TEXT : ELLIOT ROSE ILLUSTRATION : MAYANG ADISTA PUTRI
AGINGGRACEFULLY
Whatever happened to ageing gracefully ? It got old . As the digital youth start to approach thirty , Elliot Rose considers what girls and boys with tattoos and septum piercings will look like as pensioners .
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WHO KNOWS WHAT EFFECT LITRES OF DIET COKE OR THE OCCASIONAL HAIR-BLEACH WILL HAVE ON OUR HEALTH ? IT ’ S AN UNTESTED HAIR AND BEAUTY DISASTER WAITING TO
For years , we ’ ve seen our parents fight the ageing process . Being dragged to Debenhams as a child with your mother , seething with boredom as she perused the lacklustre beauty hall for the latest anti-wrinkle miracle on a suburban budget is a painful childhood memory for many of us . If you had a father like mine , you may also remember the mid life crises of strict diet and authoritarian exercise regime . Nobody should have to see their father in bike shorts . Nobody . This begs the question , how will our generation battle getting old ? Arguably , the technology that could save us from being wrinkled messes is on another level to what was available even 15 years ago . One the one end there ’ s the Boots ‘£ 10 miracle ’ anti-ageing cream that has women everywhere clawing each others gently sagging eyelids off to get at , and at the other end there ’ s the likes of Creme de la Mer and that stuff that contains real particles of gold . A friend of mine recently blew a large chunk of student loan on the magic gold cream and says it ’ s “ the best possible thing you could buy with money you don ’ t have ”. Can ’ t argue with those rave reviews . Whilst the scientifically backed elixirs that may be our saviour are advanced enough to keep Madonna looking south of forty , surely the factors dragging us towards an unattractive end are getting worse ? Who knows what effect litres of Diet Coke or the occasional hair-bleach will have on our health ? It ’ s an untested hair and beauty disaster waiting to happen . And even worse : our current obsession with tattoos and piercings really won ’ t translate to a good look in 2050 . Imagine the dormant holes from snake bites punctuating a wrinkled chin .
Once cool , but now faded Chinese lettering on a sagging cankle . It ’ s a grim image . But it ’ s possible that we will reject the notion of growing old altogether . We ’ re the generation that ’ s never known much major hardship : we didn ’ t grow up during a war , through a major recession , disease epidemic or the rise of the Kardashians . It ’ s been fairly easy for Generation Y , with the broad majority of us living in a time where our parents grew richer and life became easier , being told ‘ no ’ arguably less than generations before us . Can I have a happy meal ? Yes . Can I have a phone contract ? Yes . Can I have a state subsidised university education ? Yes . After years of relatively plain sailing , will we simply accept the inevitability of being old , or will we kick up a tantrum in the style of a seven year old in the cereal aisle . Maybe we will be dip-dying in a blue rinse and be buying our zimmer frames from Urban Outfitters , or maybe slowly turning into our parents is inevitable , but at least one thing ’ s for sure : we ’ ll definitely be less racist than current old people , and that ’ s the happy truth to hold onto .