If These 8 Things About Younger People Bother You, You Know You’re Officially Old
Is the newest slang bothering you, or are you worried about younger people's financial decisions? If so, you're officially old.
cottonbro studio | Pexels It’s pretty much become a cliche now that people who are annoyed by younger people are, in fact, old. After all, no one who’s young really complains about the music being too loud. But old people? It’s definitely a possibility. If you think about it, the world is really stuck in this endless cycle of the old being upset with the young over pretty much the exact same things, generation after generation.
That’s the point the Instagram account @pastpreserved made. The account, which describes itself as “a digital archive dedicated to preserving the past,” made a post all about the “timeless cycle” in which “each new generation challenges the norms of the one before it, only to be criticized in the exact same way their elders once were.” The post proved that, no matter what changes occur in society, there are some pretty universal things about younger generations that will always annoy those who are officially old.
If these 8 things about younger people bother you, you know you’re officially old:
1. Lack of dedication to things that matter
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Of course, this lack of dedication is mostly perceived by onlookers, but younger people have still developed a reputation for just not really caring about the things that supposedly matter. Part of this could be due to a difference in values. If you asked an older person what was important in life, they’d probably list things like family, friends, career, and stability. On the other hand, younger people might be more concerned with finding true happiness and meaning or making a difference in social justice issues.
It’s true that young people have very different opinions about their jobs than older generations do. For example, a survey from ADP Research Institute asked respondents if they would rather be unemployed or unhappy. For 40- to 58-year-olds, 72% said they’d rather be unhappy, compared to 28% who would rather be unemployed. There was a stark difference for 18- to 26-year-olds. 54% said they’d rather be unhappy, while 46% said they’d rather be unemployed.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that young people are all going out and quitting their jobs. While they don’t want to be unhappy, they also understand the importance of having a stable job that lets them pay the bills. They’re just a little less conventional than older generations are, and there’s a good chance that older people felt exactly the same way when they were younger.
2. Constant complaining
Young people are known for complaining, but whether or not they’ve actually earned this title is up for debate. Much like they’d rather be unemployed than unhappy, older people also tend to think that young people always focus on the negative and complain that they don’t have enough. The truth is, they might actually really not have enough.
Young people are growing up in a world that’s very different from generations before them. Jake Falcon, the founder and CEO of Falcon Wealth Advisors, explained this contrast to Newsweek. “Boomers benefited from a multi-decade bull market in both housing and equities,” he said. “Younger adults today face inflated housing prices, higher student debt burdens, and more volatile job markets, making it harder to accumulate wealth early.”
Older people may think that young people should just be grateful and stop complaining, but there are a lot of things wrong with the world today that they kind of have a right to complain about. Older generations don’t understand because they didn’t face the same challenges, so they just think that young people are annoying for complaining too much.
3. Being spoiled
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If it bothers you that young people seem to be spoiled, then you are officially old. Older people tend to look at those younger than them and resent them for getting unfair advantages and a leg-up in life from their parents, grandparents, and other authority figures and caretakers. The fact of the matter is that they might have a point.
Young people do seem to be getting help from those older than them. A report from Savings.com found that 50% of parents who have adult children help them out financially on a pretty regular basis — an average of $1,474 a month, to be exact. So, older people might be justified in saying that younger people are spoiled or receive too much help from their parents.
However, it’s important to remember the difficult economy that those young people are facing. It’s very different for them than it was for their parents and their parents’ parents. Instead of automatically being annoyed that young people aren’t completely financially independent and thinking they’re spoiled because of it, older people could be a little bit more understanding.
4. Lack of morals
It’s basically become a stereotype of older generations to claim that young people are vulgar and immoral. Each generation has said it of the people who came after them, even though they were once under that exact same scrutiny themselves. The world just naturally changes with each generation, and the definition of what behavior is acceptable broadens. Some older people have a problem with this.
For example, older people may have a problem with the fact that more young people are cohabitating. For adults between 18 and 44, the Pew Research Center reported that 59% have lived with an unmarried partner. This is greater than the 50% who have actually gotten married. And, of course, trends like this are only amplified by popular media, making them more visible to older people. But, as we’ve established, were those very same older people not vilified for the same thing once upon a time?
5. Self-centeredness
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If you look at younger people and think they’re so self-centered and just a bunch of know-it-alls, then there’s a good chance you really are old. Older people think young people only care about themselves and have little to no regard for others. There may be some truth to this, but it can be easily explained.
Psychology professor Jean M. Twenge, PhD, explained that research into why college students are so self-absorbed today has even led to them being called “Generation Me.” She added, “Our current culture does not require young men and women to ‘grow out’ of their self-absorption for a very long time.” Because of this, older generations think of young people as being selfish because they can hold onto their own self-centeredness for a little bit longer than their predecessors were allowed to.
6. Striving for equality
Young people are known for leading the charge for equality in all areas of life. It seems like each generation has a new equal rights cause to fight for. Whatever the cause is, young people commonly take up social justice issues. For example, when women were striving to gain equal footing with men, it was young women who chose to start dressing differently, acting differently, and expecting more from life.
When discussing the continuing fight for women’s rights, UN Women actually referred to Gen Z as “Gen Z-ero tolerance for inequality.” Even today, after women have been granted the right to vote, are fixtures in the workforce, and are no longer expected to sit silently at home, young people are keeping the fight for gender equality alive and ensuring any injustices are dealt with accordingly.
This doesn’t mean that all older people are discriminatory. Often, older people are slower to get on board with youth-led movements for equality, though. Instead, these movements originate with younger people, who may be seen as upstarts at first.
7. Clothing and language trends
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Do you feel like relaxed-fit, baggier jeans are lacking in rizz? If so, you’re probably old. Older people just don’t connect with trends that young people follow, especially when it comes to things like fashion and slang. The MIT Technology Review reported that Urban Dictionary was first created in 1999, so slang has clearly been around for a while. Each generation has its own contributions, whether it was “hip” in the 1950s or “tea” in the modern era. Of course, older people don’t typically know what the latest popular slang even means, so they’re pretty bothered by it.
Fashion is nearly as difficult to decipher as slang is. Each generation has its own look, and while older generations may opt for a more classic look, young people always want what is popular at the moment. According to Vogue, low-rise jeans are very in for fall, if you care about that sort of thing. And chances are, if you’re older, you really don’t care. If you find yourself feeling apathetic toward or out of touch with modern fashion, you’re probably officially old.
8. Financial decisions
If there’s one thing older generations always love to complain about younger people doing, it’s making poor financial decisions, or at least what they consider to be poor decisions. With a tough economy, Gen Z is admittedly struggling to find their financial footing, and not always making a lot of decisions about money beyond how to keep the bills paid. Still, older generations find space to be critical. After all, isn’t the reason they’re in such dire straits because they spend so much on coffee and avocado toast?
But, as we know, in many situations, Gen Z is forced to rely on help from their parents or just forced to struggle their way through. They aren’t really making financial decisions that are as poor as older people make them out to be. Instead, they’re probably just doing their best and trying to get by. They shouldn’t be faulted for that.
It’s become one big joke that you’re officially old when you start to feel bothered by certain things younger people are doing. Young people get a lot of flak for their actions, but it’s important to remember that this happens to every generation when they’re young. Older people once had to experience this, too, so maybe they can go a little easier on today’s youth.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
