I was talking to my primary-school age kids about their teachers, and one of them says their next teacher will be Mr Smith.
“He’s old,” they said, “he must be at least fifty”.
I said “nah man. Mr Smith is probably only a few years older than me, early forties I reckon”.
They had me with “no he’s like really old. He reads a newspaper”
About a decade ago my employer had an intern present their findings from analyzing some survey data. One of the findings was this:
“People who answer surveys are really old. Like really old. Like thirty.”
Yeah, the other day I was consulting with another therapist, and I was telling her how in EMDR therapy I often say “don’t give me the whole article, just the headline” when I want to explain to the client to avoid talking too much during EMDR. she works with teens, and she went “yeah, that will not fly with my clients.”
We came up with “don’t give me the long-form video, just give me the TikTok” as we both felt we were inching closer to the grave, lol.
I’m not a Gen Z but how about, give me the TLDR?
I like this, I’m going to tell her about this.
Damn…
I’m Gen Z and I feel like I’d still understand the article analogy, but when I think about my gen-alpha cousins maybe they would need the TikTok analogy…
We came up with “don’t give me the long-form video, just give me the TikTok” as we both felt we were inching closer to the grave, lol.
“Give me the Reader’s Digest condensed version.”
“How does what a reader eats have anything to do with this? and why would we need a condensed version of that diet description?”
oh god, I’m old.
Hey kids! Anything interesting in the latest TV Guide?
Oh really? I’ll have to set up my DVR to tape it, I’ll be at a doctor appointment when the first episode airs…
“Give me the clip, not the VOD.” How do you do, fellow kids?
“Give me the Season 1 recap.”
This is a good one, thanks!
Primary school age children are horrible at guessing age. One time when I was 16 a group of 6 year olds estimated I was 40. And I don’t look old, a few weeks ago, I got carded buying beer, which is 16+. I’m 27.
I don’t regret any of this one bit, you look them up and it’s always someone shilling products extremely hard while doing extremely low effort content like reaction videos or streaming Minecraft.
The fact that ‘influencer’ is a legitimate job title is proof that humanity is doomed.
They aren’t some symbol of the end times or anything, they’re just a symptom of the sort of attention based economy we’ve built up here in America. They exist precisely because you can get paid to shill products while playing Minecraft.
If we reign in the marketing and advertising industries then influencers will fall alongside them.
Or, if we regulate “proper” ads and fail to do the same to influencers, whether on purpose or not, then they will become a primary source of advertising. Depending how this is handled could be a good or bad thing.
It’s also one of the few ways to make money available to them that has a chance of making them enough money to live the way their grandparents did. Certainly the easiest to get into.
This.
The TV stations around me are desperate to attract the young viewers, so they always have influencers as guests on their shows and what not, and I simply do not get it.Today’s guest: Billy Bobberson.
What’s he famous for? Oh he posts some selfies on Instagram daily and every other post is a sponsored brand promo.
Why the fuck do people even follow influencers like this???Because most people are stupid. It is easier for stupid people to follow fake celebrities aka influencers, than to read a book or think for themselves.
People born in 2007 shouldn’t be old enough to be online yet…
When I wrote this I was thinking, “12 is a little young to be online but I guess they could be”. No, turns out someone born in 2007 would be 18 right now. Yikes
I was online at 11 or so, but back then we pretty much just had AOL teen chat and rudimentary web sites.
I was online when I was 11 also, back in 94. No google. No yahoo. No youtube. Just non-stop unregulated pornography as far as thee eye could see. Then yahoo showed up and had yahoo chat WITH NO BOTS. They even had a Webcam feature on dialup. I was 14 by then and I remember going into a Webcam room with a woman in Australia in her 40s and she made me watch her use a huge black dildo. The original rickroll was goatse, or this website that infinitely loaded popup windows until it crashed your pc.
Truly a golden age.
Ooo yah my young ass found AOHELL TOOLZ and would scroll the chat or send logoff bombs to peeps.
Golden age indeed.
I’m a school bus driver and my elementary school kids go on about somebody named “Queso” (sp?) on Youtube and I find myself constantly fighting the urge to see what he’s all about. It can’t possibly be good.
He’s a streamer whose chat makes fun of him for being fat. Caseoh.
My friend with young cousins was telling me that kids are using “sigma” instead of “cool” now?
“That’s so sigma, bruh.”
The fuck?
Start speaking in Greek to them. Asspro means white.
and we wondered why everything was a GameBoy or a Nintendo for our parents
Why even care about those “celebrities”? Stuff they do is usually mediocre at best anyways.
Listening to what their interests are is a good way to connect with much younger (or much older!) people. I’ll happily listen to a kid explain Fortnite to me, or my to grandpa talk about his favourite TV show. I’ll ask them some questions about it and get a conversation going.
It’s not about caring, it’s just about even knowing what business they’re in.
Makes sense from that POV, I guess. Although I’d probably rather talk about hobbies and stuff instead
I’m an old coot, I know some names like something paul, mr beast or pewdiepie, from when I was on reddit years ago, I know those guys are “youtuber” because I saw the thumbnail, but I have no clue what they do or what they speak of or why they would be famous?!? I don’t watch youtube, first because comments are toxics, it takes too much time, who spent hours listening/watching some rants by some guy in his basement?!? I’m like an out of touch skinner :)
Youtubers are different than movie, music, and tv stars.
I’m old school too though, i could be wrong at this point.
From what i can tell, YT comments have actually improved over the years. Still plenty of garbage, but it’s bearable and there is some real discussion sometimes now.
Bot spam is now backed by LLM technology
I mean, are they materially worse than Paris Hilton and Kimberly Kardashian? Or the Jersey Shore crowd? I’m not here to judge.
But I didn’t really follow them when I was age-appropriate to care about that shit, anyway. Was too busy reading blogs about the newest feature list of an up-and-coming MMORPG or tearing through the latest edition of my favorite TTRPG, because I was focused on what truly mattered.
At some point, its not an age thing, its just a taste thing. I could probably name more web comix artists and indie board games than C-list celebrities and Reality TV shows, and that’s fine.
I used to be really into new music. Now I have 10 bands I listen to and just hope they keep releasing new albums.
I used to be really into standup. Now people mention it and all I can think to say is “Kyle Kinane is still doing comedy, right?”
I used to be really into movies. The newest I’ve seen recently is the Bob’s Burgers movie.
But, hey at least I’m ignoring a lot of my hobbies these days!
I had no idea there was a Bob’s Burgers movie. Im apparently out of touch. Lol.
I wasn’t a huge fan the first couple times I saw this meme but it’s growing on me now.
They’re lucky not to know, doop fell hard off after it was acquired by Buntley Corp.
I’m still so mad at the Skoot Corp CEO for that ridiculous re-skeet where they memed the javalina charrp boys on doop.
Am I having the stroke? Or is everyone else?
I’m 29 so maybe I’m too young for this statement but if you ask me it’s because younger celebrities tend to be the result of nepotism and don’t have any actual talents.
which has always been true
The nepotism part has always been true, but the category of celebrities “being famous despite having no talent” did not exist until Paris Hilton. Princesses and Kings aren’t celebrities.
You’ve seen boomer humor. Get ready for milly mirth
I wish it was like that, reality is there’s like 3 platforms that make you IRL famous. Youtube, Twitch and TIk Tok.
Streamer on doop? Do they know Zapp?
“I find the most erotic part of a woman is the boobies.”
Kif!
“You win again, gravity!”
