Age and Youth(ful) Activities

[Auld_Mulk]

 

What hobbies or interests do you still participate in that normally would be considered a youth or young adult activity? For example, Tony Hawk and skateboarding, landing a '900' at the age of 48. He is 51 now.

 

What social groups do you find yourself in as the odd old timer by a fair margin? How do you fit? What's your role in that social group?

[Dreamsexual]

.

[everywhere and nowhere]

I even like some stuff explicitly created for children. Different texts of culture: some children's books (for example the Moomins, some Polish literature: Joanna Chmielewska's criminal stories for older children*, Mr. Automobile**...), films (for example "Over the Hedge", "Cars", "Zootopia" - it's in fact a very serious film, it can be said that it's a film about racism...), games***...

 

*Chmielewska (she died a few years ago) was a very prolific author of mostly criminal/mystery novels and her works include such stories for children/youth of about 12-16 years. (By the way, I Just Don't Get the phrase "young adult" - for me it's obvious that the intended age group at most slightly overlaps with "adults". In Polish it's clearer: literatura dziecięca - children's literature, literatura młodzieżowa - youth literature.) The protagonists are siblings, Janeczka (Janie) and Pawałek (Paul), and their dog. Example, although the premise is more of an adventure story than mystery: while collecting wastepaper for the whole class (because of a lost bet), they accidentally stumble upon a part of someone's letter and read about "treasures in Algeria" and where to look for them. They decide to send their father, an engineer, to Algeria, so that they could visit him in the summer - until the moment he receives the contract, the father knows nothing about his children's conspiracy.

**A series of novels by Zbigniew Nienacki (later continued by other authors), unfortunately periodically infused with communist propaganda (for example, Mr. Automobile explains to scouts that one of them, who fainted during an outdoor game, wasn't making a fuss out of nothing - he was in fact shot from a gas gun by someone who didn't want to be seen: "They were created in the West, in countries, where crime is rising on a terrifying scale. People carry them to defend themselves against muggers, hooligans, thieves who steal women's handbags in the middle of the street..."). But fun stories nevertheless. Mr. Automobile is an art historian (and, at heart, an adventure lover) who inherits a car built by his uncle - the car looks very ugly and is assumed to be an old junk, but hides a top-modern engine from a Ferrari, which makes it for that time the fastest car on Polish roads; it is also an amphibious vehicle - can be used as a motorboat. Still, I read the stories as an adult - I can't fail to notice permanent motifs - for example, pretty much every novel in the series must include: a) people making fun of the car, b) Mr. Automobile deciding to keep his ace up his sleeve, c) a chase during which mockers are proven wrong.

*** Maybe some screenshots?

 

 

 

As for other activities, I still like swings, carousels...

[Scottthespy]

Normally I find myself the baby in the group...knitting with my grandmother's circle at ten, doing (non alcoholic) jello shots with my mom's crowd at fourteen, sitting down with  a book and pencil to occupy myself instead of a phone.

 

But I do still like colouring books. Not 'adult' colouring books, just plain old dollar store kiddo books with cartoon characters and simple drawings. Its soothing somehow, and fun to see how good you can make a simple drawing look.

[Auld_Mulk]

Wow @Nowhere Girl thank you for all of that.  I used the "Young Adult" literature category more as an easy way to reference the youth demographic.  @Scottthespy I took colouring books to my local bar and drank beer while colouring with the bar tenders.  This was more than 10 years ago now, before everyone started colouring. 

 

Do you share these interests with other people in a social setting? 

[everywhere and nowhere]

4 minutes ago, Auld_Mulk said:

Do you share these interests with other people in a social setting? 

Not much, I'm a bit of a loner. On the other hand, I often feel eager to share my game screenshots (as you have seen...), this is also why I post them to Moby Games. Once I started showing screenshots from the Deponia series for my Ukrainian teacher and ended up writing a summary of the games in Ukrainian...

[paralibrarian]

I still dance. It’s more common these days to find older dancers still killin it, but overall I think it’s still considered an activity for the young. I’m talking about modern dance, taking class, occasionally performing. 

I also love going to Disneyland. I usually go about once a year with my daughter and we have the best time. In January this year, I went with her dance clas from school (they do these great audition workshops which are like a cross between a dance class and a ted talk). That day I was mostly on my own, and I did feel a little conspicuous sometimes, being an older lady there alone, waiting in line for the Dumbo ride or Casey Jr. But I still had fun!

oh and I, too, love YA Lit! Although I agree it could use a more accurate label. A particular favorite is Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. I don’t even understand how that’s considered YA. It’s so deep and rich. But that just shows how awesome youth literature can be! Changed my life, really. 

[Raire]

As Dreamsexual mentioned, I'm still a bit of a gamer - mainly on the computer (not consoles any more). 

 

I'm also partial to playing with NERF toys, although that likely stems from paintball being painful and airsoft being expensive these days! 

[Scottthespy]

On 6/4/2019 at 5:34 PM, Auld_Mulk said:

Wow @Nowhere Girl thank you for all of that.  I used the "Young Adult" literature category more as an easy way to reference the youth demographic.  @Scottthespy I took colouring books to my local bar and drank beer while colouring with the bar tenders.  This was more than 10 years ago now, before everyone started colouring. 

 

Do you share these interests with other people in a social setting? 

I'm not often in a social setting, but when I am I'm happy to have something to do to look at so people don't get worked up about my lack of eye contact. There's other things I do, but colouring books is one of them.

[Gloomy]

I’m 28 and still like some cartoons/movies that are meant for children. I started watching Star vs. The Forces of Evil a couple of months ago, and I have Disney Princess stickers on the mirror in my room.

 

I also still like emo subculture and look/dress kind of emo sometimes.