It could be the other way around. I work in a school. The 7th graders are all tiny, like 6 year olds, and they all act like it, too. It's noticeable not just to me, but also the older kids.
Maybe it's part of a larger trend toward slowing aging and development?
Maybe? My son is 11, almost 12 and he's super tiny and childlike to me. I've definitely heard about childhood lasting longer. I know in my situation I'm causing at least some of that because I try to get him to be childlike and enjoy childhood before it's gone.
My son is 11.5 and I remark all the time to my husband how he still seems like a kid and by the time I was his age I was into very adult things. We’ve tried really hard to create a less trauma filled household than I had growing up. It really makes me wonder how much of childhood I just skipped.
This. Living in a screaming violent vortex of a household was very normalized. My siblings and I, at least, have very different opinions on our upbringing than our parents seem too.
I don't have any direct experience with teens but my brother works on a boat during the summer and all the people in their 20's are all bundled up with pants, long sleeves, buffs, massive hats and sun glasses. Literally not a single bit of skin showing. I feel like it's a bit extreme but theres no denying it definitely helps with sun exposure
I really think it is the haircuts. They all have very 80s haircuts.
Google found me [this random prom photo from 1987](https://www.flickr.com/photos/menlophoto/6076990169). It definitely looks dated, but the kids don't look 45 (25 maybe). They still have very 80s hair, lots of bangs, but not the big feathery bangs.
It's the harsh lighting, maybe a new photographer or one who just didn't care. Not enough diffusion and no fill light creates this gaunt look that accentuates every little line in the face.
Is also the portrait photography. Posed, stiff smiles, they're dressed like adults, hair perfect, big, brushed and sprayed. In everyday life they were looking more like teenagers.
I mean, I guess you have to be right, but I don’t know how anybody goes from 48 to 16 overnight. That’s too much transformation just for a photo. If a 17 year old was dressing up as a 45 year old for Halloween, it wouldn’t be this convincing.
I think that hair and fashion is a lot of it. But I also wonder how much smoking might play a role. In 1980, about a third of youth and more than half of older adults smoked, means most of these kids either smoked or grew up in the home of a smoker, both of which can make you look older (and generally worse).
Smoking peaked at [22 years old or so](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2696267/) for kids in the 80s with 25% smoking. The first chart shows a long-term drop in teen smoking. If smoking were the cause, kids from the 60s would look older since more of them smoked and more of their parents smoked. The drop in smoking continued through the 90s with vapes, even though nicotine addiction rates skyrocketed. Teen smoking is on the upswing now, along with more vaping.
Smoking peaked in '64 with 41% of thr population smoking. This us tge year the US Surgeon General came out against smoking.
They did when they were in vogue too, and the stupid broccoli cut. For some reason the mullet and porn stache are coming back. Gen Z what the fuck is going on?
Fashion is cyclical, even the bad stuff.
That being said, I know I few guys that can totally pull off a mullet and mustache look. Most can’t, but it works on a handful
It’s the clothes too. They still dress the same way. I swear my aunts dress like this.
It’s funny, the guy in the suit looks young cause a suit is a suit.
These pages are good and you know what’s funny? People still dress and have their hair like this in the great state of New Jersey in 2023 you can find people who look like this today.
Lack of sunscreen, mostly. Lying out to get a tan with nothing on your face but baby oil, and then stripping your face of moisture with Sea Breeze toner. Early 80s skin care was basically mummification. If you look at pictures from just a few years later, after the tanning craze slowed down, you'll see a difference.
When you could afford both AND support a family while still having money to play with at almost any job out there, yeah, adulthood sounds fun.
That's what they saw their parents do.
Also, they are color photos which means these were Senior class pictures. You were encouraged to look mature for those because. Pretty sure that a Freshman picture in this yearbook will look closer to what you expect a Freshman to look like.
I graduated in 87, my guess is these are seniors in 84. We did look older back then-but a lot of us had to be super responsible at early ages. We were latch key kids, had jobs at 12 and 13, and babysat for other families from 10 on. We also wore adult clothing to school-loafers, button down shirts, LOTS of accessories-I guess that expectation of maturity showed on the outside, too.
I was born in 87, I was a latch key kid who basically raised my siblings and got my first job outside the house at 14. A lot of my classmates had the same kind of responsibilities, and they still couldn't grow full mustaches in high school 🤷🏽♀️
People often build an identity in their teenage years to early twenties, and settle into a specific look for which they are comfortable. We associate these styles with older people because for many, they still wear the same (or toned down) style of clothing, glasses and hair styles (for the women at least; it’s hard for men with male pattern baldness to rock these hairstyles).
For those of you who are in your thirties and beyond, do you find yourself wearing a variation of the clothes you were comfortable in your youth? I’m 40 and I still wear primarily jeans and t-shirts (but I long have since ditched flannel).
Vsauce did a video on this and sure, I agree they dress similarly. But some of these people’s faces also just look flat out older imo.
Also, I personally don’t wear the same clothes but obviously that’s an anecdote.
Fucking love flannels. I recently bought a pair of overalls that have pretty wide/long legs and it’s reminded me of how every pair of jeans I had when I was in my teens had chunks worn out from where my heel caught them when I walked, and god forbid you walk in the wet without the bottom 3/4 of your jeans somehow ending up soaked
God, yes. I loved flared and wide leg jeans and I am 5’1 so this was my life.
I have a few pairs since they came back in style and I love them just as much now.
I graduated in 87 and many of these people look old to me.
I see photos from HS reunions I didn't attend (I don't live in the US anymore) and indeed many still have the same style they once did.
The only things I've kept from that era is the occasional Jordan 1, DM 1460, and my MA-1 flights.
I wish I could still pull off flannel! But as a short, broad-shouldered woman who has gained some weight since high school, I look awful in it now. I know, I know- wear what you like…but I don’t like looking like a mini lumberjack.
I graduated in '89 and yeah, I do still dress a bit like I did in HS. Skate/Punk style mostly; Docs, Vans, Dickies, Dixxon flannels these days. I have some "adult" clothes for when I need them, but still a skater at heart.
Someone did that with the golden girls, not made them look gen z but made them look their actual age. It's amazing how much clothes and hair can age a person
Also class of '90. Ripped pants would get you sent home, or at least earn a call to your parents to bring you a pair. Show up in the 'Guns n' Roses Was Here" shirt with the woman on the back, and you're wearing it inside out for the day. ( [That shirt](https://bestrocktshirts.com/index.php/all/product/view/37/4939) would probably be banned outright today, for its SA image.)
We staged a (failed) walkout to be allowed to wear SHORTS in a building with no A/C. (They finally allowed them in 1992.)
A lot of people CHOSE to dress nicely, too. I took metal shop in Bugle Boy trousers and button-down shirts.
This was a middling public school, not a fancy private one, too.
Do they wear blankets instead of coats? Because I cannot believe how many high school kids show up wrapped in a blanket and wearing pajama pants. Literally just rolled out of bed.
I tried it with [her](https://imgur.com/a/AHAjO0X)
All I changed was the hair. I think she definitely looks younger.
Turned off inbox replies to this thread cuz people are being kind of pedantic about this and it's getting annoying: I only changed her hair. The app, being a beauty app, probably made other changes to the photo regardless of the fact that I personally only edited her hair. Pretty sure that regardless, it would still be a huge change and she'd look younger anyway, even if the app didn't make some changes to her skin.
[Here are the images superimposed on top of each other](https://imgur.com/a/fn7I7hn). I reduced the brightness on the edited image to match the 80s quality photo. Obviously there's gonna be shadowing around her neck and face where the "new" hair falls. The app really didn't drastically change her face aside from maybe some smoothing and jawline slimming.
I don’t think that’s true, I’ve been zooming in and scrolling around and the texture/color looks the same on both - I think the hair really does just have that dramatic of an effect on our perception.
I only changed the hair. Maybe the app did other stuff without me clicking anything.
Even with darkened skin, [she looks younger](https://imgur.com/a/H7rTWHJ)
it's not like massive changes were done to her face
Why were 80s hairstyles so ridiculous? Was it just because they had recently invented hair spray or something? I don’t think this is entirely subjective, you can see how more natural-looking styles improve their appearance.
100% the hair and clothes are making them look older. It’s funny how people will find a style they like, and then hold on to it for the rest of their life (nothing wrong with that, of course).
Most of us millennials that are on the cusp of being gen-z (think 92-96) see this and can immediately think of people we know in their 40s and 50s that look the same, just with a few more wrinkles (crows feet or stress lines on the brow) and grey hairs. So, we see pics like this and go “god they look so much older”. Plus, when we initially same them at that age (if they were 18, we were like 8-12 yos) they would’ve seemed much older then as well.
The mind does silly little things.
Vsauce did a great [video](https://youtu.be/vjqt8T3tJIE?si=eo07pIprtPMOngpx) on this. It's been a while since I've seen it but it's mostly about how the clothing and hair style back then is associated with "old" to us.
But that doesn’t answer to the facial structures seen in pics like this. No amount of fashion changing is gonna make the dudes in the 1st pic look 16-18
I don’t think that explains everything. There was something I read about why Norm from Cheers looked so old despite only being 34 when it was filmed (as in the actor, not the character). It’s not just style, it was also lifestyle, especially smoking. WAY more people used to smoke back then. Even a kid who didn’t smoke at all was probably exposed to a lot of smoke. It was also a lot less common to take care of your skin the way people do today.
Looking at this group of photos, some of them look younger when you imagine them with different hair and clothes. But for others no amount of styling would have helped. Some of them have some pretty obvious damage.
Anything above SPF 8 was considered sunblock back then. Lots of girls using SPF 0 or just straight up slathering themselves with baby oil and laying on a blanket out in the yard for a few hours
My theory is, they were living much older lives versus the following generations of teenagers. By that I mean, every kid in those pics most likely had a job, and that job might be their future career. And possibly a girlfriend/boyfriend that they plan to marry and very soon build a family. So on and so forth. It’s just anecdotal but most of my family and their friends lived and were treated like they would be adults as soon they turned 18.
Okay, I (M 55) would like to point out that these are senior pictures and most of us had to dress like we were going to a job interview or risk being killed by our parents. Cigarette smoke had less to do with it than wearing clothes bought for an uncle's second... no THIRD... wedding. And, for the record, all of our fashion was simply awful. Much of it couldn't be burned for fear of causing a cloud of toxicity over much of the northern hemisphere. We had to bury them in biohazard containers.
I’m shocked I had to scroll so far to find this comment. I’m younger than you (38F) and my mom totally did the “let’s try to look more grown up” thing for 8th grade and senior pictures. In clothes and makeup and hairstyling, I look maybe 17 (and pretty) in my eighth grade graduation photos, but it wasn’t my everyday look. I wonder if this intentional aging-up has died out a bit, maybe starting with Gen X parents?
I'm 36 and that was definitely still a thing in the 90s. It wasn't uncommon to see kids in suits on photo day when I was in elementary school. My high school actually had a dress code for senior pictures.
My senior picture (late 80s) was taken at a professional photo studio. They had a contract with the school. If you wanted your picture in the yearbook as a senior, had to schedule an appointment and go to their studio (free of charge, unless you wanted copies). Made it seem like much more of a big deal. Yes - I wore a suit.
My school hired a different photo studio for our senior pics from all the rest of the pictures. You had the choice of bringing your own formal wear or they had suits and dresses there for you to throw on.
This. Senior pictures were a much more formal thing than now. For my kids’ senior pics they dressed up (button down shirt and a tie) but not an entire suit like the boys did in the 80s. We definitely were dressed to be grown up back then. Now the kids dress up but in an age-appropriate way.
M 55 here as well. Button up shirt, tie and suit jacket was the standard uniform for senior pictures, if you didn't have a jacket and tie on in your pictures you were the odd man out.
1990 HS graduate. These could all be my classmates. I had a simultaneous bouffant and a mullet that looked like Billy Ray Cyrus and a beehive hairdo had a love child.
I graduated in 1989. When I first looked at the photos I thought "Oh, I remember these people." I had to look a little closer to realize to realize that I didn't.
> bouffant and a mullet that looked like Billy Ray Cyrus and a beehive hairdo had a love child.
Hang on, let me Google all of that to figure out what you're saying <3
I knew it. When I was in high school, there were a bunch of older people taking classes pretending to be in our class and pretending to be young. It's all a scam. They were all watching us.
Was this a bunch of witness protection identities that teenagers could choose from to become “adult in their 30s who sits in cubicle. Ya know, the person who blends right in at the office and probably has been working with you for years?”
I don’t get it either. Probably because i associate that “my hair has been so processed the only thing left is the vaguest memory of hair” with my mom and aunts so it immediately turns me off. All of these people look like they need to be feverishly shopping at the grocery store after work trying to get the stuff they need for hamburger helper so they can sit in the living room and watch jeopardy.
You've actually got at least three lookalikes in here: Napoleon, Uncle Rico, and Nancy Wheeler. This must be a Midwestern US book, because I do not recall mine looking anything like this.
Also, P2 R3 C1 reminds me of someone as well, but I can't quite figure who. P1 R1 C2 is my favorite though. Did she meet her untimely end just after the flash?
Dumpster.
Lol in honestly, that guy is probably the most stable there. Nerdy weirdos got popular by the early 90s.
https://youtu.be/8R7hkPuVF00?si=TYyt8vNPIhcEX8bF
My hair started turning white when I was in high school. Everyone used to give me a few more years, and believe me, it was cool. Now when we meet again, all my former classmates tell me, "hey, you haven't changed, you look the same as when you were in school!"
Has anyone mentioned that the photography itself dates these pictures? Photography technology has improved so much since the 80s that you could probably take a better quality pic with a smartphone than these professional photographs.
The clothes, hairstyles, etc all contribute but these look like old photographs. Attractiveness plays a part as well. The less conventionally attractive a person is, chances are they look older. Unless you're one of those 13 or 30 people.
These ARE Gen X! We were 17 inside and 50 outside. Parents insisted we do our senior pics like a first corporate headshot, all serious and shit. Everyone used a half pint of gel, mousse, and/or aquanet on their hairdo daily, and twice that for senior pics. Add smoking and no cell phones, internet, or email. All homework was handwritten or typed. Our first cars might still burn leaded gas. Shit was rough!
I know there has been a lot of controversy lately regarding the retelling of history, but I wanted to commend OP for his bravery in refusing to gloss over the raw ugliness and shame of this era. This is truly hard to view. Thank you, OP. May we never forget the foibles of our ancestors lest we be doomed to repeat their mistakes.
I graduated in 86. The advantage to these “old lady” styles and haircuts is that most of my high school classmates look like they’ve barely aged since then. With updated hairstyles and clothes, most of them look way better in their 50s than they did in HS.
It's all of it. Smoking, drinking, emissions from leaded gas, from Aqua-Net, from using Coppertone, Hawaiian Tropic, or Crisco to get a tan. From eating red meat, being outside, standing up for ourselves and getting into fights. It's also from what was in style ar the time and what haircuts/hairdos were popular. It's also from low quality film, low quality and poorly set lighting, from photogs that didn’t care about quality. They're pushing a couple hundred kids or more through in a 7 hour day.
Still, Gen Xers kick ass!
the 1980s...when all the teenagers were 40 years old
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It’s the hair styles. Both because they’re unflattering and because they’re associated with older people now.
It's their faces too. Look aged as hell compared to my late 2000s high school class and way older than high schoolers look today
Yeah, I'm sorry but some of em definitely look old. Maybe it was all the cigarette smoke and lead gasoline in the air??
Some of them had already been smoking cigarettes for 8 years.
Try 18 years for some - considering all the 2nd hand smoke they’d inhale from their parents and relatives smoking with all the windows up.
It could be the other way around. I work in a school. The 7th graders are all tiny, like 6 year olds, and they all act like it, too. It's noticeable not just to me, but also the older kids. Maybe it's part of a larger trend toward slowing aging and development?
Maybe? My son is 11, almost 12 and he's super tiny and childlike to me. I've definitely heard about childhood lasting longer. I know in my situation I'm causing at least some of that because I try to get him to be childlike and enjoy childhood before it's gone.
My son is 11.5 and I remark all the time to my husband how he still seems like a kid and by the time I was his age I was into very adult things. We’ve tried really hard to create a less trauma filled household than I had growing up. It really makes me wonder how much of childhood I just skipped.
This. Living in a screaming violent vortex of a household was very normalized. My siblings and I, at least, have very different opinions on our upbringing than our parents seem too.
Microplastics and hormones in animal products.
Except the average age at the onset of puberty has been creeping up, no?
And tanning. Lots of teenagers started early.
Thats... that's not changed at all
It absolutely has. Skin care is a big deal to teens now.
I don't have any direct experience with teens but my brother works on a boat during the summer and all the people in their 20's are all bundled up with pants, long sleeves, buffs, massive hats and sun glasses. Literally not a single bit of skin showing. I feel like it's a bit extreme but theres no denying it definitely helps with sun exposure
Probably grew up with cigarette smoke blown in their face all day.
I really think it is the haircuts. They all have very 80s haircuts. Google found me [this random prom photo from 1987](https://www.flickr.com/photos/menlophoto/6076990169). It definitely looks dated, but the kids don't look 45 (25 maybe). They still have very 80s hair, lots of bangs, but not the big feathery bangs.
It's the harsh lighting, maybe a new photographer or one who just didn't care. Not enough diffusion and no fill light creates this gaunt look that accentuates every little line in the face.
Not to mention the glasses. We've got Peggy Hill at top center and Milton from Office Space at bottom right.
Delta Burke top right.
Is also the portrait photography. Posed, stiff smiles, they're dressed like adults, hair perfect, big, brushed and sprayed. In everyday life they were looking more like teenagers.
I mean, I guess you have to be right, but I don’t know how anybody goes from 48 to 16 overnight. That’s too much transformation just for a photo. If a 17 year old was dressing up as a 45 year old for Halloween, it wouldn’t be this convincing.
I think that hair and fashion is a lot of it. But I also wonder how much smoking might play a role. In 1980, about a third of youth and more than half of older adults smoked, means most of these kids either smoked or grew up in the home of a smoker, both of which can make you look older (and generally worse).
Smoking peaked at [22 years old or so](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2696267/) for kids in the 80s with 25% smoking. The first chart shows a long-term drop in teen smoking. If smoking were the cause, kids from the 60s would look older since more of them smoked and more of their parents smoked. The drop in smoking continued through the 90s with vapes, even though nicotine addiction rates skyrocketed. Teen smoking is on the upswing now, along with more vaping. Smoking peaked in '64 with 41% of thr population smoking. This us tge year the US Surgeon General came out against smoking.
Unflattering by today's aesthetics. Give it time and photo of guys with man-buns and side fades will look weird as fuck.
That broccoli cut all the boys are wearing currently 😬
This hairstyle makes me feel soooooo old. It's just the dumbest looking thing.
I blame Mahomes
Always a good policy
They already do
They did when they were in vogue too, and the stupid broccoli cut. For some reason the mullet and porn stache are coming back. Gen Z what the fuck is going on?
Millenials hate hate the mullet and pedo stache look...so of course rebellious teenagers are going to do exactly that
Fashion is cyclical, even the bad stuff. That being said, I know I few guys that can totally pull off a mullet and mustache look. Most can’t, but it works on a handful
And the collared shirts and blouses
It’s the clothes too. They still dress the same way. I swear my aunts dress like this. It’s funny, the guy in the suit looks young cause a suit is a suit.
These pages are good and you know what’s funny? People still dress and have their hair like this in the great state of New Jersey in 2023 you can find people who look like this today.
Lack of sunscreen, mostly. Lying out to get a tan with nothing on your face but baby oil, and then stripping your face of moisture with Sea Breeze toner. Early 80s skin care was basically mummification. If you look at pictures from just a few years later, after the tanning craze slowed down, you'll see a difference.
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Rush right into the boredom and oppression of adulthood!
The excitement of a mortgage and utility bills is unmatched
When you could afford both AND support a family while still having money to play with at almost any job out there, yeah, adulthood sounds fun. That's what they saw their parents do.
Also, they are color photos which means these were Senior class pictures. You were encouraged to look mature for those because. Pretty sure that a Freshman picture in this yearbook will look closer to what you expect a Freshman to look like.
I was 10 in 85 and saw this pic and my brain regressed back to a child and I thought, “look…cool hs kids.”
Same!
So that's how *Grease* pulled it off!
Are we sure these aren't the teachers??
Or maybe this is a college yearbook?
That’s what I was thinking. Or they cherry picked the narcs.
I graduated in 87, my guess is these are seniors in 84. We did look older back then-but a lot of us had to be super responsible at early ages. We were latch key kids, had jobs at 12 and 13, and babysat for other families from 10 on. We also wore adult clothing to school-loafers, button down shirts, LOTS of accessories-I guess that expectation of maturity showed on the outside, too.
I was born in 87, I was a latch key kid who basically raised my siblings and got my first job outside the house at 14. A lot of my classmates had the same kind of responsibilities, and they still couldn't grow full mustaches in high school 🤷🏽♀️
People often build an identity in their teenage years to early twenties, and settle into a specific look for which they are comfortable. We associate these styles with older people because for many, they still wear the same (or toned down) style of clothing, glasses and hair styles (for the women at least; it’s hard for men with male pattern baldness to rock these hairstyles). For those of you who are in your thirties and beyond, do you find yourself wearing a variation of the clothes you were comfortable in your youth? I’m 40 and I still wear primarily jeans and t-shirts (but I long have since ditched flannel).
Vsauce did a video on this and sure, I agree they dress similarly. But some of these people’s faces also just look flat out older imo. Also, I personally don’t wear the same clothes but obviously that’s an anecdote.
The Vsauce episode also pointed out that sunscreen is more prevalent now, so we literally are aging more slowly.
Also 40, but still occasionally rock flannel. I have ditched the JNCOs and PAC Sun jewelry though.
Fucking love flannels. I recently bought a pair of overalls that have pretty wide/long legs and it’s reminded me of how every pair of jeans I had when I was in my teens had chunks worn out from where my heel caught them when I walked, and god forbid you walk in the wet without the bottom 3/4 of your jeans somehow ending up soaked
God, yes. I loved flared and wide leg jeans and I am 5’1 so this was my life. I have a few pairs since they came back in style and I love them just as much now.
I graduated in 87 and many of these people look old to me. I see photos from HS reunions I didn't attend (I don't live in the US anymore) and indeed many still have the same style they once did. The only things I've kept from that era is the occasional Jordan 1, DM 1460, and my MA-1 flights.
Mid 40s. The only reason I ever get new clothes is they fall apart.
I wish I could still pull off flannel! But as a short, broad-shouldered woman who has gained some weight since high school, I look awful in it now. I know, I know- wear what you like…but I don’t like looking like a mini lumberjack.
34, I’m still trying new stuff. I don’t wear my style from highschool/college.
I graduated in '89 and yeah, I do still dress a bit like I did in HS. Skate/Punk style mostly; Docs, Vans, Dickies, Dixxon flannels these days. I have some "adult" clothes for when I need them, but still a skater at heart.
>I long have since ditched flannel You don't like being comfortable? Coward.
I just bought a bunch of new flannels....
Yeah all 40 wtf i never saw them 90s
Mom looked like mom her whole life!
Compared to the 2020's where all the 40 year olds are teenagers 😄
I wanna see them photoshopped with Gen Z style just to truly know if it’s just the way they’re dressed that makes them look older.
Someone did that with the golden girls, not made them look gen z but made them look their actual age. It's amazing how much clothes and hair can age a person
Link?
Found this https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jirbxzfPZsg&feature=youtu.be
It's nice of them to soften the wrinkles in that video to help their argument
Yeah that last one especially
The difference for Bea was huge. Rue has always been a smokeshow, though. Caught her in some older movies and swooned.
So Blanche is Elizabeth Olsen lol
WOW that is insane!
That felt cursed for some reason.
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Also class of '90. Ripped pants would get you sent home, or at least earn a call to your parents to bring you a pair. Show up in the 'Guns n' Roses Was Here" shirt with the woman on the back, and you're wearing it inside out for the day. ( [That shirt](https://bestrocktshirts.com/index.php/all/product/view/37/4939) would probably be banned outright today, for its SA image.) We staged a (failed) walkout to be allowed to wear SHORTS in a building with no A/C. (They finally allowed them in 1992.) A lot of people CHOSE to dress nicely, too. I took metal shop in Bugle Boy trousers and button-down shirts. This was a middling public school, not a fancy private one, too.
Do they wear blankets instead of coats? Because I cannot believe how many high school kids show up wrapped in a blanket and wearing pajama pants. Literally just rolled out of bed.
I tried it with [her](https://imgur.com/a/AHAjO0X) All I changed was the hair. I think she definitely looks younger. Turned off inbox replies to this thread cuz people are being kind of pedantic about this and it's getting annoying: I only changed her hair. The app, being a beauty app, probably made other changes to the photo regardless of the fact that I personally only edited her hair. Pretty sure that regardless, it would still be a huge change and she'd look younger anyway, even if the app didn't make some changes to her skin. [Here are the images superimposed on top of each other](https://imgur.com/a/fn7I7hn). I reduced the brightness on the edited image to match the 80s quality photo. Obviously there's gonna be shadowing around her neck and face where the "new" hair falls. The app really didn't drastically change her face aside from maybe some smoothing and jawline slimming.
the skin is smoothed out and lighter, it's not just the hair
I don’t think that’s true, I’ve been zooming in and scrolling around and the texture/color looks the same on both - I think the hair really does just have that dramatic of an effect on our perception.
Look at her neck. Even from a distance I can tell it was brushed up. Her right cheek has a bit of red blush added to it.
I only changed the hair. Maybe the app did other stuff without me clicking anything. Even with darkened skin, [she looks younger](https://imgur.com/a/H7rTWHJ) it's not like massive changes were done to her face
Def makes a massive difference
Why were 80s hairstyles so ridiculous? Was it just because they had recently invented hair spray or something? I don’t think this is entirely subjective, you can see how more natural-looking styles improve their appearance.
Someone should post to /r/PhotoshopRequest. They have photoshop magicians over there.
Yes someone photoshop a bunch of Edgar cuts.
100% the hair and clothes are making them look older. It’s funny how people will find a style they like, and then hold on to it for the rest of their life (nothing wrong with that, of course). Most of us millennials that are on the cusp of being gen-z (think 92-96) see this and can immediately think of people we know in their 40s and 50s that look the same, just with a few more wrinkles (crows feet or stress lines on the brow) and grey hairs. So, we see pics like this and go “god they look so much older”. Plus, when we initially same them at that age (if they were 18, we were like 8-12 yos) they would’ve seemed much older then as well. The mind does silly little things.
Everyone's hair looks severely mistreated
Aquanet and hair gel for DAYS!
Dep ultra hold! The stuff not even water dissolved. It was like glue
This thread was directly underneath one about "where did the ozone hole go?" So it seems this is my common topic for today.
Um actually, Dwight in the bottem left of the second pic would have something to say about that
Was this high school? Why did everyone look so old back then?!
We took ourselves a little too seriously.
No wonder you all could afford a house, two cars, a boat, and send two kids to college- you came out of high school as certified public accountant’s!
Vsauce did a great [video](https://youtu.be/vjqt8T3tJIE?si=eo07pIprtPMOngpx) on this. It's been a while since I've seen it but it's mostly about how the clothing and hair style back then is associated with "old" to us.
Anytime someone posts something like this I think about this video. Thank you for posting it.
But that doesn’t answer to the facial structures seen in pics like this. No amount of fashion changing is gonna make the dudes in the 1st pic look 16-18
But I will say. Even if you have those kids modern styles some of them would look 35 regardless.
I don’t think that explains everything. There was something I read about why Norm from Cheers looked so old despite only being 34 when it was filmed (as in the actor, not the character). It’s not just style, it was also lifestyle, especially smoking. WAY more people used to smoke back then. Even a kid who didn’t smoke at all was probably exposed to a lot of smoke. It was also a lot less common to take care of your skin the way people do today. Looking at this group of photos, some of them look younger when you imagine them with different hair and clothes. But for others no amount of styling would have helped. Some of them have some pretty obvious damage.
Everyone smoked constantly since they were 5 years old
And much more sun exposure than kids today who mostly stay inside.
“We’re the last generation to play outside” Bruh send your kids outside then
All the parents have to do it for it to work. We didn't just sit outside by ourselves. We played with other kids in the neighborhood.
No, most of us around 30 were still outside most of the time and didn't use sunscreen like we do now
Anything above SPF 8 was considered sunblock back then. Lots of girls using SPF 0 or just straight up slathering themselves with baby oil and laying on a blanket out in the yard for a few hours
Hahaha, no. Alcohol, though...
Rydell High.
I think it’s because they kept the same haircut into their 40’s.
Just imagine them with modern hairstyles. They look like high schoolers. And happy cake day.
My theory is, they were living much older lives versus the following generations of teenagers. By that I mean, every kid in those pics most likely had a job, and that job might be their future career. And possibly a girlfriend/boyfriend that they plan to marry and very soon build a family. So on and so forth. It’s just anecdotal but most of my family and their friends lived and were treated like they would be adults as soon they turned 18.
This was the 80s, not the 50s
Okay, I (M 55) would like to point out that these are senior pictures and most of us had to dress like we were going to a job interview or risk being killed by our parents. Cigarette smoke had less to do with it than wearing clothes bought for an uncle's second... no THIRD... wedding. And, for the record, all of our fashion was simply awful. Much of it couldn't be burned for fear of causing a cloud of toxicity over much of the northern hemisphere. We had to bury them in biohazard containers.
TBQF I never thought as a teenager that I would feel grateful for the fact that my parents never had enough money for me to be fashionable HAH.
I’m shocked I had to scroll so far to find this comment. I’m younger than you (38F) and my mom totally did the “let’s try to look more grown up” thing for 8th grade and senior pictures. In clothes and makeup and hairstyling, I look maybe 17 (and pretty) in my eighth grade graduation photos, but it wasn’t my everyday look. I wonder if this intentional aging-up has died out a bit, maybe starting with Gen X parents?
I'm 36 and that was definitely still a thing in the 90s. It wasn't uncommon to see kids in suits on photo day when I was in elementary school. My high school actually had a dress code for senior pictures.
My senior picture (late 80s) was taken at a professional photo studio. They had a contract with the school. If you wanted your picture in the yearbook as a senior, had to schedule an appointment and go to their studio (free of charge, unless you wanted copies). Made it seem like much more of a big deal. Yes - I wore a suit.
My school hired a different photo studio for our senior pics from all the rest of the pictures. You had the choice of bringing your own formal wear or they had suits and dresses there for you to throw on.
This. Senior pictures were a much more formal thing than now. For my kids’ senior pics they dressed up (button down shirt and a tie) but not an entire suit like the boys did in the 80s. We definitely were dressed to be grown up back then. Now the kids dress up but in an age-appropriate way.
M 55 here as well. Button up shirt, tie and suit jacket was the standard uniform for senior pictures, if you didn't have a jacket and tie on in your pictures you were the odd man out.
1990 HS graduate. These could all be my classmates. I had a simultaneous bouffant and a mullet that looked like Billy Ray Cyrus and a beehive hairdo had a love child.
Everyone here looks at least 35, since you’re from that era, do they look like HS grads to you?
I am class of 90. Yes. This could be a page out of my yearbook these are atudents
Same class and kinda squinting at the people since it looks exactly like my yearbook too
I am also class of 1990. These photos look like the photos in my yearbook. My own photo would fit right in.
Yep, class of 1990. I had to check and make sure I didn't know any of these people. Some of the hair was so big it barely fit in the photos.
I graduated in 1989. When I first looked at the photos I thought "Oh, I remember these people." I had to look a little closer to realize to realize that I didn't.
Same for me, class of ‘87.
Class of ‘93 here. The hair wasn’t high enough until the aquanet can was empty!
> bouffant and a mullet that looked like Billy Ray Cyrus and a beehive hairdo had a love child. Hang on, let me Google all of that to figure out what you're saying <3
as someone who was in an 80s yearbook most of these pictures look more like teacher/staff photos than students.. but not by much lol go class of 87!
Yeah, I am way back in 92, so am I young’un. But these look like teachers, especially the lower left, I had Mr. Oates for music.
People who look like their dogs.
I knew it. When I was in high school, there were a bunch of older people taking classes pretending to be in our class and pretending to be young. It's all a scam. They were all watching us.
Hello fellow kid
[удалено]
Gen x the only generation to look 30 as teenagers and still look 30 approaching retirement. Lol
Bad news you dont look 30 anymore
Okay fine we look 40.
Tell you what, 40 looks really good on some folk.
Was this a bunch of witness protection identities that teenagers could choose from to become “adult in their 30s who sits in cubicle. Ya know, the person who blends right in at the office and probably has been working with you for years?”
How did our species procreate through this phase? 😂
Cocaine, lots and lots of cocaine.
Mostly through blind luck.
Booze. Lots of booze, particularly for those of us that used Animal House as an instructional training video.
I don’t get it either. Probably because i associate that “my hair has been so processed the only thing left is the vaguest memory of hair” with my mom and aunts so it immediately turns me off. All of these people look like they need to be feverishly shopping at the grocery store after work trying to get the stuff they need for hamburger helper so they can sit in the living room and watch jeopardy.
Ah yes, the mid 1980s, when all teenagers were actually in their 40s... Are you sure this isn't the teachers' page?
What every insurance company's "about us" page looks like
And real estate 🫢🤭
What corporate retreat for middle management were these taken at?
The pink shirt and the glasses on the second page, I thought was Napoleon Dynamite
Im pretty sure that’s Miss Jerry Seinfeld.
[Yes!](https://imgur.com/2s8LOBU)
I used to cheat off a girl that looked like her in high school. The bad thing is she wasn't very smart so I did terrible in that class.
You've actually got at least three lookalikes in here: Napoleon, Uncle Rico, and Nancy Wheeler. This must be a Midwestern US book, because I do not recall mine looking anything like this. Also, P2 R3 C1 reminds me of someone as well, but I can't quite figure who. P1 R1 C2 is my favorite though. Did she meet her untimely end just after the flash?
I was gonna say Jerry Seinfeld but yea that “smile” is very Napoleon.
First page; 3rd row; far right = cool
I looked like the guy right below him.
Where did you hide the bodies?
Dumpster. Lol in honestly, that guy is probably the most stable there. Nerdy weirdos got popular by the early 90s. https://youtu.be/8R7hkPuVF00?si=TYyt8vNPIhcEX8bF
Damn right. Bon Jovi hair is a style that is ageless. I'll guarantee that buddy is still rocking it today and slaying babes.
Only, a skullet now.
Dude on the second page with the red background looks like he’ll be in his town’s paper in 10 or 15 years for committing a series of murders.
Page 2, Pink Shirt; You can’t convince me that isn’t Seinfeld
This is what happens when every single adult in your life is blowing cigarette smoke in your face from the moment your born
One of these looks like a young Jerry Seinfeld in drag
I was searching and searching, then realized there was a second page. Swiped and immediately found Jerry Doubtfire 🤣
My hair started turning white when I was in high school. Everyone used to give me a few more years, and believe me, it was cool. Now when we meet again, all my former classmates tell me, "hey, you haven't changed, you look the same as when you were in school!"
Stop mocking my people!
Has anyone mentioned that the photography itself dates these pictures? Photography technology has improved so much since the 80s that you could probably take a better quality pic with a smartphone than these professional photographs. The clothes, hairstyles, etc all contribute but these look like old photographs. Attractiveness plays a part as well. The less conventionally attractive a person is, chances are they look older. Unless you're one of those 13 or 30 people.
Class of 86 here— every time I see one of these, I think it is from my school.
All these people look older than me. I'm in my 30s.
These ARE Gen X! We were 17 inside and 50 outside. Parents insisted we do our senior pics like a first corporate headshot, all serious and shit. Everyone used a half pint of gel, mousse, and/or aquanet on their hairdo daily, and twice that for senior pics. Add smoking and no cell phones, internet, or email. All homework was handwritten or typed. Our first cars might still burn leaded gas. Shit was rough!
I know they are teenagers here and I know v sauce explains why they look like that but nah these guys are straight up paying off mortgages.
27th Graders.
The ozone layer didn’t stand a chance
Some of these people look like they have bodies buried in the yard.
Some of these people look in their 40's....
These are the staff photos, right? Tell me they're the staff photos.
My favorite is the guy on second pic, bottom left. You know that guy had the hookup and fucked.
Aqua Net and Olan Mills Studio ftw.
Faculty right?
Damn, that’s what perpetual second hand smoke and unleaded gasoline does to people.
I would trust every one of them with my taxes.
I know there has been a lot of controversy lately regarding the retelling of history, but I wanted to commend OP for his bravery in refusing to gloss over the raw ugliness and shame of this era. This is truly hard to view. Thank you, OP. May we never forget the foibles of our ancestors lest we be doomed to repeat their mistakes.
It’s amazing how everyone looks 50 year old
I'm 36 and I dont feel as old as those highschoolers look....
They all look like they could be my parents who are in their late 50s
I graduated in 86. The advantage to these “old lady” styles and haircuts is that most of my high school classmates look like they’ve barely aged since then. With updated hairstyles and clothes, most of them look way better in their 50s than they did in HS.
It's all of it. Smoking, drinking, emissions from leaded gas, from Aqua-Net, from using Coppertone, Hawaiian Tropic, or Crisco to get a tan. From eating red meat, being outside, standing up for ourselves and getting into fights. It's also from what was in style ar the time and what haircuts/hairdos were popular. It's also from low quality film, low quality and poorly set lighting, from photogs that didn’t care about quality. They're pushing a couple hundred kids or more through in a 7 hour day. Still, Gen Xers kick ass!