To sulk at what this young generation thinks is cool

[Snoozebox]

I was cool before they even made it mainstream :(

As a child and teenager I was horribly bullied for being geeky, having different interests to all the others at my school, even for pulling my socks up and wearing glasses...and now all the youngsters are at it, and suddenly it's cool and trendy.

I'm glad bullying may be on the decrease because of this but part of me is also resentful at the fact I was clearly born too early. In the 90s, if you didn't conform then you were ostracised. Now social media and the Internet seem to have made previously more niche fads a lot more popular and acceptable.
I think teenagers who aren't being sheep must be having a much easier time of it these days, or have I got it all backwards?

oh you can be reassured that geeks still get a tough time

I found it was much more acceptable to be different in the 90s. It was about individuality. Now it seems much more like the done thing to conform and fit in.

It's not even that it's trendy, it's that the Internet makes it so much easier for teens to find like-minded geeks, whereas previously they had to wait to university where they could join the D&D Society. Also the computer revolution has made a huge difference. Lots of people who in the 1960s would be borderline unemployable nerds now have marketable skills and hence a bunch of money to spend, which means that the things they like are suddenly profitable

I think that there is definitely more awareness of lbgtq issues (I remember hearing a girl in my sixth form was a lesbian and assuming that it must be a lie because it seemed so unlikely that someone I knew could be gay!). But I reckon social media and so on make it a lot harder for young people - causing fomo and facilitating bullying. I also think the availability of porn affects te attitudes of boys and makes things harder for young girls. I am also not sure it's really any cooler to be nerdy than it ever was, but yes hopefully now kids can at least find solace and kindred spirits online.

Oh you know all these teenagers that wear glasses with plain glass, high socks, retro/ironic 80's children's tv lunch bags satchels, with their hair in pig tails, their not geeks their hipsters, their just as bitchy and bullying as they ever ever were!
They may look like what we were bullied for but they all have a common mainstream interest. Fashion/music Etc. Be in to geeky stuff have different interets, your still going to get bullied and ostrastristed in fact bullying is on the increase because technoly allows it to be done more covertly!

I doubt bullying is decreasing. they just find something else to pick on.

So you were a hipster before hipsterism became mainstream? Because that is just the most hipster thing I have ever heard!

Seriously though - that's just the new way of conforming, so those who are doing their own thing, having different interests and wearing different clothes are still the outliers. The look hasn't been made popular 'by' geeks, it's been made popular by the popular kids.

I agree nurd is a trend, its all about glasses, knee high socks, flat shoes, and braces ..oh and buttoned up shirts tucked in. just because kids got bullied for it 30 years ago doesnt mean bullying doesnt happen. I think its worse. Internet allows it ... the bitches just have a bigger audience.
Its still about the right bag,coat,shoes.

Geeks of the 1990s rule the internet today.

The hipsters are bigger excluding bullies than anyone. Don't have the right kind of stupid beard and hoppy craft beer, urgh, you're so mainstream.

I don't think it's right to say that you can tell from how someone dresses that they are a bully! Choosing to be mainstream/hip/whatever doesn't make you a horrible person - and suggesting that it does is itself a bit bullylike IMO. The thing about bullies is that it's never really about the clothes the victim is wearing, or whatever. It's about asserting power through making someone feel awful.

I'm still baffled as to why when I was at school, the "cool kids" were the ones who fucked around and disrupted lessons, scraped through their GCSE's and bunked off?!
I was always laughed at for taking an interest in my education and being a "boff"....but recently I went back to my hometown to visit family, and stopped at the McDonald's drive through on the way in....Lo and behold, two of the "cool" girls from school were serving at the window could not help but feel a little bit proud of being a 14 year old boffin

Theycallme .. you are right, but the clothes are a way in ... a starting point.... Bullies are nasty creatures. But so are the bystanders...

Not at all....both DH and I worked in McD's as teenagers - nothing wrong with it...I just remember how horrible it was being stuck in a stuffy kitchen, surrounded by boiling fryers in the middle of summer and thought "well serves you right for a being a dick to me at school"

The bullies from DD class are in the lowest form at high school ... there are TA galore and they work in basic friendship skills, social skill, while the other forms do fun classes ... High school rocks!!

snooze it makes me a tiny bit sad that what you're taking away from a huge amount of progressive acceptance is that kids are having an easier time of it than we did. Surely that's what we want for our kids no?

I do get it, but I think they face different pressures now.

I don't want to dwell on that though, I'm really fucking pleased that when I told my kids I was considering turning our car into a TARDIS they got all excited rather than embarrased. I'm very pleased that gender norms are becoming less 'norm' and I'm well fucking happy that my kids can wear what they want and be far less likely to be judged for it by adults.

snooze do you want to help me with the TARDIS car? Might be cathartic.

:)

I don't know - acne, greasy hair, bottle end glasses and clothes so nylony I crackled when I walked - I haven't seen that look suddenly becoming hip!

I'm very pleased that gender norms are becoming less 'norm' I actually disagree with this. I think being genderqueer or trans is more acceptable in urban areas in teenage years. I think the uniform of dress and long hair and pink and sparkles is MORE pervasive in small girls than it ever was. Toys and clothes are more gendered than they were in the 70s.

Nah I don't think it makes a difference. The uncool kids today will just get it wrong in a different way. In reality it doesn't matter what clothes you wear, what music you listen to or what slang you use. If you have that thing which makes you "cool", then it will be right and if you don't have it, it will be wrong.

mrsterry I've not understood entirely what you're saying, that could well be me though. I keep reading it and thinking we're saying the same thing.

I am quite annoyed at Kinder suddenly genderising Kinder eggs. This has baffled the fuck out of me when we've been enjoying non-gendered eggs for years.

Coolness changes - I remember my Mother and her family being horrified in the late 1950's when one of my cousins was seen entering the local dance hall wearing a black chiffon scarf! It was achingly cool at the time but she was never forgiven.

theycall no not all trendies\hipsters are bullies much the same as not all kids thaf wore the Nike swish or the Gap hoodie in the 90's were bullies. But it's their own insecurities that make them conform and bully those with other interests that are not mainstream.
For instance when I was a kid if you didn't likd oasis and blur you were some how wrong, if you didn't grunge look you were wrong, if you didn't spend your life disrupting every bloody lesson you were wrong. It's just the same if you don't wear the hipster uniform, What the op has mistaken for the 90's geek, your wrong, if you don't like 5Sos your wrong if you don't eat solid gold organic food whilst still oissing around and swearing at othef customers in Mac Donald's your wrong.
No not every one that confirms to this look is a bully, but bully's generally bully the people that aren't in the majority and come from the majority! At the moment that's the hipsters! P

The bullies from DD class are in the lowest form at high school ... there are TA galore and they work in basic friendship skills, social skill, while the other forms do fun classes ... High school rocks!!

Did you mean to cast aspersions on those with Learning Disablities?! Because those that need friendship and social support are likely have things like ACDs, and in fact most likely to be bullied because well they are different they have TAs their in different classes!
They maybe aggressive but that's probably because their frustrated!

Thank you that is all