Five Things That Make Me Feel Old Already

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A week or so ago, I revealed that it was my birthday, and had you lot guess at what my age might be. Most of you correctly guessed in the 22-29 range, and as it turns out, I’m actually 23.

But then why oh why do I already feel old?

Spending literally all day every day completely immersed in media, I should feel like I’m up on all the latest trends in everything, but there are something that when I see them or think about them today, I really just feel old, despite the fact I’ve probably got 75% of my life still to go.

Here are five things that really make me shake my fist at “kids today.” Feel free to shout out your own.

Justin Bieber

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Who is this kid? I’m serious.

I always knew that someday I would look at popular music and despair at what it’s devolved into, but I didn’t think it would be this soon, and that the harbinger would have this goofy of a haircut.

I do not understand Justin Bieber. Just the concept of him. I believe I’ve heard one song of his on the radio, where he goes “Baby, baby, baby, baby,” and as that’s my only exposure to the kid, I don’t see what the fascination with him is.

Where did he come from? Nickelodeon? Disney? I heard that he was maybe discovered via YouTube or something? Is that really how we’re creating pop icons now? Through YouTube?

And is this what really passes for a teen heartthrob these days? Back in my day, we had awesome ones like JTT, and this kid just looks like every other thirteen year old jerkoff I ever played little league with. What makes him set all these girls hearts a flutter? I just feel like a crochity old man whenever he comes on the radio. “Ehh, who is this? Justin Beaver you say? Turn down that racket!”

How Many Pokemon There Are Now

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Ten years ago, I played a little game called Pokemon Blue. I was quite upset that Nintendo had gotten so greedy that it decided to split the game in half in order for either side to complete it, as 150 Pokemon were apparently far too many to be contained by just one game.

But I sucked it up, and caught all of them, and rare candied them up to level 100 and kicked everyone’s ass on my street. Never once did I imagine that Pokemon would have a legacy that lasted this long, and that I would be buying my six year old niece Pokemon cards for her sixth birthday, ten years later.

There are so many Pokemon now, it’s ridiculous. The official list tops out at over 500, making my core 150 feel like dinosaurs. Garchomp? Finneon? Kyogre? Gliscor? What the **** are these things? I can’t even pronounce most of them. Just give me my Charmander, my Geodude, my Ghastly and my Mewtwo, and get the hell off my lawn.

The Population of Xbox Live

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The concept of playing games online in itself, doesn’t make me feel old, but who I’m playing against certainly does. Whether it’s Halo or Call of Duty, I am astonished by the amount of terrible parents who have apparently bought their eleven year olds these M-rated games.

It’s even worse in games that don’t allow party chat like COD. Every time I join a game, I must go down the line and mute a dozen high pitched voices, before they can start shouting in my ear about “****ing fag campers!” or various other epithets directed toward me or my mother. Kids these days are little shits.

But even that doesn’t make me feel old. No, what really gets me is that these kids are wiping the floor with me in all these games. When I was a kid, I’d come home from soccer practice and get a little N64 time in with my buddies before bed, but kids today play games obsessively, and they’re not just playing against their friends. Rather, they’re spending hours and hours a day playing the entire world, sharpening their skills off each other like an endless parade of ginsu knives. Then when I stroll along with my measly five days of playing time, I get my ass stomped by some twelve year old who has an entire month blacked out of his life due to this game.

Realizing That The Matrix Came Out Eleven Years Ago

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This can really be applied to any movie approaching its decade anniversary, but The Matrix stands out to me in particular. This movie defines my adolescence in a lot of ways, and really was what got me into movies growing up and set me on the path to where I am today.

But looking back it’s hard to imagine what it was like seeing that for the first time over ten years ago. Before the sequels messed everything up, and it was just a perfect entity of awesomeness, and I just can’t believe it’s been this long. Think back to Fight Club, Office Space, The Sixth Sense and The Phantom Menace. All were also in ’99, and I remember playing with toy lightsabers in my yard for my twelfth birthday before seeing Episode I like it was yesterday.

Think back to some of your favorite movies that you saw in theaters, and think how many years ago that was. It should make you feel old too.

These Graphics Used to Be Amazing

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In my generation, the first system most of us had was either SNES or Genesis, so those graphics became the standard for us. That’s why when N64 came out, it was utterly mindblowing. Can you SEE that polygon count? Those are 64-bit graphics right there!

Goldeneye was heralded as one of the graphic leaders of that console generation, but looking back at it now is pretty astonishing, considering how far we’ve come in the last decade or so. We’re marching inevitably toward photo-realism (someday), and side by siding something like Gears of War to this just makes me feel like an old timer.

I have to wonder if we’ll someday look back at our games today with the same reaction, when our kids are so immersed in hyper realistic video game worlds that they never want to leave. I think so, and I believe in another ten years we just might have maxed things out.

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51 Comments

  1. What about the craps that come on Disney, Nick, CN TV??? I feel dumber every time my niece tune to iCarly or Hannah Montana.

    Give me back my Boy Meets World.

  2. I was actually talking to a friend of mine the other day about how I sort of feel old from time to time and you’re a little more than two years my senior. Honestly it doesn’t bother me too much that music is being discovered via Youtube but I think we could do a hell of a lot better than this Bieber kid there are some talented people on there but it seems like only the middle of the pack talents at best are breaking through.

  3. Haha the Golden Eye one gave me a laugh.

    It’s amazing when you think of an awesome game you played the hell out of when you were younger and then you think about it today and still think it’s awesome, then you Google image what it looks like and instantly have a sad face 🙁

    I’m going to get my girlfriends little brother to try and name all of those Pokemon, then walk away after he names over more than 10.

  4. It only gets worse Paul. For me (being 33) the biggest “Wow I’m old moment” was realizing my good friend’s girlfriend (who’s 21) was 2 when Nirvana’s Nevermind was stuck in my walkman.

  5. Justin Bieber’s music isn’t made for us, but I will say he is a great performer for a kid. He deserves a lot of the attention he gets; it’s not like he’s famous for doing nothing.

    @ the Butterfly

    I’m just a year behind you…and man did that make me feel old.

  6. You wanna talk about feeling old?

    I’m Madison’s age but have a 13 year old daughter. Every time she opens her mouth I feel just a little bit older.

  7. So true 🙁

    PS: spotted a little grammatical error: “they’re friends” should be “their friends” in the games-paragraph 😉 Just trying to help.

  8. Oh man. Why I hate kids today:

    1. Their high-pitched voices on XBL telling me they fucked my grandmother.

    2. The fact that they all have cell phones and send 3,000 text messages a month.

    3. They way they talk to their parents – Something that would’ve caused mine to beat my ass until it turned purple. And you know what? I’m a normal, well-behaved, successful 25 year old college grad so that must’ve been the right thing to do.

    In short, FUCKING KIDS GET THE HELL OFF MY LAWN.

  9. Wow,i’m pushing 30 this year and i must say if you’re feeling old by 20 you’re doing something wrong. lol No offense though.As for the 13 year olds on XBL i just tell them to go to bed,or i’ll tell their mom next time she’s over (giggity) to take away his game. 😉 usually shuts them up or throws them into a tantrum-either way it’s still funny to me. haha.

  10. hey dude, been visiting unreality for a few months now, lovin the posts and as usual i agree with the stuff you write.. this one makes me feel old too.
    had a conversation with my friend the other day, same topic – feelin old, realized all my favourite movies are at least 10 years old and that todays music sucks..don’t really care if new artists start from youtube, but i only wish the music was better..this justin bieber, lady gaga (and i could go on with wannabe singers) has to stop..

    i was never into pokemon, they weren’t around when i was growin up..btw i live in slovenia (please don’t confuse it with slovakia) and i’m also 23 years old..

    i miss the days of gameboys, walkmans and VCRs 🙂

    @ Zarquon – sorry if i made any grammatical errors 🙂

  11. You know what’s been pissing me off a lot lately? Hats. Those damn baseball hats the kids wear now. When I was younger, you wore it either forwards, or backwards, it had a curve in the peak, and you TOOK THE FUCKING LABELS OFF. Every time I see these skinny white kids with their sideways caps with the awful Affliction/Ed Hardy logo shit on them perched on their douchey little heads it makes me want to rip their arms off and smack the hat off their heads with it.

    Sorry. Just ranting a little bit.

  12. I realized I was old when the entire class of players getting drafted into the NBA (i’ve been playing/following basketball since I was ten) was younger than me.

  13. I have to agree with the comment on T.V. shows now on kids channels. At first I thought our late 80’s and 90’s kid shows might have been just as stupid, but we were immature enough that we did not notice. So I asked my parents and some of my friends’ parents. They did not agree, they also think that the new T.V. shows like Hannah Montana, iCarly and others are much worse. I don’t know why, you’d think they could just change minute details and distribute the same show to different generations.

    Another reason why I feel so different from this group of kids and teens is the escalation in violence. When I was in school, if you had a problem with another guy you could just duke it out after school. A fight was a good thing, I’ve known plenty of people who became better friends after fighting. Now, kids have to worry about the other kid pulling out a knife or a gun. It seems weird to say but it is almost like my group had a sense of honor which does not exist anymore.

  14. @ Bert: The thing that bugs me most about hats today is that people (young and old) don’t remove their hats when eating in a nice restaurant. I’m not talking the pub but a restaurant.

  15. One assumes then that your own parents were “terrible”, seeing as you saw an R-rated movie at age 13? But you seem to have turned out OK. I bet that despite the scifi violence and hearing words like “hell” and “damn” and “bastard”, those underage Halo players are gonna be alright too.

  16. Lol this list is great! But in all seriousness I understand how you feel. For instance, last weekend I was with a friend who is 18 and she wanted to see MacGruber. I had to spend like 20 minutes explaining Macgyver to her and she still didn’t understand it lol.

    I swear though, that when I have kids I am starting them off on NES just like my dad did for me lol. You don’t realize that before voice acting that kids actually had to read the text! believe it or not this is how I learned to read lol. I remember getting a N64 for my birthday the year it came out and waiting in line for Zelda to come out and such with my Dad and it does feel like forever ago.

    @Velovan – I think kids wanting (and getting) cell phones makes me old. Also just remembering getting beat as a child when I did something wrong versus all the politically correct ways to discipline your child nowadays makes me old.

    (P.S. – Almost all clothes I see teens wear look like crap w/ unicorn vomit colors. :P)

  17. @Kristoph Hell yeah. When I think about playing Half-Life in my head, it’s got Half-Life 2 graphics. Then when I put the actual game in…

  18. Hey! My mom is one of those terrible parents that buy my two younger brothers (14 and 11) M-rated video games!

    I’m sixteen and I feel and sound old when I say that some of my favorite movies came out before or slightly after my parents (’66 and ’68) were born. I feel really old then.

    Oh, also, I had to explain to a friend of mine, who’s a year older than me, who Humphrey Bogart was, why The Day the Earth Stood Still is better than the remake, and that Across the Universe Beatles is not the same as the regular Beatles.

    I hate about my generation.

  19. I am 25 and i couldnt agree more.
    Also i am terribly disapointed with the current generation of
    video games, only graphics, no substance and in my mind they seem to be made only for the purpose of making my old favorite games to look uglier

  20. Jesus, I’m only 20, but I agreed word for word with all of this.

    I’m a huge hockey fan, and its hard to realize how long ago the Colorado-Detroit Rivalry was. Even though I was just a little kid, I remember it like it was yesterday.

    The Matrix one blew my mind, as well.

  21. When 18 – 25 year olds say they feel old… I feel 10x OLDER!!! You wanna talk about old, when everything that you mention came out… I was old enough to drink ok? so stop feeling so old! this generation acts like they carry the weight of the world on their shoulders.

    P.S.: and I bet most of you still live with your parents.

  22. Ok (and I do realize that I am including myself in this but..) Will everyone under the age of 30 Please shut up about being old.
    Fric man, Matrix? I was already an adult when that came out, Did you just use 12th birthday party and Phantom Menace in the same Sentence? And you are just noticing NOW that modern (mainstream) music sucks? Man, forget High School, from where I’m sitting, Collage is fast becoming a distant memory…

  23. Peter – the Colorado/Detroit rivalry? in the immortal words of Clay Davis: sheeeeee-it.
    i remember when it would have been a Nordiques/Wings rivalry.
    and i’m also pretty sure i remember it being january, like… yesterday. nothing like how time becomes an increasing blur as you get older.
    thank god for Just for Men.
    you know what makes me feel old? people complaining about feeling old who are young enough that they probably can’t remember a time when there was no Simpsons. not trying to insult y’all, just sayin.

  24. i dont exactly feel old (im only 19) but it does feel weird to go through photo albums and realize everything is digtal these days. or remeber when somene was a baby who is now in 12 years old. and finally good old cartoon violence.

  25. I feel even more sad when I realise Beiber is 16. I swear, he’s a eunuch.

    I’m only 17 but my younger sister made me feel old when she replied to my question “Do you know what a floppy disk is?” with “no.”

  26. @Velovan

    Agreed.

    I do, because I’m taking care of my grandmother, who’s pretty much incapable of doing anything for herself.

    I don’t think it’s so much feeling old (I’m barely going to be 20), but feeling disappointed. Younger kids take a lot of stuff for granted. Pretty much anyone can afford anything they want in some way. My parents worked hard for what they have, and so have I.

    All kids have to do is throw a tantrum and get what they want. My Mom cries almost every year at Christmas because when we were really young, we only got one present, or nothing at all. And we were perfectly happy just to have a tree. Some rules have changed in a drastic way. My brother called my mother stupid once when he was three, and she spanked him with a brush and he never did it again. He’s 17 now, and perfectly fine.

    The first movie my parents took me to was Star Trek.
    I can’t believe that 9/11 was almost ten years ago. I was in the 5th grade.

  27. When Ken Griffey Jr. (the “Kid” for god’s sake) retired last week, the “old bug” really bit me in the ass. I still remember watching his MLB debut on TV. That was over 22 years ago. Crap. But considering during my freshman year of college, I was using a 14.4 modem hooked up a phone line and it took a good 10 minutes to download a fuzzy 20mb movie clip (cough, cough) … and I was in deep conflict to disconnect since a gal just PAGED me to call her back … yeah, I’m an old dude.

  28. I’m a geezer compared to most of you…

    And for your Goldeneye reference…

    I remember when the original Dark Forces came out and I was AMAZED…

    Also, when I was in the military, I was the only one in the barracks with a Sega Genesis and Madden…

  29. it makes me feel old when i actually sat down with my much younger sister and tried to explain how the jonas brothers are basically a repackaged hanson and after i got done she asked “who”

  30. i think the reason younger ppl (including myself) feel old is because how dramatically things have changed since ppl 20-15 were children. i remember when i was six, my biggest concern was what would happen on pokemon or dragon ball the next day, but now six year olds are concerned with dating…..and most curse like sailors! the worst thing i said when i was little was hynie. And the graphics in video games and effects in movies…..WOW massive change, remember how the graphics in toystory looked and compare them to how they look now, and how super mario 64 looked and it had good graphics, now we have heavy rain, and remember when tim burton was original?

  31. Teenage girls will and have always been retarded. Is Bieber that much worse than nsync or any of the other twink gangs record labels use to get hormonally confused bitches hyped up? No hes not. The only difference is you can look in on the mess from the outside. Although you should have known shits like jtt were all bs back in the day too. Look through the fads son

  32. I just happened to stumble upon this article while searching “Make me Old” on google just for the hell of it.. Now 21 I can’t feel more at home then after reading this i just couldn’t agree more. ..and sadly it did make me feel old but it is very true..that’s life for you this was a very good read.

  33. I know how you feel. I’m turning 23 in September. I still play Pokemon (stop laughing .) I was thinking about all my favorite movies and when they came out. Then there is the fact that some of my friends are having kids ?! Whoa. Creepy.

    1. everyone in our generation are lucky ones to me cause kids now days have everything at the hands of a button we know what its like to not have that the last gen to know that kids now days think the internet has been around forever and we have always just had all this i remember rug rats mighty m power rangers hey Arnold recess Pokemon yugioh scream die hard collection ninja turtles but i wouldent want to grow up in another gen we were gen x and it was the best time of are life

  34. i feel old because i remember watching shows like rug-rats and playing games like Getaway and Manhunt but now everything has changed it’s all about technology.

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