bit late but oh well...

bit late to this topic, i know, but i think the reason a lot of gen z look older than they are is because of how they dress. ive noticed a lot lately that the fashion trends amongst teenagers and young adults seem to be getting less and less experimental and out there, and i feel as though this is the main reason they tend to look older. since the dawn of time, each generation brings with it its own innovations, developments the fashion world are no exception to this. the fashion of the youth has always been outlandish and incomprehensible to those out of the age range for such trends because of their experimental nature, but this doesnt seem to be the case anymore, not since about 2021. recently, our fashion trends seem to be recycled from the older generations, whether its 2000s fashion coming back, the 'old money aesthetic' trending or that small wave of 80s inspired fashion that always happens whenever a new season of stranger things drops, its all been done before. and this is a big part of why i think gen z looks older, because all our trends have already been associated with another generation. it doesnt help that all the recycled trends are just hollow shells of the original fashion that inspired them. and usually as people get older they tend to gear towards minimalism more as maximalism is usually deemed as childish. so the use recycled trends that are now associated with people over the age of 30 being used by people under 23 and the fact that every inch of fun and experimentation has been stripped from them probably isnt the best indicator of youth, ill just say that. and this stripped back, plain fashion style seems to, atleast to me, come from a fear of judgement. after lockdown ended, people seemed to become hyper judgemental, almost more so than before, so because of this many seemed to fear judgement almost as some kind of reverse projection. in order to avoid this judgement, they seemed to land on a very safe, non offensive style that very few people could find issue with. 

now i know a lot of people these days seem to have such an irrational fear of aging, so i would like to offer a very easy fix to this; just wearing whatever the fuck you want, no matter what that may be. this judgement i mentioned earlier seems to have people stressing over everything about themselves and holding themselves back from what they truly desire, why stress over others opinions when you can be hot. it seems to be the absolute worst on tiktok; the envious comments on other peoples posts, the constant creation of new insecurities, the hyper focusing on physical appearance; everything about it is just sad to be honest. at the end of the day, we need to stop taking these things so seriously, this strife for validation from strangers online is self destructive. after all, life is so much more enjoyable when you dont have some rando in your ear nitpicking everything you do.