To wonder why creosote tans, blinding white teeth, false eyelashes and BIG hair....

[lazyhound444]

became the norm? I appreciate that not all young ladies adopt this look (my own DD being one of them) but I couldn't help feeling a bit skiffing through my DS's Instagram last night at the endless duck face pout selfies of young ladies he goes to school with who all look exactly the same because of this current "uniform". It just made me feel a bit depressed. I'm 48 but when I was young we had a bit more diversity and of course we were au naturel. AIBU?

It's the beards that get me. So many young lads with god awful beards that make them look like Edward VII.

What makes me sad is a bunch of year 1s I was talking to this week. I happened to say there was nothing wrong with being different and they all exclaimed in horror at the thought.

Teenagers always have a tribe.

Even the ones who think they look 'different'

Not all teens have a tribe.

Yeah they do.

Goths and emos and geeks and hipsters.

It was ever thus.

Even the ones who make a point about not caring care. That's their tribe.

My friend says her teen DD calls the girls described as 'plastics'.

It's the HD eyebrows that make me go

They're like deeply stained slugs perched above one's eye.

The only thing that should be seen in HD is Bradley Cooper.

But what if you don't belong to one of those groups? My dd never has. She's just herself, wears what she wants to, sometimes wears make up. Her friends are pretty much the same. They all shop at different places and none of them seem to copy any specific 'look'.

I used to fashion sort of forward-poking quiff, and spraaaaaaaaayy it to death sorry ozone layer. Mousse was involved also. The look I was aiming for was baseball cap bit/visor, but made of hair. SO did most fo my friends.

There were other tribes, of course. Goths, metallers, the geeky ones. People are inherently tribal, aren't they? Even the non-conformists.

Ah, very slow cross post re tribes.

Why don't teens have as bad acne as my lot did? What has changed?

Tribes of my youth.

Disco chick - see previous personal description, especially twilight teaser, that was essential.
Goth chick - purple/black crimped hair, black, black, black everything a la Siouxie
Sporty chick - Sensible hair and Adidas.
Post punk chick - Think Annie Lennox/Chrissie Hynd
Yah chick - Headbands, pearls and Barbour. Channeling young Princess Di.

That's a tribe in itself you. The non conformists.

Also New Romantic Chick. I prefer not to remember THAT phase

My older son has this horrible swept forward hair and nasty beard thing going on. His girlfriend seems to like it though.

The younger one, who's 17, is distinctly odd. He's got very long ringlets and dresses in a mix of steampunk and early 60's psychedelic. Velvet jackets, flowing coats, frilly shirts, long boots, that kind of thing. He has Aspergers and is wildly camp so can carry it off.

When someone goes for the hair extension, lash extension, nail extension look it's hard to tell what age they are, most of them don't look like teens.

In general, no matter what tribe they belong to, teens these days do seem to have a much more high maintenance look. The 90s was much more lo fi.

It's the duckpout thing that makes me laugh, what the absolute fk do they think they look like? My 80's photos make my kids laugh like drains, wait till they have kids of their own and how they'll cringe at old photos.
My dd is 8, I'm hoping this stupid look is out before she gets to teenager.
I particularly like it when a 40+ woman does the duckpout, I'm 40+ so I can say that! lol

My friends and I all wore Levi 501s, Levi hoodies with Adidas gazelle trainers. Makeup consisted of Body shop face base and body shop kiwi lip balm.

I was modelling myself on Pauline Black from The Selecter for quite a while.

Karin, he sounds fantastic. I love that fashion. If I were a teen I'd be aspiring to that. Sadly DS is Jack Wills dude

I think they all look like Boy George!

Incidentally my step dd isn't like this, she's more of a rock chick and laughs at the back combed hair, tangoed thing. Mind you, she must go through an eyeliner every 3 days!

Squoosh, in the 80s, getting ready to go out could take 3 hrs start to finish. You could have peeled the slap straight off my face. Hair alone took 90 mins.
Then there was outfit selection...

All the girls here look like Billy offa Eastenders granddaughter. We had shocking wind recently and I think it might have been them all collectively blinking that caused it.

I belonged to the Hippy tribe, I was all loon pants and cheesecloth. With black kohl around my eyes. Stinking of patchouli.

The other tribes were , Grebos and Townies.

The vacant expression and peace sign is part of the (IMO disturbing) Kawaii trend from Japan.

I hate it tbh, it is perilously close to the sexualisation of very young girls.