This regression also helped encourage the innovation of communication technology. He points to the example of Japanese anime and comic books, and how the associated merchandise "turned into one of its major export programmes in modern years". You saw the rise of young people prioritising themselves over their futures in many ways."Īlt says that, while this behaviour was initially seen as negative by Japanese authorities, the behaviour turned into a "surprising source of energy and power for Japan as a whole later on". " grown-ups refusing to graduate from watching cartoon shows or reading comic books. The resulting financial crash "ushered in two decades of economic stagnation," Alt says. Japan led the wayĭuring the 1990s, Japan's "bubble economy" burst. And he likens it to something we've seen before. "Because when you think about it, when we're down, it's often the case that people even who don't think of themselves as juvenile will turn to nostalgic pleasures … That is a very normal and healthy sort of behaviour."Īlt suggests that regression could even be a positive force. "When you see situations in the West, such as millennials being dumped on for not drinking as much as they should, not buying cars as much as they should, not dating as much as they should, it takes on a much sharper sort of societal critique," he says.Īlt argues that younger generations don't possess the "traditional avenues of expressing yourself as an adult", such as careers, houses and families.Īnd, because of that lack of access, he says it's "counterproductive to categorise all manifestations of kid-like behaviour among adults as being unalloyed negatives". Matt Alt, a writer and essayist based in Tokyo, says that while the idea of telling young people to act their age is "as old as time itself", there are reasons why adults are regressing to their youth now. "Not having that sense of commitment and duty to things – even to things like voting, for example. Howell links adolescence with individualism. "So things like being relatively impulsive and brash, being disinhibited – things like not necessarily being as fully committed and persevering with things being more inclined to jump from one thing to the next," Paul Howell, from the University of New Brunswick, tells ABC RN's Future Tense. In fact those who embrace their regressive side say it helps them with self-confidence and coping with the pressures of modern life.īut there are also many who worry this type of behaviour makes us self-centred. So behaving like a kid even when you're an adult has plenty of fans. One subreddit that focuses on "age play", where adults act as different ages including infants, currently has over 27,000 members. On TikTok, the hashtag #kidcore - which focuses on brightly-coloured nostalgic fashion - has 1.5 billion views. And in October, it was reported that the fantasy card game Magic: The Gathering became toy company Hasbro's first brand to exceed $US1 billion ($1.49 billion) in value.Įven more niche movements linked with age regression are also popular.
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