On the Internet, what is a dead giveaway that someone is actually a kid?

I remember reading that when national parks tried to make a 'bear-proof' trashcan, they found that there was a larger overlap between the smartest bear and the stupidest human to make a viable product.

I feel like it's a similar situation here. The smartest kid and the stupidest adult are far more similar than we'd like to admit.

Tbh I find it much more surprising that there's an overlap of bears and stupid people than I do smart kids and dumb adults.

I've met an unfortunate amount of people that would struggle to dump water out of their boots with the instructions written on the bottom of the sole.
- Bears can be trained to drive cars and communicate through various means, it's thought they may be as smart as great apes like gorillas. This is why they were a choice circus animal for a long time.
  
  Yes, this should be terrifying information.
- It's less idiocy and more laziness. Any amount of inconvenience is too much for a lot of humans, unfortunately.
- ... people that would struggle to dump water out of their boots with the instructions written on the bottom of the sole.
  
  I love that analogy and need to commit it to heart. XD
- Why does dumping water out of boots have instructions? Isn't it like dumping water out of any other container?
- That last line is an absolutely brilliant insult. Love it.
I think it's more like: the maturest kids and the most immature adults.
- Yeah smart kids can be very immature
Side note: the National Park Service has an awesome team running their social media accounts. Their posts are always hilarious and informative.
Funny, I came here to make the exact same analogy. I totally agree - a mature kid and an immature adult have a lot of overlap.

Nice try little Timmy, but I won't be telling you how to pass as an adult.

Because you are a kid and you don't know but are pretending to be an adult. Nice try!
- That's what a kid pretending to be an adult would say.
  
  When I was your age, no kids did that, 'cause we had no damn internets back then. We had to actually walk outside to talk with others.
Everyone knows you hop on another kid's shoulders and put on a trenchcoat, fedora, and sunglasses and gave the name Robert Businessman.

Very confidently wrong, poor reading comprehension, poor grammar, limited vocabulary, emoji gore, catch phrase/pop culture quotes/talking points repeated with no comprehension of what they're saying, clearly not aware of how many things in life work, religious regurgitation while being surprised everyone doesn't agree with them. Very easily impressed with basic factual statements, clearly thinking confidence is the main thing that makes someone correct. Thinks their mom telling they they are handsome is a valid point. Idk, that's all I got.

Depending on what you meant by "very easily impressed with basic factual statements" it could go either way. I'm an adult and I'm happy to admit I don't know a lot things, sometimes I've been stunned that what I believed was totally wrong and all it took was some to give me a basic fact to make me realise.
- +1
  
  Ever since I was a wee flipflop I always liked to learn from my friends (and yes I was that gullible naive friend) but now even in my 20s it’s still fun to learn outside a classroom. I don’t have to worry about my terrible memory not keeping all the info, if it sticks it sticks
- I'm an adult
  
  🧐
- Happy Cake Day!
very confidently wrong

Lmao dude that’s just people in general especially on forums

There’s also nothing wrong with people learning new info, no matter how simple it may seem. That’s kind of a pretentious/egotistical way to operate.

Most of this list is actually pretty garbage. Emojis? Using slang/catch phrases? This is basic social stuff.
- You😆are🤓🤣wrong🤬😡! 💯💯👁️🍑👁️
- Got one
- What I wrote -- Very easily impressed with basic factual statements
  
  What you think it means -- there's something wrong with people who are learning new things.
  
  Does ''basic factual statements'' mean ''new information that someone is just now learning''. Can it also apply to information they already know, or believe is true? Can it also be referring to basic knowledge nearly everyone knows?
  
  Does 'being very easily impressed' include a situation where someone reacts to information in a typical fashion? Does it exclude adults learning or recognizing factual information and responding with a simple agreement, such as 'yeah that's true'? Or is this an indication that an overreacting response is the dead giveaway?
  
  Did the sentance make a claim something is wrong with being a child?
  
  Did the sentence claim that learning new information is likewise something wrong?
  
  Please write one 5 sentance paragraph explaining your opinion on the above two numbered questions. Proofreading will not be necessary.
Bonus: can also be applied to boomers.
- Boomers are just decrepit toddlers at this point anyway
- “Know why the call them baby boomers? Because all it takes is one little prick to their egos and boom! You’ve gotta baby!”
- Could be a new gameshow: Boomer or Toddler
Huh

Hexbear is an 8/10 on this scale
This is like reading a reverse horoscope - you've just thrown as many negative traits as you could think of at the wall, knowing at least a few will stick.

Nothing on your list couldn't also apply to an adult, especially those most privileged and entitled in society.
By these standards, most of my adult relatives are actually children.
- It's like I tell my kids, an adult is just a child who got old. It's also why a lot of cultures have a concept of adulthood that has nothing to do with reaching sexual maturity alone.
So every boomer on facebook. Got it.
Those first two...and a couple others, also apply to a lot of adults I have had political conversations with the past several years...
I think you're handsome too, reader. Don't listen to the haters.

I don't think there is a "dead giveaway". Plenty of kids can pass as adults online and plenty of adults seem like kids online. And sometimes with stuff like word usage/grammar/etc you can't tell if it's a child or someone who doesn't speak English very well or maybe an English-speaking adult who happens to type like that. There's a lot of different people in the world.

Yeah seriously, every time someone makes a generalization online "that subreddit is all 12 year olds anyway", "r/teenagers is mainly grown me", it really bothers me because no, you're just overconfident in estimating people's ages from text
- frfr m8
I imagine that part of it comes down to motivation. I pretended to be an adult on a special-interest forum when I was twelve years old because I needed an escape from my miserable existence. At that time, I had no control over my life and every morning I woke up meant I had a new chance for traumatic shit to happen. I desperately needed to be someone else, so I took my time, researched shit, and avoided any conversation where I might be outed. I'm sure I didn't fool everyone, but I got some shocked responses when I went back as an adult and owned up to it.

Kids doing it for the authority boost or just as a childish fancy will be easier to spot. Kids doing it as a coping mechanism for their horrible lives will probably blend in a lot better.
- Damn. I know this life. I don't wish it on anyone, except those who exposed me to it...
I can't get over ironically using stupid lingo, without being good at presenting it as ironic use...so I often seem like a child. I am certainly bad at forming sentences that are not stream of thought (with weird punctuation like parentheses containing clarification...like this...and overused ellipsis...)
- It's interesting to meet someone else who also struggles with an overuse of parentheses and ellipses (I didn't know what they were called, thanks for that!).
  
  This is a complete shot in the dark, but do you also happen to be on the spectrum? (I have nothing to base this on expect my theory that overclarification could be more common among neurodivergent people)
  
  Edit: ellipsis -> ellipses
I have found the gen xers are the WORST at texting and writing in general. At least the ones I know.
- I would die without autocorrect. I grew up with "mom, how do I spell (word)" and getting "sound it out", witch werks grate in Inglish...
- Ever watch a kid who grew up after smartphones try to type?

Extreme/insane positions on everything. Not just one or two insane positions, not just political extremism; when I say everything I mean EVERYTHING. No nuance allowed. And it has to be fully sincere, otherwise you are dealing with a Jreg.

There are milder versions of this, but I have rarely met a child that didn't have a strongly held insane belief formed from their limited experiences. My favorite was a kid who told me that eating pasta supports fascism because it comes from Italy, so loving Italian products means you support Mussolini. Pizza is fine, though, because that's American.

I aint reading allat💀💀💀💀💀💀💀

Like if gay is bad and u a sigma (YT shorts raised me)
👇

Nice yap sesh
- Bro is fluent in yappanese 💀💀💀

They're getting private messaged by YouTubers

💀
- 💀
Or a twitch streamer who designed his look off of the weird pedo dude down at the Batting cages.
- Ooooooooof

"Redditors of Reddit, how do you sexily sex the sex out of sexy sex???"

Serious response: you can't really make a very general rule. There are a lot of people who write quite maturely since their teens, and a lot of people who are morons since their teens and have endless dedication and determination to remain in that state for as long as they breathe.

I do remember some posts on r/sex back in the day that were absolutely kids (teens) and you could tell by how

Freaked out they were about totally normal stuff.

Excited they were about how great sex is.

I remember there was a funny day when there were two top upvoted posts on r/sex (probably in like 2017) where one was like

It turns me on when my boyfriend masturbates to me, am I normal?

And the other one was like

I (female bodied, they/them / nb) am a furry and my wife and I like to pretend that I'm a wolf and I'm hunting and eating her. What can we make that will look and feel like real organs I can "rip" out of her stomach and eat, and what could we use for fake blood that would be the easiest to clean up?

People kept linking the second one in the first one and reassuring this poor girl that she's totally normal.
- I (female bodied, they/them / nb) am a furry and my wife and I like to pretend that I’m a wolf and I’m hunting and eating her. What can we make that will look and feel like real organs I can “rip” out of her stomach and eat, and what could we use for fake blood that would be the easiest to clean up?
  
  Absolutely based, all the rest of us plebs just need to learn about the depth and power of their kinkiness. Cheers to their banquet.
- Laughed at the second girl talking about her wife
It really sounds like you're 14.
- Skibidibi toilet

When they're adamant that voting third party in the United States will be useful in some capacity, I assume they're 13

The youngsters are downvoting you, but what you're saying is sad but true. It's the reason Bernie never ran as an independent, he knew it would hand the victory to republicans on a silver platter.
I don't assume they are 13, but they at least aren't old enough to remember what happened in 2016.
- Or any other election year, for that matter. I don't think a third party candidate has gotten a significant voter block in 100 years.
Conversely: when they say this is the most important election of "our lifetimes", and the world will end if we lose.

(Doesn't mean they're wrong)
I know a full grown adult that does that in every election. Local elections, sure, I can understand, but he does that with all of them, Basically a card carrying communist that's a useful idiot for right wing politicians.
You would need some real insurance that others were commuted to vote 3rd party no matter what. Otherwise the real benifit is just getting to that 5% mark where third parties get some bennies like federal funding and automatic ballot access in some places. Which is minor vs say stopping a campaign of vengeance from a candidate who has acted feloniously already and has abused his position to black bag political opponents before.
Almost anyone with an irrational political stance betrays their youth.

Political ideology has always captivated the passions of youth, but isn't successfully implemented or even internalized except by people with age and experience and emotional regulation.
- I agree with you. Do you think people become more conservative with age or is it society becoming more progressive and leaving them behind? Obviously ignoring the current regressive times of the last eight+ years there.
  
  To contribute an answer to the original question I offer this post as evidence of age- thinking about how much has changed during my life may have come through above.
Why not vote 3rd party in states that only go one direction? Take NY for instance. What the fuck harm comes from voting 3rd party assholes for president? One time the state elected a republican candidate and it was (still is I think) the largest landslide in history. I'm 36 and have always hated the 2 party system. It's been easier and easier as I got older too with increasing political polarity.
- Because if enough people do that, it actually can result in that state not "doing what it always does."
  
  Assuming voting for X is going to result in Y getting elected over Z "anyways" is not a good strategy for getting what you want.

Not understanding the difference between pre and post 9/11 politics

Hate to break it to you but people born in 2006 are turning 18 this year (and are technically considered "adults").
- Having just turned 43, I can tell you that I don’t think I became an adult until my early/mid 30s.
That assumes you live in one of a small number of countries for which politics significantly shifted after one of those countries was attacked.

And also that you're at least old enough to have had a reasonable mature understanding of the political landscape before 2001, so as to appreciate how things changed. Let's assume that'd make you at least 20.

...So, we have to be at least 43 years old, and American, or you'll assume we're children?
To actually understand you'd have to have been following politics pre 9/11, which would make you probably 16 at the time. That means 39 right now. That's a lot of adults you're ruling out.

If you want to say understand society pre and post 9/11, then you're probably talking 12 at the time, so 35 right now. Still a lot of adults you're ruling out.
Bad assumption, a localized event doesn't affect everyone in the world equally.
So, uh, what is the difference?
I was alive for 9/11 and I don't know the difference.

I don't care for politics.
- I don’t care for politics.
  
  Your sphere of control should match your sphere of concern; and neither of those things are what you think they are.
- Not at least understanding the difference seems irresponsible.

I'm actually gonna give the benefit of the doubt and assume this is actually a grown idiot lol

Specifically in games: constantly repeating the flavor of the month insults. Typically some influencer comes up with a funny insult then for the rest of the month some kids use that one singular insult for every situation

I don't know about you all, but I have been posting as an adult human male for a numbers of years now despite being a 4 year old Alaskan Malamute. No one seems to notice or care.

I don't really know, but when they have weird illogical views that they defend with trump like arguments, I think they are kids. They might not be 10.

Some people's bodies continue to grow well after their brain stopped developing.
- Yes, but it's a little worse than that. One might take that to mean environmental, congenital, or even genetic factors. But there's more. Consider the role that trauma has to play here as it can directly cause arrested psychological development:
  
  https://psychcentral.com/ptsd/signs-trauma-has-you-stuck

I don't know

Edit: thanks for all the likes! I never got 100 before!!! 💀

riesling !!

(or smth)

Kids care too deeply about the most shallow things

Shut up you care about the most shallow things!!!
- no i dont!!!!1!!! i only care about the best things. you are stupid!!
Only kids? I know some very shallow grown folks with kids of their own.
- Those never matured

Assuming that getting married means you'll never masturbate again.

I can't say there is one. Every time i think to myself something like "goddamn, this person is immature" I remind myself that there's a high number of immature adults in the world including myself, so...?

A lack of understanding interpersonal interactions.

And it’s more of a feeling than it is any single behavior. You just… know it when you see it. They simplify too much, think values/morals/rules are shared, obvious, and uniform, and that getting along with others happens solely on their terms. They kind of act like everyone but them is an NPC - not realizing to everyone but them, they’re the NPC.

That sounds like an adult with a social and/or psychological issue.
- lol. While writing that out, I had that thought too, but decided that saying it was more of a feeling was vague enough that I could hide behind that when someone inevitably pointed out it could apply to some adults, too.
  
  I do feel it’s noticeable - an adult that has some sort of social struggle vs a kid. But it’s like… A kid seems to make statements that come from a place of naïveté, whereas an adult seems to make statements that come from a place of ignorance. Adults seem to couch their words in defensive language, while kids seem kind of blindly assertive. It truly is more of a feeling, I think.
- Tomato Tomato
Might add lack of general understanding but it's pretty much what you said, like physics, math, nature and society.

They simplify too much, think values/morals/rules are shared, obvious, and uniform

A adult would usually understand enough to at least recognize there is always consequences to a lack of knowledge.

I'm 62. I'm accused of being a kid all the time.

62 sounds like the kind of random age a kid would say they are. Found 'em!
- Damn it.
  
  And I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling adults. I gonna go eat my Kraft mac & cheese.

For me personally the first tell is when they are morally loading every statement in an argument and are unable to engage with a topic directly. Adults should be able to discuss or debate certain topics on the value of the arguments alone without feeling pressured to include a declarative virtue signal in every clause.

Username with a year that tracks as a kid.

42,069 AD

Enthusiasm.

Trick question: assume everyone is a child until proven otherwise.

Excessive edginess

It's important to differentiate it from like. Having extreme opinions. There are plenty of adults with extreme opinions and they are a whole other conversation. -- But only people under a certain age (not strictly kid, mind, though most people have shaken this off by their mid 20s) have a penchant to arrive at extreme opinions specifically because they are "edgy" and "cool".

This tends to also come with a particularly needless hostile attitude, where they very quickly and easily start with the verbal abuse.

They are a lemmy.world user

Heyyyy I'm at least double digits in age.
- I'm not impressed. Come back when you reach triple digits!!
I'm on Lemmy.world because it's the only instance I could make a account on the day Reddit shut down the API. All of the other popular instances had account creation stopped because of the flood of people.

I could probably make an account on another instance, but I'm pretty lazy. I honestly don't know what the benefit of using another instance would be.
I don't know how to change it in Sync :(

30 btw
- You have to create an account on another instance.
This gives me the same feeling as being carded at the grocery store
- 👴🤝👴
Hard disagree. Judging by the memes that get posted around here, not a single user of any Lemmy instance was born after 1980
🤔 true.

I honestly can’t tell. Whenever I see a dumb outrage for video games, I tell my self that it’s a kid, but deep down I I really don’t know

As an adult, I have smart outrage over video games.
:yea:

Their usernames are the random ones proposed by the platform, such as Lazy_Platform_34.

bots.
I use diceware and random number generators to create my user names.
or a randomly generated string of 5-6 letters, such as lseif

When someone asks what’s a dead give away someone is a kid, it tells me they’re not old enough to remember the ASL days.

They are on TikTok and not Lemmy

Fr fr bussin no cap the rizzler is mewing

The neat thing about anonymous discussion on the Internet is that it doesn't matter. What you have to say is all that matters.

I don't know anything about anyone and that's great.

Asking basic questions that can usually be answered with internet experience ("how do bans/kicks work", or "what is an administrator", "what is LAN" etc.)

Flaunting "new" features that existed on older products. ("This game let's us upload our own music to soundtrack!", "I've never seen a platformer like this" etc.)

Did you know that you can download podcasts and play them without internet?

This one got me the other day.
- Really? What's next, podcasts delivered over airwaves?
Their gamer tag includes "Killer". They've never heard the terms "gamer tag" or "handle".
Is this really common? I dont know any that even used a computer before 2015

Using a year as an extremely long period of time, never uses "talk it out" as a solution to anything, mentions a YouTuber you've never heard of as if they're a global celebrity.

Also related to the first point, losing their mind over something that delays their education/life plans by 4 months or more.

Ugh, the second one... I used to lurk on relationship subreddits instead of just watching soap operas like a normal person, and it's wild how quickly people jump to divorce. And if the OP makes an update where they talked it out, a lot of the commenters get mad.

I don't know that they're kids, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Alpha / Beta male noise. Ok kiddo we get it, you're insecure

Erm, no, that was popularized by Millennial PUAs, who are all solidly middle aged now.
- Fuck you we're not middle age we're upper aged young adults./s
- That's great but hopefully they grew out of it. The incel kids these days still run with it.
I completely agree with you. I, too, cannot respect anything below a real sigma (like myself) (/s)

Poor grammar/orthography

What do birds have to do with anything?
- Dunno, better call in an etymologist to study what bugs the birds are eating.
- Looks up
  
  Everything!
  
  Puts on foil hat
- Nice try, kid
This doesn't seem to hold true for native English speakers. The number of old white North Americans on Facebook who haven't figured out punctuation, capitalization, or things like their/there/they're is astounding.
- Rest assured it's not just US problem. The same happens in other languages too and it may be even worse there.
- As many as 16% of US adults may be considered functionality illiterate in English. A further 26% have serious difficulty gaining understanding from what they read in English. From a department of education study.
  
  Essentially a third of the country can't read much beyond the cat in the hat, if even that.

All I'm learning from this thread is that no one can tell any consistent signs.

Schrödinger’s Thread - there’s an equal chance you’re either a child or a bear until proven otherwise.
We should all be learning that we're all children. Some of us, over time, gain a lot more baggage and issues, but that shit just layers right on top of the "child" parts so we're all just basically children with complex problems.

The brain doesn't "prune" itself. The brain you had when you were 12, you have that same damn brain. It doesn't change. Stuff just gets added to it.
- I remember hearing that the brain technically does prune neurons. Source: no idea and am too lazy to fact check

Vertical filming, putting music into videos when you could just use silence

My general metric:

Hahaha = gen x

Lol = older millenial

Lmao = younger millenial

💀 = Gen z

I'm Gen Z and use all of them
- For me its moreso about what the older gens won't use than what the younger ones will
Most Gen Z aren't children though
- When i figure out what gen a's 'funny' synonym is I'll update the list
The skull thing is pretty dumb.
rofl
Lol
This is accurate lol
hahal💀lma💀

slang mostly, I mod a strictly 18+ space and recently someone used the word "skeet", and would you believe it, they were a minor

Extensive use of emojis and abbreviations is a good indicator.

"skibidi" "rizz" "sus"

I'm approaching 30 and will gladly use all of those both ironically and unironically.
- Approaching 50, use SUS regularly, skibidi usage is dropping off, I'm aware of rizz but don't really use it.
Maybe I've just been hanging out in the wrong places but I have never heard any of these terms used except by previous generations mocking what they think gen alpha is like
- I haven't heard rizz, but working in an elementary school, sus has been around for awhile, and skibidi was just starting to get frequent enough to be super annoying towards the end of the school year.
- The other day I heard a random (young) girl say "what the sigma" and I had trouble keeping it together
Sus isn't even that new. Been using that since gmod ttt
That may be a better way to weed boomers from Gen X. Especially SUS, among us had a very wide appeal to multiple age ranges.

Excessive swearing, as if they just learned how to say “fuck”.

Not that any damn amount of fucking swearing means they are are a young fucker, but you can fucking tell when you read that shit and they manage nine goddamn swear words in one fucking sentence you know they’re a young removed who aren’t allowed to swear any other damn time.

Mother damn, that's a shitting good point my bastard
Fuck you, I'm in my forties
- Yeah, what's this fucker on about? I'm an adult that doesn't even get carded at the liquor store anymore, I fucking swear whenever I damn well please and as often as I give a shit to. Nothing wrong with some cursing, especially at those young fucks that won't stay off my goddamned lawn. Shit, they're at it again.
  
  Brb, gotta yell at some asshole kids.
Or they speak English as a foreign language. Then all the swear words hold no value or weight, unlike in your native language.

ask if they remember these

Have you ever been in germany? Everyone knows these things because there's always this one almost retired teacher that is in love with the overhead projector
This bad boy was THE bane of one of my teachers. On her defence, she was old, probably over retirement age, but she just could not make this thing work. Ever. She usually turned it on, but left the cover closed. Or tried to turn it on while AC cable was unplugged. Or turned it on, but put everything in it mirrored. Or turned it on, placed everything right, but fucked up focus so it was blurry. It just never ever worked out for her...
Stop projecting.
- No u
I'm a gen-z-er and I remember those. Relatively poorer area though so it may be related

"im 9 btw"

Quick to call other people kids as an insult.

Writing in short form where a lengthier reply would work better and when confronted with such a reply some form of "not reading all that" or other thought terminating clichés.

I've found that as arbitrary as it is - the ability to read a lot of information works pretty well as a mark of mental maturity. Also links to Twitter or Tiktok as discussion points. No one over the age of 19 browses TikTok lol.

I'm almost 40 and I use TikTok every day. It's literally amazing and I'm always surprised by how many people mock it while using hot garbage like yt shorts or ig
- I don't use any of these and have no problems as a result. The only acceptable usage of YouTube is with Sponsorblock, ublock, DeArrow and watch history (and all personalization by extent) off, exclusively through the subscription box as a mumbling talking box to fall asleep to or have on as noise in the background.
Writing in short form where a lengthier reply would work better and when confronted with such a reply some form of "not reading all that" or other thought terminating clichés.

Ouch, I think I'm a kid in my 30s
- To take it to a logical extreme, it frustrates me when a post that considers both (or more) views and is a well thought out post, is met with a single world reply - as if it's some sort of "gotcha" or the fact that a single ambiguity in a largely solid argument somehow usurps the entire point.
  
  I tend to think they're either young or generally underexposed to how human interaction works.
not reading all that...tldr?

\s
One of my coworkers is 43 and he's on tiktok every day. The olds have come for the kids platform just like they/we always do.

lethal amounts of cringe

idk man frfr ong. thats not skibidi rizzler fanum tax of you to assume im a younger and have L rizz, im no cap a sigma fr. anyway im finna dip and be like an alpha. 💀

Not sure if it's the case anymore, but strong opinions were matched with EQUALLY STRONG STYLISTIC CHOICE!!!!!!!, often coupled with poor grammar/spelling, and a tendency to lean more towards rehashing the same opinion rather than making a rational argument for it.

I dunno, I get this as much from old people too. I think it's less an indicator of age and more an indication of people who aren't great at thinking.
- Could it be more of a "new to the internet"-thing, maybe?
sounds indistinguishable from talking to right-wingers tbh
- Similar mental capacity probs.
- Was gonna say, that just sounds like some boomers I know.

Crypto bros who follow ultra distorted stoicism (the only good philosophy is the ones made when slavery was normalised) that believe everyone else is unaware of what very basic knowledge they world they just learned that day.

When they start calling people "jr" or implying anyone who disagrees with them is too young to understand.

This one has been easy for me lately: They spell 'lose' as 'loose'.

I know far too many people in their 40s who do this.

The way I try to reinforce the difference with people is this mnemonic device:

You don't want a loose noose - or you might lose the extra 'o'.
- You could also just send them a link to the song "loose yourself" by snoop dawg
I associate this with boomers more than kids, but that's subjective since an old former friend I know always used to do it.

They also used "seen" instead of "saw", as in, "I seen dark clouds so I closed the windows." which is like nails on a chalkboard to me.

Probably just internet slang and the skull emoji. That and poor grammar are (possible) indicators.

It might disappoint you to learn that among american english speakers, literacy isn't a good indication of maturity by age. Barbara Bush made a literacy initiative that's still around, the One Good Thing(R) left over from the bush regime. The site has a handy map to show you the 40-60% adult literacy rate counties spread all over the states. It definitely helped me come to terms with the fact that sometimes a kid who is trying is gonna be more eloquent than an adult repeating the same tired take they've been rebutted for a thousand times.

It's easier for me personally to gauge age as it scales up when anonymity is involved - referential humor, recognizance of the ancient runes (Duckroll, Bill Murray's face with only the jaw moving), and informed chitchat about presidential behavior predating Bush SR are all dead giveaways that a user is older, but with younger users you have a lot of hobby/interest overlap going all the way up to people in their 40s. You can't look someone in the eyes and see if the light of youth has gone out yet on forums and imageboards.
- The Amber Alert going nationwide is also Bush era. But I don't wanna detract from the remainder of your comment.
- Easy, just ask them what show was on channel 3 when they were a kid.

They’re the ones who are not obsessing over children’s toys or saying “adulting is difficult!”.

skibidi toilet

Unfaltering loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party

"Arguing" by listing a long list of fallacies that they don't really even understand.

Fallacy fallacy!

When someone explains something everyone knows or is obvious as if they just thought of it for the first time in human history.

Just assume everybody is 12 and you'll be good.

when you see this: skibidi gyatt rizzler sigma grindset cap fr fr

fax (no printer) is one I unironically like

I fucked their mom

Unable to understand and/or admit that both sides can be bad. It's ok to admit the "your team" did some nasty shit and it doesn't in any way cancel out what the other "team" did.

Also, Winning an argument doesn't in any way make you a winner. Actually, an argument that someone "won" often doesn't lead to a change for the better or even make anyone convinced that your arguments were valid.

Biologically a kid or adults too?

Why does he look so much like Pete Davidson

The thing with a lot of the methods mentioned is that I've seen both teens that are more mature than me, and people in their thirties that should probably have their internet privileges revoked.

They don't remember what life was like before Google.

the only dead giveaway is if they get doxxed

💀

References TikTok as a source of knowledge

I have family in their 30s and 40s who do that 😭 I wonder if people subconsciously trust TikTokers more than other social media users since they usually show their faces.

Takes things personally right away and isn't yet very good at sarcasm or snark. But you know, that could just be and awkward adult too

Nobody asked for your shitty opinion you little fuck! /s

Have I passed?

Kids Next Door on some recon huh

They keep talking about how much they like turtles

Yup, usually they don't reign over their autism yet

Wait! I thought there were no kids on the internet. Men are men, women are men, kids are FBI?

And small blue creatures from alpha centuri where real small blue creatures from alpha centuri.

They don't drink at all and they think consent is literally impossible after any amount of alcohol.

I've read the lemmy.world responses, and they're all predictably trash. The real answer is there's no good way to tell if someone's a kid because they're plenty of mature 12 year olds and plenty of dipshit adults with poor writing skills (ie boomers). To rephrase the question, what is a dead giveaway that someone is actually not a kid?

They talk about mid- to low-tier shows that your average zoomer wouldn't know about. So someone talking about The Simpsons or Batman: The Animated Series doesn't mean much, but someone talking about Biker Mice from Mars or Extreme Dinosaurs means they're some millennial.
They namedrop social media sites that no longer exist. Remember Xanga and Vine?
They complain about body problems. Knees that feel funny before it rains. Bad back. Nose hair that never stops growing. And so on.
They demonstrate an understanding on how old and obsolete technology works (typewriters, payphones, VCR, floppy disks, Limewire, DOS, modems, Blackberries). Like, average zoomers don't know how to use those map guides that are in the form of a book.
They remember how the pre-modern web was like or life before the web was like. Someone who's <18 years old was born after 2006, when the modern web was still being build.
They remember ancient memes and fads that are obscure enough that it isn't some zoomer looking up random memes on knowyourmeme.
They're horribly out of touch with what kids enjoy. Notice this is different from passing judgment on what kids enjoy because they're plenty of things I thought was stupid when I was a kid. But when you say shit like "only 13 year olds like Tiktok" or "only kids like Minecraft" yeah you're just out of touch.

Also Minecraft is old as shit, I remember when it was just creative mode, no crafting as an early beta on a web page back in like 2009. That’s 15 years ago, Minecraft is almost old enough join the British army!!

if you wanna tell apart american gen z from gen alpha, ask them if they know what this is:

gen z used these smartboards and the teacher always made someone recalibrate the touchscreen to the projection when it was off

afaik the new spoiled shits all get these in every classroom, they were rolling em out when i was graduating:

at least in places that can afford it. this might be more true in a few years

I never got to see these things in action while in school, but I remember hearing they were on the way. To this day, I've still only interacted with analog boards.
- My very rural school used a technology grant to get a few smart boards (that first kind). I'm an older millennial. They were not as useful as a white board for drawing stuff on the board but quicker to setup for slide presentations.

AIs are eagerly scooping up this as a source lol

since 2008 (the artilect wars) or the third "a.i." winter?
Oh please let that be a reason accidentally spit out by one of those plagiarism machines some day

Very weird political positions, like eg. unironic Polpotism

Ask them if they think that the movie "The Wall" is a good representation of the song.

I'm old enough to remember when both released and I don't have a good answer to this, assuming you mean the pink floyd movie and not some other I'm not aware of.
- I am and I am, and it's a trick question because the movie is the entire album which is a rock opera.

Many people wouldn't know I'm not a kid if they spent all day interactively standing behind me in a queue.

Short of a birth year in their username, I'm not sure there is one. Almost everything in this thread is something millennials inflict on me daily.

They play Gatcha life or that Toca boca game (forgot it's name)

what's hilarious is dudebro adults still dress that way

They post memes to Lemmy

🔥b00bs🔥 feel like bags of sand 💯

the gettier problem

Y'all trying to get me banned from .ml again. I'm not falling for it.

Oh that would be such a loss

gulfgyhio

One kid in a roblox "exposed" type of video said that he could tell adults apart because they "typed really fast" - so, if it's in a game, check if they type kinda slow? In a forum, no idea.

calling people online kid or kiddo.

edit: this isn't about using the word altogether. it's about comments online where people try to be condescending by calling other anonymous people "kid" or "kiddo". always seems like compensation to me.

I'm pretty sure looking for kids on the internet will get you a nice little seat with Mr. Chris Hansen.

They hate porn.

their and your instead of theyre and youre

idk, but i wish they'd go away because i fucking hate them.

NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR VAPID DRAMA. QUIT MUDDYING THE WATERS OF DISCUSSION WITH YOUR LACK OF ANY REAL LIFE EXPERIENCE.

lol

ur

literally

mid

lul

till

The signs of poor education are there. This sign can often be found in indolent kids whose education is incomplete, or adult Americans who are victims of the 'no child left behind' mess.

Lul, this is literally mid. Oh, wait, I have a PHD. I suppose I am no longer allowed to speak how I want.
Are you suggesting that generation-specific vernacular is a sign of poor education?
- Must be a kid...

When they think communism is a great idea

It can't be fully implemented properly because power corrupts.
- Why would "power corrupts" mean Communism can't be fully implemented? What on Earth are you talking about, specifically?
So why is it a bad idea? Have you read Marx?
- Reading Marx is like reading Scripture, huh?