I just realized that I have lived most of my life AFTER 9/11.

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marcos_MN@reddit

I brought this up in another sub; the day I was born is closer in time to WWII than today. Fucking wild.

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Less_Likely@reddit

Not even that close either. The elder Xennials like me passed that point 15 years ago. The younguns like you only 6 years ago

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coffee_and-cats@reddit

Well this just isn't a kind or funny thing to say 😕

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marcos_MN@reddit

Well, that’s the thing about the truth…

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xParesh@reddit

And now you reminded me that most of my old school teachers were born after WW2 or veterans who were always angsty.

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Mail_Order_Lutefisk@reddit

It can’t be true but I’m not going to look it up and just dismiss the poster who said it as a lunatic.

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marcos_MN@reddit

I might be crazy, but not that kind of crazy

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I typically hit my friends up with a birthday text that is something like “Happy Birthday! Your birth is the approximate midpoint between today and the 1936 Berlin Olympics.” (This would be true for someone turning 45 currently)

Each year forward moves this date back 2 years, so we can reference The Great War in just a few years.

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BritOnTheRocks@reddit

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Scruffy442@reddit

It only moves the date back 1 year, but it does add 2 years to the total span.

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Hilsam_Adent@reddit

This happened to me in 2010. Time waits for no man.

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drainbamage1011@reddit

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rebelangel@reddit

I’m calling the police.

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Individual_Sky_4612@reddit

My old af ass is about to die in a corner now, thanks 🤣🤣👵🏼

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Suns_In_420@reddit

Time, how does it work?!

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marcos_MN@reddit

It’s the moments that take up the dog day.

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rideofthebasilisks@reddit

Growing up, it wasn't just history, it was ancient history. World wars were in black & white and the only people who cared were your crazy uncle and the PEOPLE WHO WERE THERE.

Aging gives you such a wild perspective of time.

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marcos_MN@reddit

I completely agree.

At 42 years old, I’m starting to realize how young society is as a whole.

It’s a crazy realization. And it makes me ponder a lot of more existential things as I age.

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Curious_Ninja5952@reddit

Ooof

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Pope_Squirrely@reddit

Fuck you and the horse you rode in on!

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ErnieBochII@reddit

Hey that’s my sister, man!

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marcos_MN@reddit

Fucking great comment right here

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CubicleHermit@reddit

I used to think this way but then I saw this XKCD.

Kind of took the piss out of the whole line of comparison.

But yeah, I am old, and it definitely hits me in odd ways.

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winnower8@reddit

Wait … 1980-1945=35. I’m 46. Oh, fuck you.

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marcos_MN@reddit

I don’t control the passage of time, my friend. Wish I did.

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Notabagofdrugs@reddit

Since you’re younger than me, fuck you for making me feel old, and knowing this fact.

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OrigamiTongue@reddit

You’re dead to me for this

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Aol_awaymessage@reddit

Someone born the day the Japanese bombed Pear Harbor was my exact age on my 42nd birthday. 😬

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Mail_Order_Lutefisk@reddit

Noooooo. Make it stop!!!!

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hypo11@reddit

Oh god. And it’s not even close. 1945-1981 is 36 years. And 45 years since.

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illinoishokie@reddit

I see somebody woke up today and chose violence.

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Deesmateen@reddit

Wait WTF did you just say and why do I hate you now

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mallorn_hugger@reddit

Omg. Thanks for ruining my life.

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deowolf@reddit

Ruining our lives, comrade.

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Chunklob@reddit

The before times

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TomPalmer1979@reddit

Yikes. Yeah...I'm 46. 21 yrs pre-9/11, 25 yrs post.

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TorsteinVarangot@reddit

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brainvheart143@reddit

Hmm Yeah. TBH 2001 is also when shit started going bad for me, along with America

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irate_alien@reddit

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SizeableBlast666@reddit

Ah crap. Now I just realized the same.

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GenericDave65@reddit

I remember the first time I hired someone born after 9/11…that was 8 years ago

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SaltBag666@reddit

Woah. I have never really thought of this…. And it is really sad. That is really when everything drastically changed.

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Celestial-Spell@reddit

it's crazy how time flies and things change so much

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Dicfive@reddit

21 years pre, 25 years post.

I cannot reiterate how much better the 80s and 90s were than what we have today.

It’s immeasurable

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ContributionNo9292@reddit

I liked the music better and every mobile phone was significantly better than the previous.

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Dicfive@reddit

Exactly. We had a monoculture. We had things to look forward to. Things were exciting.

“Boo it was bad, people were oppressed”. No shit, people are oppressed now Einstein. It’s just not the ones you care about.

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Skore_Smogon@reddit

I miss the monoculture.

Even though I was into rock and heavier music, I still knew who the big names in pop, rap, R&B were from watching ads and/or shows on MTV showcasing things.

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JJHall_ID@reddit

Eh, I don't know that I agree. Some things were better, but some things were worse too. And a lot of the things that we perceive as better back then are simply things we weren't aware of as kids, but it's actually better today. If anything it should make us appreciate the things we have better today, and the things that our kids (and for some, grandkids) have that we didn't back then. And it should make us sympathize with our elders and the "get off my lawn" mentality. Hopefully with that knowledge we can prevent ourselves from becoming the grumpy old curmudgeons that we have always despised. If we do nothing but romanticize the past, we're doomed to follow in their footsteps.

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midlifeShorty@reddit

I hate that I'm this comment is being upvoted.

This is not true. You just feel that way because of nostalgia for being young and a kid. Every generation thinks this. That is why the boomers vote the way they do... for someone who promises to make things like the past (which they view as great).

Can we not become like them?

If you are idealizing the 80s and 90s because you miss being young, you are being selfish. You are forgetting about all the people who were more marginalized back then (LGBT folks and women). You are forgetting how high the crime rates were back then. You are forgetting that things seemed better because you couldn't instantly find out about all the bad things in the world online. The world was only better to you because you were in a kid in a bubble.

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Dicfive@reddit

Go white knight somewhere else.

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midlifeShorty@reddit

Um, that isn't really what white knight means.

I am just stating facts. Things were not better back then.

You are going to become a miserable old fuck that just insists at everything was better "back in my day" because you can't tell the difference between your own nostalgia and reality. The main thing that has changed is you. Get out there and try to enjoy life like you used to when you were young and you may find out things aren't so bad.

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CubicleHermit@reddit

How much of that was "being a kid is better than being an adult?"

1980s were physically more violent and physically unsafe, people smoked everywhere, and we literally had the threat of nuclear war over our heads.

1990s were much, much better than the 1980s, but still very sexist, homophobic, and inconvenient compared to today.

Having had a medical issue in my 30s that if I were my parents age I probably wouldn't have survived had it happened in the 1970s - and having lost my dad in 1990 to a cancer that would be much more treatable today - plus all of the above, I'm going to call hijinks on that.

Yeah, some aspects of the world and the economy suck. They've always sucked in their own way.

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chowderhound_77@reddit

I’m 25 before 25 after. I agree with you about the 80s and 90s

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CanadianSpectre@reddit

I feel this every day.

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Juls_Santana@reddit

Never thought about it until now but.....yeah same here.

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GreedyComedian1377@reddit

Ill be damned, you're right. 19 before and 25 after. That sucks

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No-Drag1198@reddit

Same for me.

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PersonalityAlive6475@reddit

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(I remember seeing this in theaters…. 😒)

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BigPoppaStrahd@reddit

I was 20, I am 45. Damn

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icanhaztuthless@reddit

If it makes you feel any better, both of my children know nothing about pre-9/11 life. They've lived their entire lives with the world in conflict of some sort or another.

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martapap@reddit

There were conflicts before 9/11.

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icanhaztuthless@reddit

Of course there were. That’s not what I said, though…

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Drilling4Oil@reddit

It really was the turning point onto the "bad timeline".

And I think it's one of the things that makes us Xennials while in my experience in dealing with them, full-on Millenials don't fully seem to grasp the downward shift. And I'm not knocking on them. But it's different when you're half-way through college, having really experienced the world as it was before versus just being a child for all the 90s.

Of course, boomers were fully on board for it. It did not deform their reality at all. They loved shit like The Patriot Act. It gave them their last chance at their own "good war" (from the sidelines so they could fully bey for blood without having to do anything).

I watched The Matrix as I was graduating HS. It was a cool flick and all. We loved it. But, we carried on into Y2K thinking not much of it beyond, "cool action movie".

Then that awful day happened and it seemed like we were from then on we were living it.

Tired, boss.

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washufize@reddit

First day of my junior year at NYU. Watched it happen in person. I can only image what the world would be like if it never happened.

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wyc1inc@reddit

JFC, I read the title and was about to comment "why are you posting on the Xennials sub" then I did the math in my head...

19 years pre, going on 25 years post. My goodness

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Old_Association6332@reddit

It is very sobering. There's now a whole generation who just know 9/11 as a history event.

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Old_Association6332@reddit

For me, my previously wonderful life started to go spiraling down to the absolutely devastating state it is today immediately after 9/11. My life has now been bad for more years than it's good. Very depressing

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ImightHaveMissed@reddit

Well… shit

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ali2911gator@reddit

Man I still remember that day so clearly all these years later.

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pissjugman@reddit

It is a weird inflection point, as I’m 1982 so it’s really a dividing line of my childhood and adult life. Introduction to how messed up this world can be

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ErnieBochII@reddit

Ooof. I don’t like learning the 5 years after it was true.

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ErnieBochII@reddit

Did I say 5? I meant 7. It’s because im also old enough to forget how old I am. And it’s Monday.

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Cutthechitchata-hole@reddit

Holy shit. Crept up on us, didnt it?

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Wise-Lab-2321@reddit

9/11 was absolutely a pivotal turning point for the worse in American history, culture and politics. Our country went batshit crazy after 9/11 and never recovered. If 9/11 hadn't happened, we probably wouldn't have the orange shitstain now. I don't think it's the ONLY reason of course, but a big part of why. It's been a very depressing 20+ years watching this happen. 21 year old me never in a million years would have thought my future would look like this. I mean, when I was in high school in a rural small town in a blue state, everyone considered white supremacists losers. Now look where we are with regards to those asshats. :/

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mt80@reddit

I suppose the terrorists won if you look at it that way

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Wise-Lab-2321@reddit

Sad agree. Sigh.

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Forsythia77@reddit

Ugh. I'm 49, so 24 years pre, 25 years post. Now get off my lawn.

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Asleep_Onion@reddit

My kid was born in 2009, so 9/11 to him is like what the viet nam war was to me.

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sirdrumalot@reddit

I was 18 so it came with my transition into adulthood.

Also what a wild day. I was a freshman at college but had no classes that day so I was at work. Learned about the attacks from customers walking in talking about what they heard on the radio. Put on the Howard Stern show and listened all day until I closed up the shop, then watched it all on the evening news. My boss was out of town and heading back that day from Newark. He took a picture of the towers on fire while he was sitting in the plane on the tarmac.

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Notabagofdrugs@reddit

I heard the news first on the Stern show. I was 19 and heading into work late that day as I had an interview in Boston for a different job. Got to the office and had just a fucking weird day. Obviously everyone was all talking about it and just I felt that was the day I kind of felt like I became an adult that day.

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bedspring76@reddit

Damn. Is this year my 50/50 split?

Shit. Weird to think about.

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Mysterious-Lab-5918@reddit

Fhook Yhoou!

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FooFightingManiac@reddit

Fhook Yhoou?! Fhook Me!!!

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piscian19@reddit

Yeah... I think what has become very clear living in a post 9/11 world is that there's a big club and Im not in it.

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FooFightingManiac@reddit

Gets truer every day

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deowolf@reddit

George Carlin had been saying that at least 10 years before 9/11

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PHX480@reddit

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Holy fuck.

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Sodamyte@reddit

I'm at the "it was half my life ago" point.

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PolarXnl@reddit

Didn’t think of it until now, but damn.

2001-1983=18
2026-2001=25

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phillyscreamer@reddit

It would have cost you nothing to not say that.

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-threefeetoffun@reddit

In 3 years the towers will be gone longer than the were open.

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Separate-Relative-83@reddit

I was newly 21 and newly married. It was a time. I’m not a fan of here.

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FoppyRETURNS@reddit

Most of our lives has been a two generation long practical joke at this point.

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MyDearDoctor@reddit

Oh, that's so weird to think about. It's been more than half my life, too, and I can clearly remember what things were like before. This is minor in the grand scheme of things, but I used to love to travel and it's become such a nightmare since then that I never fly anymore unless I absolutely have to. I don't think I've been on a plane in about a decade. I'll drive upwards of 15 hours to avoid that bullshit.

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LittleBitOfStarshine@reddit

Yeah. I was 23 for 9/11. 47 now. How the world has changed indeed

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mrs_hippiequeen@reddit

i remember when i had lived my life a second time since 9/11. i turned 18 a week before, and 36 in 2019.

does anyone else really struggle with wondering if 9/11 changed everything, or just becoming an adult did?

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