12 ms·

>Kidults are people who preserve their teenage likings (from video games, anime and fantasy, to a responsibility-free lifestyle) until they are 30-35 and older

>Kidults are people who preserve their teenage likings (from video games, anime and fantasy, to a responsibility-free lifestyle) until they are 30-35 and older This is always something that has bothered by society's concept of adulthood. Are people just supposed to not like things past 35? Is the only acceptable use of your free time as an adult reading non-fiction about finding the meaning of life?

marginalia_nu 3y ago
I think the idea is that adolescent activities prepare us for life as adults, as adults we concern our self with the grown-up version of the same thing. Whether it's running a business or waging war or building machines or whatever. That's predicated on adulthood being a state where you're autonomous and free to do something with your life, and falls apart when we're up to our ears in debt and working as wage-slaves. In the latter scenario, you may satisfy the itch for the thing you've been preparing for by additional preparation. We play video games or watch TV-shows about people going on adventures instead of actually going on adventures ourselves because that's not an option.
taneq 3y ago
Is this still "society's" concept of adulthood? Or is it just certain demographics? Most people I know in tech-type careers still play video games (or would if they had time), read a wide range of fantasy and sci-fi books, enjoy hobbies etc. I would regard someone as being immature if they thought that, as an adult, you shouldn't do the things you enjoy once you've met your responsibilities.
wooque 3y ago
Yes, most people lose interest for video games, cartoons, superhero movies, etc when they grow up. This happen to me as well. Some keep clinging to childish escapism.
deleted 3y ago
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whoisthemachine 3y ago
"Kidults" is a silly term, and feels like another baseless attack implying that younger generations shouldn't enjoy life and should instead be productive. My grandparents would get together with their friends and play card games well into old age (I wonder at what age they learned those games?). My parents' generation (the baby boomers) seem to still enjoy movies, national sports, TV, and other leisure activities of their generation. There is nothing wrong with anyone enjoying leisure activities, and humanity has probably done so since the earliest of times.
- jojobas 3y ago
  Show me an oldtimer whose life goal is to stay at home and play card games/ and I'll call him a kidult as well. Jordan Peterson might not be right about many things, but one he got right for sure: meaning is brought into your life by responsibility.
  - whoisthemachine 3y ago
    Poker players?
em-bee 3y ago
i think what is happening is that in earlier generations (before computers were common) there were not many "childrens"-activities that translated into adulthood, so the games for adults necessarily looked very different from the games for children, mostly sports, and classical games like chess, playing cards, maybe model trains and model building, etc. this is no longer the case. besides computer games, things like board games have massively expanded, lego and compatible bricks have sets targeting adults, and more. the difference between childrens games and adult games is no longer so clear. and to add another counterpoint to the article, all those supposedly kids games that i am playing now, except for lego, i did not play as a kid. so i didn't preserve my teenage likings. and even lego i stopped playing as a teenager and i didn't get back to until i had kids of my own.
- mcmoor 3y ago
  Lots of "childhood" American things i only found in my third world country as an adult many years later so yeah regional differences are also at play here. Also some "child" games i encounter are hard af i dont even know how a child is supposed to be able to finish it.
decafninja 3y ago
I think context and nuance is important. A 40 year old that likes Star Wars or Gundam? I don’t really see anything “wrong” with that. A 40 year old that likes schoolgirl anime? I don’t know…
- nradov 3y ago
  That is an important point. I'm not an anime fan myself (nothing against it, just not my thing) but I understand there is a sub-genre which is essentially thinly veiled pedophilia.
emodendroket 3y ago
I think the lumping there is certainly sloppy, but there is something there. There seem to be a large number of adults who like comic books, young adult fiction, or other entertainment primarily intended for children… which I think is fine… but also have no interest in anything else, or have some sort of expectation that these media will start to include decidedly adult themes without significantly changing in style. That’s strange and a bit unsettling to me.
- Spivak 3y ago
  I'm not sure if I'm old enough to be part of this group but am pretty sure I'll join it. I have tried to get into "adult" fiction but oh my god it's so boring and dry how do you all stand it? It's like how with horror you don't touch it unless it has an R rating, any book that's trying to cultivate an adult audience is gonna be bad. And I devour YA series to the point of losing sleep because I didn't realize how long I've been reading so it's not that I just don't like reading. Maybe some switch will flip eventually but I doubt it. I don't read comics but what? Of course comic book movies are an adult activity but reading the source material -- children only.
  - emodendroket 3y ago
    I wouldn’t consider a Marvel movie particularly “adult,” no. Anyway, every book written for an adult audience, over literally thousands of years, is “dry and boring”? At a certain point you need to look in the mirror.
    - Spivak 3y ago
      Then name one, choose any book that would be totally unappealing to a teenager/early college (so no Dune, Hitchhiker's, Martian, Clockwork, GoT, American Gods, Good Omens) but is fun and exciting. There are books that are for everyone except young children, and there are books that are trying to appeal exclusively to adults. The former are great, the latter are a slog. I'm sincerely hoping to be proven wrong.
      - 3y ago
Qem 3y ago
> Are people just supposed to not like things past 35? They are supposed to become grumpy old men/women.
krapp 3y ago
> Is the only acceptable use of your free time as an adult reading non-fiction about finding the meaning of life? Of course not. There's also alcoholism.
- imbnwa 3y ago
  Which, with as many prohibition movements there've been against it in American history, has basically been the most pervasive use of one's free time the last 200+ years in the states
michaelt 3y ago
> Are people just supposed to not like things past 35? I suspect the authors have noticed a number of separate phenomenons: * Young people living with their parents for longer and longer. IMHO arguably this is because of our incredibly inflated house prices. * A rise in people reporting they "don't know how to adult", that they don't know what they're doing at work, and reporting struggles with simple tasks like answering the door and making phone calls. IMHO arguably this could just indicate we're more open to talking about mental health. * People eschewing professional wear like shirts, in favour of things that let them avoid ironing. IMHO arguably this is because of changing fashions, and the fact far fewer people have a stay-at-home spouse taking care of their laundry * The film industry being dominated by disneyfied content from franchises (initially) aimed at children. IMHO this is because making your action movie kid-friendly as well as adult-friendly maximises your audience. And nobody needs to go to the cinema to see scantily clad beautiful women any more, so some adult elements aren't a competitive advantage. * People getting married later, and having children later. IMHO this is because young people are saddled with more education debt and find it harder to buy houses than ever before. * The rise of computer gaming, anime and adult board games. IMHO this is simply because those things have got vastly better and more easily available over the past 40 years. Personally, I think these phenomenons are all largely unrelated. Presumably the authors think these are all examples of the same thing and see it as larger than just people liking video games.
- stcroixx 3y ago
  Pretty big coincidence there are all these unrelated things happening all leading to the same place.
  - wholinator2 3y ago
    So then what's our central factor? I'd guess something like, increasing corporate ownership of all aspects of our lives have driven profit from every ounce of joy that used to exist. Young people now find it impossible to do the things their parents did when entering adulthood because for most, those things have been priced drastically above their means. This outlook, combined with the looming ecological crisis, and doom and gloom pushing social media has led people to much higher rates of mental illness, causing them to fold inward even further. And video games are there and better than ever, board games too but with a modest purchase there's an incredible library of experiences curated to give you the sensation of meaning. How could someone who has no ability to "live up to their expectations" not find the games way better than the world, and why should we blame them? Then there's the, "living up to expectations". Whose expectations? What rule of life says we have to buy a house when we're 25, or that living with extended families is bad and should be avoided. What rule says money and monetary capability are the measure of a persons worth. Now, the money one has real consequences but i'd argue our attitudes on all these questions are culturally informed and created and solidified. Our parents say, that's who, because their parents said because their parents said.... I'm not saying the desire is not real, but
paddw 3y ago
> Is the only acceptable use of your free time as an adult reading non-fiction about finding the meaning of life? Of course not! You could also read about productivity. Or maybe a biography of Napoleon? I think those are both fine (got to check with my boss first).
deleted 3y ago
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0xr0kk3r 3y ago
It is branding. Pokémon and Harry Potter started the trend of extending kid things into adult life. Comic franchises pounced. Star Wars went 15 years without a sequel then saw the cash cow. It’s not about not liking things, it’s about continuing to only choose topical things of an infantile nature and remaining incapable of handling mature thought processes. I don’t think it is a big deal. If future generations become less mature we just devolve a little bit as a society until there’s a course correction that favors maturity. No big deal IMHO.
jojobas 3y ago
It shouldn't matter what exactly you're doing, if at age 30 you didn't find any new things to truly enjoy since you were 15, you probably didn't grow up. These tentative new things typically require sacrifice, as cheap pleasure is just that - cheap.
AlgorithmicTime 3y ago
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nitwit005 3y ago
I think they're overlooking the change on the content production side there. If a Guardians of the Galaxy movie is going to cost a 250 million to make, you can't exclude some big audience. They need people of all ages buying tickets. It shouldn't be surprising that something designed to appeal to young and old alike, is consumed by both groups.
sacnoradhq 3y ago
It all boils down to responsibility and let's call it the "metaego": the trappings of childhood are immaterial and orthogonal to the balancing of priorities. An adult will do what's best to ensure their future, while a kidult will avoid making hard choices and opt for what's fun or pleasurable. OTOH if one becomes a dead, loveless, overly-serious robot in their quest for adulting, then they've also failed at life. A responsible adult thinks for themselves and constructs an internal leader who observes, plans, and executes at higher levels of abstraction than does a child.
- watwut 3y ago
  I kinda feel like this completely ignores how human psychology works and how both adults and kids behaved for millenials.
  - sacnoradhq 3y ago
    There are people who are responsible, resourceful, and able to care for others well, then there are average people who stumble through life without clear goals but get by okay, and then are people, i.e., addicts, borderline personality-adjacent, and the "failure to launch (ever)" types who absolutely shouldn't have kids and are themselves burdens to others intentionally or through disability without fault of their own. The point is to be a highly-productive caregiver requires a greater level of organizational, wisdom, and internal model formation than someone who is, say, both very young and immature in attitude and behavior. That part of them hasn't developed enough yet to be able to prioritize appropriately and produce better outcomes. The reverse is seen in the decline of aging as we lose more than good habits. I anticipate having to look forward to both ARMD and dementia due to genetics.
ajuc 3y ago
The only reason gaming is child-like and theatre isn't is that gaming was invented recently so mostly young people liked it till last decade.
_yb2s 3y ago
In my late 30s I’ve noticed less and less of my peers and friends still have hobbies and interests, it seems like at some point many people either give up or lose interest and just work and get passively entertained. To me that makes them pretty boring, and hard to connect with. I connect better with people that are passionate about something, even if it’s not something I’m personally into.
watwut 3y ago
It is also weird, because most people actually end up stuck liking things we liked as young. With work and familly, you don't have that much time to explore, your peers don't explore and you end up listening to same music just because how world works. And that is fine. Elvis Presley generation listened to Presley whole their lives.
faeriechangling 3y ago
I think some things that are generational are being confused for things that are infantile. Anime and Video games mostly got introduced in the form of children's entertainment first, and as those kids grew up they were still interested in the medium and more mature takes emerged.
coldtea 3y ago
They are supposed to no like things for kids and teens past 35. Or rather, past 18-20, but let's be generous. But it's not like this is denied to them. If anything, it's too prevalent to be even shunned...
- oytis 3y ago
  When it comes for difference between teen and adult entertainment, the line seems to be pretty arbitrary. E.g. it has been perfectly fine for an adult to enjoy crime fiction or watch football, while it doesn't require a lot of maturity or sophistication, and teens would enjoy the same activities too. Somehow we never got a significant market of computer games for adults though - maybe because adults don't care as much as before about appearing mature.
  - emodendroket 3y ago
    There are definitely games that skew older — I don’t think that many young kids want to play MS Flight Sim or iRacing. To a certain extent even stuff like fighting games I feel probably overrepresents the over-30 crowd.
  - zer0tonin 3y ago
    >Somehow we never got a significant market of computer games for adults Most of today's gaming industry is targeting adults. Kids rarely have the money to purchase 70$ games more than once or twice a year.
    - emodendroket 3y ago
      Their parents very well might.
    - oytis 3y ago
      OK I mean real adults :) The same demographics who you would imagine as a typical reader of Agatha Christie or Tom Clancy, football or horse race enjoyer in the era before computer games and internet
hef19898 3y ago
Oh, you can love fantasy and be highly professional, and you can be "adult" while being incredibly inmature, childish even. I prefer people that far in the first bucket.
ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
It's notable how many influential scientists have had a playful attitude towards their work. Feynman emphasised his "playing" with ideas just because they were interesting or fun to him. John Conway was another example of having fun and enjoying his maths and games. Edit: Einstein surely belongs here too
- 4gotunameagain 3y ago
  I don't think that what applies to 5σ mind can be generalised to the general population. While we surely should derive joy and playful pleasure from all things in life, that should be the result and not the goal in my opinion. Otherwise we end up with adults spending ridiculous hours playing video games, chasing that beautiful feeling they gave them when they were kids, all the while avoiding real life.
  - Ancapistani 3y ago
    > adults spending ridiculous hours playing video games What do you consider to be "ridiculous hours"? There are definitely times when I end up playing online games for >20h/week. That's well above the median I'm sure... but how many hours per week did my parent's generation spend on average watching TV? My dad is retired now, and spends probably ~40h / week in his shop just... tinkering. How is my playing War Thunder any less "real life" than him rebuilding his 124th Coleman lantern? People need a way to recover from the stresses of everyday life. I don't understand why gaming in particular is so often discounted, while various other non-productive pursuits are readily accepted.
    - neilv 3y ago
      > How is my playing War Thunder any less "real life" than him rebuilding his 124th Coleman lantern? The video game doesn't expose you to as much thorium?
  - _aavaa_ 3y ago
    > chasing that beautiful feeling they gave them when they were kids, all the while avoiding real life. What you're describing is a coping mechanisms to a life they don't wish to face. It does not make them any more of an adult if they instead chose gambling, drinking, illegal drugs, shopping, or any another method of escape.
BiteCode_dev 3y ago
But it's acceptable to play chess, bridge and poker or read poetry, magazines and football news. Because that's science.
- Grum9 3y ago
  Yeah, buy an expensive jersey with your sports heroes name on it, paint your face the team colors, yell and wave flags in the parking lot, then go find your $2000 chairs in the big building like real adults spend their time.
mordae 3y ago
Agreed. I am married and have meaning of my life pretty much figured out, but I do play games and watch anime on the side. The biggest problem with average contemporary "true adults" is that they only act as if they have their shit figured out. In reality they mostly tend to be incredibly close minded, have super limited knowledge of the world due to their TV addiction and are generally more authoritarian due to our socioeconomic system being super authoritarian. The (more intelligent and cultured) outliers are actually closer to these supposed "kidults". More open minded, more tolerant, way less zealous.
- nsxwolf 3y ago
  I think we enjoy pathologizing choices we don't make and lifestyles we don't understand. So a non-gamer might see the adult gamer as infantilized, while the gamer sees the the non-gamer as a victim of an authoritarian socioeconomic system, or something. I'm not convinced either person is correct about anything. They probably would drop those thoughts if they got off social media and got to know each other instead.
  - MikeTheRocker 3y ago
    100% agree here
  - systems_glitch 3y ago
    Pretty much this. This isn't real. It's not who we are.
  - 0xr0kk3r 3y ago
    The boomers were all about not selling out until they did and became the Man. GenX are now wrinkly tattooed grey hairs that still wear skater clothes while eyeing their 401ks.
    - systems_glitch 3y ago
      "I thought we were all slacking off together. but you all went out and got jobs while I was sleeping."
burnished 3y ago
Reading between the lines here but it seems to be a coping mechanism for psychologists that are uncomfortable with change and how an individual life's course has become unpredictable for them.
aaron695 3y ago
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xattt 3y ago
It probably has something to do with engaging in activities that promote higher-order analysis and meta-thought. Older adults are usually capable of this; younger kids would struggle. Consider the way you are “supposed to” watch an episode of Thomas the Tank Engine versus Better Call Saul. Both are fun for their respective age groups. If you watch the former in the form the latter, you start to see moires that probably escaped the writers (1). (1): https://www.newyorker.com/culture/rabbit-holes/the-repressive-authoritarian-soul-of-thomas-the-tank-engine-and-friends https://www.newyorker.com/culture/rabbit-holes/the-repressiv...
- zer0tonin 3y ago
  I honestly think you over-estimate how deep media like "Better Call Saul" is (or how shallow fantasy/anime/games are).
  - xattt 3y ago
    I tend to look (okay, make assumptions) at a community around a hobby, and see if it approximates me, or the person who I want to become.

marginalia_nu 3y ago

I think the idea is that adolescent activities prepare us for life as adults, as adults we concern our self with the grown-up version of the same thing. Whether it's running a business or waging war or building machines or whatever. That's predicated on adulthood being a state where you're autonomous and free to do something with your life, and falls apart when we're up to our ears in debt and working as wage-slaves. In the latter scenario, you may satisfy the itch for the thing you've been preparing for by additional preparation. We play video games or watch TV-shows about people going on adventures instead of actually going on adventures ourselves because that's not an option.

taneq 3y ago

Is this still "society's" concept of adulthood? Or is it just certain demographics? Most people I know in tech-type careers still play video games (or would if they had time), read a wide range of fantasy and sci-fi books, enjoy hobbies etc. I would regard someone as being immature if they thought that, as an adult, you shouldn't do the things you enjoy once you've met your responsibilities.

wooque 3y ago

Yes, most people lose interest for video games, cartoons, superhero movies, etc when they grow up. This happen to me as well. Some keep clinging to childish escapism.

deleted 3y ago

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whoisthemachine 3y ago

"Kidults" is a silly term, and feels like another baseless attack implying that younger generations shouldn't enjoy life and should instead be productive. My grandparents would get together with their friends and play card games well into old age (I wonder at what age they learned those games?). My parents' generation (the baby boomers) seem to still enjoy movies, national sports, TV, and other leisure activities of their generation. There is nothing wrong with anyone enjoying leisure activities, and humanity has probably done so since the earliest of times.

jojobas 3y ago
Show me an oldtimer whose life goal is to stay at home and play card games/ and I'll call him a kidult as well. Jordan Peterson might not be right about many things, but one he got right for sure: meaning is brought into your life by responsibility.
- whoisthemachine 3y ago
  Poker players?

em-bee 3y ago

i think what is happening is that in earlier generations (before computers were common) there were not many "childrens"-activities that translated into adulthood, so the games for adults necessarily looked very different from the games for children, mostly sports, and classical games like chess, playing cards, maybe model trains and model building, etc. this is no longer the case. besides computer games, things like board games have massively expanded, lego and compatible bricks have sets targeting adults, and more. the difference between childrens games and adult games is no longer so clear. and to add another counterpoint to the article, all those supposedly kids games that i am playing now, except for lego, i did not play as a kid. so i didn't preserve my teenage likings. and even lego i stopped playing as a teenager and i didn't get back to until i had kids of my own.

mcmoor 3y ago
Lots of "childhood" American things i only found in my third world country as an adult many years later so yeah regional differences are also at play here. Also some "child" games i encounter are hard af i dont even know how a child is supposed to be able to finish it.

decafninja 3y ago

I think context and nuance is important. A 40 year old that likes Star Wars or Gundam? I don’t really see anything “wrong” with that. A 40 year old that likes schoolgirl anime? I don’t know…

nradov 3y ago
That is an important point. I'm not an anime fan myself (nothing against it, just not my thing) but I understand there is a sub-genre which is essentially thinly veiled pedophilia.

emodendroket 3y ago

I think the lumping there is certainly sloppy, but there is something there. There seem to be a large number of adults who like comic books, young adult fiction, or other entertainment primarily intended for children… which I think is fine… but also have no interest in anything else, or have some sort of expectation that these media will start to include decidedly adult themes without significantly changing in style. That’s strange and a bit unsettling to me.

Spivak 3y ago
I'm not sure if I'm old enough to be part of this group but am pretty sure I'll join it. I have tried to get into "adult" fiction but oh my god it's so boring and dry how do you all stand it? It's like how with horror you don't touch it unless it has an R rating, any book that's trying to cultivate an adult audience is gonna be bad. And I devour YA series to the point of losing sleep because I didn't realize how long I've been reading so it's not that I just don't like reading. Maybe some switch will flip eventually but I doubt it. I don't read comics but what? Of course comic book movies are an adult activity but reading the source material -- children only.
- emodendroket 3y ago
  I wouldn’t consider a Marvel movie particularly “adult,” no. Anyway, every book written for an adult audience, over literally thousands of years, is “dry and boring”? At a certain point you need to look in the mirror.
  - Spivak 3y ago
    Then name one, choose any book that would be totally unappealing to a teenager/early college (so no Dune, Hitchhiker's, Martian, Clockwork, GoT, American Gods, Good Omens) but is fun and exciting. There are books that are for everyone except young children, and there are books that are trying to appeal exclusively to adults. The former are great, the latter are a slog. I'm sincerely hoping to be proven wrong.
    - 3y ago

Qem 3y ago

> Are people just supposed to not like things past 35? They are supposed to become grumpy old men/women.

krapp 3y ago

> Is the only acceptable use of your free time as an adult reading non-fiction about finding the meaning of life? Of course not. There's also alcoholism.

imbnwa 3y ago
Which, with as many prohibition movements there've been against it in American history, has basically been the most pervasive use of one's free time the last 200+ years in the states

michaelt 3y ago

> Are people just supposed to not like things past 35? I suspect the authors have noticed a number of separate phenomenons: * Young people living with their parents for longer and longer. IMHO arguably this is because of our incredibly inflated house prices. * A rise in people reporting they "don't know how to adult", that they don't know what they're doing at work, and reporting struggles with simple tasks like answering the door and making phone calls. IMHO arguably this could just indicate we're more open to talking about mental health. * People eschewing professional wear like shirts, in favour of things that let them avoid ironing. IMHO arguably this is because of changing fashions, and the fact far fewer people have a stay-at-home spouse taking care of their laundry * The film industry being dominated by disneyfied content from franchises (initially) aimed at children. IMHO this is because making your action movie kid-friendly as well as adult-friendly maximises your audience. And nobody needs to go to the cinema to see scantily clad beautiful women any more, so some adult elements aren't a competitive advantage. * People getting married later, and having children later. IMHO this is because young people are saddled with more education debt and find it harder to buy houses than ever before. * The rise of computer gaming, anime and adult board games. IMHO this is simply because those things have got vastly better and more easily available over the past 40 years. Personally, I think these phenomenons are all largely unrelated. Presumably the authors think these are all examples of the same thing and see it as larger than just people liking video games.

stcroixx 3y ago
Pretty big coincidence there are all these unrelated things happening all leading to the same place.
- wholinator2 3y ago
  So then what's our central factor? I'd guess something like, increasing corporate ownership of all aspects of our lives have driven profit from every ounce of joy that used to exist. Young people now find it impossible to do the things their parents did when entering adulthood because for most, those things have been priced drastically above their means. This outlook, combined with the looming ecological crisis, and doom and gloom pushing social media has led people to much higher rates of mental illness, causing them to fold inward even further. And video games are there and better than ever, board games too but with a modest purchase there's an incredible library of experiences curated to give you the sensation of meaning. How could someone who has no ability to "live up to their expectations" not find the games way better than the world, and why should we blame them? Then there's the, "living up to expectations". Whose expectations? What rule of life says we have to buy a house when we're 25, or that living with extended families is bad and should be avoided. What rule says money and monetary capability are the measure of a persons worth. Now, the money one has real consequences but i'd argue our attitudes on all these questions are culturally informed and created and solidified. Our parents say, that's who, because their parents said because their parents said.... I'm not saying the desire is not real, but

paddw 3y ago

> Is the only acceptable use of your free time as an adult reading non-fiction about finding the meaning of life? Of course not! You could also read about productivity. Or maybe a biography of Napoleon? I think those are both fine (got to check with my boss first).

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

0xr0kk3r 3y ago

It is branding. Pokémon and Harry Potter started the trend of extending kid things into adult life. Comic franchises pounced. Star Wars went 15 years without a sequel then saw the cash cow. It’s not about not liking things, it’s about continuing to only choose topical things of an infantile nature and remaining incapable of handling mature thought processes. I don’t think it is a big deal. If future generations become less mature we just devolve a little bit as a society until there’s a course correction that favors maturity. No big deal IMHO.

jojobas 3y ago

It shouldn't matter what exactly you're doing, if at age 30 you didn't find any new things to truly enjoy since you were 15, you probably didn't grow up. These tentative new things typically require sacrifice, as cheap pleasure is just that - cheap.

AlgorithmicTime 3y ago

[dead]

nitwit005 3y ago

I think they're overlooking the change on the content production side there. If a Guardians of the Galaxy movie is going to cost a 250 million to make, you can't exclude some big audience. They need people of all ages buying tickets. It shouldn't be surprising that something designed to appeal to young and old alike, is consumed by both groups.

sacnoradhq 3y ago

It all boils down to responsibility and let's call it the "metaego": the trappings of childhood are immaterial and orthogonal to the balancing of priorities. An adult will do what's best to ensure their future, while a kidult will avoid making hard choices and opt for what's fun or pleasurable. OTOH if one becomes a dead, loveless, overly-serious robot in their quest for adulting, then they've also failed at life. A responsible adult thinks for themselves and constructs an internal leader who observes, plans, and executes at higher levels of abstraction than does a child.

watwut 3y ago
I kinda feel like this completely ignores how human psychology works and how both adults and kids behaved for millenials.
- sacnoradhq 3y ago
  There are people who are responsible, resourceful, and able to care for others well, then there are average people who stumble through life without clear goals but get by okay, and then are people, i.e., addicts, borderline personality-adjacent, and the "failure to launch (ever)" types who absolutely shouldn't have kids and are themselves burdens to others intentionally or through disability without fault of their own. The point is to be a highly-productive caregiver requires a greater level of organizational, wisdom, and internal model formation than someone who is, say, both very young and immature in attitude and behavior. That part of them hasn't developed enough yet to be able to prioritize appropriately and produce better outcomes. The reverse is seen in the decline of aging as we lose more than good habits. I anticipate having to look forward to both ARMD and dementia due to genetics.

ajuc 3y ago

The only reason gaming is child-like and theatre isn't is that gaming was invented recently so mostly young people liked it till last decade.

_yb2s 3y ago

In my late 30s I’ve noticed less and less of my peers and friends still have hobbies and interests, it seems like at some point many people either give up or lose interest and just work and get passively entertained. To me that makes them pretty boring, and hard to connect with. I connect better with people that are passionate about something, even if it’s not something I’m personally into.

watwut 3y ago

It is also weird, because most people actually end up stuck liking things we liked as young. With work and familly, you don't have that much time to explore, your peers don't explore and you end up listening to same music just because how world works. And that is fine. Elvis Presley generation listened to Presley whole their lives.

faeriechangling 3y ago

I think some things that are generational are being confused for things that are infantile. Anime and Video games mostly got introduced in the form of children's entertainment first, and as those kids grew up they were still interested in the medium and more mature takes emerged.

coldtea 3y ago

They are supposed to no like things for kids and teens past 35. Or rather, past 18-20, but let's be generous. But it's not like this is denied to them. If anything, it's too prevalent to be even shunned...

oytis 3y ago
When it comes for difference between teen and adult entertainment, the line seems to be pretty arbitrary. E.g. it has been perfectly fine for an adult to enjoy crime fiction or watch football, while it doesn't require a lot of maturity or sophistication, and teens would enjoy the same activities too. Somehow we never got a significant market of computer games for adults though - maybe because adults don't care as much as before about appearing mature.
- emodendroket 3y ago
  There are definitely games that skew older — I don’t think that many young kids want to play MS Flight Sim or iRacing. To a certain extent even stuff like fighting games I feel probably overrepresents the over-30 crowd.
- zer0tonin 3y ago
  >Somehow we never got a significant market of computer games for adults Most of today's gaming industry is targeting adults. Kids rarely have the money to purchase 70$ games more than once or twice a year.
  - emodendroket 3y ago
    Their parents very well might.
  - oytis 3y ago
    OK I mean real adults :) The same demographics who you would imagine as a typical reader of Agatha Christie or Tom Clancy, football or horse race enjoyer in the era before computer games and internet

hef19898 3y ago

Oh, you can love fantasy and be highly professional, and you can be "adult" while being incredibly inmature, childish even. I prefer people that far in the first bucket.

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago

It's notable how many influential scientists have had a playful attitude towards their work. Feynman emphasised his "playing" with ideas just because they were interesting or fun to him. John Conway was another example of having fun and enjoying his maths and games. Edit: Einstein surely belongs here too

4gotunameagain 3y ago
I don't think that what applies to 5σ mind can be generalised to the general population. While we surely should derive joy and playful pleasure from all things in life, that should be the result and not the goal in my opinion. Otherwise we end up with adults spending ridiculous hours playing video games, chasing that beautiful feeling they gave them when they were kids, all the while avoiding real life.
- Ancapistani 3y ago
  > adults spending ridiculous hours playing video games What do you consider to be "ridiculous hours"? There are definitely times when I end up playing online games for >20h/week. That's well above the median I'm sure... but how many hours per week did my parent's generation spend on average watching TV? My dad is retired now, and spends probably ~40h / week in his shop just... tinkering. How is my playing War Thunder any less "real life" than him rebuilding his 124th Coleman lantern? People need a way to recover from the stresses of everyday life. I don't understand why gaming in particular is so often discounted, while various other non-productive pursuits are readily accepted.
  - neilv 3y ago
    > How is my playing War Thunder any less "real life" than him rebuilding his 124th Coleman lantern? The video game doesn't expose you to as much thorium?
- _aavaa_ 3y ago
  > chasing that beautiful feeling they gave them when they were kids, all the while avoiding real life. What you're describing is a coping mechanisms to a life they don't wish to face. It does not make them any more of an adult if they instead chose gambling, drinking, illegal drugs, shopping, or any another method of escape.

BiteCode_dev 3y ago

But it's acceptable to play chess, bridge and poker or read poetry, magazines and football news. Because that's science.

Grum9 3y ago
Yeah, buy an expensive jersey with your sports heroes name on it, paint your face the team colors, yell and wave flags in the parking lot, then go find your $2000 chairs in the big building like real adults spend their time.

mordae 3y ago

Agreed. I am married and have meaning of my life pretty much figured out, but I do play games and watch anime on the side. The biggest problem with average contemporary "true adults" is that they only act as if they have their shit figured out. In reality they mostly tend to be incredibly close minded, have super limited knowledge of the world due to their TV addiction and are generally more authoritarian due to our socioeconomic system being super authoritarian. The (more intelligent and cultured) outliers are actually closer to these supposed "kidults". More open minded, more tolerant, way less zealous.

nsxwolf 3y ago
I think we enjoy pathologizing choices we don't make and lifestyles we don't understand. So a non-gamer might see the adult gamer as infantilized, while the gamer sees the the non-gamer as a victim of an authoritarian socioeconomic system, or something. I'm not convinced either person is correct about anything. They probably would drop those thoughts if they got off social media and got to know each other instead.
- MikeTheRocker 3y ago
  100% agree here
- systems_glitch 3y ago
  Pretty much this. This isn't real. It's not who we are.
- 0xr0kk3r 3y ago
  The boomers were all about not selling out until they did and became the Man. GenX are now wrinkly tattooed grey hairs that still wear skater clothes while eyeing their 401ks.
  - systems_glitch 3y ago
    "I thought we were all slacking off together. but you all went out and got jobs while I was sleeping."

burnished 3y ago

Reading between the lines here but it seems to be a coping mechanism for psychologists that are uncomfortable with change and how an individual life's course has become unpredictable for them.

aaron695 3y ago

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xattt 3y ago

It probably has something to do with engaging in activities that promote higher-order analysis and meta-thought. Older adults are usually capable of this; younger kids would struggle. Consider the way you are “supposed to” watch an episode of Thomas the Tank Engine versus Better Call Saul. Both are fun for their respective age groups. If you watch the former in the form the latter, you start to see moires that probably escaped the writers (1). (1): https://www.newyorker.com/culture/rabbit-holes/the-repressive-authoritarian-soul-of-thomas-the-tank-engine-and-friends https://www.newyorker.com/culture/rabbit-holes/the-repressiv...

zer0tonin 3y ago
I honestly think you over-estimate how deep media like "Better Call Saul" is (or how shallow fantasy/anime/games are).
- xattt 3y ago
  I tend to look (okay, make assumptions) at a community around a hobby, and see if it approximates me, or the person who I want to become.