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30 Things That Are Cool When You’re A Kid But Are Very Much The Opposite When You’re An Adult
What makes us give other people credit evolves as we get older. Thankfully.
But to really drive this point home, let's take a look at a Reddit post by user Jelz where they asked everyone to share all the things that make you cool in school but have the opposite effect in adult life.
Like buying alcohol for kids. Or playing with Beyblades and carrying around a giant arena for them at all times. Or just scroll down and check out the rest of the replies!
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It didn't make me cool, but an old friend of mine (we're no longer friends) was far cooler than me. Why? Because he didn't care about grades, was openly hostile to authority, smoked weed all the time, had a criminal record, and generally just had that "I don't give a f**k, I'm a badass" confidence.
That's cool in high school. Nowadays, though, that guy is thought of as being very uncool. Why? Because not caring about your job performance (the adult equivalent of not caring about grades), being openly hostile to authority (such as your supervisors, or the cops), spending most of your waking life stoned, having a criminal record, and somehow still thinking you're a badass definitely isn't cool in adulthood.
You were really cool if you were missing a tooth in school. If you’re missing a tooth in adulthood you just look like a crackhead.
In 3rd grade I broke my arm and got a glow in the dark cast, I also had glow in the dark shoes, I think it was the most my peers have ever liked me in my life.
Bragging about sex. Did it highschool, friends thought I was cool. Did it as an adult, everyone thought it was gross and my dad threw the family cat at me
Laughing at weird people.
Socially awkward people often make good friends and are very warmhearted.
I was cool because I had a DSi in fifth grade. I would flex on my friends by drawing pictures in rainbow on pictochat. I have a nintendo switch now. No gf, no friends, and no rainbow drawings. :(
I did 1000 bounces on a pogo stick when I was 12. As a 33 year old today, people would probably be concerned for my mental health.
They might be concerned for your mental health, but would they be able to be concerned about your physical health?
Burping really loud in the cafeteria. Kids from other classes knew my name because of that. I haven't tried that in the office, and I don't think I'm going go.
When I was eight or nine I found a huge stack of p**n mags in a paper recycling container. I had them hidden away in the woods close to school and would bring friends there to look at them during recess.
Imagining adults doing this gave me a chuckle 😆.
Being the "class clown" in any sort of instructional setting. It's funny when you're a kid but seen as obnoxious and attention-seeking when you're an adult
Probably because when you're an adult you want peace and quiet, no distractions like an obnoxious clown but when you're a child you're bored in school and the class clown brightens the mood
Owning an absurd amount of Pokemon cards.
IDK what more a woman would want than a raquaza EX.
I was voted "Most Likely to be Out of Dress Code" in high school, because I was always getting detention for breaking dress code. It was a pretty cool honor to have for a senior superlative, because it was about as rebellious as you could get at a Jesuit high school.
As an adult that would just get me fired if I was constantly breaking the dress code of a place that had one.
Bragging about what your parents got you. New clothes, new toys, car, etc. Making kids jealous with the latest stuff
If you're an adult and bragging about still being dependent on your parents...definitely uncool haha
Playing with beyblades and carrying around the giant arena for them at all times. You never know when a spin battle may ensue.
God I used to impress people by smoking cigs up my nose.
I do not see that going over well at all now.
Knowing someone that would buy alcohol for underage kids.
I remember in the 80's my friend group asking someone in the parking lot of the local liquor store to buy us alcohol and 8 out of 10 they would. Shocking to think about now.
At my school, bragging about how drunk you got at the weekend was a thing! People would take pictures/videos if their friends who were falling about the place/passed out etc and everyone would come in on Monday and laugh about what ‘scenes’ they were. At our prom we gave out prizes like ‘most likely to...’ and we had a few drink related categories and there was just generally a vibe that if you didn’t go out every weekend and get really drunk, you were a bit of a weirdo.
Now though (I’m 25), seeing girls tripping over their heals and being so drunk they can’t open their eyes properly/talk without slurring is just embarrassing.
Back in the day, Hot Wheels was the s**t. We used to bring them into elementary school, show them off, and trade them.
Anything with gold wheels was hot s**t. Anything that was a model of a real car was too. We used to just make stuff up that "boosted" the rarity of a car. Stuff like, "This one is in metallic white and only 10 were made!"
Collecting Hot Wheels now probably not so cool.
^(Although I still think they are cool.)
I don't know it's cool or not but I definitely love it.A family friend's 4 year old is crazy for these and loved it when he showed me his collection.
This is so way off! There is a MASSIVE international adult community that collects Hot Wheels and other brands such as Matchbox, Tomica, etc. Hot Wheels even has a site that just releases premium collectibles. The die-cast market has exploded in the last 15 years due to adult collectors.
I was going to say this. I worked in large retail and there was always a group of adults lined up at the doors on "Hot Wheels" day. They knew when we were going to get a new shipment of Hot Wheels and would rummage through the shipments before we would put them on the shelves.
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I think Hot Wheels are really cool!! A lot of my middle aged friends have toy collections. My cousin has an incredible PEZ collection. I have a massive vintage Barbie collection my mom left me.
Indeed. For girls it was Barbie. There was a woman on an episode of Hoarders that sold half of her doll collection and got close to $500,000 I think. I should’ve kept all my toys as a kid !
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I recently repurchased a few of my favorites from my childhood. A half a dozen and I may be done. I just had some nostalgia.
My favorites are the Flying Colors era that were made in the 70's.
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I bought the 25th anniversary nightmare before Christmas hot wheels cars on a whim a few years ago because a store I was at had the entire set for like 2 something per car. Today they are hundreds. I don't ever collect hot wheels tbh but I know a few
Collecting Matchbox from the 50s and 60s is still cool, but pricey. A .55 cent model in 1962 in mint condition and box today could be worth $75 or so. Some places will restore old ones, but they cost even more! Great hobby in the day.
Ehh...I have a Hot Wheels collection. Im a middle aged fart. Yet I still look through them at a store and add to my collection. Especially Batman and exotics. Still looking for a Lamborghini Countach in a pack. Have a LC Police Car, but still need it, if anyone feels generous!
My son has about 300+ HotWheels and still plays with them constantly (he is very little still lol)
I collect Hot Wheels from the redline era- 1968-1972. I love them still!
My son is 5yo and tbh when he gets them as gifts I get a little excited still. Even when I bought them. Like "heck yeah, we're gonna have so much fun!"
Same thing here as with the Pokémon cards. Some Hot Wheels are insanely valuable.
I love cars. I was more into playing with them then collecting them (even though we wound up with a bunch of them cause they were one of my favorite things to play with.
Some Hotweels cars are worth an absurd amount of coin... Being a collector (of almost anything) is cool, as long as it doesn't rule your life.
My kid only plays with cars and monster trucks. But it's cool because they keep making a model of a old truck my dad has and the excitement my 57 year old dad gets hanging out in his garage is epic. I also buy classic cars, jeeps because I have one, and definitely movie TV cars like the Flintstones car back to the future cars so much to like about hot wheels
The boys in my family collect hot wheels just like my bros and cousins. I was into barbies as a little girl.
Well for all those people out there that still have their old Hot Wheels I would suggest looking online to see how much they're worth today
Any collection that someone is passionate about is cool to me. If it's clean and organized, what's the harm? Now, if they just have buckets of filthy cars sitting around their house its different.
I think it's still cool. There are sooooo many cool looking cars these days.
In high school I sold pages of p**nography out of a briefcase that I named "Bob".
Being an overall d**k, or rude to other people made people think you were cool or something. Now you're just an a** and everybody is an adult so they can see it.
Pretending to be a 1337 h4x0r by opening command prompt on a school computer, knowing a little bit of HTML and some similar trickery that may look cool until you know that it doesn't really do anything.
During school lunch when a kid got in trouble I started the Jerry Springer chant and the whole class started chanting "Jerry, Jerry, Jerry".
In High School, I knew all of the lyrics to a ton of late-90s and early 2000s club banger rap songs. I was known for this throughout my entire school, and people would always dance near me at dances to watch me flawlessly lip sync these songs. I did the rapping hand movements too, and often some of the dances from the music videos, although I was a much better lip syncer than dancer. I am and was a tiny white girl from a small rural village.
It's so embarrassing to think about now. I do occasionally get asked to do it at the weddings of classmates, but I wiggle out of it by sticking to the bar. I can't imagine the brain power I wasted on this, when I should have been focusing on my studies. Probably one of the reasons that I had to take remedial math in college. Thank God I no longer live near where I grew up, I've been hiding from memories of my high school self ever since, I was so cringe.
In 8th grade I made sure I had the HIGHEST heels out of all the girls in class. They were these clunky things from Payless. Not sure how I did anything in those considering I can’t even walk in heels as a 32 year old woman today...
Oh man I wore heels, 4.5 inch platforms, everyday almost when I was 16-17 and even wore them to work at the supermarket. These days as I'm nearing 40 I can wear if low and if I'm not standing much at all.
Me and my friends showing up to school/ events dressed the same
I've never really understood why people can be so anxious about possibly wearing the same as someone else. I once wore the same shoes as someone else at a festival (which means, out of 20.000 people) and I said to her "Nice shoes! Harhar" and the girl just threw me a death glare.
Wearing sneakers with your prom tux.
Cheating and getting away with it was rad in school but if you cheat the IRS instead of getting cool points you get jail time
I dunno, three generations of the Trump family have been cheating the IRS for a century and, so far, have got away with it.
I was the best club penguin sled racer in my 6th grade class.
It'd be really hard to consider this cool now, what with Club Penguin closing down and all.
well, I would have to say trading card games.
In school: Yu-Gi-Oh
Later in life: Magic The Gathering.
Not s******g on MTG, its a great game, but doesnt really come off as "cool" per se
Nothing wrong with non mainstream hobbies. But apparently binge drinking after a random sports team won/lost is the golden standard...
Note: this post originally had 49 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
In high school I owned an absurd amount of records: LPs ,45s, reel to reel etc. School friends thought I was the music god. The school DJs always came to me for music they didn't own. But as an adult who still owns an absurd amount of music, some people tell me to grow the eff up. ? I don't get the hostility. EDIT: my collection is very eclectic.
don´t listen to those people, they are just jealous :) it IS cool to have a lot of music
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Has anyone else here discovered that if you get downvoted twice you get banned from the site? It's kinda lame. By way of thanking Bored Panda for their lameness, I will now post a few words. Die. Dead.
BoredPanda is one of the most hypocritical websites I’ve ever been on. They censored the word sex in an an article about gay pride and they also censored the word d**k in a sign for D**k’s Sporting Goods. Yet, they let some of the worst trolls I’ve ever seen on a website, some with more than 4000 downvotes (gooberpeas for example) still post homophobic, transphobic, and extremely racist comments. They make it next to impossible to report users like this and they don’t seem to care about their users because they never ever respond to your emails asking for hate speech or a troll removed. Yet, I’ve seen good users get suspended because trolls downvote their comments. It only takes one comment that is voted below a negative 8 to get your account suspended—I’ve simply seen people who ask a question on this site get downvoted.It’s really sad and lame. BoredPanda really needs to do better or they are going to start losing readership. Hire a moderator, BoredPanda because what you’re doing is pure censorship and that’s pitiful.
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What a joke of an article. Being rude to people's hobbies and bodies isn't cool in any age. Who cares if you collect Pokémon cards? There's no age limit for having fun. What a pointless and judgemental article.
A lot of these didn't sound like cool even for highschoolers but whatever
I was a really good speller when I was a kid. Nearly made it to the ESPN stuff you see. I remember thinking I was going to base my entire life on it.
Smoking cigarettes... I started smoking when I was 16. Bought my own cartons and usually was the one every one else bummed a cigarette from
In high school I owned an absurd amount of records: LPs ,45s, reel to reel etc. School friends thought I was the music god. The school DJs always came to me for music they didn't own. But as an adult who still owns an absurd amount of music, some people tell me to grow the eff up. ? I don't get the hostility. EDIT: my collection is very eclectic.
don´t listen to those people, they are just jealous :) it IS cool to have a lot of music
Load More Replies... Has anyone else here discovered that if you get downvoted twice you get banned from the site? It's kinda lame. By way of thanking Bored Panda for their lameness, I will now post a few words. Die. Dead.
BoredPanda is one of the most hypocritical websites I’ve ever been on. They censored the word sex in an an article about gay pride and they also censored the word d**k in a sign for D**k’s Sporting Goods. Yet, they let some of the worst trolls I’ve ever seen on a website, some with more than 4000 downvotes (gooberpeas for example) still post homophobic, transphobic, and extremely racist comments. They make it next to impossible to report users like this and they don’t seem to care about their users because they never ever respond to your emails asking for hate speech or a troll removed. Yet, I’ve seen good users get suspended because trolls downvote their comments. It only takes one comment that is voted below a negative 8 to get your account suspended—I’ve simply seen people who ask a question on this site get downvoted.It’s really sad and lame. BoredPanda really needs to do better or they are going to start losing readership. Hire a moderator, BoredPanda because what you’re doing is pure censorship and that’s pitiful.
Load More Replies... What a joke of an article. Being rude to people's hobbies and bodies isn't cool in any age. Who cares if you collect Pokémon cards? There's no age limit for having fun. What a pointless and judgemental article.
A lot of these didn't sound like cool even for highschoolers but whatever
I was a really good speller when I was a kid. Nearly made it to the ESPN stuff you see. I remember thinking I was going to base my entire life on it.
Smoking cigarettes... I started smoking when I was 16. Bought my own cartons and usually was the one every one else bummed a cigarette from
