People Are Revealing The Things That They Think Instantly Age Someone, And Some Of These Are Just Out Of People's Control
One of the most popular internet topics of the last several years is just how much older people — relative to their age — looked back in the '80s and '90s (and every decade before then). An often cited example of this is Rue McClanahan, who was 51 when The Golden Girls premiered in 1985; by comparison, Jennifer Lopez is 54 today. And it's safe to say nobody would think of casting J.Lo as a Florida retiree and grandmother on a TV show. However, it's easy to think of Rue as someone who could play that role based on the hairstyle and clothing she wore because it aged her more into someone we would think of in their 60s or 70s.
Now, to be fair, Rue was dressed the way women in her age group would have dressed at the time.
Of course, there are lot of factors both in and out of our control that can make us look much, much older than we are. And recently, Reddit user sabletoothtiger_ posed this question: "What instantly ages someone?"
Well the thread got over 13K comments — from very serious ones to frivolous ones that have to do more with life choices — about the things people feel instantly age someone. Below are some of the top and best responses:
1."Lack of sleep."
2."Definitely children. I got my first gray hairs just after I had kids."
"Having little ones is tough, but raising teens ages you in dog years."
3."Bad plastic surgery."
"Or too much plastic surgery. If you look like you have a lot of work, even if it's good but just different than you used to look, you're gonna look older because you look like you've had work done, and that on its own will age you."
4."I was gonna say the way you dress."
"It's true, though, sometimes I'm amazed how some people manage to look like 50 even though they're 32 just because for some reason, the second they turn 30, they start to dress like their parents, wear a basic kind of dated hairstyle, become stuck-up, and stop having any kind of fun."
5."Stress."
"When I was younger and first entered the real world, I remember working with a white-haired woman that had an always tired look about her. She had a picture of her daughter on her desk, young, blonde, that looked so incredibly much like her I mentioned it once. Turned out that wasn’t her daughter, but was her prior to her going through the FBI Academy."
6."Cigarettes will absolutely age a person incredibly efficiently, both visually and health-wise."
"My sister smokes a lot, and she's five years younger than me. She looks 15 years older and has constant health issues."
7."Working in stressful environments."
8."Reminiscing about the show Dinosaurs."
9."Troubleshooting printer problems. I swear these devilish machines only exist to trigger me to smithereens."
"A couple years ago, I decided to officially give up on having a personal printer and only use the one at the library because when it fucks up, it's someone else's problem. I still have my old printer, and I've considered dropping it off my roof for fun."
10."Asking young people to make a phone gesture with their hand."
11."Finding out a band you listened to when they first came out is getting inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame."
"Or a song your parents were convinced would send you directly to hell now playing jauntily in the grocery store."
12.And lastly: "Back pain. You can't move like a young person if your back hurts."
You can read the full thread of responses on r/AskReddit.
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
