# Did young people used to look older? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 26, 2004, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-young-people-used-to-look-older/281679 "2004-12-26T14:04:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![SolGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2004, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-young-people-used-to-look-older/281679/21 "2004-12-27T05:41:00Z")
Maybe they were really Teenagers from Outer Space? ---
**Author:** ![Merkwurdigliebe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/74df32/32.png) [@Merkwurdigliebe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merkwurdigliebe)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2004, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-young-people-used-to-look-older/281679/22 "2004-12-27T08:21:34Z")
Hmm… I’m not so sure about the hard living theory… Honestly, I’m almost 23 and I look a LOT younger than that guy. I have had lots of “hard living” as well, and it really hasn’t made me look too much older. I do have an oily complexion, which i’ve heard will tend to keep you skin looking younger. Now that acne isn’t such a problem, I suppose its a good thing. Now stress… that could be a serious factor that hasn’t been considered. If there’s anything that makes you look older, I would wager that stress is it. But why not? Obviously we live much, much, more comfortably now than we ever have in our entire lives. The life of a kid born in the 80s on has been pretty much devoid of any kind of physical hardship. Most don’t have jobs, or obligations, etc. The girl in that pic looks VERY old. But she does have a lot of makeup. I can’t really say what it is about her, but even today, when I look on my campus at my college, it is really interesting. If you look at the Freshmen, those kids really look like kids. I can’t distinguish some of them from 15 year-olds. I get asked for ID all the time buying tobacco. Also, not that the guy is clean-shaven. One thing that makes people look a lot younger is being clean-shaven. I get carded less when I have a little scruff, but that guy is clean shaven and still looks a lot older. Honestly, I think its just due to longetivy and advancements in nutrition. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2004, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-young-people-used-to-look-older/281679/23 "2004-12-27T14:00:17Z")
> [@Phase42](#): > > His slacks were cut in a modern, slightly baggy style, and his shirt and tie were modern. But I’m so sick of baggy slacks. On me, in my correct waist size, they may break on my shoe correctly when stand up, but in some seated positions want to hike up almost above my socks. Real sharp look, that. The crotch/rise is usually too long which means there’s not enough inseam length. And it’s not like I’m fat, or strangely built, or anything. I can’t wait for slightly narrower dress pants to come back; it already seems to be happening with jeans, just a bit. Another possible explanation for the young-people-looking old thing is that people used to dress up for photos, and dressing up almost always makes you look older. I’m sure the 12 kids in my greatgrandfather’s family, dressed to the nines for the photo in the family genealogy, were next day dressed in the simple, practical apparel of a Kansas farming family of 100 years ago, and probably looked much more like young people today. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2004, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-young-people-used-to-look-older/281679/24 "2004-12-27T14:48:59Z")
> [@Phase42](#): > > I’m a 38-year-old guy, and I personally don’t like seeing women my age still wearing Farrah Fawcett hairstyles. I don’t like seeing men my age wearing mullets. I was pleasantly surpised this year when I saw neither style at my 20-year class reunion. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with people over 30 attempting to keep their style current. It’s better than looking dated. I agree. Maintaining a youthful style does not mean squeezing into tight jeans and wearing your old Motley Crue jacket from high school. Nor does it mean a 60 year old guy should throw on an oversized Sean Jean sweat suit with extra bling. A “preppy” or more conservative style like you find at J Crew or Banana Republic tends to have greater longevity and is appropriate for a much large rage group. I’m not sure but I think people used to actually BE older in the old days. When I was growing up, my perception was that once you graduated college, you basically found a job, a house and got married, generally having kids in you mid 20s. Maybe you had once last blast before graduation and then BOOM, you were in the “real world”. Now the real world seems to more closely resemble college life. Guys live with 4 of their college buddies in some Soho loft, going out every night partying after work well into their 30s. And because they still maintain that bar and nightclub lifestyle, thei clothing and style reflect a young trendy image. ---
**Author:** ![lee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lee/32/7455_2.png) [@lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lee)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2004, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-young-people-used-to-look-older/281679/25 "2004-12-27T15:48:13Z")
She does look like a teen ager. Look at the shape of her face. Her face has yet to mature in shape. I don’t know if it is babyfat, or bone shape, women around 19 to seem to come into their own in the face department. It has nothing to do with makeup. They only look older in that they are not dressed in a way that would make an adult would feel foolish if she or he were dressed that way. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2004, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-young-people-used-to-look-older/281679/26 "2004-12-27T16:17:08Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > Along the same lines, some people seem to have naturally “retro” faces. Bernadette Peters looks like a 1920s flapper, Sherilyn Fenn goes back to the 40s/50s glamour ideal, Kate Wiinslet looks like a turn of the century beauty and John Goodman goes back to the 50s Everyman look. Of course, anybody can be dressed and so forth to fit a particular era’s styles, but some folks just have the look to a greater degree than others. > > I think the modern ideals of fitness for both sexes and for freakish thinness on the part of female movie stars bars a lot of older actresses from looking modern. The ones that do would be the ones like Rita Hayworth and Ann Miller, dancers who were fit by profession. I went to college with a beautiful Mormon girl who looked very much like a vintage 40s or 50s starlet, with kind of Anita Bryant features. Steve Gerber, in researching Vegas dancers for his comics series _Nevada_, pointed out that every generation of dancers has a very different body type that they work, diet and exercise to achieve. The aerobicized hardbodies of 1990 would have found it very difficult to get work in the Rat Pack’s 1960 Vegas. OTOH, the “Robert Palmer Girls” from the “Addicted To Love” video all made a very easy transition from 80s actresses to 1960 Vogue models–although they played air guitar like those Cubbie Coddlers “Basketball in Heels” models played B-Ball. ---
**Author:** ![tremorviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@tremorviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tremorviolet)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2004, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-young-people-used-to-look-older/281679/27 "2004-12-27T19:20:54Z")
I think it’s the make-up/hairstyles. Anyone watch _Holiday Inn_ this year? There’s a scene where the heroine is racing to the inn and the car goes into a pond. So her lovely upswept forties do is destroyed. It amazed me how different and _modern_ the actress looked with her hair down and wet. She went from a perfectly coiffed forties film star to a real-life attractive young woman. ---
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2004, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-young-people-used-to-look-older/281679/28 "2004-12-27T19:58:41Z")
Spielberg said in some interview somewhere that when he was casting _Pvt. Ryan_, he tried to get actors who looked “older” in a way he associated with photographs of people from that period. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2004, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-young-people-used-to-look-older/281679/29 "2004-12-27T23:03:32Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > Along the same lines, some people seem to have naturally “retro” faces. Bernadette Peters looks like a 1920s flapper, Sherilyn Fenn goes back to the 40s/50s glamour ideal, Kate Wiinslet looks like a turn of the century beauty and John Goodman goes back to the 50s Everyman look. Yeah! Anybody see the Cole Porter bio-pic _De-Lovely_? Alanis Morissette comes on early in the plot singing “Let’s Do It”, dressed and made up in late 1920s/early '30s style with waved short hair. I about flipped - she has a perfect early '30s movie ingenue face! So does Leo di Caprio in _The Aviator_. Howard Hughes he ain’t, but he evokes the matinée idols of the period very strongly. Maggie Gyllenhaal is another actress who has a wonderfully old-fashioned look - she might even have fit in in the silent era. Gretchen Mol looks very '30s to me, Alicia Witt perhaps early '40s, and if anyone is a '60s flower child in looks, it is Natasha Lyonne. Alec Baldwin definitely has '40s hair and sort of a big-shouldered leading man swagger appropriate to those times. He’s even aging like a '40s leading man, looking much the same, just heavier. I guess Kevin Spacey must have a '50s look about him, playing Jac Vincennes in _LA Confidential_ and now Bobby Darin. Tom Sizemore could have been competition for William Bendix in all those “torpedo” roles in the '40s. It’s harder for the guys to look too “period,” because the look used to be a lot more stylized and made-up, whereas now they have to look more or less natural. A good lesson in how _not_ to fit into your period: Ben Affleck, Kate Beckinsale and Josh Hartnett in _Pearl Harbor_. Even glamor-pusses didn’t look like that then, let alone real military people. Of course on the ground crew, there was Tom Sizemore, the personification of “Sarge”… ---
**Author:** ![yosemite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ab097/32.png) [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2004, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-young-people-used-to-look-older/281679/30 "2004-12-27T23:50:01Z")
I’m a big fan of old tacky beach movies, so I immediately knew who these people were. 😉 Sandra Dee, the girl in the picture, doesn’t look that old to me. Perhaps early 20s. It’s not uncommon for 16-year-old girls to pass for older when they “dress up.” I’ve seen Dee in plenty of movies and she always seemed very “young,” and she aged very well through the years. I think her makeup and hair age her in still photos. Bobby Darin, the guy in the picture—well, to be honest, when I first saw the picture, I thought he looked pretty young. No sagging, no wrinkes, fresh, youthful face. I didn’t recognize him at first, in fact. Then I looked again and I could see why many of you responded that he looked far more “mature.” I guess he does. I think he’s just got one of those faces. Something about the eyes, mouth, and the lines between the nose and mouth, I think. I looked up some other personalities from that era, and found a 20-year-old [Frankie Avalon](http://imdb.com/gallery/mptv/1306/Mptv/1306/0331_0098.jpg?path=pgallery&path_key=Avalon,%20Frankie). Does he look older than that? I am not sure. He looks a little geeky, though. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-young-people-used-to-look-older/281679/31 "2004-12-28T02:56:25Z")
Sandra Dee has what I call “puppet mouth”-- those deep lines around the mouth like parentheses. I think that’s just genetics. I worked with a woman who is 3 years younger than I am, and otherwise was gorgeous, but she had those lines around her mouth in her mid 20’s. That might account for why she looks older. Contrariwise, I teach 7th grade, and I have to say, some of those girls look like they’re 18. They are fully physically developed, dress and talk as if they are much older. I do not envy young men today; you’d have to ask for ID to know these girls were only 12. That is a function of better nutrition, I’m sure of it. ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-young-people-used-to-look-older/281679/32 "2004-12-28T21:20:04Z")
I’m sure you all recall the Nat’l Geographic cover of the Afghan refugee girl—she was twelve or thirteen when the photo was taken. I read something about this somewhere, I can’t recall, and the author argued that we do look much younger than in the past because our lifestyles aren’t so hard on us. Similarly, people in the poor parts of the world have older appearances than we do for the same age. Hardly qualifies as a GQ answer. I wish I could remember where I read the article. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2005, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-young-people-used-to-look-older/281679/33 "2005-01-03T18:14:53Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I’m not sure but I think people used to actually BE older in the old days. When I was growing up, my perception was that once you graduated college, you basically found a job, a house and got married, generally having kids in you mid 20s. Maybe you had once last blast before graduation and then BOOM, you were in the “real world”. Now the real world seems to more closely resemble college life. Guys live with 4 of their college buddies in some Soho loft, going out every night partying after work well into their 30s. And because they still maintain that bar and nightclub lifestyle, thei clothing and style reflect a young trendy image. I think you’re right. It’s been a long time since I’ve read _Rabbit, Run_, but the opening sequence had Rabbit coming home from work and walking past some “kids” playing basketball. He had the suit, the briefcase, the hard shoes, the job, the wife: he wasn’t one of them. And IIRC, he was **23**. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-young-people-used-to-look-older/281679.md?page=1)