It’s an increasingly common Millennial experience these days to realize, oh no, I am the old people I used to complain about. Obviously “old” is relative, as we can see from all the 24-year-olds bemoaning their age on TikTok, and all the Gen-Xers and Elder Millenials pulling their hair out, asking them to stop.
Still, there’s a classic set of experiences, and some alarming ones you couldn’t have imagined until they happen to you, that tell you—whether you’re officially “old” or not—that you’re definitely who The Young People(TM) mean when they say it. Redditers recently got together to share their oh no I’m old moments, and so I’ve collected some of the best here for you, from the hilarious to the horrifying.
Viggo Mortensen is now the same age Ian McKellan was in LoTR
This one hits hard for the nerds. I bet half of you reading this had a poster of Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn in your room. (I had a whole cast poster next to my bed.) Well, he’s now the same age Ian McKellan was when he played Gandalf. Yeah, you think about that one. That paradigm shifting, that is.
Discovering the Derry Girl’s actresses aren’t teenagers
They look like children but no, the Derry Girls‘ actresses are all fully-fledged adults in their 20s. Now partly it’s good makeup, hair, and costuming, but also partly? You think they’re younger because you’re old.
Doing nothing is your favorite weekend activity
I’m in this picture and I don’t like it. But really though, at some point this happens to you and it’s weird. You can feel your teen/early 20s self crying out in outrage that you’d waste all this free time where you don’t have to answer to anybody, but you’d still rather stay in your pajamas and drink a cup of coffee.
Entering your age in the drop-down menu
We’ve all been there. Repeatedly. Each new milestone birthday leads to another horrifying realization when we have to sign up for something on a website. and we have to scroll so. far. down.
The future in Back to the Future is now the past
The far-distant future that Doc travels to at the end of Back to The Future? That was seven years ago now. 2015 seemed unimaginably far off when I watched it as a kid and now it’s in the past. That’s sobering.
You don’t know the cool music anymore
Apparently, the music you listen to when you’re 15 is the music you’ll listen to for the rest of your life, and I don’t know how true this is but one day you pick up a magazine, or look at the charts, or are innocently scrolling TikTok and you realize you have no idea who any of these people are.
The music you do like is now “Golden Oldies”
I’m not going to lie, that one hurts. Realizing the music that was cool and new and alternative when you were a kid is now “classic rock”? That’s a hard one to adapt to. It feels wrong, golden oldies are supposed to be the Dad rock your parents listened to. Yeah, your music is Dad rock now. You’re welcome.
Hearing the 90s referred to as “the late 1900s”
I’m pretty sure they’re just doing this to be cruel. I get the 1990s were technically the late 1900s but don’t call it that! We were alive then, some of us were even children! But yeah, the kids these days apparently refer to the 90s as “the late 1900s” as if it’s just the next chronological successor to the Great Depression and we’re all going to have to live with that.
Oops, now you’re the work parent
If the kids at work start calling you Mom or Dad, or another staff member who isn’t even that much younger than you proclaims you “the work Mom/Dad” and directs all the new hires to come for you to help, you know you’ve ascended to another stage of adulthood.
Learning that Reddit is old enough to vote
Reddit is 18 years old now. OK, that’s enough internet for the day.
(featured image: Buena Vista Pictures)
