25 Times People Called Out Youngsters Who Thought They Knew History Better Than Those Who Lived It

Being aware of history is like having an extra weapon in your arsenal. If you're aware of the facts on how certain events in history played out,no one can fool you with misinformation or mislead you with propaganda. However, these days younger folks are coming forth declaring all sorts of historical inaccuracies based on a TikTok video they've watched or citing some such other disingenuous source of information much to the chagrin of generations that have come before who have lived through some of the incidents in question. Recently, a group of older adults on the r/GenX subreddit discussed the times that someone from a younger generation gave them wrong information about historical events. Scroll below to check out some of the most popular answers shared on the original thread.

#1 I had someone tell me that AIDS wasn’t a big deal because well “they had d***s for that” ? I literally said to them I need you to shut up right now because you’re looking like the most stupid person in the planet right now. Pulled out old Google and showed them how many people died, why, and how horrid it was. Like I had friends who died. Complete A** Clown ?.

Image source: anon, Pixabay

#2 Or, being told you’re not an ally because you aren’t up to speed on pronouns, or what all the letters after LGBT mean, but you used to literally beat up a******s who messed with my gay friends.

Image source: Instimatic, Markus Spiske

#3 My dad got laid off twice in the early '80s, when I was a kid. It was a rough period for a lot of my relatives also. You never hear about that early-'80s recession anymore, people just go, 'Oh, everyone could buy a big house with just a high school degree.' There were a ton of homeless people in the '80s where I grew up also.

Image source: WhoDatNinjaToo, Phil Hearing

#4 “In 1986 you could work part time at a yogurt shop in LaJolla, CA and afford a 3 bedroom home on the ocean” No. Parts of this country have always been super expensive to live in.

Image source: MikeinAustin, James Lee

#5 I was chaperoning my daughter’s trip to Washington DC. The Millennial tour guide said he was going to take the kids to see the Challenger Space Shuttle.

Image source: Ineedzthetube, NASA

#6 For me the most jarring thing is hearing people refer to records as "vinyls".

Image source: fkyourcanoes, Alina Vilchenko THEY'RE NOT CALLED VINYLS. THEY WERE NEVER CALLED VINYLS. CALLING RECORDS VINYLS IS LIKE CALLING CDS "PLASTICS". FFS, STOP THE MADNESS!!! Records. They're called records. 12" records are also called LPs, short for Long Playing Records. 10" records are EPs, short for Extended Play Records, or 78s (if they are 78RPM). 7" records are 45s (because 45RPM) or singles. GET OFF MY LAWN.

#7 I admit to getting tired about hearing how easy it was for me to get through college and such 25ish years ago. I also remember the 70s and 80s, and amazingly, my parents could not afford a giant house with one person working as a coffee shop attendant.

Image source: SlyFrog, Stanley Morales Every generation has some hardships, and today's young people have been screwed over in some ways, but they go way overboard with how easy it was for everyone before them. I was there. I literally have social security tax records since I was 12, because I had to work. It was not some magical paradise.

#8 I had a dude argue with me that there was absolutely no way the National Guard ever shot American college students… pft pft pft.

Image source: Necron9x11, Mws77

#9 Close, close friend of mine was killed in Iraq (w me there). At the funeral, his son accepted the flag the military presents to the next of kin. The photo became really famous.

Image source: Darth-Newbi, Brett Sayles Had a Gen Zer tell the picture was staged by the military as military propaganda (without realizing how dumb the thought of the military spreading pictures of crying 7-year-olds in an attempt to improve their image, is). I tried showing them pictures, etc to show the family is real. She responded by saying I was one of "those".

#10 A few years back, in an open office, I was quietly listening to music and singing along (my desk was far away from all others so I wasn't being rude), when a much younger coworker came up and asked how I knew the words to 'the song' already, since it just released two days ago by a popular young artist. I said that I had been singing the original for decades. They laughed and said, "No, really?". I repeated the answer and they said I was wrong because that was a new song by 'popular young artist'. I said "No, the song was written and performed by 'washed up, once popular old artist'. They reiterated that I was wrong. I looked it up online and showed them. Their response: " 'Washed up, once popular old artist' must have covered it from 'popular young artist'. She wouldn't even admit that that was a problem, unless one of them was a time traveller, because she refused to admit that she was wrong or that she liked an "OLD" song.

Edit: Sorry guys, I can remember the conversation clearly but I can't dredge up whatever song it was from the depths of my swiss cheese memory. Image source: Adastria

#11 Yup. My favorite is when they are like: "What's your source? You have no proof!" and it's like: "I didn't read about this, I lived it.".

Image source: squirtloaf, Mimi Thian

#12 Imagine being a person who grew up in former soviet union listening to young people talk about the benefits of communism.

Image source: daperdingus, Elina Fairytale

#13 A younger Millennial once insisted to me that we dial 911 for emergencies in honor of the victims of 9/11.

Image source: sabat, RDNE Stock project

#14 The most common one I see is from younger writers proclaiming that "The entire country was up in arms about [insert major event]"... I was there, the reality is that most of the country didn't really care either way, but a few hundred protestors made a lot of noise.

Image source: Bashirshair, Sawyer Sutton

#15 Can confirm. I was very young but can still clearly remember watching the touchdown on the moon, the first steps, the placing of the American flag…. the whole thing.

Image source: SkootchDown, Pixabay Even at that young age it was emotional for me. My deep southern home town got to watch some of the truly enormous parts be transported verrrrry slowly on huge trucks right past our house. My dad took photos. They had been manufactured at a nearby site. Before the launch we drove all the way to the launch site and those enormous pieces of equipment we’d seen were now in place. He showed the photos to a NASA guide, the guide recognized the giant parts immediately and enthusiastically pointed them out to us. It was an incredibly cool moment. Another historic moment was the horrific Challenger disaster. Everyone in the country was so excited and proud for the teacher, Christa McAuliffe, from Concord, New Hampshire, who was selected for and had trained to become a payload specialist on the Space Shuttle Challenger mission STS-51-L. On the day of the launch the whole world ….. including her husband, children, family, friends, her school, and all her students…. were excitedly watching the broadcast live as the Space Shuttle went up….. and exploded just 1 minute 13 seconds after launch. Unbelievably, they didn’t cut the live feed immediately. It was horrible watching the shuttle disintegrate and fall, knowing there was no possibility of survivors. Just…. horrible. And one more moment: September 11. We had 2 daughters in basic training at the time, right at the point of graduation. My husband and I both watched live feeds as the planes slammed into those 2 towers. We sobbed as we watched the towers collapse, forever burying those still within them. We watched thousands of people out of their minds with grief, desperately wandering the streets, posting photos and notes, searching for their loved ones. And through it all, we were totally paralyzed with the fear of absolutely knowing that our two barely 18 year old little girls were going to be caught up in whatever this had been. All this is to say: Look around and know your audience. If they’re a good bit older than you, you might want to hold up on the faux passion about 9/11….. because many of us lived that s**t and will never get it out of our heads.

#16 LOL my oldest kid told me how OJ Simpson may have not k*lled his ex wife and the matching DNA was likely his son Jasons. Listen here, I didn’t watch court TV for 6 weeks and read 20 books on the case to have you lecture me about a 10 second Tik Tok clip that “solved” the crime of the century!! You don’t even know who Kato is !!!

Image source: FaceMaulingChimp

#17 I most recently remember this in 2020, after the election, when Trump was still challenging the results. Even after Biden was declared the winner, I remember seeing posts on Twitter from Trump supporters saying things like *"Don't give up! Back in 2000 the liberal media spent a month calling Gore the winner and referring to him as President-Elect, until the Supreme Court declared Bush the rightful winner!"* And I was sitting there going, no, that's not what happened at all. How you are lying about something that was 20 years ago? This isn't ancient history?

Image source: chace_thibodeaux, René DeAnda

#18 I've had people tell me I'm making up the nuclear bomb drills we did in elementary school in the 80s.

Image source: PsychoWyrm, Photo courtesy of National Nuclear Security Administration

#19 Just the other day some young person tried to passionately tell me that “shout” by tears for fears was actually written and performed by depeche mode. I was so embarrassed for them. They were so sure they were right. Bless their heart.

Image source: cuppyturkey

#20 In the same vein - I was chaperoning a trip to Disney and one of the teens confidenty told me The Haunted Mansion ride was based on the movie with Eddie Murphy. She was wondering why Eddie Murphy didn’t appear in the ride. The other Gen Xer I was with explained the ride came first, like Pirates of the Carribean.

Image source: FuzzyScarf, SolarSurfer

#21 My son came home from High School one year and pulled out his phone so I could hear this great new Band. Aerosmith....

Image source: Outrageous_Brick7472, Aerosmith

#22 I heard a younger coworker complain that NIN ruined Johnny Cash’s 'Hurt.'

Image source: doglvr48, Johnny Cash

#23 Slenderman is the one that really baffles me. Kids are all "It's real" or treat it like it's as old as Bloody Mary or something, meanwhile I'm like "I helped invent Slenderman on the Something Awful forums when I was in my 30s."

My own children were terrified of Slenderman when they were younger, and I told them "You know why he has really long fingers? Because a forum Goon called WIIWW suggested it. I know that cause WIIWW is me.". Image source: blackest_francis

#24 This guy told me I must not actually be Gen X because if I was, I would know that straight guys didn’t buy Milli Vanilli. Crazy

Image source: CreatrixAnima, Milli Vanilli

#25 Missy Elliott at the Super Bowl and the young people posting about how she was trying to be Cardi B or some other current rapper. Lol, when I read those tweets I laughed so hard.

Image source: FormerChange