Getting old is no fun. It comes with ever-greater responsibilities and pressures. We don’t want that. It doesn’t help that certain things remind us just how old we are getting. When you speak to an 18-year-old that’s about to go off and have fun at college, you feel ancient. The trick is not to speak to teenagers if you can help it. If you felt young before speaking to them, you will feel like their mom afterward and find yourself saying things like, “Back when I was in high school/college…” And that’s just eww! It’s strange how quickly time has flown by. Ten years sounds like a really long time. But ten years ago some of the top movies were Superbad, Juno and Into the Wild. Ten years ago, some of the top songs were “Glamorous” by Fergie and “Beautiful Girls” by Sean Kingston. Ten years ago, Britney Spears got papped having a meltdown in public and shaving all her hair off. WTF! All of that stuff does NOT feel like it happened ten years ago. That’s how you know you’re old AF, when it feels like something happened yesterday and, in actual fact, it happened a decade ago.
If You Don't Already Feel Old You Will After Seeing These Pictures.
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Back in the day, Uncle Phil was the epitome of an old fuddy-duddy. That’s because The Fresh Prince of Bel Air aired between 1990 and 1996 when we were young whippersnappers. When the show started, Will Smith was 22 years old and now he’s older than the old fuddy-duddy that was on the show – he’s 48 and has his own teenage children in real life. It’s crazy! We might soon be able to relive the days of the Fresh Prince as rumor has it that a reunion is in the works. Will Smith’s musical collaborator DJ Jazzy Jeff, who also appeared on the Fresh Prince, told newspaper The Sun, “There have been talks with people about doing something. I think it would be cool if they did it and go down Memory Lane again.” You have to agree that it would be cool.
Feels like yesterday that these were out, WTF
Today’s teenagers would have been young children when these songs were out. Do you think they would call them classics? The thought of it is enough to make you cringe. Some of these songs were pure anthems and it certainly doesn’t feel like it has been ten years since they were released. “Beautiful Girls” was an amazing summer jam. “Shut Up And Drive” was on in the clubs we were sneaking into underage. “How To Save A Life” reminds us of the early seasons of Grey’s Anatomy. “Apologize” gave us all the feels because we were hormonal teenagers. “Crank Dat” was the “Whip/Nae Nae” of its day. Thinking about the songs in this way, associating them with youthful memories, does make you realize that they are indeed at least a decade old. Weird. It also makes you realize that you are getting old. Even weirder.
The Goosebumps books were released from 1992-1995, making you ancient
The Goosebumps books were the best. They were some of the first books we got into as kids, along with the likes of The Princess Diaries and Harry Potter. The Goosebumps TV show, which ran from 1995 until 1998, was equally popular. Did anyone else have the series on VHS? If the mention of VHS doesn’t make you feel old then I don’t know what will. The books and TV show were really frightening when we were children, well some of the stories were, others not so much, like the one about the killer sponge. The old TV series is on Netflix, you should go and watch it if you fancy a giggle. There’s no doubt you will find the show less scary and more hilarious as an adult. That’s not to say that the Goosebumps franchise wasn’t brilliant at the time, we’re just old AF now and can’t appreciate it in the same way.
Can you believe Titanic turns 20 in 2017?
Titanic remains one of the most popular movies of all time, which is probably because it’s all about an epic love story. That’s something most of us dream about whether we would like to admit it or not. It’s hard to believe that the movie was released in 1997, i.e. 20 years ago. The movie is nearly as old as we are. There’s no doubting though that Titanic will stand the test of time and be celebrated in 20 more years and maybe even 20 years after that. Then we’ll be really old. When we first watched Titanic, actor Leonardo DiCaprio was such a heartthrob. Nowadays, he’s still a heartthrob but a 42-year-old heartthrob! The still-stunning Kate Winslet is now a similar age too, she’s 41. Those are just another couple of facts for you that will make you feel old.
Erm, this is how old the Rugrats characters would be now…
The first episode of the Nickelodeon cartoon Rugrats aired in 1991. For many of us, it was a childhood favorite. Because we were toddlers ourselves, we just loved the idea of babies getting up to all kinds of hijinks and adventures and letting their imaginations run free. Now, we all know that cartoon characters don’t age – The Simpson kids have been kids forever – but if they did, the babies from Rugrats would be in their late twenties by now. Whaaa? It’s mind-blowing. They would have been to college, and have careers and maybe babies of their own. They made a series, in which our little Rugrats were “All Grown Up” and in middle school. Now they should make one where they’re going through their respective quarter-life crises. That would be hilarious.
Discmans were the best
Do you remember carrying a Discman in your pocket (if you had big pockets, mind you) or bag and it skipping every other step? It’s so funny to think about it now. We would carry around this big bulky machinery so that we could listen to music on the go. If you did use your Discman while on the move, you’d have to walk very carefully and perhaps more slowly than you would usually. How stupid is that? Whether you remember the transition into the age of iPods and MP3 players or not, it must have been a joyous time for music fans. Now, of course, people listen to music and do everything else on their phones. It makes you wonder about the future. Will we be laughing at our former selves for listening to music on our phones?
This one will hurt
Macaulay Culkin is currently the same age right now, as Catherine O’Hara was in Home Alone. To us, she will always be Kevin’s mom, but the reality is that Kevin is all grown up. Another freaky fact: Culkin is currently older than Daniel Stern ( who plays the role of Marv Merchants, one-half of the sticky bandits) was in the movie. The first Home Alone came out in 1990, which means that the movie came out 27 years ago! Wow. This one really hurts. To put this all into perspective: Daniel Stern was was 33 at the time the film was released and Catherine was 36 at the time. Doesn’t she seem like such a mom?
Your fave rapper is now middle-aged
Okay, so he almost certainly isn’t your favorite rapper nowadays. But Eminem was probably a favorite when you were a kid. His album The Slim Shady LP came out in 1999 when you most likely weren’t old enough to understand many of the lyrics but you listened anyway. So, some of the stars that we looked up to when we were kids are now middle-aged, which feels really strange because when you think of middle-aged you think of your parents’ generation. Eminem is probably old enough to be your dad! Another musician you might have liked when you were younger and is also now middle-aged is Gwen Stefani – she’s 47 and looks amazing for it! Jennifer Lopez is 48-years-old and also still looking amazing. Enrique Iglesias is 42, and Pharrell Williams is 44 and they don’t look it, but Pharrell is some sort of alien and will always look good. When did this all happen?
Britney’s breakdown happened 10 years ago
This year marks the ten-year anniversary of when of when Britney Spears wigged out and shaved all of her hair off. It was probably the first time we saw a celebrity have a breakdown in public and we didn’t know how to react. Some felt sorry for the singer, some thought she was batshit. Either way, it was a legendary moment in pop culture history. It feels like yesterday that Britney went off the rails, not ten years ago!! Back in 2007, she was still making major hits with songs like “Gimme More” and “Womanizer”. So Britney was still very much in the public eye when she shaved her head. She recovered from that strange time in her life and most recently is known for her residency in Vegas and that extremely awkward carpool karaoke with James Corden.
These kids don’t know how good they’ve got it
It makes you feel really old when you think that kids today have grown up in the age of the Internet, social media and smartphones. Their lives have never been without technology. When we were kids we got our first computer. It was grey and took up a lot of space and was shared by everyone in the house. It’s strange to remember a time when not everyone had their own tablet or laptop. And the way we stored data or install things on our computers back then was by using a floppy disk. There was no such thing as the cloud. Nope, we had these square plastic cartridges. Obviously, we still use the icon to save documents on our devices to this day. But it’s true that the teens of today will never have seen a floppy disc in real life. Tbh they’re not missing out on much though.
They’re all grown up!
Look at those cute little faces in the top pictures. The first Harry Potter movie was released in 2001, that’s 16 years ago! It doesn’t feel like that long ago, does it? We’ve pretty much grown up with Harry Potter, so seeing the stars of the franchise as adults is weird. What’s also weird is that the stars have taken on very grown-up roles in movies and IRL. The guy who played Neville Longbottom has, well, Neville Longbottom and is a major heartthrob now. Emma Watson was appointed UN Women Goodwill Ambassador – that’s seriously grown-up. Harry Potter himself, aka Daniel Radcliffe, shockingly got naked on stage for a play in 2007 and more recently has starred in a film about neo-nazis. The stars of Harry Potter aren’t little kids anymore and that makes us feel old AF.
Thirty years ago…
Noooo! This definitely makes you feel old. How can 1990 be almost 30 years ago? And that means that, in actual fact, the 70’s are almost 50 years ago. It’s so weird. Back in the 90’s, we were kids playing on our original Game Boys, listening to our Discmans (side note why was everything for boys or men? tsk), idolizing the Spice Girls and crushing on noodle-haired Justin Timberlake. Now, we have to adult even though we feel like we’ve only just stopped being those children. That’s probably why we have such nostalgia for the 90’s, we don’t want to be grown and have responsibilities. We’d much rather be chilling, watching Nickelodeon. The only thing we don’t want back is dial-up Internet. That’s the only bad thing about living in the 90’s.
