, the planet die, and the number of genuine opportunities whittle away into nothing.
No wonder so many teachers are talking about teens “playing dead” at school. The kids are so traumatized, they’re demoralized. They don’t want to try to do better because they feel like it would be all for naught.
You know what they call that? They call that emotional numbness, and it’s a sign that you’re so traumatized that your brain can’t handle it. It’s just shutting down the feelings that push you through things so that you can just go on autopilot.
Is it that big a leap to think that Gen-Z might look older because of the trauma they grew up with? Kids are resilient, but they often know when something isn’t right. With Gen-Z, resources are there to tell them that what they’re experiencing isn’t normal or healthy.
Yet, it remains “the way things are” with younger generations being powerless to stop it. They’re victims here — victims of prior generations’ idiocy.
Is it that shocking that maybe, just maybe, the aging we’re seeing is just a generation of world-weariness? I mean, that’s what I’d think.
Ossiana Tepfenhart is a writer whose work has been featured in Yahoo, BRIDES, Your Daily Dish, Newtheory Magazine, and others.
