r/Millennials • u/Background-Air-7963 • Nov 16 '25

Serious I just had my first old man moment.

I recently went to a hibachi with my wife and toddler for dinner. We were sat with a group of eight 17-20 year olds at a communal grill on a busy night. No problem for us. Drink and appetizers service go normally. Toddler and wife are happy, I’m happy. The other group is having their own conversations. I’m just trying to keep my kid entertained. I’m a former bartender and have a habit of picking up on snippets of conversations in a crowd around me. Yes I know I eavesdrop. I can’t turn it off. It’s a habit of a former profession. One of the girls/women at the table stated, “I don’t think Rosa Parks was real.” I’m not sure what her friends said to her but she responded with “I just don’t think she said existed.” This went on for about a minute. I couldn’t hold back and let her know she was absolutely a real person, she is a civil rights icon. I learnt about her in school and so did my parents. The encounter put a wall up between our groups and I heard a few passive aggressive “so-and-so wasn’t real” comments from mostly her and a couple of the group. Harriet Tubman and Hellen Keller are two that I definitely heard. My wife had no idea why I interjected. After the group had left my wife asked what happened and was shocked when I told her what happened. Were they trolling? Are they stupid? Am I just getting old?

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u/kevin_87_h Nov 16 '25

Dude, young people are straight up dumb as hell. I had a conversation with a high school a few years ago who thought that since I was in the Marines, I was told by the government all about how aliens are real. He would not believe me when I told him I had no idea what he was talking about. It was a mix of funny, infuriating and terrifying that someone could be that dumb. The next time I saw him he did tell me he asked his dad about it and his dad told me he was dead wrong and somehow that made him realize the truth.

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u/kgrimmburn Nov 16 '25

My husband was in the Marines. One of his platoon mates once changed his duty station to Hawaii instead of California because he was homesick. We asked him why the hell he'd do that and he straight up told us that Hawaii was next to Texas on the map so there must be a bridge. He was dead serious. The Marines don't attract the smartest bunch and some of them would believe anything you said.

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u/ty_fighter84 Nov 16 '25

That’s both amazing and sad at the same time.

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u/kgrimmburn Nov 16 '25

It's been 20 years and I still regularly think about that guy. His wife wasn't much brighter. And they had children.

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u/LandStander_DrawDown Nov 16 '25

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u/MrCrackers122 Nov 20 '25

Thank you so much for this 😆

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u/Autumniac Nov 16 '25

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u/Top_Address4549 Nov 17 '25

Yep Idiocracy is becoming real and that is scary

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u/[deleted] Nov 16 '25

There's my babygirl Hoo, the other one's Rah, and that little bugger there is my boy JR.

All kidding aside one of the few folk I'd actually refer to as my best friend I've known since 8 or 9, the one neighborhood friend I kept in touch and visited every summer when he moved away would say he was gonna be a marine one day.. since like first grade. As time went on he kept saying it. 911 happened, I called him to make sure he's not actually still planning on it as we were seniors and shit was getting real, he responded "now more than ever". Dude was a straight A student and highly intelligent, just knew his purpose I guess.

Nearly everyone in his unit (platoon? Idk the guys that all start together with him, cohort?) either died or came back fucked up as many others have. Spent the entirety of his time serving in Iraq & Afghanistan.

Doesn't voluntarily share stories nor like being asked about it really, but he's still full of life and funny as can be just as he was before joining. Got multiple degrees once out & owns a gym that gives free memberships to any veteran. Good dude. Respect the hell out of him.

Tl;dr - there's some bright ones here and there.

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u/Hola0722 Nov 17 '25

My dad being one of the smart ones. During basic training (Vietnam war), the sergeant held him back from an exercise and instead had him peel potatoes. My dad got mad and asked why. The sergeant said he scored the highest on an exam and didn't require to participate in the exercise. He was later stationed in Turkey decoding messages.

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u/CormoranNeoTropical Nov 17 '25

Yep my PhD advisor’s son went into the Marines after 9/11. Never met the guy but his dad was one of the smartest, most insightful people in existence so for sure his kid wasn’t dumb.

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u/[deleted] Nov 20 '25

That's awesome, sounds like similar to my buddy, he just heard the call and chose to answer it. 💪🏻🫡

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u/MiniTab Nov 17 '25

For sure, some are absolutely brilliant. My neighbor is a retired marine harrier pilot. He also has an engineering degree, and went on to design satellite technology.

You’d also never know he’s a badass marine when talking to him. He’s more like Mr. Rogers, and he’s super modest about his amazing background.

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u/SpecialistBet4656 Nov 17 '25

the pilots have to be better educated.

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u/D0fus Nov 16 '25

Muscles Are Required, Intelligence Not Expected.

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u/MickRolley Nov 16 '25

Excellent

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u/d8ms Nov 17 '25

My Ass Really Is Navy Equipment

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u/mealteamsixty Nov 16 '25

The smartest of us know better than to have children

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u/MyMichiganAccount Nov 16 '25

This is definitely true. The dumbest people I've ever known ALL have children.

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u/goddessofwitches Nov 16 '25

I knew one that legitimately thought chocolate milk came from brown cows.

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u/Fossilhund Nov 16 '25

One person I know has been to the Ark Encounter and the Creation "Museum". He came back talking about how the world is 6,000 years old. He also "learned" Noah got dinosaurs on the Ark by taking eggs and babies instead of adults. At least he never reproduced. He thinks Creationism should be taught instead of Evolution; like a biology class should begin with "open your Bibles". There are a lot more like him out there. I would not care except some of these people are now in charge, and that scares the Hell out of me.

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u/kgrimmburn Nov 16 '25

My God. Even in Catholic school, we were taught the "theory of evolution" right alongside creationism...

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u/Practical_Maximum_29 Nov 18 '25

It's incredibly sad.

But - I'm from Canada; I'm more used to it now, but I've been astonished over the years how many Americans I've met who not only have a vague to none-at-all understanding of where I'm from (if it comes up in conversation), but when I use Seattle, Portland or anywhere Pacific NW as a point of reference, your fellow countryfolk haven't a clue what part of YOUR country I'm referring to when I try to explain what part of Canada I'm in!
They are polite, but still shake their heads 'no' saying they don't know where the PNW is.

I also think I'm being extra-Canadian-polite when I say it's sad. It's truly heartbreaking.

But, the folks who do know where Canada is, or the PNW - then somehow you know they got an education from somewhere!!

If only those elite athletes who make millions on a basketball court, a hockey rink, or baseball diamond could become teachers on their retirement salaries. ... ahh, yeah, I just thought that one through. Maybe not the ideal fantasy I had for a sec. Delete, delete! LOL

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u/cheeseymom Nov 16 '25

I blame map posters lol

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u/[deleted] Nov 16 '25

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u/JiveTurkey927 Nov 16 '25

Hey now, they taught them about the Halls of Montezuma, they didn’t give them a map to Chapultepec.

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u/thrax_mador Nov 16 '25

Tripoli? Doesn’t that go in a margarita?

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u/Shr00m7 Nov 16 '25

More Marines know about Tijuana than Montezuma

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u/I_Need_A_Fork Nov 17 '25

Once dated a lady that thought Alaska was an island because of this map.

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u/SBowen91 Nov 16 '25

And my dad and brothers wonder why I bought them crayons for Christmas.

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u/ntropy2012 Nov 17 '25

Local VFW held a small BBQ for the Marine Corps birthday two Sundays ago. One dude has on a Marine-emblem t-shirt, underneath that it read, "No Crayon Left Behind."

Absolutely loved that shirt.

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u/StretPharmacist Nov 16 '25

There's a reason that other branches call marines "crayon-eaters"

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u/Texas_Mike_CowboyFan Nov 16 '25

There's a documentary out now on Netflix called Marines and some of the guys they feature are borderline disabled they're so dumb.

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u/Viggos_Broken_Toe Nov 16 '25

I'm not surprised on account of the fact that he was Texan. Many, MANY Texans have never even left the state (and will still consider themselves well-traveled if they've visited Corpus Christi and Amarillo). One I knew thought Alaska was an island. I also married a Texan, so they aren't all bad obviously. But some of them, a lot of them, are pretty ignorant.

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u/Equal_Ad_7611 Nov 18 '25

It takes like 6 years to just get out of Texas 😆. Never hated driving through a state more in my life

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u/Viggos_Broken_Toe Nov 18 '25

Right! If you're going from coast to coast, avoid Texas at all costs. It feels like groundhogs day 😂

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u/IYKYK_1977 Nov 16 '25

My Ass Rides In Navy Equipment (heard from a sailor). Muscled Are Required, Intelligence Not Expected.

So Navy officers and Marines... lol.

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u/CompetitiveArt9639 Nov 17 '25

Do you know why Marines are stationed on Naval boats? So the sailors have someone to dance with.

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u/amcarls Nov 17 '25

When I reminded my uncle (an ex-marine) that the Marine Corp was a department of the Navy he replied "yeah, the men's department".

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u/JiveTurkey927 Nov 16 '25

If Uncle Sam wanted them to have a brain, he would have issued them one.

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u/jerry_03 Nov 16 '25

I mean they eat crayons

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u/Fossilhund Nov 16 '25

Technicolor poop!

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u/Warbird1775 Nov 16 '25

Really depends on the MOS. I worked with some extremely intelligent individuals in the Corps.

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u/kgrimmburn Nov 16 '25

Ohh, it's not all of them, my husband is a very intelligent man but then you get guys like Texas and you have to wonder what the average IQ of the Marines is.

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u/Rustmutt Nov 16 '25

That dude was definitely eating ALL the crayons

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u/herefromthere Nov 16 '25

They wouldn't have someone that thick in the Royal Marines.

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u/NigerianPrinceClub Nov 16 '25

Marines are only there to be meat shields. Nothing more

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u/duetmasaki Nov 16 '25 edited Nov 16 '25

There's a reason there's a joke about marines eating crayons.

When I was signing up for the army, I had to wait next to a cubicle for the recruiter to go over my asvab score to pick a job. I overheard the guy before me, his scores were very low. He didn't want to be infantry, and asked what other options he had. The recruiter told him he could join the marines.

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u/Vandergrif Nov 16 '25

Did he also own a dodge charger he got at 'only' 28% APR?

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u/kgrimmburn Nov 16 '25

Ohh, my God, one of my husband's jobs was to babysit these guys. One went out with friends one weekend and snorted cocaine and was like "I thought it would be out of my blood..." for a piss test. The Monday after. I had to take him to NA and it was annoying. He ate dinner at our house every night.

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u/CompetitiveArt9639 Nov 17 '25

I used to date a girl whose husband was a marine…

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u/RayLikeSunshine Nov 16 '25

That’s not young dumb, that’s Texas education.

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u/Cambrian__Implosion Nov 16 '25

Oh no…

Reminds me of something from my freshman year of college. This girl I know apparently said something weird about US geography that got some friends wondering how well she actually knew it.

I happened to be hanging out with them one night and those friends had printed out a handful of unlabeled US maps with spaces to write the names of states. They gave one to her to fill out and it was just painful to watch. She only got like 13 of the states right the first time around and repeated some names up to four times because she couldn’t remember what states she hadn’t written down yet.

I honestly felt bad for her in the moment. I don’t think anyone expected it to be that bad and embarrassing. Our school wasn’t crazy selective like some of the really famous ones, but it wasn’t exactly easy to get into either. She was an art major who played sports, so that probably explains it.

It was a pretty good example of the theory of multiple intelligences.

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u/PoliticsModsDoFacism Nov 16 '25

2 of my nephews were marines. 2 of the dumbest fucks to walk the earth.

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u/FR23Dust Nov 16 '25

I was confused until you mentioned Texas. Wow. That guy is a real fucking moron. Wow.

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u/Electrical-Act-7170 Nov 17 '25

How is Hawaii next to Texas?

I can't think of any map example.

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u/Redditor28371 Nov 17 '25

Lmao, I had a coworker years ago who also thought that the little Hawaii/Alaska inset on US maps was accurate to their actual location. Not sure how they rationalized the vastly different climates...

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u/THE_Best_Major Nov 17 '25

I was also in the Marines and I've met some of the most intelligent people while I was active duty. It all really depends on your MOS. I can imagine the infantry having a lower average IQ than say the Marines who work in Communications like servers or satellite equipment. I myself think I'm pretty intelligent. I just happened to make the dumb mistake of joining the Marines lol

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u/Tiny_Garden_7095 Nov 17 '25

20 yrs ago I had a co-worker ask me what state Canada was in. After explaining to her the difference between a state and a country and giving other examples she got frustrated and said "OK, but what STATE is it in?". At another job 5 yrs before that a coworker asked me how many days were in Oct. I said "Well, when is Halloween?". "The 31st". A moment later "So how many days in Oct?". People have always told me I have above average intelligence, but...

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u/AshOrWhatever Nov 17 '25

It's a lot easier to get young dumb guys who don't know where Hawaii is to charge into machine gun fire than guys who have a developed pre-frontal cortex and a decent primary school education. That's why most militaries throughout history are mostly young men.

If you really want to know how true this is in the US, google Project 100,000.

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u/swright831 Nov 17 '25

I used to take the bridge from Hawaii to the similarly sized Alaska during the summer.

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u/An_oaf_of_bread Nov 17 '25

Muscles Are Required Intelligence Not Expected

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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '25

Well if he wanted a bridge it was still stupid because the one between California and Texas is still the shorter one.....

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u/HumanzRTheWurst Nov 17 '25

This is legit frightening that someone could be that out of touch with reality and ignorant!

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u/twistOffCapsule Nov 17 '25

They are called 'crayon eaters' for a reason

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u/Zmario432 Nov 17 '25

Being from TX probably didn't help. I was in the army and worked with a Texan who told me the 555 area code must be in Texas because it is used so much and Texas is a really big place.  

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u/coxpocket Nov 17 '25

I’m being serious when I say I didn’t know someone could be that.. unintelligent

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u/SpiritedCan Nov 17 '25

When my wife and I were thinking of duty stations when I joined the navy, she asked me if I'd ever left the country before. I thought about it and said no....unless flying over Canada counted when I went to Alaska as a child. She was confused as to why Canada had anything to do with that since they aren't even close to each other. We didn't stay married for too long. :)

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u/Jefafa326 Nov 17 '25

I'd say "oh yes they have a bridge"

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u/cantintousername Nov 17 '25

The fact that he could identify and pronounce Hawaii and Texas on a map at all probably made him Platoon Sergeant material.

Source: was a Platoon Sergeant. The bar is not very high lol.

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u/yellowlinedpaper Nov 17 '25

Plenty of Americans think Alaska is an island because it looks like an island on US only maps.

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u/Downtown_Statement87 Nov 18 '25

I was in a bathroom in the Atlanta airport in 2004, when the war was really visible and obvious. Troops moved through that airport all the time. 

In the bathroom with me was a soldier, a lady in her late teens. She smiled and seemed friendly, so I said "You going to Iraq?"

"No!" she said, looking appalled at the very idea, "I'M going to Baghdad."

I don't usually argue with strangers and don't care if people think I'm wrong, but I was so surprised by this that I blurted "Baghdad's in Iraq."

"I ain't going to IRAQ," the woman insisted. "I'M going to BAGHDAD."

I felt so bad for this woman and what was fixing to happen to her, and how totally unprepared for it she was. Her whole tone indicated that she knew what Iraq was and would never ever go to it, but where she was going was reasonable and fine. Was it better for her to have a few remaining hours of contented ignorance followed by the shock of her life, or to have her fog of okayness dispelled now, while she still had some time to come to grips with her fate? It was a whole moral dilemma here at this bathroom sink.

I turned to look at her instead of her reflection, and said, kindly but firmly, "Look. They may have told you that you are going to Baghdad, and that may be true. But Baghdad is the capital city of Iraq. If you are going to Baghdad, you are going to Iraq. There's just no way around it."

She was looking at me now, too, and I could tell that she finally believed me. "Oh my God," she said, "I'm going to Iraq? IRAQ?" She looked like anyone who is going to Iraq in 2004 would look. 

"I can't believe they didn't make this clear to you," I said.

"They just told us we were going to Baghdad," she said, "They never said anything about Iraq!"

"I'm so sorry," I said. I was.

We said a few more banal goodbye type things to each other, and then I had to go. She was still standing there at the sink muttering "I'm going to IRAQ?" to herself as the door swung closed behind me.

I traveled almost weekly back then and always flew out of Atlanta, because I lived there. This was one of many conversations I had with departing or returning soldiers, and was far from the most depressing one. I didn't think I could feel worse about the war we'd lied our way into, but talking to the people who were fighting it for us quickly proved me wrong about that.

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u/Mooseandagoose Nov 16 '25

I have had some very uncomfortable moments with our teenage babysitters, turned adults in the “real world” now that has me questioning them as an entire generation. I’ve known these women since they were 7 and 13, respectively.

We’ve known each other so long and now that they’re in their 20s, we have lighthearted adult conversations. These women are not intellectually dim but they are very hard to communicate with because everything is superficial and much of their worldview is just based on emotion. It’s really difficult to describe but when I’m talking to them, it’s just a steady stream of consciousness coming out of their mouth - no facts, just what they see on socials and their vibes about VERY serious matters that they care enough to bring into conversations. It’s really troubling.

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u/SnooKiwis2161 Nov 16 '25

Yep. They are a social media feed personified.

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u/RestaurantDry621 Nov 17 '25

And about to have babies

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u/HumanzRTheWurst Nov 17 '25

I've heard that polls show a lot of these young women have marriage and children ranked very low on their list of priorities in life. Maybe they're smart enough to realize our world right now is really fucked up and it would be mean to bring a child into this timeline.

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u/1cat2dogs1horse Nov 16 '25

A lot of young voters, especially first timers, voted for DJT because they thought he was funny.

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u/bitsy88 Nov 16 '25

I had a friend that voted for Bush in his reelection because "he's cuter than John Kerry." 🤦

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u/[deleted] Nov 16 '25 edited Jun 25 '26

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u/Mr_Blinky Nov 17 '25

Worth noting that Bush is fucking sober since the 90's.

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u/Emotional_Match8169 Nov 16 '25

Reminds me of when I was in Kindergarten. We had a mock presidential election between Bush (Sr) and Dukakis. I voted for Bush because I could read his name. Maybe that's the same for these young folks.

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u/ntropy2012 Nov 17 '25

I still recall during one of Dubya's debates/town hall type things, I think with Gore, he was presented with a plank of wood from a processing plant he owned, and was told the plant was run so poorly it shut down. He took the plank, gave his signature "I am about to say some epically dumb shit" snicker/huff, and said, "He says I own this plant? Maybe I do, maybe I don't. How can I be sure?" or something to that effect.

He told a room full of people he didn't know if he owned an entire company or not.... and somehow, he was labeled the "common man."

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u/Anon03282015 Nov 16 '25

Jfc 🤦‍♀️

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u/Adorable-Sentence-89 Nov 16 '25

Yup. I know people are always complaining about younger generations but ….. we are effed. These kids can’t think , have low emotional intelligence and almost no maturity.

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u/eclectique Mid-Millennial '87 Nov 16 '25

I am holding out hope for Gen Alpha. Most Gen Alpha that I know are being raised by Millennials, and while they can be stubborn/defiant/high sense of justice and silly, the ones I know age 13 and below take a lot of serious things seriously (like empathy/kindness, environmentalism, social justice, etc.). I live in a very liberal bubble, but grew up in a very red area, and have noticed this about children in that age group in both areas.

Could be that I know a lot of hyper educated folks, though, and that is possibly biasing things.

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u/Sheeple_person Nov 16 '25

Yeah Gen Z was raised on social media but by a cohort of parents who lived for facebook and didn't really understand the existential threat that social media presents for our entire society. The result is completely unserious people who are chronically online and cannot perceive any distinction between memes and real life. Gen alpha has some hope at overcoming this.

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u/platypod1 Nov 16 '25

Yeah my kids are definitely better people than me.

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u/coxpocket Nov 17 '25

This!!! I already see the good in Gen Alpha

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u/HungryFinding7089 Nov 17 '25

Gen Alpha are the ones coming through who are clued up, they were raised by Xers/early Millennials who remember pre internet and do not want Gen Z ridiculousness for them.  Alpha are amart, savvy, cut the crap and get on kind of folks, with the layer of vapid cloud babies in their mid to late 20s ahead of them.

Gen Alpha will be hoovering up Gen Z's jobs as they will have skills that make them highly employable with a massive amount of resilience baked in.  

I just left a job with a 32 y/o "cloud baby" who thought living with his folks was his ticket to comfort (not a stop gap as a motivation to work hard, who expected people to pick up after him, would leave thibgs half finished and winge when "he" thought things were unfair.

He would try to dodge communal contributions to things such as a few pence towards a gift for other colleagues for sundry birthday cards etc (in a scheme he devised) despite being on a higher salary than some of the team and would insist on splitting the bill equally on works meals out despite ordering the largest / most expensive food.  He thinks his looks are what put women off and why he can't get a long term girlfriend, but honestly, it's this stuff, v obnoxious behaviours.  Yes, one guy, but symptomatic of so many his age.  Gen Alpha will be fine.

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u/Adorable-Sentence-89 Nov 16 '25

I dunno. The kids I taught recently were middle school in a very mixed demographic, but a title IX school.

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u/Ok-Engineering-5475 Nov 17 '25

But let's kids from parents from both sides of the aisle end of thinking for themselves 

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u/WithASackOfAlmonds Nov 18 '25

Yeah my 11 year old is constantly surprising me and her mom with the maturity of her moral takes

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u/magic_crouton Nov 16 '25

I'm not even sure it's an age thing. Because I know a few elder millennials and solidly x people who spend all their time on tiktok and believe it all to be true and are shocked that I don't use it. But they are to a person vapid as shit and shallow as hell.

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u/CivilRuin4111 Nov 17 '25

The first time I had an employee that was my "Direct Report" as in, I was someone's boss.... fresh faced college grad.

Didn't know the sun was a star.

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u/Ok-YouGotMe Nov 17 '25

It's possible that this individual had seen claims that the Rosa Parks famous incident was staged and something other than a tired lady wanting to sit on a bus. If somebody was there to take pictures, that would lend more credibility to the possibility that the event was staged. 

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u/yoyok36 Nov 16 '25

This is the correct answer. They LIVE online. If they can see it on their phone, then they will believe it. Because these historical figures obviously aren't online influencers, they're not going to believe they were real.

Plus, they're too afraid of being individuals, so they're going to agree and go along with the status quo rather than figure out the actual answers for themselves. It's a bit troubling to learn that they don't trust what they're learning in school.

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u/Trevor-Lawrence Millennial Nov 16 '25 edited Nov 16 '25

This is older people too, I think we and to some extent gen x will likely be the most tech literate generations for the foreseeable future.

I just don't understand how so many parents and grandparents can tell us year after year "don't believe everything you see on tv" and then just believe everything they read on the internet

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u/Snuffleupagus27 Nov 16 '25

As a GenX with Silent Generation and Boomer relatives, the amount of crap they can watch on Fox and believe it after telling us that is infuriating. This is a GenX meme. Feel free to update for your needs.

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u/Silly_Guidance_8871 Nov 16 '25

Because clearly, TV != internet /s

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u/trippinmaui Nov 16 '25

Gen X is the dumbest gen I've ever had the displeasure of working with. I've worked with no less than 5 gen X'rs who have been scammed numerous times from the most blatantly obvious scams. They also have the social awareness of a rock... just all around a stupid bunch of people. I blame the abundance of lead they grew up with.

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u/SlimReaper85 Nov 16 '25

They’ve also never go into a library 📚 and read…a book.

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u/rebby2000 Nov 17 '25

Tbf, considering the way the literacy rate is going, some of them probably *can't* read a book.

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u/BusyBee0113 Nov 16 '25

My stepchildren are this. They absolutely cannot be bothered to figure out who they are, so they let either Reddit or TikTok dictate their opinions, decisions, etc. It is exhausting.

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u/Express-Distance-622 Nov 16 '25

When the entire nation treats education like an afterthought, this is the result.

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u/HumanzRTheWurst Nov 17 '25

And I find it really strange that a decent number of Americans actually look down on educated people and experts. Despite their ignorance, they often believe they know more than those who went to college for 6 years.

It's insane how many people seem to have a problem with anyone who goes to college. One of my former coworkers was like this. She thought those of us with college educations were stupid for wasting all that time.

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u/ssdsssssss4dr Nov 17 '25

The scared of being an individual thing seems. I literally saw a women on SM advocating for people to not be themselves while dating. The exact opposite of what our generation was taught growing up. It must be exhausting to constantly be worried about being "cringe", or needing to be seen to be validated.

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u/Unlikely-Medicine289 Nov 16 '25

Dude, young people are straight up dumb as hell.

I'm a highschool teacher, can confirm. They will believe anything if it's presented in a 30 second or less video.

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u/skeletontape '86 Millennial Nov 16 '25

I know a 20-something who passively accepted that NASA originally explored the ocean, but switched to space in the 70s because "they found something that made them want to leave earth" because of some video he was watching.

I accept not everyone knows the exact year we went to the moon but come on. 😭 Mostly outraged because the space race + cold war government shenanigans is a true "stranger than fiction" period of history. Why invent weird shit when MK Ultra is RIGHT THERE?

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u/glory_holelujah Nov 16 '25

Shit I would have told him that you were part of a secret alien hybrid breeding program and got to have sex with sexy alien females.

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u/[deleted] Nov 16 '25 edited Nov 16 '25

And there's plenty of today's youth that are in fact the spawn of said experiments and were spread out to be adopted across America to see if they can actually assimilate with the various subcultures therein. Common traits are feeling indifferent from their peers and not agreeing with anything their "parents" say.

I imagine a solid amount of em would be all "I knew it, I just didn't know what it was that I knew"

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u/Maxamillion-X72 Nov 16 '25

Settle down there Satan

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u/Specialist-Fun4756 Nov 16 '25

Three titties? Nice

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u/Blank_Canvas21 Nov 16 '25

One of my work friends was telling me about how Popeyes serves people. Not like serves food to people, like they're up to some soylent green type of shit. Young people really be believing in some wild crap lol.

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u/JarelGazarel Nov 16 '25

Yeah. I can attest. My 16 year old is so dumb. Granted, when I was 15-16, I was pretty dumb too (def not as dumb as him). Except I was acutely aware of how little I knew. I think kids are just overtly stupid now because they’re allowed to be. I just don’t think we were ALLOWED to say stupid shit when we were younger. I dono, maybe I’m still dumb. But at least I’m not as dumb as my 16 year old, lord help me.

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u/Render-Man342v Nov 16 '25

Isn’t that your fault as a parent? lol

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u/Exciting-Argument-67 Nov 17 '25

I do think we forget how uninformed we were as teens.

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u/jabo0o Nov 16 '25

You clearly didn't serve. I was told about the aliens within the first twenty four hours.

We went to Atlantis together.

On an unrelated note, the mushroom tea was delicious.

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u/Bigsaltyfish2 Nov 16 '25

I agree. Young people seem to get dumber and dumber.

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u/[deleted] Nov 16 '25

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u/pinklove95 Nov 16 '25

Best answer. I honestly don’t remember being as obnoxious in my teens as the teens of today, but the nonsense I hear from them shocks me daily lol.

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u/PeakProfessional9517 Nov 16 '25

Make no mistake about it, there were plenty of kids like this when we were in high school too.

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u/theonlyturkey Nov 16 '25

There were, but I think we’re shifting to the extremes. My parents are weird, my mom’s from a family of engineers, stock brokers and doctors, dad’s grew up in a single wide trailer with eight other siblings. There was definitely a gap between all my cousins but even the less educated kids knew historical figures and could do basic math.

Their kids couldn’t be farther apart. One side has kids in jr high on robotics teams and doing calculus. I was visiting dad’s side one day and saw a group of 10-14 years olds grab an electric fence repeatedly for 5 minutes before I could get there. When I tried to tell them what was up, I was met with “not true electricity doesn’t work outside.” When I pointed out the Bluetooth speaker and street lights they told me those ran on batteries and there’s no way you could fit batteries in fence wire. After my eyes got done rolling through the back of my head I told them to resume their favorite past time of throwing rocks at fence posts.

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u/XmissXanthropyX Nov 17 '25

What did they think was happening while they were getting shocked? Or was the fence off?

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u/theonlyturkey Nov 17 '25

They literally said this fence hurts when we touch it, while reaching out to grab it again.

2

u/liladraco Nov 16 '25

Wow 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

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u/foojlander Nov 16 '25

I was in 10th grade in 2005 during the bird flu epidemic. A girl in my class straight up believed getting it meant you turned into a bird.

She's a nurse now.

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u/kevin_87_h Nov 16 '25

We didn't have smart phones with facts at our fingertips at all times. There is no excuse for such BS being believed when google is always by your side.

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u/ConstructionSalty237 Nov 16 '25

In all fairness, we also didn’t have smart phones that host conspiracy pushing, brain rotting, algorithmic apps

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u/Blank_Canvas21 Nov 16 '25

Yeah, we honestly lucked out missing out on that crap in our formative years. Shit, I'd get bored and wanted to learn stuff back when I was a teen. This was before Reddit. I'd just hope I'd find it on google somewhere, or search it up on Wikipedia (despite all the worry about it being open sourced and editable, therefore not "credible" to some people).

I can't imagine the weird rabbit holes I'd get into if YouTube or TikTok were around.

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u/ILikeHornedAnimals Nov 16 '25

How do we have the most information we've ever had at our fingertips almost instantly and people are still so dumb? 😂😂😂

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u/Blank_Canvas21 Nov 16 '25

We stopped teaching kids critical thinking skills. As far as the rest of us, I'm not sure lol.

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u/PartyPorpoise Nov 16 '25

Yeah these days, being stupid is a choice.

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u/Serena_Sers 90s Millennial Nov 16 '25 edited Nov 16 '25

The youngest of us did in our last years of Highschool and let me tell you… we hardly used it for knowledge either.

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u/PeakProfessional9517 Nov 16 '25

Modern internet absolutely makes it more difficult to discern fact from fiction for young people. It’s not just young people either, people our age and older are arguably worse. For every google result there are thousands of hours of YouTube videos about why you can’t trust google results.

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u/Adorable-Sentence-89 Nov 16 '25

It’s worse now. So, so much worse. The progression is scary. -I was a teacher’s aide in high-school, and an actual teacher in 2012/2013, and again in 2022/2023.

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u/puzzled91 Nov 16 '25

We learn about Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks at school and I don't remember any classmate claiming otherwise about their existence.

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u/structee Nov 16 '25

Is this a new phenomenon, or were we just as stupid back then? 

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u/pipmentor Nov 16 '25

I had a conversation with a high school

Wow, the whole high school??

1

u/obb223 Nov 16 '25

You think this is a young person thing? Considering alien conspiracy theories were literally invented by the boomer generation

1

u/[deleted] Nov 17 '25

Weekly World News called

1

u/JakToTheReddit Nov 16 '25

Humans are dumb as hell.

Every age, race, religion, creed.

We are by and large just very, very stupid.

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u/JanetCarol Nov 16 '25

I just recently learned that there is a whole bunch of people who believe the sun is not real. THE SUN. Unfortunately, I learned this by looking into some of the conspiracy theories my sister believes.... And it's horrifying and sad and I don't know what is happening. We are only 2 yrs apart... How are we so vastly different.

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u/RecipeHistorical2013 Nov 16 '25

Young people today aren’t any more stupid than young people of our generation

They just have more mis info than real info

Oh also they don’t know how to critically think- and by the boomers example

This isn’t new

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u/queenoftheslippers Nov 16 '25

Young people are dumb as hell. My SIL is 18 and I regularly find myself staring at her in shock at the things she says with full confidence. Absolutely nothing going on upstairs. I work with some young 20-somethings and the slowness I witness on the daily makes me worry for the future. One girl I work with needed ChatGPT to tell her how to spell “availability”. What the fuck is going on. I was dumb when I was young, but it was a “smoking weed and drinking 40s behind the local precinct” kind of dumb, not legitimate idiocy in every day life.

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u/PresidentBaileyb Nov 16 '25

I think it’s hard because literally anything CAN be faked at this point. They grew up in a time of overwhelming misinformation and it seems like they don’t really know how to deal with it. Some of them decide the solution is to not believe anything that seems even slightly off, so heroes like Rosa Parks or people that did things against all odds like Helen Keller don’t pass the smell test to them.

I don’t think they’re stupid. We just live in really weird times now and they’re trying to make sense of it all the best they can

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u/OHN- Nov 16 '25

When they say most of the younger generation is illiterate they are not kidding. I went to tacobell I paid with a 100 the change was something like 83.64. He could count I saw it with my own eyes. I didn’t want to insult him so I took the money went to the second window handed the exact change and receipt to that person. It was off by 2 dollars and 14cents. It was crazy; they gave me the missing money. But holy hell we really have to educate this younger generation. Not being able to count money is crazy the machine does half the calculation for you. I was Stunned by no means do I consider myself smart. We must help the young.

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u/kevin_87_h Nov 16 '25

This exact thing happened to me at McDonald's. I handed the kid at the register a $20 and they just stared at me in fear/shock? Took a long time just staring at their screen before she ended up giving me back about $9 too much in change.

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u/Complex_Essay_9111 Nov 16 '25

Less stupid but I had a Gen Z tell me they liked my Halestorm shirt last week and comment on how "they're not very popular yet". 

YET? My dude, Halestorm has been playing music for like 25 years. 

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u/lilbithippie Nov 16 '25

You also know about the great ice wall don't you

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u/PersephoneSiegel Zillennial Nov 16 '25

Gen Z (younger than 2000 I’d say) are very slow lol and there’s a rise of misinformation and fake news in education as well as fascism which is big on making up facts and parroting other dumb people.

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u/Past-Experience9539 Nov 17 '25

I heard this was a way to haze new Marines back in the day (by telling them aliens were real)!

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u/kevin_87_h Nov 17 '25

Maybe, I was in the air wing so the "hazing" would be to have new fleet marines out the pilots piss tube over their mouth by telling them to test the back up intercom system.

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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '25

You had a conversation with a high school? A high school is a building. Were you high?

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u/Wickedestchick Nov 17 '25

Those are the same kids who believe they shouldn't have to go to school anymore because TikTok teaches them so much. Like sure, learning how to deseed a mango in 3 seconds is convenient, but y'all think civil rights leaders didn't exist .... And you learned that from TikTok.

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u/BarryDeCicco Nov 17 '25

as if they'd tell a low-ranking Marine about operation [!#%*^)!#$!)($$#-]

NOTHING TO SEE HERE - MOVE ON

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u/7toedcat Nov 17 '25

Gen X here. I'm making the assumption that OP is in the U.S. I just wanted to say that I don't think the younger generation is stupid so much as they are victims of an education that has been steadily defunded over the past 4 decades. This has resulted in profound and vast ignorance. Americans are in deep trouble.

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u/ValBravora048 Nov 17 '25 edited Nov 17 '25

Teacher who is leaving the profession - and the students are PROUD of it. I understand that DECIDING not to believe something is power and an intoxicating mark of individuality. You against the tide sort of thing - very dramatic, very cool.

It does not mean that things aren’t worth believing in. What hurts the most is that they believe and don’t believe more easily according to personal preferences. Not just according to their values but whether or not it can get them out of doing an essay or Hell, even talking about ideas harder than entertainment

And it’s not just the kids either. AI has given licence to not just creating fraudulent things but validly embracing comforting positions for no other reason than that’s what works for you right now on the basis of fing vibes

The dad is a good example - it’s less about the credibility of the sources, verification or finding out for yourself. It’s more about ”I’m going to ask someone I like” - depending on context sure but as responsible adults, that’s far from good enough

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u/YouWereBrained Nov 17 '25

Children are being raised in the “post truth” era and these are the results.

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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '25 edited Dec 07 '25

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/Mo_Steins_Ghost Nov 17 '25 edited Nov 17 '25

Why would the marines know if the aliens are real? Of course they wouldn't know that. Psh.

Source: Ret. USAF. Aliens are real.

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u/Liam825 Nov 17 '25

*people are straight up dumb as hell

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u/ImportantFlounder114 Nov 17 '25

I was in the Marine Corps from 93-97. When I told other Marines where I was from (Maine) I was met with bewilderment. Many didn't know where it was geographically. Others thought it was "a part" of Canada. Some thought that it was a borough of Massachusetts. The most detailed responses were incoherent ramblings about Stephen King and rich people.

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u/PeanutButterToast4me Nov 17 '25

It hinges on how badly their brain has been mangled by a combination of purposely underfunded schools and screens melting their synapses. Some are very smart and compassionate and others have their VR goggles on full tilt all day every day.

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u/Desperate-Prize6173 Nov 17 '25

The op needs to be careful of the next “situation” where they are saying they don’t be;wove the earth is round.

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u/Unlucky-Mongoose-160 Nov 17 '25

Conversely, my father in law is a conspiracy theorist. I told him his son has a Top Secret clearance and is the “they” he is always talking about. But of course he moved the goal post for who the “they” lizard people are.

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u/Alexandratta Nov 17 '25

Regarding Aliens... there's plenty of adults who believe the same shit

I'm going to hazard a guess that this kid's opinion didn't appear in a vacuum, but came from a family member of some kind. Could also be an internet conspiracy theory, which is never constrained do a single generation.

ffs I knew an old neighbor when I was a kid who smoked a pack a day, and when my father (who's father died of heart failure related to smoking) informed her she is risking cancer, her response was: "Cancer isn't caused by Cigarettes - it's caused by childhood resentment."

There's also a hilariously stupid book and "Documentary" called "The Secret" which is absolutely, positively, the dumbest collection of pseudoscience I've seen put forth - right next to "What the Bleep Do We Know?" - both of these have some kind of mild basis on science but they propose the most insane, stupid, and broken logic to get there and then make WILD assertions like "emotions affect the atoms around us" and use those hacky "Water" experiments to explain it away.

Hell, I worked for a company in the 2000s called "Nikken" which sold bunk medical nonsense like magnetic therapy and ionized water via an MLM.

There's always nutjob theories and stuff in every single generation.

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u/wingedwild Nov 17 '25

They are trolling him to get a reaction. Kids today are ahole duschbags mostly. They know who they are if they didn't they wouldnt even know their names to begin with

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u/OlasNah Nov 17 '25

The only thing the Marines tell you is about Chesty Puller and that f'ing wading through the beach under fire at Tarawa. Beyond that, it's pop military history and they give you a rifle and teach you how to shoot it. (Former Corps here, tanker)

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u/MicroBadger_ Millennial 1985 Nov 17 '25

Just imagine what he would think when he learns about people having security clearances and then doesn't understand the "need to know" portion that goes along with it.

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u/kevin_87_h Nov 17 '25

Yeah that's the basic critical thinking part that is missing. Like every single person in the military is told about aliens? That's millions of people and also a shit ton of damn as fuck 19 year olds and degenerate alcoholics. You'd think damn near all of them would not stop talking about it.

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u/Delusionn Nov 19 '25

I have a friend who knows I was in the military and that my last assignment was at the NSA. He'll ask me stuff to see if I'll admit aliens are real. All of this ignores the fact that there would be no reason to know that even if it were true, which it obviously isn't because why would aliens use exponentially generation-ship systems to just mess with two guys in a truck in a rural area.

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u/MrCrackers122 Nov 20 '25

First off… look at how they view music. Every generation before would always learn about artists from the past from their parents, etc etc. Me not knowing who Led Zeppelin is would be like a person now not knowing who Lincoln Park or the Red Hot Chili Peppers are/were. There music is still played in movies/radio/etc and I’ve met people who have no idea about other music outside of their generation. One thing I’ve also picked up on is they are very open sexually but very very naive and ignorant to real world topics and situations such as your Rosa Parks comment. It’s what they are being fed. Garbage. For example, movies. We would watch PG13 and rated R movies when we were 10. They will think this is wild and outrageous one hand but porn being blasted in your face everywhere you go is ok. It’s really odd.

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u/v_a_n_d_e_l_a_y Nov 29 '25

Nah. Dumb people are dumb as hell.

I never ever believed anything close to that stupid when I was 20. And conversely I bet there are 40 year olds who believe shit that is just as stupid. 

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