There is also the ongoing debate about age gaps in relationships, beginning with how a 50-year-old dating somebody over two decades younger is pretty weird. The more controversial arguments propagated by some of Gen Z involve claims such as a 21-year-old and a 25-year-old shouldn’t be in a relationship. Also, sometimes accompanied by erroneous claims that the brain stops developing in our mid-twenties.
Then, of course, there is the cardinal sin of showing any physical signs of aging. This is due to the iron grip the beauty industry has on encouraging everybody to think less of those who have the audacity to embrace it. Take, for example, the heavily edited photos from Kris Jenner’s recent 70th birthday party. Jenner was praised in these photos for the results of her recent plastic surgeries. Celebrities barely in their forties, from Lindsay Lohan to Anne Hathaway, have been applauded for their presumed facelifts and other cosmetic procedures.
At the other end of the spectrum is a TikToker who recently posted a video of herself as a “25-year-old woman with no work done.” She was widely criticized and accused of not taking proper care of her skin when she gave a close up of her wrinkles and acne scars. “That’s a rough 25,” quips one of the most-liked comments.
Young people have always renounced others who are older than them. A large swathe of popular music lyrics from the past 60+ years is focused on the fountain of youth. Even older Gen Z are being unc and auntiefied to the point of now embracing the 2019 “OK, Boomer” meme, which dismissed unwanted input from older generations.
Still, it feels like the younger Zoomers have been taking it particularly hard. “Get it together,” said Gen Z TikToker @alllikleit in a rant earlier this year. “Millennials are out here worried about mortgages in their 30s, I just know Gen Z is going to be worried about what needle they’re going to get to fill that ****ing wrinkle.” However, it’s the millennials and Gen Xers leading the way when it comes to anti-aging, with the 35 to 50 demographic having the highest proportion of Botox users. And yet, it is their cohorts below them that has internalized it as a necessity not dissimilar to the obsession with thinness in the 2000s (which many have argued is also making a comeback).
Taylor Donoghue, an influencer in her early twenties went viral after she complained about another TikToker mistaking her for being a decade older. She claimed afterwards that it is the constant comparison with the youth that is fuelling the anxiety around physical appearance in her generation. This includes comparing your physical youthful past self to your current older self. “I can look back at Snapchats of me from when I was 12 years old, so you can physically really see your face change.”
We can pinpoint this rejection of aging as a need for control. Gen Z are not just the generation touted by cringey marketers as the “digital natives” who have grown up with social media and constant access to distorted depictions of other people. Also, they believe that more traditional paths for adults to reach a financially and emotionally secure life are no longer available. In the US, graduate unemployment rates are higher than during the financial crisis of 2008, and it’s now both Zoomers and millennials being priced out of the housing market.
The reality is that all the young people who have a laser focus on the preservation of their youth appear to be missing the point of what makes it such an attractive concept. Being youthful was once romanticized as a carefree and enjoyable time, full of freedom that could never quite be experienced at any other age. The current cultural conversation has replaced this with a simple fear of things getting worse than they already are, leading to attempts to stop it or just outright deny it.
Ever since the creation of youth culture, there has been a youth in denial about the fact that they have to grow up. This feeling has only gotten stronger as the benefits that once seemed to be a part of getting older, in particular financial security, seem to have diminished.
While we may have a little more control over how we age physically than we did in previous generations, it only serves to underline how many younger people feel societally stuck in a stage of arrested development. Time won’t go backwards just because an increasing number of people make their personality all about being afraid of it. Maybe it’s time to be just as carefree and romantic in your older years as you were in your younger.
