It is, but from what I see it’s represented differently than it was before the mid-90s. Now it’s about the “authenticity” and “wonder” of being child-like but not necessarily over-indulgence or irresponsibility. I’d go so far as to say that change impacts the subject at hand for the better, because having to put up the front of “adulting” all the time and denying your silly or geeky passions can be really stressful.
They may look slimmer in a way that translates to youthful for the time. Cancer sticks are a long-standing weight control device that “works” for a lot of people.
Peter Capaldi started his run on Doctor Who at the same age William Hartnell was when he had to retire due to his age and poor health. Not that Capaldi is particularly young looking, but Hartnell was only 5 years older than I am now and looked 20 years older.
I remember those days. Thankfully not too much longer after that, it became more clear how important it is to use sunscreen.
This video is interesting. I’m one of those people that never threw out my HS yearbooks. They went into a box and got moved everywhere I went. When I look at the senior photos from the 1980/81 class (when I was a freshman), they all generally look older than the ones from my graduating class. Maybe it’s all an illusion.
In 2014 when we were all ~48 we had our 30th reunion. I took a LOT of photos at the party. I don’t know why, but by and large my peers from way back when have aged really well. And they continue to.
I’m still in contact with quite a few of them due to FB and have seen many in person over the years.
Probably not appropriate to post any of those photos publically, but you’ll have to take my word for it.
Had never even considered this premise before and it’s funny because a friend recently said I looked 15 in my 80’s senior yearbook picture. Then she dug up a photo of her very young looking 18 yo self from about the same time and concluded the opposite.
I still occasionally run across the phrase “tanning butter” and although I was a teenager in those days, that phrase still kind of blows my mind. I mean it’s up there with “Cancer Enhancer” or “Made with extra botulism so you know it’s from nature!”
but if we keep looking back farther than that it was fashionable again—there are, like, renaissance-era newspaper drawings of adults playing with hoops in the street, and such things
and over periods of centuries the whole concept of what an “adult” is was all different
It’s not like there were only two time periods in all of time, “now” and “before”
The future is not evenly distributed. I mean, plenty of people are “aged beyond their years” today. Do a lot of work outdoors, in direct sun? It ages your skin. (Especially if you don’t wear sunscreen, but even then.) Do a lot of manual labor? It ages your body. Poor diet and health-care age you. Infections, e.g. those preventable by vaccines, age you. Stress ages you. Smoking, excessive drinking and other drug use especially ages you. Pollution of all sorts ages you.
In other words, being poor is going to age you faster, especially in countries or regions without proper socialized medicine and environmental/labor laws.
I used to have a boss (company owner) who had a babyface. By far the most ambitious, serious human I have ever known personally. Saving grace was that he was honest and open minded - I was once in deep shit for a thing I didn’t do. I explained the details and he immediately accepted my explanation. That said, he put up with zero bullshit and it was very easy to get fired if you didn’t take your work very seriously.
I often thought the baby face was part of his core motivation. He’s now rich AF, all through hard work (and he’s almost 60 so not baby faced anymore).
I’d at least object to the “In their teens” point in one consideration: if you look at the highschool yearbook photos of grandparents, etc., the lineup looks much more like children. Actual children look older, sooner, in that they’re hitting puberty much sooner than they used to. After that point, though, the argument about wear-and-tear aging holds pretty well.
