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this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2026
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Chapotraphouse
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I get that with like people under 21, but is someone who's been legally able to drink for 3 years really even a "barely an adult" anymore?
I don't really have any context for what exactly the original post is about — I guess some A24 scandal I haven't heard of? — but speaking about age in general, as someone around that mid-20s-ish range, I feel like there's a simultaneous growing infantilization of adults and adultification of children as a result of late crapitalism. I like to call this phenomenon "age soup", the way actual legal adults are so often priced or otherwise shut out of traditional markers of adulthood, at the same time as children are being forced away from child-safe spaces and deprived of typical child things to do, and end up in these surveillance capitalist social media hellscapes where they're marketed to as if they're adults, and exposed to pedos and neo-Nazi recruiters and all sorts of other things that they're just too young for. Basically, the "simultaneous infantilization and adultification" is really just another way of saying that increasingly older people are being increasingly deprived of their independence, and increasingly younger people are being turned into increasingly exploited subjects of capitalist system.
Maybe I'll see things differently a decade from now, but from where I stand, I feel like even many people here are far too willing to buy into this sort of infantilization of adults that's being pushed by the ruling class. And I don't even really know why people here have this tendency to infantilize people my age. I mean, it couldn't be as simple as wanting to see themselves as somehow "above" younger adults, right? I don't think that's it, that doesn't seem in character for most of the people here. And it couldn't be as simple as going
when people in their 20s or even 30s can't get jobs, can't afford a car or to move out or anything like that — people on this site are very much aware that things aren't fine, that's literally why we're here. So what is the deal with all the infantilization I see? I mean, surely we all know that all people deserve independence, respect and dignity, that's what we're fighting for. Surely we all know that power dynamics are bound up in tons of different factors which can all be structurally accounted for with some effort.
Thank you for typing this all up, it makes me feel like I'm losing it how nobody seems to be bothered with this at all.
I'm newly in the same age range and it's baffling to me how the 'real adult' cultural age marker seems to be a target that's constantly just out of reach. I'm honestly concerned people will start thinking anyone below 30 is a child and should thereby have no rights, at this point.
Most ppl refuse to acknowledge that the fact the vast majority of children dont rly have rights or agency in their lives is already massively fucked up, and will only recognize it as such when an adult is treated the way kids are
(We dont mean kids should date adults obvsly, we wouldnt bother w this stupid disclaimer normally but since the post itself is abt dating in this case we wanna make that clear)
I'm honestly concerned that people will start thinking anyone below 40 is a child who doesn't deserve rights!
Indigenous peoples and minorities of all ages have been infantikized and denied agency and rights, so the playbook seems very similar to me. In general, I believe the goal (or the trend, rather) is to deny agency to anyone who doesn't belong to the owner class, so their lives can be controlled economically and with violence, like many children's are.
Absolutely, absolutely. Very important addition!
I could legit see boomer establishment dems wanting to raise the voting age to 40 or 50
Making 35 year olds old enough to run for president while also being too young to vote for president would be a very good bit.
It’s the most extreme example but you need to be 35 to run for president, when I’d trust a random 25 year old over a random 75 year old any day of the week
I CAN NAME AT LEAST ONE 27 YEAR OLD WHO I KNOW WOULD MAKE A GOOD LEADER OF HIS COUNTRY………
CAN I GET A "TAMAAM, SAYYIDI"?!
Castro was 32 when the Cuban Revolution ended, Che was 30. Sankara was 33.
What am I doing with my life?
Actually Sankara was 9 when the cuban revolution ended☝️🤓
In my mid 30s and I feel the exact same way, it's always been a moving set of goalposts.
Depends on who you ask. Where I live seeing a woman in her 20’s (youngest is usually 23 with the average being closer to 25) with a man over thirty is very common. Not much of a power dynamic
Westerners seem to infantilize people at that age more for some reason.
Edit: I should add that most in that type of age gap relationship are usually poor or indigenous, often both. They’re both stuck at the same stage in their lives because the economic factors have kept them there.
24 is the youngest I could consider as an actual adult. Even then I don’t think most people remove their heads from their butts until 26-28 or so
Eh, I was young but when I was 23 I knew what I was doing when it came to sex. I hooked up with older people and knew what I was getting into.
30 year old dudes hitting on 19 year olds are fucking creeps though.
There's also a sea of difference between making mistakes and dating the wrong people, and being predated upon. Saying "people in their 20s should not date older people because they're children" does nothing to address the issue that could be better solved by teaching people to recognize uneven power dynamics relationships, because those can exist even between people of the same age. Anything else is Puritan generalization.
People jump to calling things puritanical but I don't think the concern here represents puritanical values at all, which are more inclined to view very young women as effectively a prime commodity for marriage arrangements or whatever.
Sexually sure I think 23 is not in the noncezone but dating a person going through the reckoning that is the early 20s while I’m past that sounds so exhausting.
(I don’t know what I’m talking about I’ve never seriously dated anyone more than a year younger/older than me)
"Oh, man; do you remember being in school when the Challenger shuttle blew up? ...You weren't born yet? ...You don't know what a space shuttle is?"
People who were in elementary school when Challenger blew up are now in their late 40s
Real talk, what was the defining "innocence-shattering news event" for Gen Z and younger? For my generation (Millennials) it was definitely
covid
I have to agree, being Gen Z myself. COVID was a complete killer in both my and a lot of my compatriots faith in humanity.
in addition to that, it was just a massive disruption of day-to-day life and it quite evidently resulted in people becoming more anti-social and feral to each other. There was a massive, widespread psychological change in society
It's going to depend on the country, but for me it was probably the 2011 Norway attacks.
Sandy Hook maybe
besides covid, trump getting elected. gen z were a bunch of kids who grew up under obama, and right as they enter adulthood, surprise, you live in a nazi country
Election of Trump?
Seeing MAGA shamans doing the wolololo outside of election officials' offices would be enough to fuck anyone up if they understood what a MAGA shaman or wolololo was
For GenAlpha, it was probably more getting groomed on Roblox and then holding a dying classmate as they bled out during their second or third school shooting ten seconds after COVID lockdown was lifted
For me it was the attacks on Gaza in 2014
if i was single again, i would never date a women in her 20s. my wife is in her 30s and sometimes i think she is too young and immature for me.
He's doing what the unions wanted.
That's all I could ever ask for
look i was just copying a bit
I consider a 30+ year old dating a 24 year old to be a problematic in the pedo-lite sense. Sure it's not technically illegal and not always in bad faith and there is not always a victim, but it's a red flag. It gets blurrier as both parties age.
Also in the context of this post, Is 24 old or young or the same age as the speaker? Are you robbing the cradle or robbing the grave?
I'm curious about the ramifications of this. If someone in their 30s still finds themself sexually attracted to people in their mid-20s, should this be considered a paraphilia and require psychiatric treatment?
ramifications is that I give you the stink eye
Understandable have a great day