People Are Sharing The Outdated References They've Made That Young People Didn't Get And Left Them Feeling Old AF

Recently, I wrote a post in which BuzzFeed Community members told us stories of times they felt old AF or were shocked because they made an outdated reference to a younger person, and it went completely over their heads.

The post got LOTS of comments, some of which were people sharing their own stories of making outdated references that nobody else got. So, I decided to round up some of those comments, along with submissions from the original call-out (I had a TON that didn't make it into the original post), and do a new post.

Below are some more dated references our readers have made that have left young people scratching their heads:

1."My kids and I were watching Blue's Clues with Steve, and in one episode two of the clues were 'tape player' and 'cassette.' 😬 They had no idea, lol."

2."I (31) was in the car with my younger sister (24) when a song by Kelly Rowland came on. I was talking about the song when my sister asked who Kelly Rowland was. I turned to her and explained how she was in Destiny’s Child! She stared at me blankly and just asked, 'Who?' I had to take a second after that one."

3."I took my daughter to MoMA, where there was a Dial-A-Poem room stocked with rotary phones. She had seen them before in pictures and had a general idea, but showing her how to stick her finger in, turn the dial until she hit the stop, letting it go, and then doing the next number was very strange to her. I had to explain a couple of times that she either had to hang up the handset or push the little prongs to end the call. It was surreal — I realized this was such an archaic form of tech that it was. This was even further removed from her experience than my learning how to use a telegraph would be. My daughter's interaction with the other young people with the phones was at least as much an experience /artistic venture as the poems themselves. Fascinating!"

4."I am 43 now, but about 10 years ago, a coworker asked where something was. I said, 'In the Alamo. In the basement.' There were blank stares. I never felt so old."

5."A couple of years ago, my very young coworker came in wearing a pink sweater on a Wednesday. I jokingly responded with: 'On Wednesdays we wear pink.' She looked very confused and said, 'Is there a dress code?' I explained that it was a quote from Mean Girls. She said she'd heard of it but never seen it, and that it sounded like a movie her mom would know."

6."At work in a call center and I overheard a younger coworker's call. 'Who are you looking for? Dana?' Out loud, I said: 'No, Dana! Only Zuul!' He looked at me confused and was like, 'What?' I said, 'You've never seen the movie? It's a classic.' They were aware of the awful Ghostbusters remakes but never heard of the original."

7."My coworkers didn't know who Jerry Springer was, or who Maury is. I died a little inside that day."

Getty Images, Paramount Television / ©Paramount Television/Courtesy Everett Collection

—parisinthe30sx

8."A 20-year-old coworker walked over to get the time. I pointed to the analog dial clock on the wall, and he said, 'That doesn't help me.' I was stunned. I said, 'Big hand, little hand,' etc. He was never taught how to read the clock."

9."On TikTok, there are kids saying, 'Wait, I didn’t know Harry Styles was in a band!' I died inside. How do kids not know about One Direction."

10."A few months ago, I was talking to my 11-year-old niece about music. She primarily likes pop, so I asked her if she liked Madonna. She responded with, 'Who’s Madonna?' I honestly didn’t know what to say. I was so surprised. My niece is a big Taylor Swift fan, and now I can’t help but think about the kids 30–40 years from now who’ll be asking, 'Who’s Taylor Swift?' 😄"

11."I asked a question to a class of 13–14 year olds. When no one answered, I said, 'Bueller? Bueller?' Nothing but blank stares. It was sad."

12."A coworker was talking about his Jeep and everything that was needing to be fixed. I mentioned Adam Sandler's 'Ode To My Car.' Both he and one of our mechanics said, 'Adam Sandler makes music?' They were blown away."

13."I had a double whammy in a meeting with a bunch of new interns. I referred to the emergency phone as the 'Bat-Phone' and our new water dispenser as 'Rosie the Robot.' I never felt older in my life as I was greeted with blank but polite stares."

20th Century Fox, Warner Bros.

—anonymous

14."As a teacher, I once said that if my parents were taking me somewhere in the evening, it meant I’d miss a TV show I liked and would have to wait for the summer reruns. Of course, I then had to explain what a rerun was and that, no, we didn’t have streaming back then."

15."I tried to pay for some gift cards at Starbucks once with a company check. The girl behind the counter had no idea what a check was and had never seen or heard of such a thing. I ended up using a card."

16."My 27-year-old co-worker had never heard the Thong Song and had no idea who Sisqó was. The beach video!? The thongs!? He had no clue. So, we played it for him in the office. Mind-blown."

17."When Justin Timberlake was caught DUI and the 'this is going to ruin the tour' meme was everywhere, my daughter (16) tried telling us that, of course, the cop didn't recognize him, he has only had that one album anyway. She refused to believe us that not only had he had several solo albums but that he was in a band before making those solo albums. She thought all his fans were in their 30s and 40s because that is how old he was. She had no idea most of us had been following him for over 20 years. It took me showing pictures of my childhood bedroom covered in NSYNC pictures before she would believe us."

18."I (46) was looking for a box of size-large latex gloves and mentioned to the nurse (28) that if 'the glove don’t fit, you must acquit.' She did not get the reference to O.J. Simpson, but did know one of his lawyers was Kim Kardashian’s dad. She wasn’t a year old when O.J. was in the back of the white Bronco. It stunned me that a generation of adults was now in the workforce and did not share a cultural touchstone for most of us."

19."They were shooting a commercial or something in front of the office where I work. I mentioned to the intern that all the screaming they were making in the shoot made it sound like we were on the set of TRL. He gave me a blank stare and said, 'What's TRL?' I died a little in that moment."

20."Remember the term 'hipster'? Ya, I used it at work a couple of months ago, and the mid-twenty-something Gen Z-er had no idea what a hipster was. That was like thee word for all of us millennials!"

21."In high school, a friend of mine had a baby. I was sitting in geology class and got a 911 page on my trendy, transparent teal pager and ran to the hospital. I recently went to that baby’s wedding. I was telling a younger coworker how wild it was that I was attending the wedding of a baby whose birth I had been there for (ugh, when did I get so old?!), and I told her the story of running to the hospital. She didn’t understand what I meant when I said I’d gotten a page! I had to refer to old episodes of hospital shows for her to have any sort of context. She had no idea that teenagers just…had them. She barely even knew what they were. To be fair, I think pagers lasted about 20 seconds on the timeline of teenagers' communication methods, but still!"

22."Went to Vegas and made a Hangover reference to someone in the elevator. A woman in her mid-twenties never heard of it! Who goes to Vegas but has never seen The Hangover?!?!"

23."Not a reference I made, but I was at the gym when an employee said, "I didn’t know what dial-up was until I saw it on TikTok.'"

24."I was lying face down on the table at the chiropractor's office, and when I got up, there was eye makeup left on the sheet. I looked at the young assistant and said, 'Look, it's Tammy Faye.' She stared at me with totally blank eyes and said, 'Who?'"

25."A friend and I were at a ceramics painting store. It was about 10 minutes before closing, and we were cleaning up our stuff and packing up. I said, 'Don't start playing the song "Closing Time" on us. We'll be outta your hair soon.' The guy looked at me confused and said he never heard the song before. I looked at my friend, and she said it must be a generation thing. I have never felt so old in my life. I'm 36."

26."I was wearing a Mad magazine T-shirt, and the doctor didn’t know anything about Mad magazine."

27."Last year, I dressed up as a Pink Lady from the movie Grease for Halloween. At work, a young lady asked if I was dressed as a Barbie."

28."I was resetting my classroom (preschool teacher) and working on the math area. Obviously, I started singing, 'So get off your ath, let’s do so math! Math, math, math, math, math, math.' My co-teacher just stared back blankly. I asked if she’d ever seen School of Rock. She said no, and we later looked it up; the movie came out the year she was born!"

29."Asking the summer engineering intern if he had seen Office Space (a staple of my college years), and his reply was that he thought he had seen an episode or two."

30.And lastly, "My kids were hot in the car, so I told them to 'roll down their windows.' They had no idea what I meant."

Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.