Althouse: In the future, everyone will be...

January 17, 2011

In the future, everyone will be...

... 36.

37 comments:

Paddy O said...: I'm living in the future...

right now!; 1/17/11, 4:29 PM
Scott M said...: There's no downside to perpetual youth (and I do believe we'll get there some day...extended anti-aging if not practical immortality) if we have enough room to move around in. In other words, we need a warp drive first.

The more sticky question is, if there were a "fountain of youth" treatment, should it be free for everyone? I'd say no, but I'm one of the tooth and claw heartless conservative Krugman hates so much.; 1/17/11, 4:32 PM
Ralph L said...: Those who balance it right, pap photos suggest
Some people are having work done on the wrong end.

Lip fillers should be banned. If you don't want wrinkles around your mouth, quit talking so much.; 1/17/11, 4:43 PM
BJM said...: Wouldn't a "zero-year" face be a fetus?

Just sayin'; 1/17/11, 5:01 PM
Toad Trend said...: Creepy.

I tend to attribute premature aging with poor lifestyle choices.

If anyone like the idea of 'everyone will be...', I say we just bring on the Borg, now.; 1/17/11, 5:02 PM
Anonymous said...: Who put the bowl on Eva Weisman's head and scissor'd her?

I'm pretty sure that in the future, nobody's hair will be a Moe.; 1/17/11, 5:07 PM
Palladian said...: "In the future, everyone will be..."

A talentless, used-up, 24-year-old sodden-faced coke whore?; 1/17/11, 5:07 PM
traditionalguy said...: Do you mean that we can get face scrubbed and buy faked IDs lowering our age? The Obama Death Panels will foiled again.; 1/17/11, 5:14 PM
ricpic said...: Since it's all about appeal a man's face is best in his early to mid forties, say 43. For a woman, though they all deny it, 18 to 23.; 1/17/11, 5:16 PM
Bender said...: 36??

Only if you are a runner -- 36 is way past the Last Day, and if you are successful at Carousel, you renew, not get older!; 1/17/11, 5:40 PM
BEK477 said...: What a waste of talent and potential. This poor, young girl has had every break and favor and she just keeps screwing up.

hasn't Lindsay exceeded her 15 minutes of fame by several years? Its time for her to exit the stage and go out on a religious pilgrimage. She sould carry a cross ofrainforest harvested teak (8ft x4ft x 6 inches) from Dublin, Eire to Jerusalem, Israel. We would all benefit from observing her struggle.
it would win her a gig on EWTN with Mother Angela. Really, this babe owes us penance.; 1/17/11, 5:41 PM
Anonymous said...: " ... hasn't Lindsay exceeded her 15 minutes of fame by several years?"

Nooooooooo. Not till she does a lesbo satire of The Parent Trap.

Then ... then it can be over.; 1/17/11, 5:43 PM
MadisonMan said...: I was watching the GGs last night: What has Sandra Bullock done to herself?; 1/17/11, 5:50 PM
Unknown said...: Uh, if no one ages past 36, how do we keep the population manageable in terms of the planet's resources?

Oh, no, not death panels!!!!

PS This also means someone like Kate Winslet (who isn't bad looking, BTW) will be the font of all wisdom.; 1/17/11, 5:51 PM
Alex said...: How does plastic surgery address internal aging? You can spiffy up the shell, but the engine is rotting. Genetic therapy to rejuvenate the internal organs is the real fountain of youth.; 1/17/11, 6:04 PM
Anonymous said...: Rather than having their faces look like they're 36 years old, women should do something else with respect to their physical appearance.

You all know what that is.

Peter; 1/17/11, 6:40 PM
Methadras said...: Let's look at how this trend started. First of all, the multi-billion dollar cosmetic/pharmaceutical cabal develops this crap for other purposes, then by accident finds that if applied to the proper human tissue 'magic things' begin to happen. Then the whisper campaigns occur amongst the dermatological sect in high priced enclaves; New York, LA, San Fransisco, Miami, etc. for this stuff, then the hoi polloi of entertainment get their grubby hands on it and use it, to further product use. Lastely, media promotes this garbage and disseminates it through their own nefarious outlets and the final result is this article on why young starlets, tarts, and other vacuous tramps, sluts, and whores all look like cat people with giant dick sucking lips.

Who the fuck thought Jocylen Wildenstien was remotely attractive? Why wasn't the crank plastic surgeon that worked on her not in jail for disfiguring this woman? It's as if every dermatologist and plastic surgeon went to this guy and he showed them how to promote this particular look. Joan Rivers looks like her. Heidi Montage looks like her. Lindsy Lohan is starting to look like her and multitudes of other media parasites are all on the same bandwagon.

All the while, media cum-blasts us through their various shit-piles of outlets with their version of what young and youthful really looks like. Magazines like Cosmo and other fish-wrap tout this garbage, our women read this nonsense and the cycle continues. I yearn for the days when all my wife said to me was, "Do these pants make me look fat?" God help us.; 1/17/11, 7:03 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Professor-

You're making a damn good argument for 60.; 1/17/11, 7:04 PM
Methadras said...: MadisonMan said...

I was watching the GGs last night: What has Sandra Bullock done to herself?

Read what I just wrote. She is one of them.; 1/17/11, 7:06 PM
jeff said...: She was real cute in "mean girls". Has it really been 25 years since that came out? How time flies.; 1/17/11, 7:11 PM
Roux said...: Lindsey Lohan looks like crap but it's probably due to the botox and her lifestyle. Which is a shame, she's a talented young woman. For her sake I hope she gets her act together.

FWIW My 10th high school reunion all the guys were still in shape and looked pretty good. The women were all in the middle of pregnancy. At my 20th the women looked great and the guys looked fat and old.; 1/17/11, 7:12 PM
Bob_R said...: John Derbyshire took a good deal of heat a few years ago for saying that natural feminine beauty and sexual attractiveness to men peaked in the late to mid teens. My guess is that 36 is the default age because that's what science can achieve now. If it can achieve 17 that will be the default. If it can achieve 13 maybe Polanski will be able to make another Chinatown.; 1/17/11, 7:53 PM
Paddy O said...: Douglas Adams, in So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, wrote:

He looked swayingly around at his audience, and could not help but be aware of an air of scepticism about their jumbled faces.

He felt very affronted by this.

"How else," he demanded, "could I afford to have my face dropped?"

Friendly arms began to help him home. "Listen," he protested, as the cold February breeze brushed his face, "looking lived-in is all the rage in California at the moment. You've got to look as if you've seen the Galaxy. Life, I mean. You've got to look as if you've seen life. That's what I got. A face drop. Give me eight years, I said. I hope being thirty doesn't come back into fashion or I've wasted a lot of money."

He lapsed into silence for a while as the friendly arms continued to help him along the lane to his house.

"Got in yesterday," he mumbled. "I'm very happy to be home. Or somewhere very like it ..."

"Jet lag," muttered one of his friends. "Long trip from California. Really mucks you up for a couple of days."

"I don't think he's been there at all," muttered another. "I wonder where he has been. And what's happened to him."; 1/17/11, 7:55 PM
jamboree said...: I say both genders hit peak at 27/28.

Guys' faces are not better at 43. They're not bad, but check out any rock star, athlete, rap star - Brad Pitt comes to mind. 27/8 is the age - there's just a hint of age/experience on a 27-yr-old, just a shadow, enough to make them interesting w/o being aged, like a pair of favorite jeans that just broke in.

And then there's the body.; 1/17/11, 8:01 PM
jamboree said...: There is a tribe in Africa who are well-known for their physical beauty. They go naked and have three thousand terms for various muscles.

But at 28, male or female, even they slap on a loincloth realizing as they do, that it is time to cover their stuff up. Anyone who is going to be interested has seen it.; 1/17/11, 8:08 PM
Ann Althouse said...: It might be true that most people look their best when they are in their 30s. I think I did. I certainly think men look better when they are a little older. More manly. But women too. You have more character and structure to the face. Less babyishness. Better skin. More individuality and style.; 1/17/11, 8:23 PM
Anonymous said...: And then there's the body.

If the aging of a woman's face can be slowed, the condition of her body is of less importance:

Because in every Animal that walks upright, the Deficiency of the Fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in the highest Part: The Face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the Neck; then the Breast and Arms; the lower Parts continuing to the last as plump as ever: So that covering all above with a Basket, and regarding only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old from a young one.

Benjamin Franklin, Advice to a Young Man on the Choice of a Mistress, 1745.

Peter; 1/17/11, 8:26 PM
jamboree said...: I was talking about male bodies.

Firstly, there's the matter of hair when it comes to face. That is huge.

I'm sticking with 27/28 for the age guys look best. The only guy I can think of that looked better in his 30s was a Clint Eastwood - because he had that whole weathered outlaw thing behind him.

Steve Jobs -gorgeous at 27/28. Attractive in 40s, sure, but nowhere near as stunning as he was in his youth.

The Classic Rockers: Robert Plant/Jimmy Page/Jim Morrison - pick any rock star, really.

I already mentioned Brad Pitt. I think George Clooney looked positively bad in his 40s compared to his younger, prematurely gray, twinkly years. Matt Damon is beginning to check out and look thick and unattractive. I laughed my ass off when they cast him as the cub to the cougar in the last Ocean's. (Clue: YOU'RE TOO OLD NOW, MATT.). Leonardo Di Caprio - way better looking around 27/28. His type of face can't carry the weight of manly age that well.

The above are all ppl I find quite attractive, so don't think I'm calling them ugly. I'm not.

It's individual, of course. I don't think people look that great in their 30s or 40s, it's just kind of neither here nor here, but can cool back up in their 50s - go figure (assuming they've taken care of themselves.) 50 just seems to be like 27 all over again, but in decade terms.

I have no explanation for this preference other than my mother's favorite time was in her 50s and perhaps I inherited her attitude by osmosis. (My mom is a looker who kept a good part of youthful charm w/o even dying her gray streak.)

If we want to go the gross old guy who should be arrested route like John Derbyshire, I actually think 12/13 yr-olds are more attractive than 18. I certainly was very magical then. 18 I was depressed and chunky. Things were looking back up by 19 though. ;-); 1/17/11, 8:45 PM
Phil 314 said...: I live right next to Scottsdale. I see that "look" a lot. (Usually paired with obviously fake boobs)

Not attractive; 1/17/11, 9:23 PM
Anonymous said...: I live right next to Scottsdale. I see that "look" a lot. (Usually paired with obviously fake boobs)

And something else too :((((

Peter; 1/17/11, 9:39 PM
Methadras said...: It's really the lips that kill the whole facade. The fake, gigantic, inflated lips. It's ridiculous to try and engorge those things like a simulacrum of what you want us to think your vagina must be like when we all know that both openings are so polluted that even the CDC wouldn't go anywhere near either.; 1/17/11, 9:48 PM
knox said...: Megan Fox looks like that too, now. I just saw a photo of her from the Golden Globes and thought "ew."; 1/17/11, 11:50 PM
Rob said...: Did anybody else do a double take at the 9,000 breast augmentations for ages THIRTEEN to Nineteen?

I hope this is a case of dishonest reporting where the author included a couple of cases of reconstructive surgery or the like in really young girls; 1/18/11, 5:30 AM
TWM said...: The mid-30s is the best time for women looks-wise and it's the 40s for men, although some men can move it up into the early 50s.

Oh,and supposedly, the mid-30s is when most married women have affairs. Coincidence?

This fake 30s faces though look like crap no matter how old the woman is.; 1/18/11, 7:00 AM
Paddy O said...: "I hope this is a case of dishonest reporting where the author included a couple of cases of reconstructive surgery"

Sadly, it's probably not. I knew a girl in high school who got a breast augmentation for her 18th birthday. While not common, I heard from others who had heard of similar stories.

There's a lot of parents out there who very much cater to some perceived need for teenagers to get whatever they want.

Of course, I live in SoCal...; 1/18/11, 8:58 AM
Kylos said...: 36. Now no one else post and this thread will be complete.; 1/18/11, 3:41 PM
Methadras said...: Paddy O said...

Sadly, it's probably not. I knew a girl in high school who got a breast augmentation for her 18th birthday. While not common, I heard from others who had heard of similar stories.

There's a lot of parents out there who very much cater to some perceived need for teenagers to get whatever they want.

Of course, I live in SoCal...

My 21 year old daughter had asked me and mom if she could get a nose job to get the marking of a pencil lead that got embedded in the side of her nose when she was a little girl. It was a classroom accident. It's still there actually. She also asked while she got that fixed if she could get her nose refined. We told her that she could do it on her own dime if she wanted too, but we wouldn't object to her having the procedure.

However we did tell her that she should be careful considering that there really is nothing wrong with her nose. She's never broke it, it's straight, compliments her face, and outside of the little pencil lead dot, it's perfectly fine and if the plastic surgeon screws it up, she may be in for a lifetime of hassle and headache. After that, she thought twice about it and hasn't looked back. If she asked for a boob job, that would be right out.; 1/18/11, 4:31 PM