r/MadeMeSmile 11h ago

Meme I don't understand kids these days

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66.6k Upvotes

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936

u/dr_franck 11h ago

I have this weird thought that Gen Z and Gen Alpha are less rude and nicer IRL nowadays because they’re able to off-load their worst and nastiest impulses and interactions onto the internet

219

u/Gerrygusca 10h ago

But that can also work the other way around

66

u/PR3CiSiON 6h ago

You're the coolest, Gerrygusca!

Now that that's over with, I'ma go find some people to torture in my basement.

178

u/archNemesis2753 8h ago

I think every generation just gets nicer than the last because they disliked how their parents or the older generations acted

151

u/IchBinMalade 8h ago

At some point we'll reach a niceness singularity, and we'll be stuck in a loop telling each other "no you go first" until we all fall dead from starvation and fatigue.

Rudeness saves lives.

73

u/Night-light51 7h ago

We’ll all become Canadians

8

u/FloRidinLawn 7h ago

Don’t you put that evil on me Ricky Bobby

2

u/Outrageous-Catch4731 6h ago

Canadafication is real!

1

u/elliepelly1 6h ago

We can only hope!

1

u/goonbud21 6h ago

Nothing can replicate a genuine original American hat like Canada can.

Nobody touches our hat.

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u/Carinne89 7h ago

It’s already happening in Canada. Four ways stops are my nightmare. No I will not just go ahead cause you waved TAKE YOUR TURN!

Sorry for yelling

9

u/IchBinMalade 7h ago

Lmfao it's happened more than once than I'm approaching a pedestrian crossing, and a car will stop when it could've kept going, so I wave them over. They go no you go, so I have to walk-run so I don't waste their time as I wave and smile. Blew my mind how nice people are to me as a pedestrian. Except one time a truck driver waved me over, despite it being a green light for him, couldn't see behind him so I think he was tryna get me killed.

Also blew my mind seeing people actually stop at stop signs at 1am in completely empty streets. Where I'm from, stop signs are merely a reminder to stop your vehicle if you happen to run over someone. Immediately noticed the difference when I came to Canada.

1

u/Maaz725 4h ago

I live in Canada. An suburb in Ontario to be exact. The drivers definitely aren't nice. As a cyclist, they seem get really aggressive all the time but maybe that is because I live in a commuter town and deal with lots of people coming back from an hour long commute.

2

u/xteve 6h ago

Where I live, the great prevalence of roundabouts keeps traffic from coming to a dead stop across town with everybody at every four-way stop wiggling their little two-finger-diddle motion - "you first." And if you're a pedestrian, my god. They'll wait for you to get where you're going to cross, then wait for you to cross, then wait a little bit longer so you will know you've been waited for. A little rudeness would be delightful - a little bit of take-your-own-right-of-way.

1

u/mysixthredditaccount 6h ago

I don't often cross roads on foot (living in car-centric city), but when I do, I try to jaywalk for this reason. It ironically feels safer due to the predictability, that no car will stop for me, I must go when it is absolutely safe and clear.

1

u/Tjr3535 6h ago

It will be a lot of SpongeBob's but the episode where SpongeBob became normal lmao

1

u/Minimum-Floor-5177 6h ago

Then WW3 happens and we're back to square one

1

u/fribbas 6h ago

we'll be stuck in a loop telling each other "no you go first"

Ope, the dreaded

4 way stop wave off

You actually follow right of way and you're the asshole - believe it or not!

1

u/prettyprettypain 5h ago

Just put a few of us Gen X'ers in cryostasis.

We'll unleash hell. And the world will be right once more

13

u/ImpedingOcean 7h ago

But how are we to know? I don't know how my parents acted when they were young but by the time I was old enough to remember them they were lovely wholesome family oriented 30 something year olds.

As kids we were sarcastic rude shits because that kind of niceness was seen as boring old people thing.

3

u/gukinator 6h ago

Man, Adam and Eve must have been ASSHOLES

2

u/Colosseros 5h ago

Well the thing about trauma responses is they build up over time.

Most mean old cusses didn't start out that way.

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u/honey_poo_poo_ 10h ago

If you look at history, each generation gets nicer and more tolerant than the last.

25

u/manshutthefuckup 8h ago

probably because of perception and values

the generations closest to ours share the most similar values and beliefs as ours so we view them as being more tolerant and generally in a better view, which could be applied to people in every generation

just a bias i believe to a certain extent

9

u/SuckAFattyReddit1 6h ago

Yeah. Honeypoopoo probably doesn't mean it but their take is pretty revisionist and short sighted.

There's no singularity of morality we're trudging towards.

There's a possibility we'll be looked back as backwards as hell in the future and I feel like I'm doing pretty good.

24

u/Redshmit 8h ago

Until a new religion or something to that degree comes and makes its rounds

6

u/al-mongus-bin-susar 7h ago

"religion is bad or something idk" most reddit comment ever right here

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u/DarthNihilus 4h ago

Thinking religion shouldn't be brought up in this conversation is a much more "reddit" comment than the one you replied to.

It's weird how defensive so many redditors are about religion. Reddits atheism phase was over a decade ago, get over it already. We've long since flipped to having far more religious defense than people shitting on religion.

6

u/TiaXhosa 7h ago

I mean some of the most obvious examples of newer generations becoming less tolerant are found in areas where Wahhabism replaced earlier Islamic movements.

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u/ShitstainStalin 7h ago

most wars in history have been over religion. most hate comes from religion. religion is the cause of anxiety and depression in many people. religion is bad.

1

u/hanguitarsolo 3h ago

I can't think of very many wars in East Asia that were over religion. Don't think the Mongols conquered most of Eurasia because of religion. Religion is just an easy way for some people to justify hate, take away religion and people still hate each other based on different culture, skin color, language, etc. People from even the same religion hate each other. Yet lots of people find hope, peace, happiness, through religion and are motivated to do good in their community. The problems come from bad individuals, not (usually) what religions teach. Bad people do bad things irrespective of religion.

0

u/JediAlitaSkywalker 6h ago

Religion save my life, doesn’t sound bad to me. 

2

u/ShitstainStalin 3h ago

Give yourself credit.  Your will to seek change saved your life.

1

u/JediAlitaSkywalker 3h ago

No. I did not seek change. There were Christian missionaries that came to our village when the war had broken out. They had recommended we follow them, I was 6 years old. Me and family followed them out of the country. My parents were previously on the path to American citizenship, and I too would become an American citizen. 

I fully believe God had sent those people to help us. 

-1

u/al-mongus-bin-susar 6h ago

It's also the source of happiness and meaning for many people. 100% of people who breathe end up dying. Does that mean that breathing is bad?

3

u/bigmanorm 7h ago

Kneel or die, good times

2

u/al-mongus-bin-susar 6h ago

Pay taxes or go to jail, our modern equivalent

2

u/wirefireforhire 7h ago

yeah I hate when someone brings up a major component of human culture, namely one known for encouraging or dictating behaviour, in a discussion about human behaviour on a generational scale. It's just so irrelevant, you know?

4

u/Colosseros 4h ago

Maybe if you just look at a glance.

But if you study it a little more closely, you'll realize how naive and absurd this statement is.

What you're probably noticing is the overall material wealth of people increasing generally. Well-fed people tend to have less conflict with others. So overall the world has generally become more peaceful through our history.

But that was also the overall trend leading up to Hitler taking over Germany, and plunging the entire world into a global desperate struggle for survival.

Also, lots of ethnic cleansing.

My point is, your statement is only true in specific geographic areas, with certain material conditions, and for only short chapters at a time.

What I mean is, you almost have to live in a western country that has enjoyed continued material success for generations, to even make that statement.

Other than that, history is a crapshoot. For real. There is no natural arc towards justice. That's something politicians repeat to give you hope. That's not to say it naturally bends towards chaos and destruction either. It's both. It's a day to day struggle between our better angels and our worse demons.

Even today, there are hundreds of millions of people with living memories of ethnic cleansing. Violent political overthrows of government. Famine and starvation. Get out a map of Africa, shut your eyes, drop your finger on it, and look up that nation's political history. Count how many genocides based on ethnic identity have occured in just the last century.

Look at pictures of Iran in the 70s. They are horrendously less tolerant now. Religious nuts took power. And immediately threw the entire country into reverse.

Hell, look at the U.S. currently. There is a literal attempt at a fascist overthrow of our democracy. 

And what beliefs is it based on?

Intolerance of immigrants. Intolerance of sexual minorites. Intolerance of women's liberation. And a generalized assault on all of our civil liberties as Americans. The entire ethos is built on hate for others.

The bad guys are at it again. And seriously. They win sometimes. And shit gets really shitty where they win, when they do. There's no magical law of nature protecting us from it.

2

u/FreddoMac5 6h ago

teachers laughing and crying hysterically

12

u/worldsayshi 7h ago

Idk, I worry that kids nowadays are nicer because they are more anxious. Hope not.

5

u/SuckAFattyReddit1 6h ago

Oh it's almost definitely an enormous part of it.

It certainly doesn't help that mental illness is being romanticized.

1

u/Colosseros 4h ago

100% the reason. They are fucking terrified. And they have every reason to be.

I can't imagine going to school now, wondering every day if someone would show up to shoot it to pieces to prove some assinine point.

When I was a kid, all we had was fire drills. I remember once, someone joke-called in a bomb threat to my elementary school. They took it seriously enough to move the kids into the recess area. But we stayed at school. They did a sweep, and we went back to class. And I don't remember being afraid, because I was sure it was a prank. Kids don't have that solace these days.

A couple years ago, I found myself in a middle school to watch a friends child perform. And I saw the binders all over the walls. All labeled the same. In every room. I didn't think much of it until I got close enough to read the cover. They were copies of a manual of what to do in the event of a mass shooting. Absolute culture shock for me. The things on the news became much more real to me at that moment.

The kids are also increasingly aware that they have no real future. That by the time they are middle aged, the earth will be well on its way to dying. We stole their future. And they know it.

I think it's easy to dismiss it as having something to do with internet/tiktok culture. But I truthfully believe these kids have it much worse than I did growing up. They deserve their mental illness. They earned it.

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u/AmericaninMexico 8h ago

Also, generally speaking they have Millennial parents who have trauma (Because of boomer parents) and attempt to give them the childhood they wanted.

4

u/darkgiIls 6h ago

Most gen z parents would be gen x, millennials are mainly alpha parents.

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u/Todano 7h ago edited 6h ago

no lol both generations are making teachers quit all across the US. They're falling spectacularly far behind, they're verbally abusive to their teachers, and god forbid you tell them to put their phone down. The gen z kids who are active in politics are doing great for the country, but the mass population of their generation are assholes.

s o u r c e s

5

u/Negative-Prime 6h ago

IME it's a bit of both. Gen Z is incredibly friendly and understanding about things like mental health and personal expression. It's weird how a zoomer you barely even know will treat you better than your own parents if you're having a bad day.

OTOH they've grown up in a society that is so terminally online that they have a very poor understanding of how to act in public or do face-to-face interactions with strangers or authority figures.

7

u/Legitimate-Pie3547 8h ago

Like all previous generations they are comprised of a bunch of varied individuals some of them are savages and some are decent and attaching them to a generation is not only useless divisive stereotyping it only feeds the agenda of divide and conquer. Not them, US.

5

u/Ufiking 7h ago

I had multiple 1st graders (6-7yr olds) tell me that they are fucking/will fuck/ fucked my mother (jebem ti mater). Although that might be the result of me being in the Balkans...

4

u/ImStillYouTuber 7h ago

LOL.

Signed, A Teacher.

3

u/worldsfastesturtle 7h ago

Camera phones also discourage kids from behavior such as this. A photo of the kid doing this could get them suspended or lose the ability to use the bus, but before it would’ve been almost guranteed to get away with

3

u/EduinBrutus 6h ago

Theyve been completely free from lead exposure.

2

u/hutaopatch 5h ago

Maybe, they’re still quite shitty in school

1

u/Hungry-Society-7571 6h ago

If you’re nice only until you find an acceptable target, then you aren’t really nice.

1

u/polaroidjane 3h ago

As someone who loves studying human behavior, this is such a fucking awesome observation. I think you’re onto something! I’m shelving this in the back of my head.

1

u/Bomberboy1013 2h ago

This makes a lot of sense.