The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts

February 25, 2023 8:11 AM

TikTok’s teenage filter has us confronting our own mortality. Twitter thread of examples. TikTok feed.

In unrelated news, the new "historical" American Girl Doll is from the '90s. The 1990s.

posted by gwint (66 comments total)

I made the mistake of scrolling down to "More Tweets". It is a full-on dumpster fire of "anti-woke" sentiment, so mission accomplished for Elon, I guess.

Hopefully there's a Mastodon thread of this somewhere, because the examples are definitely fascinating to look at.
posted by clawsoon at 8:29 AM on February 25, 2023 [9 favorites]

Look, I know you've gotta actively resist the temptation to cling to your youth but you've really gotta put the effort in to aging gracefully and being kind to yourself in the process. I mean: look what happened to the boomers, as a generation.

The world is still beautiful, and we've still got a chance at keeping it that way, but the path is through building a future, not clinging to the past.
posted by mhoye at 8:37 AM on February 25, 2023 [53 favorites]

I'm curious what the teenage filter will do about my facial hair, but I have to update TikTok first. More to the point, I couldn't grow fuckall for facial hair when I was an actual teenager so even if it copes well it's gonna be confusing.

On the American Girl Doll front, I had fun joining a recursive chain on mastodon thread of various of us being like "oh a flannel shirt you say"
posted by cortex at 8:46 AM on February 25, 2023 [6 favorites]

My favorite was the one who was getting super emotional up about how this but I could barely tell the difference between the two halves of the screen.
posted by aubilenon at 8:48 AM on February 25, 2023 [5 favorites]

I have been deeply looking forward to the time when my youth is considered historical. If done right, I learn something. If done wrong, I have something to clown on. Either way I have an automatic ticket into any discussion of it.
posted by Typhoon Jim at 8:55 AM on February 25, 2023 [5 favorites]

Maybe I would feel differently if I actually tried this thing, but I think I'm pretty ok with the fact that I'm middle aged and look middle aged? Also, it's been thirty years since the '90s, so now is to the '90s as the '90s were to the'60s and the '80s were to the '50s. That kind of checks out: I remember a ton of '50s and '60s nostalgia when I was a kid, and my parents managed to cope without having too much of an existential crisis.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:57 AM on February 25, 2023 [17 favorites]

I think I’m going to opt out of this particular mind fuck, but I do wonder—if I keep avoiding, to the extent possible, having my mind bent by AI, am I going to become fundamentally different from everyone else? Fooling around with ChatGPT two nights in a row has already altered my relationship to creative writing in a terrible way. Previously, if someone were to send me a card with a few amusing verses of doggerel, I would have been delighted. Now I would just wonder if it was done by AI. I hope there’s going to be an upside to all of this and not just a whole lot of being blindsided by unexpectedly having all our little pleasures diluted or sucked straight out of life. I think I look fine and I’m going to hang on to that while I can.
posted by HotToddy at 9:08 AM on February 25, 2023 [19 favorites]

My side of TikTok has mostly been trans folks seeing a teen version of themselves that they never got to meet because they transitioned later in life.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 9:12 AM on February 25, 2023 [119 favorites]

We're still those people under the wrinkles and grey hair (or lack of hair). It behooves us to act like it, too, but with the wisdom that a life has conferred. Colour outside the lines, damn it. True art lies in knowing what the rules are and when and where to violate them to make your own statement. Live like that.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:14 AM on February 25, 2023 [7 favorites]

if I keep avoiding, to the extent possible, having my mind bent by AI, am I going to become fundamentally different from everyone else?

Someday the kids will be laughing at us for sticking with our old-fashioned smartphones instead of getting neural implants.
posted by clawsoon at 9:17 AM on February 25, 2023 [6 favorites]

We're still those people under the wrinkles and grey hair (or lack of hair). It behooves us to act like it, too, but with the wisdom that a life has conferred. Colour outside the lines, damn it.

I think we have to say things like this to convince ourselves to do the Right Thing because we all know that we'd get sucked into the inevitable mix of regret and nostalgia if we let ourselves look through those glasses.
posted by clawsoon at 9:19 AM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

we'd get sucked into the inevitable mix of regret and nostalgia if we let ourselves look through those glasses

the path is through building a future, not clinging to the past

Avoid weaponized nostalgia as though your life depends on it. Forward, with luck!
posted by MonkeyToes at 9:26 AM on February 25, 2023 [18 favorites]

I just tried it. The filter couldn’t cope with my bald head and transferred my currently thick facial hair as-is over to the “teen” version. I’m a little relieved it couldn’t figure out what the teen me looked like, as I had long center parted hair and a pimply baby face.
posted by zsazsa at 9:32 AM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

I tried it. The teen version of me didn’t look like me at all. It looked like some other cool teen but not at all what I looked like as a teen.
posted by chrchr at 9:39 AM on February 25, 2023 [5 favorites]

My side of TikTok has mostly been trans folks seeing a teen version of themselves that they never got to meet because they transitioned later in life.

Same, and it's really moving.

When I tried it I just looked like my teenage nephew, not like actually-teenage me at all.
posted by misskaz at 9:53 AM on February 25, 2023 [4 favorites]

Am I the only one who sees this as unhealthy?
posted by Selena777 at 9:56 AM on February 25, 2023 [14 favorites]

Probably not!
posted by chrchr at 9:57 AM on February 25, 2023 [4 favorites]

Well, it doesn't remove the white from my temples, and just smoothes out my skin a little. Honestly, I think I looked awful as a teen, and it sure doesn't do that to me, thankfully.
posted by aubilenon at 9:57 AM on February 25, 2023

I saw some of the reactions. I hope those people are kind to themselves. It's ok to get older and how you look changes as you live your life.

I have some more cynical thoughts as well, but eh, sharing won't make the world better.

The tech itself is amazing. Scary, but amazing.
posted by jellywerker at 10:03 AM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

I can age gracefully and happily AND still be a little nostalgic for past me. Both can be true.

The actual photos of me at that age are discolored and frail. If I ever remove them from the photo album pages they are adhered to they will tear. There is also no video of me at that age - that technology was way beyond our budget then. So when I tried the filter and saw an approximation of me as a teen ... I did cry. It's been a long, long time. And that kid thought she was just the plainest and stupidest girl and ... nah.

It's healthy to feel things.
posted by kimberussell at 10:15 AM on February 25, 2023 [39 favorites]

Am I the only one who sees this as unhealthy?

tHat SounDs lIKE oLD peOple TaLKZzzzzzz.
posted by lalochezia at 10:16 AM on February 25, 2023 [4 favorites]

Whoo boy does it not work well on me! Just a real wax-skinned nightmare with as I guessed really bad handling of the facial hair. It really struggles with blending around the hair stuff in general, I've noticed, which isn't shocking as a limitation of a free real-time filter; for folks with clean faces and real straight-line hairlines it seems to do a lot better at getting away with the trick. But yeah, my face used to be thinner and if I had managed a beard when I was nineteen it'd have been darker than my current increasingly grey thing, not the strange strawberry blond dither-blur the filter's struggling to put together.

I also for whatever reasons don't have a lot hung up on my teenage self-image, so I don't know if I'd have had much of reaction (beyond "huh, that did a good job!") if it had gotten the vibe right. But I can see how it could land hard for a lot of people; I found several of the examples in the twitter thread pretty moving in empathy with how much it was hitting those folks for a number of different reasons. And, yeah, I could see especially for trans folks just how much of a strange after-the-fact gift this could be as a kind of reparative validation of a missed youth feeling and looking like themselves.

The fact that it's live video feels like the really profound thing here: it's not seeing a de-aged image that is getting to people, I don't think, quite as much as it is the real-time feedback loop of seeing their younger face reacting to their own reactions to what they're seeing and feeling. The videos I've found most striking are those where someone's not just explaining how they feel but also silently, subtly exploring in wonder and overwhelmed and shifting emotions what they're seeing. Slow smiles, head tilts, the tiny double-takes we almost suppress when something catches us off guard, in a whole little cascade. Something about that just kills me, it's such an intimate thing to see.
posted by cortex at 10:43 AM on February 25, 2023 [11 favorites]

Such clear skin, in thse examples on Twitter.

I'm guessing this filter would restore my hair. Does it also add the zits to my skin? Apparently not, maybe the next iteration will have that feature.
posted by Rash at 11:19 AM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

I get that seeing a kid version of your self would have emotional impact, but I thought a lot of those people were super attractive adults who didn't look old, just like the "adult" version of the kid version.

The number one impactful facial feature in making the difference was pretty much nasolabial folds.

And the points made about how it's different for people of color were super interesting. (As one guy noticed, black don't crack.) I love the middle eastern woman - "I had a unibrow when I was that age - that version is NOT young me"
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 11:20 AM on February 25, 2023 [3 favorites]

I'm glad people are still confused by The Verve and The Verve Pipe. Some things never go out of style!
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:39 AM on February 25, 2023 [7 favorites]

Hmm. I’m only 29. A 31-year-old woman in the twitter thread said, basically, “Wow, that’s me!” and I don’t have that feeling at all. But most of my family members have sort of had a drooping look as they age, not merely wrinkling, so perhaps the shape of my face is too different now.
posted by elzpwetd at 11:45 AM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

Well, I did cry at all those people crying. But I would not do it. I was an ugly kid. I don't think seeing a prettier version would do me much good.
posted by Glinn at 11:54 AM on February 25, 2023 [3 favorites]

Look, I know you've gotta actively resist the temptation to cling to your youth but you've really gotta put the effort in to aging gracefully and being kind to yourself in the process. I mean: look what happened to the boomers, as a generation.

I think whoever made up the boundaries has me down as a boomer but I don't understand what the above means.
posted by JanetLand at 12:03 PM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

I haven't run my face through this thing, but my wife did and the effect was more uncanny valley than youthful. Personally, I'm happier with my looks now than I was when I was a teenager, but even if I wasn't there wouldn't be much I or this app could do about it.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:10 PM on February 25, 2023

Well, I did cry at all those people crying. But I would not do it. I was an ugly kid. I don't think seeing a prettier version would do me much good.

Jeez, me too. I was an ugly, miserable kid. I didn't start to look good until my mid-thirties and I think I peaked at about 44. It's been a slight downhill since then but I'm much happier with my appearance now, even if my skin isn't what it was.

The only thing I miss about my youth is that my grandparents, my mother and other relatives were still alive. Everything else was trash and grossly inferior to even a bad day as an adult.
posted by Frowner at 12:14 PM on February 25, 2023 [16 favorites]

Millions of things happen to the boomers as they live their lives. No one thing happened to the boomers universally, except for the passage of time. C'mon let us do better with our prejudicial views. When I started working in 1965, I was paid $1.00 per hour. I took a regular job with benefits, medical, for my kids, at 36, I was paid $5.50 per hour. Hardly a bonanza. I can tell you flatly, low, unequal pay, happened for 98% of boomer women.

If people are going to make inflammatory, or pitying, or I told you so, statements, about entire generations, nations, races, genders, cultures, religions, regions, better if they are specific and have facts to present for discussion. Inference, is divisive, propagandistic, and uninformative. If people want a choir, then apply to one, and make sure you can read music, have trained your voice, and know the score.

As for my old boomer diatribe, here, I am all out of metaphors, man. Hey, stop that, that's my rug!
posted by Oyéah at 12:18 PM on February 25, 2023 [10 favorites]

I’ve got lots of wariness about the bad that this kind of technology does or can do, but I can’t help but feel heartened at how many of the videos in that (highly-curated, I know) Twitter feed are people talking to their Young Selves with kindness, rather than mourning the loss of their youth.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 12:26 PM on February 25, 2023 [6 favorites]

I assumed the comment about “boomers” was just about how they were the first generation to get hit with really bad voluntary plastic surgery. I don’t know why that was the first place my mind went.
posted by elzpwetd at 12:30 PM on February 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

This is fascinating. Very redolent of some kind of science fiction scenario. It seems to have an immediate and profound emotional effect on people. Who would have thought that you could ever say that about TikTok, the epitome of inanity? People see what looks like their younger self and immediately they feel strong empathy for their younger self, thinking back to how difficult life was for them then. They're looking back from a vantage point of maturity and greater emotional security, I imagine. It doesn't seem at first glance an unhealthy thing to do. I didn't notice anyone getting too hung up on having lost their looks.
posted by mokey at 12:47 PM on February 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

40yo cis male: My face has always crinkled up around my eyes when I smile, even as a kid. The teenage look effect just smoothes it over in a weird way. My chin and jaw used to be more narrow, and I couldn’t grow facial hair, save for a tiny chin goatee until about 8 years ago. So seeing this crinkle-free, fuller-faced, bearded “teenage” me had no emotional effect at all. I’m going back to the puppy filter.
posted by onehalfjunco at 12:58 PM on February 25, 2023

The actual photos of me as an actual teenager are enough for me.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:07 PM on February 25, 2023 [4 favorites]

Interesting. It really worked for me. I'm moved not by the people who are longing for the past, a normal thing, but by the people who have used it to totally reframe the way they understood themselves and their appearance as a younger person. I watched one from one woman who was bulled by other kids as a child and called "ugly" and was appreciating for the first time her actual perfectly fund and lovely youthful appearance. Another woman was using it to connect with and have needed conversations with her younger self. I see some value.
posted by Miko at 1:11 PM on February 25, 2023 [3 favorites]

I can't help but recall Sally Cruikshank's darkly hilarious psychedelic sci-fi animated short Quasi at the Quackadero, where individuals at a carnival are able to look at funhouse mirrors that show them in childhood, or 100 years in the future, as well as exhibits of last night's dreams, shining moments, past lives, and so much more.
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 1:20 PM on February 25, 2023 [3 favorites]

I think whoever made up the boundaries has me down as a boomer but I don't understand what the above means.

As a gen xer who grew up with very politically involved Boomer parents, I think it's this: A number of us have lived our entire lives being forced to engage with somebody else's nostalgia for how things were better then, and how our generation wasn't up to scratch, and now that we are aging out of being young, it can feel like the world perceives us as having done nothing important at all. Meanwhile we still swim in the sea of Boomer Nostalgia that has changed very little since it first started appearing in the 70s and '80s, with maybe only the odd Nirvana song to call our own.
posted by Ardnamurchan at 1:29 PM on February 25, 2023 [17 favorites]

I get more and more handsome every day.

Hey, TikTok, you can take what I got and make a filter out of it as long as I get a kickback.
posted by dobbs at 1:42 PM on February 25, 2023 [3 favorites]

Another reason to be glad I'm not on the Soshes.

...but is there a non-TikTok version? I might need to make a marketing video...
posted by amtho at 2:21 PM on February 25, 2023

well I wasn't crying until this one
posted by taquito sunrise at 3:22 PM on February 25, 2023 [5 favorites]

I just tried it, and not gonna lie, I couldn’t stop looking at the “teenage” me - definitely much prettier than the actual teen me, but also a real sock in the teeth because I’ve noticeably physically aged a lot in the last year or two and I’ve been having trouble coming to terms with it in general. So seeing just how steep the drop off was - not from teen me, but from how I always saw my self, represented by “teen me” - it’s difficult. Ageism is pernicious, and if you can’t keep yourself looking young it’s really easy to be passed over for jobs or left behind for promotions. In my own industry I heard how much work some women leaders put into things like what makeup and lighting to use for zoom meetings to counter the shadows or too-harsh camera resolution, and they genuinely saw it as a survival technique. Being reminded of when I never even had to think about that - that’s also a weight I’m personally carrying. I was never particularly beautiful, but looks do matter to me, and they do matter in society, and pretending they don’t, or saying we feel sorry for the people who care about their appearance - to me it sounds like the old “I don’t have a television” brag.

I’m not sure I’ll open the filter again - it feels a lot like a Pandora’s box to me, but I completely understand and empathize with all the different reactions it’s evoking in people - and I’m glad I tried it.
posted by Mchelly at 4:51 PM on February 25, 2023 [9 favorites]

I'm glad people are still confused by The Verve and The Verve Pipe. Some things never go out of style!

Speaking of which, this one had me fully chortling when it hit my fyp last night, because I didn't bother looking at the username until the end.

And for pure elder Millennial nostalgia, this one got me, too, especially because I've often said our microgeneration should be named after him.
posted by lampoil at 5:33 PM on February 25, 2023 [6 favorites]

So interesting to see this after reading this article in The Atlantic yesterday!

This one's my favorite.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 6:57 PM on February 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

The filter cannot help you if you are too behind the times to understand how to use the filter...

J/k- I know some people would say "I'm too old" to figure this out, but I'm actually just too lazy.....
posted by Tandem Affinity at 8:02 PM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

Haven’t used it - removed TikTok from my phone - but If I did, I’d just be telling my younger self to go to the dentist more often for fucks sake.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 9:57 PM on February 25, 2023

J/k- I know some people would say "I'm too old" to figure this out, but I'm actually just too lazy.....

I tell people I'm too old for tiktok or Instagram, but really I'm too camera shy (and paranoid). I will stick to my text-based social media where I can pretend I really am a slice of cake.
posted by jb at 10:50 PM on February 25, 2023

if I keep avoiding, to the extent possible, having my mind bent by AI, am I going to become fundamentally different from everyone else?

Yeah. You'll be way less neurotic.
posted by flabdablet at 11:10 PM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

Someday the kids will be laughing at us for sticking with our old-fashioned smartphones instead of getting neural implants

and I will be laughing at them for not being able to work around the anti-masturbation parental controls.
posted by flabdablet at 11:15 PM on February 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

When I tried it I just looked like my teenage nephew

Last time I met my teenage nephew I was quite taken aback by how much he looked and spoke like me at his age.

It gets better, kiddo.
posted by flabdablet at 11:21 PM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

“Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist - a master - and that is what Auguste Rodin was - can look at an old woman, portray her exactly as she is... and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be... and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart...no matter what the merciless hours have done to her.” -Heinlein
posted by 168 at 4:28 AM on February 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

I'm trying it as soon as my 13 year old with the tik tok app wakes up
posted by Morpeth at 4:33 AM on February 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Mine also didn't look enough like me. It sort of smoothed out my prominent cheekbones, maybe. I'd love to see a tecnical explanation on how it works when it works, and reasons why it might not.

Many videos are also out there explanaing that it's not so much that people are pining for their youthful looks, but instead are feeling how kind they wish they had been to this younger version of themselves - that they wish they could reassure them, go back and hug them, etc. That feels really meaningful in a therapeutic way.
posted by bizzyb at 4:39 AM on February 26, 2023

I’ve noticeably physically aged a lot in the last year or two and I’ve been having trouble coming to terms with it in general. So seeing just how steep the drop off was - not from teen me, but from how I always saw my self, represented by “teen me” - it’s difficult.

The filter was way too far off and uncanny valley to have that effect on me, but I recently got a short shag/pixie/mini-mullet haircut and whooooo boy did it throw me for a loop. A lot of the hairstyles that are trendy right now (like the one I just got) are a razor's edge (heh) from being dowdy/frumpy/old lady-looking. Often the difference in how it is perceived is just how else you're styled or, unfortunately, how old you are. I saw a TikTok the other day of a young woman getting my literal grandmother's haircut, where you have to set it in rollers or with a curling iron to have this big voluminous slightly curly pouf around your head. Because she is in her 20s the comments were nothing but compliments. I could get the same cut and instantly look 15 years older.

Anyway, even though aging has brought with it a lot of confidence and -IDGAF- about my looks, on the topic of aging itself I still have a lot of internal work to do. I posted a TikTok video expressing my regret and trepidation about the haircut and it struck a nerve, going low key viral and getting 160k views and 1500 comments and counting. Most were complimentary but the few "that's a mom cut" comments did sting. A lot to unpack there and I'm not surprised that this filter can bring up similar feelings for people.

It's human to want to be perceived by others the way you perceive yourself. Aging happens gradually enough that you don't always notice the changes day to day in the mirror, but then looking at an old picture or in this case a TikTok filter the difference can be really striking.
posted by misskaz at 6:31 AM on February 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

Having kids also does this, except there s like, a whole person you can share your life with
posted by eustatic at 6:34 AM on February 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

prisoned inside her ruined body

JFC with the misogygny, Heinlein. Age isn't a deformity and an older woman isn't "ruined."
posted by Miko at 7:15 AM on February 26, 2023 [18 favorites]

Previously, if someone were to send me a card with a few amusing verses of doggerel, I would have been delighted. Now I would just wonder if it was done by AI.

Dang, as someone who used to enjoy composing amusing doggerel for friends and family, this makes me sad. And wish I had done more of it before the ChatGPT era set in.
posted by splitpeasoup at 9:38 AM on February 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

JFC with the misogygny, Heinlein. Age isn't a deformity and an older woman isn't "ruined."

Glad someone said it. I find the idea that all women forever remain 18 in spirit/at heart incredibly depressing.
posted by sohalt at 10:01 AM on February 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

JFC with the misogyny, Heinlein.

See also: pretty much everything else Heinlein ever wrote.
posted by gurple at 11:16 AM on February 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

So, this is a filter that removes all your experience, power and character?

I think my self-image is too positive to enjoy this. I realize that's an enormous privilege.
posted by gurple at 11:18 AM on February 26, 2023

I like that Heinlein quote because it reminds me of a Donatello sculpture of Mary Magdalene that I love.

Anyway, the filter doesn’t really work on me and I’m not sure why. It might be my glasses? Although bigger lenses have come back around.
posted by PussKillian at 1:00 PM on February 26, 2023

People see what looks like their younger self and immediately they feel strong empathy for their younger self, thinking back to how difficult life was for them then.

Right, it seems like this is emotional for people less because they realize "oh wow, I used to be hot!" but more that most people's teenage years were emotional and raw. I doubt say, 70-somethings would have quite the same reaction if there was a filter that made them look middle-aged.

I'll admit, while I absolutely do not want to be a teenager again, as an elder millennial who grew up in a functional middle class family, there were certainly aspects of it that were pretty awesome - you know, not having to worry about retirement, the seeming impossibility of home ownership, climate change (yes, I realize it was happening, but it certainly seemed less dire 30 years ago), a pandemic (and our government's seeming inability to handle a future one), etc. Yes, nostalgia can be weaponized, and yes, it's important not to throw up our hands and be 'doomers', but I get why this might be emotional to people. It's been a particularly rough handful or so of years.
posted by coffeecat at 1:50 PM on February 26, 2023

Am I the only one who sees this as unhealthy?

It really can't be worse then my actual teenage photos but I'm not going to swallow a clock like that Peter Pan alligator in order to find out.
posted by srboisvert at 6:35 AM on February 27, 2023

Right, it seems like this is emotional for people less because they realize "oh wow, I used to be hot!" but more that most people's teenage years were emotional and raw. I doubt say, 70-somethings would have quite the same reaction if there was a filter that made them look middle-aged.

More specifically, I think this is hitting Gen X particularly hard because we never really got the opportunity to be carefree children/teens. Everyone I know in my age group had absent or self-involved parents who put far too much responsibility on their children from far too early an age. Not simply the "latchkey" stuff, but the general belief that we would just solve all of our own problems while they were busy doing their own thing. Many of us have gone a different route with our own kids - instilling responsibility and character but combining it with support and simply being available to our kids in a way our parents weren't available to us.

So to see a representation of an age when I was not enjoying my youth but was instead 100% focused on getting out -- and considering how many of us Gen Xers deal with their emotions by suppressing them -- well this just comes as a bit of a surprise.

(That said, the filter does nothing for me -- the combination of about 60 extra pounds and a beard are too much for the filter to generate anything that looks like I did 30 years ago.)
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 11:57 AM on February 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

, I think this is hitting Gen X particularly hard because we never really got the opportunity to be carefree children/teens.

So well said. Agree so hard. My teens went by in a blur of responsibility and anxiety and a rush toward being an adult. That’s why a moment for seeing these young selves as people we’d probably be much, much more tender to today than what we actually experienced is touching.
posted by Miko at 7:59 PM on February 27, 2023 [3 favorites]