Getting old is a funny thing. One day, you're partying with your friends, waking the sun, and feeling seemingly invincible. Next, you catch yourself wearing earplugs to concerts and throwing your back out from sneezing too hard.
In a similar vein, since pop culture by nature is always in a constant state of arrival, it can make us feel ancient when we apply a retrospective to it. With that in mind, have a look below at these pop culture facts that are making me feel very old.
The legendary pop-punk band has remained at the forefront of the scene for more than three decades. Singles on the album included "Basketcase," "Longview," and "When I Come Around."
Not only is The Simpsons the longest-running animated series of all time, but it's also the longest-running series in the history of television — by a longshot. The next closest is Law and Order: Special Victims Unit with 23 Seasons.
The Blink-182 you see today is not the real Blink-182. No matter how much time passes, I will never forgive Tom for his selfishness in up-ending arguably the greatest pop-punk band of our (or any) generation.
TJ and his group of 4th Grade pals would've been 10 years old back when the show first aired. Today, that would make them approximately 35 years old. That really womps.
More specifically, the actor who played Ben on Friends, Cole Sprouse, is 30 years old. For context, in the last appearance of Ben in "The One Where Joey Dates Rachel," his age is said to be six years old.
I can still sing along to every last verse of "Baby, One More Time" and I'm not embarrassed to admit that. Regardless of what anyone says, Britney will always and forever be the undisputed queen of pop music.
To be honest, even I have a hard time comprehending and remembering — and I lived through the '90s! It's crazy to think that nowadays even CDs are becoming less and less common.
That's right, the most electrifying man in sports entertainment is officially over the hill. I have to admit that I feel sorry for kids today. They'll never even begin to understand how incredible it was to see The Rock going head-to-head with the likes of The Undertaker and Stone Cold Steve Austin.
If you think that Carly Rae is little more than a one-hit-wonder — think again. She's quietly built an impressive catalog of music over the past five years, and her Tiny Desk Concert is one of the better ones in recent memory.
The Backstreet Boys were The Beatles of the '90s. Absolutely no other group could touch them in terms of popularity and their still packing arenas and selling out shows to this day.
IBM launched the first computer with storage capacity in 1956. It weighed over 2000 lbs, and cost $35,000 ($381, 237.50 today). Oh, and the storage capacity was 5 MB.
I still remember buying a copy at the Scholastic Book Fair in the 6th Grade as if it happened only yesterday. I still make a point of re-reading it every year.
I'm so old that I can still remember a time when in order to have a Facebook profile, you needed to have an approved college/university e-mail address. My oh my, how the times have changed.
It feels almost impossible to imagine a time without Instagram. The social media sharing app has become the dominant force in the world of social media, although now that TikTok is becoming more and more popular — who's to say how much longer that will be the case?
When Marty McFly travels into the future with Doc Brown, they travel to October 21st, 2015. I've got to admit, I feel largely let down. We barely have scratched the surface of self-driving cars, let alone ones that can fly.
If you think that's crazy, wait until you find out that the iconic sitcom has been off the air for more than 18 years! Still, it remains one of the most popular re-watched shows across streaming platforms.
I know, I didn't want to believe it either, but I've done the math and it checks out. On the plus side, I did get ID'd at the liquor store the other day; that was nice.
The first Bladerunner film starring Harrison Ford was considered a marvel of science-fiction. What's crazy to think, however, is that Ridley Scott's epic neo-noir thriller technically unfolds in the year 2019.
There's no escaping the proverbial earworm that is Michael Jackson's Thriller. For decades, Thriller was the best-selling album of all time. It was recently dethroned by The Eagles' Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975).
In case you lost track, that would make DJ, Stephanie, and even little Michelle Tanner all older than their uncle today, by more than 10 years.
The first film in the fabled Star Wars saga debuted all the way back in 1977. To this day, it's still considered to be one of the most monumental films of all time.
