Where are all the ugly teens?

[PattyDuckface]

I want to preface this with Just For Fun. I don't judge people on their looks, I am just indulging my inner superficial anthropologist.

• Why are all teens good looking these days?

When I was a teen we all looked pretty random and not very polished to be honest, a few people were stand out stunners but most of us... struggled 😬

Sure we all turned out fine and beauty is absolutely skin deep but my chat post is about how/why teenagers these days look so much better than we did (80's 90's). Why is it? How do they all look like Insta models? Everyone is a 10.

Where are all the ordinary and ugly looking kids, a bit ok, a bit not - still figuring it out. Where's my people at 😀

Even the kids of my peers who were very ordinary looking (and even a bit ugly) have turned out to be absolutely gorgeous.

No, it's not filters. I have met them irl

Absolutely this!

My parents are wonderful but didn’t have the faintest idea how to help me with my acne prone skin and I really suffered for it. My eldest is 14 and I make sure he has a really good skincare routine, a daily shower and a haircut by an actual hairdresser. Makes all the difference.

You're old OP. Youth is a major part of ( I don't want to say attractiveness because we're talking about teens, but I can't think of a more appropriate word).

When you were a teen you were all the same age, so you noticed the other facets of their appearance, now your subconscious is just focusing on the lack of wrinkles and bingo wings, so you're not noticing the big nose, the ears that look like they belong on another person etc.

That’s so sad 😞

Why are all teens good looking these days?

They aren't.
Oddly enough, as part of some volunteering I do, I spent some time with quite a number of teens this weekend, and I was actually thinking at one point that you get people saying all this stuff about schooldays being the best days of your life and so on, but I just don't think that's true.
So many of them looked (to me) uncomfortable hot in jeans, because they were too self conscious to put some shorts on...... most of them just looked like most teens look - a bit uncomfortable in their own skin. Hair not really found its style. So many fighting acne. So many just self conscious and, although I certainly wouldn't have said 'ugly' I certainly wouldn't describe any of them as being particularly good looking, either.

Isotretinoin on the NHS is a big one. No need to have bad acne these days.

Good clothes, makeup, hair and skin products are much cheaper. They can and do access tutorials online on how to do their hair, apply makeup and dress for their figure and style instead of plastering on cheap lumpy foundation.

Maximalist makeup, lashes, contouring and also fitness are in fashion.

I'd also say better awareness of nutrition and payment plans for dentistry making orthodontic work accessible.

Not creepy. I think teenagers have access to better guidance and tools to make the best of themselves these days which older generations didn't.

I think kids look more or less the same as they always have. The kids I see out and about look the same as my peers did in high school, i.e normal people.

I think girls have more access to info about doing makeup and clothes. Not to mention affordable makeup is 1000x better than it was when I was a teen- Rimmel now it pretty good. When I was fifteen it was crumbly pastel eyeshadows, orange foundation and frosty lipstick.

I think TikTok filters and editing make it seem like high schools must be full of supermodel 15 year olds. The truth is the algorithm pushes forward a small minority of very attractive people and you don't come across the millions of social media accounts run by kids with normal, average faces and bodies.

I feel sorry for kids now. I'm an adult and going on TikTok makes ME feel old, ugly and gross. Heaven knows how teens are supposed to wrap their brains around it all.

This thread has given me an instant Bonnie Tyler earworm.

Where are all the ugly teens and where are all the spods? …

There are plenty about. Many good looking ones, many with good teeth from braces etc, but many just not good looking. I went to Ds1's A'level certificate giving presentation last year, there was an equal amount of good looking, average, and not good looking students. Visited him at Uni, same - equal amounts of very good looking, normal, and not good looking students.

They have access to nicer clothing, accessories, better quality make up, beauty treatments, plus a shitload of youtube tutorials.

What a weird thread. Stop judging people of their appearance (either saying it's good or bad) especially self conscious teenagers.

Not sure I agree. Spent too many hours queuing at the airport today and been up close with a lot of teens going off on holiday.

• Better skincare products so some have nice skin, but the make-up regimen is hideous with fake nails, eye lashes, eye brows, thick contouring etc.
• Ditto some of the hair
• Better diet in theory but many are bigger than 20-30 years ago
• Made worse that some of the clothing does nothing for most figures. Seems to be in to wear cycling/rowing all in one shorts and vest. Every tiny lump and bulge on show and the material is not even proper workout stuff
• Didn’t see teeth so can’t comment

I would say the distribution is the same as it’s always been

Why is every observation “ judgement”?
Lots of people look better these days. Definitely teens because of dentists, hairdressers and skin care being the norm.. And I agree regular showers have helped.
But also older people. Most 60 year olds look / dress/act like another middle aged people. They don’t look like “old” people like they used to.

80s and 90s fashions were abysmal. ‘Fashionable’ hair styles and make up trends were shocking. Perms, Sun In, crimping irons and shimmery unflattering make up. Exfoliating was scratching your skin off with Aapri Apricot Scrub.

Nothing was aimed at making us more attractive, quite the opposite in fact. Now you can whiten your teeth for a few quid, buy an abundance of fast fashion / make up for next to nothing and watch endless ‘experts’ on YouTube demonstrate how to cut and colour your hair, apply make up professionally, copy stylish bloggers, etc etc.

Also depends on where you live. Where I live the kids are pretty privileged and a good diet, plenty of outdoors activities and lots of holidays will go a long way to increase attractiveness

Under all the makeup

@Marchintospring that's true also, older people also tend look much better than they used to.

It must be just everyone looking after themselves better. More knowledge spread around about it all, easier access to things that help and more pressure to conform.

I don't necessarily think it's a good or bad thing for teens to look polished, perhaps it's better to just be unconcerned with your own appearance as long as you are happy and healthy. Unlikely though as teen years are when we are hyper conscious of our looks.

Overall society has become more focused on surface as the internet has broken down all the ordinary peer groups we would have been in and now comparing ourselves to the whole world instead of the 20,000 people in our town obviously has an impact.

More resources like YouTube I think. I'm a 90s kid and I didn't have sisters, had a non girly mother and a set of tomboy friends so I never had anyone to teach me! To this day I'm shit at make up 😂

Unless you're seeing them in the flesh, they're using filters. I go to my kids' school regularly and the teens I see coming out look just the same as they did when I was that age.

They are not better looking. Teens of the past were good looking but many didn't have the know how or confidence. That's the bit that has changed now plus it's easier to have less frizzy hair, do make up properly. I just think a lot look older than their yrs though. Some of the older teen boys I see look in their 20s

Agree with @Lazzee and @UsingChangeofName

Teens don't look any different now to 10/20/30 years ago. Some are stunning, some really aren't and the rest are somewhere in between. Overweight, underweight, acne ridden, plain, slathered in make up, baggy clothes, tight clothes...take away the instagram filters and we could be in any decade. I have teens and when I look at them and their friends every single one of them looks different. But they're no more or less attractive than me and my peers back in the 90s.

What I loved about the 90s was all the different tribes & how it was good to be individual. The teens now are all quite homogenous

I notice this too and I think it’s down to grooming. When I was a teen in the 70s men didn’t groom much other than a shave and some Brut or Old Spice but nowadays they take a lot more interest. One of my sons has an array of designer sprays for men in fancy bottles and a number of hair products. He and his brother go to fancy men’s hair salons rather than the local barber (nothing wrong with barbers) They’re both very good looking but I am bias. 😁

@MermaidEyes Thats not true of 80’s teens though. Acne was very much “expected” once you got to puberty. Every teen guide mentioned it as part of growing up. I know very few teens acne now and even spots aren’t they problem they used to be.

Plenty of teens still have acne and some poor kids are absolutely riddled with it. The only difference now is that the girls are more likely to be covering up with lots of foundation/concealer than back in the 80s.

Pudding cuts are no longer an acceptable hairstyle, contact lenses are available and no teenager would be seen dead in a gilet, polo neck and cords from the market and clumpy, lace up shoes from Clarkes.