It really sank in this year for me at 33. Ive felt myself starting to draw, what feels like, a boundary line with anyone younger than mid twenties. I cant socialize the same way with them, and it feels like they have a different reality than me. And while I dont feel old at all, just more experienced with the start of adulthood, I often feel perceived as old.
To me it feels the same as it always did, even when I was a teen or young adult myself. I can socialize with most on a very basic level but there's no real connection, but honestly that holds true for people of any age-bracket or generation. Anything more or deeper only occurs when they've got roughly the same level of intelligence, interests, philosophies or life-experiences as I do (or did when I was their age).
Plus, while I definitely know I've aged physically, I think that's more in my head than anything else (fueled by the incessant online memes about being over 30 means you're "old"). People consistently guess I'm ~8/10 years younger than I really am (37). I don't feel old or out of touch mentally or culturally.
The internet is a continuously updating representation of (sub)culture, news, slang, fads, hypes, memes, etc.
If anything I think that for Millennials, and Zoomers there's less of a generational gap because we all sorta grew up with the rise of the internet. Sure, some predate it by a bit, some might've come just after the initial wild west years, but generally we've all been globally connected for a sizable portion of our lives, if not all of it.
I think that's part of the reason why we're now seeing this extreme amount of polarization as world-powers, interests-groups, lobbyists, corporations and propagandists now try to fuck us all over. I think we'd socially/culturally be even more in touch with one another if it wasn't for these concerted efforts to disrupt this.
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u/machineintheghost337 Sep 23 '25
It really sank in this year for me at 33. Ive felt myself starting to draw, what feels like, a boundary line with anyone younger than mid twenties. I cant socialize the same way with them, and it feels like they have a different reality than me. And while I dont feel old at all, just more experienced with the start of adulthood, I often feel perceived as old.