To be so glad I'm not the youth of today!

[SamuelWestsMistress]

Especially with the young girls. The big hair extensions, full make up, fake tan, huge eyelashes, drawn on eyebrows look must be such high maintenance! It looks lovely, but I just can't imagine ever being arsed. I'd never have pulled! I'm so glad we never had Facebook or mobiles either. I was a teen in the early/mid 90s and thought that was traumatic enough with tie dye, dms and those heat changing tshirt things.

[SatsukiKusukabe]

bullying takes on a whole new level via FB, and the huge amount of porn that girls and boys are exposed to from such an early can't make first fumbles much fun.

[cumfy]

I was convinced this was a Paris Brown reference.

[Repeatedlydoingthetwist]

I can't tell you how glad I am that fb wasn't around when I was a teen. I had a pager and that was stressful enough!

[ppeatfruit]

Okay I was a teenager in the 60s We had to straighten our hair without straighteners to look like Twiggy(Dsis and I ironed our hair 'cos ours was frizzy) we dyed it blonde with horrible highly chemical dyes dsis wore hair pieces.
We wore fake eyelashes and drew them under our eyes.!! only when we went out though and it wasn't long before flower power came and the tiny mini skirts went out of the window.
So you can see that not much changes except the mobile phones now mean we wouldn't have been waiting around for hours for friends who never turned up

[FunnyLittleFrog]

YANBU OP.

I didn't learn how to 'dress up' to go out until well into my 20s.

I went from dungarees and Joe Bloggs baggy hooded tops with short hair in the late 80s to grungey long skirts, docs and long messy hair in the early 90s to the full on Brit-pop look in the mid 90s. Then cargo pants / twisted Levis / vest top look in the late 90s. I wore minimal make-up and did nothing with my hair. It was all low maintenance, allowed freedom of movement (i.e. no short skirts and heels!) and I loved it.

When I look at photos of how I dressed for a night out I can't believe it. By today's standards I look like I'm going camping!

[acceptableinthe80s]

Yanbu. I was on a rare night out last night and was the only person wearing flats. No one else could dance due to sky scraper heels/skintight dresses, just sort of shuffled from side to side whilst I jumped around in my comfy boots like a loon .
I actually felt a bit sorry for all the young girls, they obviously think they have to completely change the way they look to be 'acceptable'.
They looked like they spent the whole week getting ready, mind you I probably looked like I spent 5 minutes getting ready, which I did.

[HelenDaniels]

I felt very old and past it when I went into Urban Outfittes with dd and grumbled that it was all the same sort of shite I wore in the 90s, but my clobber cost tuppence from Sue Ryder.

Not all teens are like that. It depends on their crowd, just as it always had. So you have the 'girly girls' who look like that, and the indie type girls, goths, and sporty types.

I agree with the whole life on social nedia thing, mind you I spend a lot of time on here so that's not just a teen thing.

I laugh at the scouse brows that a lot of youngsters have, but no different from my plucking my entire eyebrows and drawing a thin line a la 90s eyebrows.

[HelenDaniels]

Youngsters!

[ppeatfruit]

I was dying to get some winkle picker high heels but my DM didn't allow it and by the time I could afford them myself I wasn't stupid enough to wear them. I cannot believe that the girls wear them SOOOO high now even older ones like Zoe Ball who has the brains to set a better example to the yoof of today!

[marjproops]

OP you think fake tan/falsies/extensions looks lovely???????

they look like oompa-loompas/clowns/other word thats un-pc now.

I wasnt allowed to wear make up till i was 17 and THEN only lip gloss!

and Im no oil painting at the best of times, but, seriously?????

these are the age that have (barring spots) lovely smooth complexions and fresh faced and theyre ruining it all.

see them in 10 years with bad skin probs.

i mean we had jamtarts in my day but not like this.

ive seen schoolgirls on the bus-the indian and other culture grils look lovely, neat and tidy and a pride to the school, then you get the britney spears lot....skirts hoiked up you can see their things, cake din make up....are they allowed in school like that?

and yy to the guys with their pants showing too.

......hoiks up judgy pants and boobs.........and namechanges to mary whitehouse.......

[marjproops]

thats not to say i havent had my fair share of fashion/hair disasters btw!

but never dressed or looked like erm.....you know.....not that they all do, just the ones round here anyway!

[ppeatfruit]

That's what they used to say about us 60s mods honest marj or is it Mary Whitehouse !! and I've grown up fine Its a yoof thing; they used to say that in the days of the Regency "What's happening to the yoof of today!!!" It's definitely an age thing!

[ppeatfruit]

And the flappers in the 20s; OMG they CUT their hair and showed their legs ABOVE THE ANKLES and the teddyboys in the 50s. So you see its always been like that its normal human nature to want to rebel against your parents.

[SamuelWestsMistress]

I do Marjproops. I know some make it look extreme, but I think that done well its really glamorous. But can't imagine how long it must take for them to put it all on AND take it all off!

[Maat]

I was a punk rocker in the '70s and spent a lot of time back-combing my hair, applying lots of black eyeliner and attaching safety pins to all my clothes.

Teenagers today don't know they're born

[EndoplasmicReticulum]

Lots of my school year were high maintenance. In the late 80s they all had yellow crinkly perms and lots of green eyeshadow and stripy blusher.

I had short straight hair and looked like a boy. Until I got into 6th form and went a bit goth.

[marjproops]

old age setting in.....and i agree that with the media pressure too....but other fashions dont look as ridiculous do they?

its the orange thing more than anything. you know when you'vebeen tangoed.

[stubbornstains]

All the young gels round here are sporting DMs, thick black tights, tiddly mini skirts, flannel shirts, brothel creeper shoes, big chunky cardigans, skinny jeans, tweed jackets and, as far as I can see, minimal make up.

The 1990s never did go away, you know. They just moved to Cornwall

[Snazzynewyear]

YANBU. Whatever the look is, it seems like it takes a lot more effort that I would want to put in (even though I did do plenty of slapping on make up and tottering around in heels as a teen). Add in the social media pressure, plus the ridiculously high youth unemployment rates and cost of university, and I feel I had a really good deal compared to current teenagers.

[Bodicea]

Glad I was a teenager in the late 90s - grungy look and natural no make up look was in. Think all I ever wore was mascara and a bit of blusher most of the time. When I was a broke student that was an easy enough look to pull of and I left uni with hardly any debt. Didn't get a manicure till I was 22. Now they all seem to be able to afford to get their nails done etc and spend a fortune on maintenance. Seriously where do they get the money. When next generation complains about not beig able to get o property ladder and having no savings for future I don't have much sympathy.

[marriedinwhiteagain]

My DDs 15. She and her friends aren't like that at all. Skinny jeans, nice top, preppy blazer or cardigan or leggings under a shortish skirt or shorts and pretty much the same on top. They wear docs, or thick soled things from Office, vans or boots (Uggs seem to have "died" here).

DD has baskets of make-up but doesn't use it much. She is having proper highlights in her blonde hair on her birthday and I have said she can dip dye the ends pink or blue on the first day of the holidays and it will have to be cut off when it's time to go back to school. She is also having her ears repierced.

[Essexgirlupnorth]

Yes the bullying would have been ten times worse with Facebook.

I never really cared what I looked like as a teenager though did do goth light for a bit.

[BeeWi]

YANBU. Regardless of looks, Facebook and the ability to text, sext etc has taken bullying to whole new extremes. As an Head of Year at a school before going onto maternity leave, an increasingly large amount of time was spent unpicking problems arising from spats on Facebook.

In our day, rumours could be written on a toilet wall and seen by a handful of other kids. These days they can spread rumours about other kids to hundreds of their peers with the click of a mouse. Imagine how horrifying it'd be if that happened to a teenage you, when what your peers thought of you was the be all and end all.

[MechanicalTheatre]

I think teenagers must be a LOT less innocent than we were. I mean, I knew everything about sex more or less before I did it, but I'd never actually SEEN an erect penis before one was in front of my astonished eyes when I first gave a guy a handjob. I had no idea what things could be got up to in the sack, beyond sex, masturbation and oral, so it was a lot of fun discovering!

I think it would be less fun now, there's no mystery when you've seen it all acted out in porn 5 million times.

Facebook would be both useful and awful. I was very shy, so it would have been easier for me to socialise maybe. But I imagine you'd get a load of shit as well.