Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I graduated from high school in 1982, and I don't think we looked any older in our yearbook photos than today's teens look in theirs. Then I look at my mom or dad's yearbook and wonder why it's full of old people. You know what the answer is, and why each generation seems to appear "older" as teens to the next generation's teens?
It's the hairstyles, the clothing and makeup styles. At least mostly so.
When I look at photos of teens from the 1940s and 1950s, I see hairstyles and shapes to glasses and clothing and stuff that I associate with people who were middle-aged adults when I knew them during my own teen years. The human mind superimposes that perception upon the photograph, so even though we may be looking at photos of 16-year-olds, we see them partly through our mind's eye and because we may know 30 to 45-year-olds who still wear those same hairstyles, etc. we perceive the person in the photo as an adult rather than as a teenager.
It has nothing to do with adult expectations, maturity, lifestyle or anything else for most people. It's all just a trick of perception. Trust me, my friends and I were every bit as immature at 16 as anyone that age today, and I suspect it may not have been much different for teens in the 1950s. (I won't say quite the same of teens in the 1940s given they were coming of age during or close to the time of WWII which cast a pall of seriousness over everyone, and even saw a number of 16-year-old boys like my uncle quit school to join the military, and then -- if they survived -- come home after the war and perhaps return to high school, already war veterans.)
The stories I could tell you from my high school days would prove we were kids. The only things we lacked that today's teens have would be cellphones, the internet and things like Xbox, etc. for the most part. Sure, we listened to music on cassettes using a Walkman rather than downloading songs to an iPod, and if we wanted to play video games we had to go someplace that had Pac-Man or Tempest or Asteroids or whatever and drop a quarter in a slot, but the other differences really aren't that big.
In recent decades, manufacturers have put things like estrogen in shampoos. Some scientists believe this is making boys look softer and feminine and the reason these young girls have ridiculously pneumatic bodies before they can even drive. I do agree that if you look at kids from the 60s and 70s there is a very different look about them. Just not ready to fully ascribe to the shampoo theory, although it is an interesting one.
Practically everyone smoked, which ages the skin and makes wrinkles more pronounced. People laid out to tan, nobody used sunscreen. HA! They used baby oil! And for women, the skincare products were completely different. People used vaseline as moisturizer. All terrible for the skin.
I'm in high school now and I've looked at yearbooks of my school from various decades as well as my parents yearbooks and the teenagers looked extremely old. My parents both went to school in the 70s and they certainly didn't look like me at 16. I look at the faces of the teenagers in the yearbooks and they could easily pass for a 40 year old even 50 year old if they look really old (which a lot do). Every other guy had a mustache and a lot even had beards and the girls looked like middle aged women. I know they had different hairstyles and wore different clothes them but they just had faces that didn't look youthful at all. Teenagers now look so much younger than teenagers of any other generation. I noticed that teenagers now are much shorter and look much younger. I'd say a lot of teens now could pass for 10-12 year olds. It's quite strange how teens didn't start looking young until about the mid 90s. Does anyone have a logical explanation for all of this?
Exactly the same question was posed in the past about kids in 1950's yearbooks. Don't know if it was in the history thread.
My mom went to HS in 40's and really, she looked 30 when she was 13. Black and white photo, dark lipstick, heavily drawn on eyebrows, hair in a wave....everyone WANTED to look older. It wasn't just something that occurred, it was on purpose.
Rather the same in the Fifties. The goal was to be a "Grown Up" (but not all fussy-fart like your parents, of course.) I can remember reaching university in fall of 1956 and discovering that anything whatsoever that smacked of high school was scorned, because the drive was on full bore at this point to be grown up.
In recent decades, manufacturers have put things like estrogen in shampoos. Some scientists believe this is making boys look softer and feminine and the reason these young girls have ridiculously pneumatic bodies before they can even drive. I do agree that if you look at kids from the 60s and 70s there is a very different look about them. Just not ready to fully ascribe to the shampoo theory, although it is an interesting one.
You are saying the opposite of what the OP is saying.
Still,I say its obesity that makes the kids look younger,and what you describe as pneumatic bodies
Funny I was thinking the same thing as the OP, and I was teen in the 70s.
I think part of it is a trick of perception. I'll see a 16 yr old now and think, jeez he looks like a baby compared to my old pals Roger or Gary or whomever.
I think Roger and Gary shaved once a year though, and maybe got a haircut every 5 years. They were the tall, muscular guys.
Then there was Mark , a short skinny guy with braces and glasses who looked about 12.
Looking as young as possible was not the ideal for girls back then We wanted to look older. Also it's the photos as well.
There were other guys back then who looked years younger than Roger and Gary, and girls who looked years younger than Ellen, Lauren and some of my other class mates.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
