I think when I moved from not liking things younger people enjoyed to simply having no idea what they enjoy at all.

I've never been particularly with it on trends and such. When I was younger I knew the trends and rejected them in the spirit of youthful rebellion, aspects of my personality were defined by what and who I wasn't.

Then I got a little older and rejected the things people slightly younger than me enjoyed. This came naturally, because I was no longer the target audience for these things it was easy to write them off as if I were.

Now I don't even know enough to reject them. My knowledge of what younger people like seems to be about five years out of date. When something new comes along that seems irritating to me it seems to pass so quickly I don't really have time to register it, and when I find something new I enjoy there's apparently whole fandoms about it where (presumably... hopefully...) very young people fight about it, and they're fighting about things I genuinely don't have time to decipher. It's like it all moves too fast for my vision to really gain focus, by the time I'm able to tell what I'm looking at everyone else seems to have already moved on.

When I could no longer understand the latest online slang, I realized I’m out of touch with whatever the current online generation is (gen alpha?).

Lol I'm autistic, I've never been in touch. I rarely understand what's going on but I fake it really well!

I'm a Millennial and I could kinda follow Gen Z humor for the most part, but then Gen alpha came along with Skibidi Toilet. That broke me, I'm... I'm done.

A post a bit ago reminded me of one: When texting, I end sentences with punctuation 99% of the time. Apparently, this holds different meaning to younger people in at least the US. Thankfully, I'm not messaging any of those, but it still bugs me for no real, good reason.

To answer this without a Hall & Oates reference, a younger Gen Z friend of mine was talking to me about looksmaxxing and aurafarming and I just had 0 fucking idea what he was on about.

I then realized I'm out of touch and out of time.

No, it's the children who are wrong.

When I was out of time.

I'm out of touch?!

I was never under the impression that I was in touch.

No, it's the children who are wrong.

Every time my friends talk about whatever the new popular TV show is.

Me: "Um, I ate some edibles and watched a Law & Order marathon".

I don't think I've ever been in touch.

When progressive commercials about becoming your parents did “finding the game” and “social media influencer” I’m like “well I crossed over to being with the parents I guess”

Out of touch with what?

When they started saying "ts"

I’m not out of touch. I am, however, way more picky now about what I choose to touch.

there are lots of things I don't wann touch.

Right around age 12 when I'd rather play Gears of War 2 than Modern Warfare 2, and it wasn't even close in my mind.

When I learned about the 6 7 thing two years after it was a meme.

Some of my friends are into anime and live play TTRPG shows like Critical Role. I have no idea what they're talking about when they discuss those.

I completed the throw-in and stepped back on the pitch

past couple of years most of my ability to socialize has collapsed because I can't relate to other folks anymore.

mostly because they are miserable and I am not. and they think I'm miserable because I'm not agonizing about the things they agonize about endlessly, so we are just never going to find common ground. and i come across like a massive arrogant douchebag because I'm doing well where they are struggling. and what alienates me more is... the are not legitimately struggling in any way... but they have convinced themselves nobody has it worse than them... it's just insufferable IMO. and often they are actually doing way better than I am... but think they are doing worse...

i also lost like a dozen friends since the end of covid, because they went insane, but they are more 'normal' than I am because well, a lot of people went insane from covid and I legit loved it and came out way better off.

i also can't relate to gen z and how totally miserable they are. even my own nephews/nieces all they want to do is agonize about how awful their life is and will be... despite objectively them being incredibly well off...

and i see a lot of this attitude all over the internet endlessly, which also sucks.