178Kviews
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!
This post may include affiliate links.
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?
Right? If only I had the stamina for that. I'd start exercising TODAY if I could find a pogo stick that handles my weight.
Load More Replies...
If I did that now I wouldn't be able to walk for a week from the knee and back pain
Never tried it ever in my life. I have only seen it on tv.
Load More Replies...
Not sure about that...There's probably somebody who did a record and is in the Guiness BoWR
I think they would be very jealous of your physical health if you still could do 1000 bounces!
To hell with your mental health I would be more worried about your knees
1000 bounces on a pho stick is still cool and'd I'd love to see you do it. Any type of exercise that breaks your everyday routine is good. The have some logs in front of my kids kindergarten and I balance them together with the kids every time I pick them up.
Ngl....I'd be impressed if they managed *with* all their teeth intact.
They'd be concerned for your physical health too . I remember how dangerous and many times I fell when I was a kid 😂
You might be okay if you try to pass yourself as a street per downtown.
Dont see the problem in this , if its fun for you whoo gives a toss what others think as long as it isnt harming anyone else. Being an adult actually means you dont care about what others think anymore.
If you can't indulge your inner (or outer) kid by bouncing on a pogo stick, There is something wrong with the world.
I was never coordinated enough to master a pogo stick. Also had a fear of falling, which I still have.
Why? People of all ages use 'em. Just tell people you're practicing for your Guinness Record attempt.
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.
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...
Putting Pacman and Mario on a f**king graphing calculator. Everyone called me a genius but in adulthood ppl would say I have no life.
I won best dressed male in senior year, my wife laughs everytime she sees the little trophy they gave me (that I kept haha).
I was the sneaker head in my school. I was that kid with the brand new retro Jordan’s and i always be getting everyone’s attentions and even girls. But, I stopped doing all of that because once you’re a adult. No one really gives a f**k. But I might go back to it again as a hobbie, for my own interest :)
Selling Weed to kids.
NO! How is this cool, whether you're an adult or a child? There is a reason why drug trafficking has the death penalty in many countries! >:/
Talking back to authority figures just because you can. In school you're seen as somebody who won't take it lying down, as an adult you're probably just immature.
Depends what authority you dealing with. Authority has to earn respect. That goes for teachers police or whatever. I'm over 50 and I take no s***. Happened to me in lock down. I had to go and get some meds for my mum and I had to deal with some cops on a power trip.
going out with your arms covered in silly bandz
I remember having these as a little kid! I didn’t go to school at the time tho so I don’t remember the “going out in as many as possible” part.
in my elementary school, everyone was into My Little Pony and the whole school was divided into two groups bronies (boys) and pegasisters (girls) and there was a group of girls that the school called the original seven and one girl was at the top we will call her Trish she was pretty much in charge of anyone OC if you wanted to make your own character you had to run it by her and there were rules like your family had to be you a spouse and a child and only could have one of each so if you were a regular pony and your spouse was a unicorn then your daughter had to be pegasus and you could have a pet but had to be real and only Trish and a mystical pet a phoenix and she would also draw your character with your family and at the end of the year she drew everybody in one big portrait luckily my sister was part of the original seven so I got some bonuses so yeah overall a good time in elementary school but if i did that know i would be shamed
It was perfectly fine for a senior to be dating a freshman at my high school. Now it is a lawsuit and jail time waiting to happen.
made a living ($6ish) by selling cardboard gears and whatnot for use in science projects.
It was really easy, just buy an empty box, use up all of the parts, and sell it back for half the price
​
Now if you did that as an adult people would think you're broke as hell.
Being good at hacky-sack.
I am going to disagree with this---an adult who can hack-sack like a boss is still pretty cool to me.
Playfully messing with girls.
Almost everything would be considered sexual harassment in adulthood.
Now if only we could make it uncool for kids, it would solve a lot of problems....
I grew a mustache in 5th grade and a beard in 7th. I wasn't popular but I was obviously well known throughout school. I was hot s**t until halfway through highschool
I started living on my own, with my younger sister just as I turned 18. I was considered cool for having parties where people hung out at my place, BYOB, obviously.
If I now tried to invite whole bunch of underage teens to drink cheap beer and to sit on my floor, I'd not only be lame. I'd also be a criminal. (Technically, it was illegal to late the underage people drink back then too, but no officer would have ever charged me since we were so close in age.)
Uhhh drugs, dude. The answer to this for me is always gonna be drugs. I did and sold lots in high school and middle school. It made me super popular and everyone had high opinions of me (pun not intended). Even the staff, because I was so friendly and could get other kids to follow me anywhere. It wasn’t just drugs that made me this popular, but I believe that if it wasn’t for always partying, the door wouldn’t have opened for me socially at my high school.
In adulthood, drugs only make you cool to people who are actual trash. I still smoke too much weed, but that’s it. What I’d give for some Vyvanse though.
Making out with underage women.
When I was around 16 I had a boyfriend who was 21. This was in the mid 80's and no one thought it was odd at all back then.. I cringe now when I think about it. What was he thinking???
I made offensive/racist jokes that were clever but bad
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
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
