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Totally unrelated but I'm curious if anyone else experienced this phenomenon. When I was a kid, people in old pictures and movies(say, pre 1920s) looked genuin
by 01100011 7y ago
Totally unrelated but I'm curious if anyone else experienced this phenomenon.
When I was a kid, people in old pictures and movies(say, pre 1920s) looked genuinely strange. The structure of their faces, the shape of their bodies... it just looked really weird to me. Now that I'm older, I find people in old media very familiar, like I know people who look enough like them and I can suddenly relate to them on a new level.
I'm guessing my younger brain just hadn't seen enough faces yet. In any case it always struck me as odd.
- drcode 7y agoI think part of it is that people back then we're far more likely to not have diverse ancestors- the people in the OP video probably all had parents from the same small town, very different from our modern era. This probably enhanced a lot of distinct body and facial features that have mostly washed away in modern times. However, as an adult you've met enough people to still be able to recognize some of them.
- kingkawn 7y agoCulture transforms us
- adrianmonk 7y ago"Middle age is when you've met so many people that every new person you meet reminds you of someone else." - Ogden Nash
- MaxBarraclough 7y agoHow does he define old age?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- nkrisc 7y agoWhen everyone you meet reminds you of someone dead?
- capableweb 7y agoNo one, even the people you do know, you no longer recognize.
- adrianmonk 7y agoThe vast majority of his work was humorous poetry, but on rare occasions he got serious. Since I like this one and it's sort of appropriate to the subject, I'll share it: Old Men by Ogden Nash People expect old men to die, They do not really mourn old men. Old men are different. People look At them with eyes that wonder when... People watch with unshocked eyes; But the old men know when an old man dies. (Copy/pasted from https://westegg.com/nash/ https://westegg.com/nash/, which has several other good ones.)
- Izkata 7y agoUnlike sibling comments, I don't think it's a diversity thing. I think it's just an age thing: Adults look different from kids, and as a kid you (and I, I experienced the same thing) were probably almost entirely around other kids in school. Most people recorded are adults, so they looked odd compared to child proportions, but look normal now that you (and I) are mostly around other adults.
- V-2 7y agoMy hypothesis: it wasn't really the structure of faces etc. that looked weird to you. You were just baffled in general by the weirdness of watching such an old footage, and "blaming" this on what people looked like was a way your brain rationalized this elusive sense of weirdness away. When we're adults, we've seen our share of old pictures, the sense of wonder weakened, and so the feeling of bafflement is gone. And along with it, the need for rationalizing it off.
- afpx 7y agoOr, the procedural content generator of the simulation has gotten significantly better.
- masswerk 7y agoI second this. When I was young, these were obviously people from a different epoch, quite like from a far away continent. Now, this impression has vanished. Where it does hold up, are differences in gait (e.g., in the S.F. Market Street film). Unrelated, I find it fascinating in this early films how people are not reacting to the camera. They may notice it or even look at the person operating this curious contraption, but they are not reacting to it (as being aware of the gaze). This is a quality totally lost, ever since.