Why do millennials look younger than other generations?
It's a well-noted phenomenon that people used to look, well, older. Millennials, in particular, seem to be hyper-aware of this strange occurrence. When we think of the movie and TV stars of our youth, for example, we're often stunned to learn how old they were. Al Bundy from Married With Children is a spry 39 years old when the series starts. George Costanza is a mere 29 when Seinfeld begins. The entire cast of Cheers was in their 30s for most of the run, with Kelsey Grammer being just 28 in his first appearance on the show. We could have all sworn up and down these people were well into their 40s!
But no. Our shocking inability to accurately determine the ages of people outside our generation definitely begs a self-serving and tongue-firmly-in-cheek question: Are millennials just aging absolutely phenomenally?
Kristen, a "proud millennial" on TikTok, thinks so. In a recent video, she posed the question to her followers: Why do millennials look so young?
"I have a question for millennials. What do you guys think we did right growing up that we look young?"
Anticipating the reaction to her question, she immediately scoffs. "Don't even look at me like that! Don't even lie to yourself! Look at us!" She asserts that millennials look younger than Gen Z, or at least the same age, despite being quite a bit older. "Do you guys think it was the tanning beds? Or the hot pockets we used to eat?"
Watch the hilariously tongue-in-cheek video here:
@krisalmasan Millennials 🫶🏻 #millennialsoftiktok #fyp
Kristen may have had the guts to say it out loud, but she's definitely not the only one thinking it. Her video racked up over a million views and people were chomping at the bit to chime in with their own theories on why millennials are aging like fine wine.
Some say it was the things we ate, or the less-than-ideal products we used on our body at the time:
"We took Flintstones vitamins"
Yabba dabba doo!Giphy
"It was the apricot scrub"
"It's all the preservatives we ate in our food. We're pick[l]ed,"
"Slathered ourselves in Bath and Body Works Cucumber Melon daily"
"Oxy pads"
"It's all the preservatives in the lunchables we ate every day"
Some say it's because we grew and aged au naturale:
"We didn't start Botox at 19"
"We didn't have 12 step skincare routines when we were 10"
"We look younger than Gen Z because we didn't inject tons of filler in our faces when we were 22"
Gen Alpha is obsessed with SephoraGiphy
Maybe it was something less tangible and more spiritual:
"We just tell ourselves we are still babies and our cells believe us"
"Laughter. Generations before us were too serious. Gen z is too afraid of being cringe"
"It was because we reposted those long threads on MySpace and god blessed us for it ✨"
"It was forwarding the chain mail"
"Gen z wanted to grow up so fast and we wanted to stay young."
Or maybe we're just less stressed and anxious than the generation that's growing up now (which says a lot, because we are pretty darned stressed and anxious)
Millennials to every other generation: "Breathe, calm down"Giphy
"We didn’t have social media in middle school. I swear it’s that"
"Unlike Gen Z we weren’t up in everyone else’s business and stressing over stuff that doesn’t affect us at all. We weren’t offended by everything"
Whatever it is, there's definitely something to this phenomenon. It's been noted even by experts (not just hilarious TikTok commenters). One possible explanation is that millennials came of age right when we, as a culture, realized the importance of sunscreen and proper hydration. The theory that using makeup and skincare from too young of an age might end up being bad for your skin in the long run may actually hold some water, as well.
Simply put, millennials had the luxury of learning from the mistakes made by Gen X and Boomers. It's definitely possible that, at scale, cultural differences in how we were raised and how we approached health and wellness as we grew up have led to major differences between generations.
Personally, though, I think Lunchables and high-energy sodas like Surge and Jolt had medicinal properties that provided us with an extra burst of youth. But we'll probably never know for sure.
That first paycheck feeling. Image via Canva.
It's all relative.
Prokop Vejdělek, at age 22 and 101
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