I remember reading that when national parks tried to make a 'bear-proof' trashcan, they found that there was a larger overlap between the smartest bear and the stupidest human to make a viable product.

I feel like it's a similar situation here. The smartest kid and the stupidest adult are far more similar than we'd like to admit.

Nice try little Timmy, but I won't be telling you how to pass as an adult.

Very confidently wrong, poor reading comprehension, poor grammar, limited vocabulary, emoji gore, catch phrase/pop culture quotes/talking points repeated with no comprehension of what they're saying, clearly not aware of how many things in life work, religious regurgitation while being surprised everyone doesn't agree with them. Very easily impressed with basic factual statements, clearly thinking confidence is the main thing that makes someone correct. Thinks their mom telling they they are handsome is a valid point. Idk, that's all I got.

Extreme/insane positions on everything. Not just one or two insane positions, not just political extremism; when I say everything I mean EVERYTHING. No nuance allowed. And it has to be fully sincere, otherwise you are dealing with a Jreg.

There are milder versions of this, but I have rarely met a child that didn't have a strongly held insane belief formed from their limited experiences. My favorite was a kid who told me that eating pasta supports fascism because it comes from Italy, so loving Italian products means you support Mussolini. Pizza is fine, though, because that's American.

I don't think there is a "dead giveaway". Plenty of kids can pass as adults online and plenty of adults seem like kids online. And sometimes with stuff like word usage/grammar/etc you can't tell if it's a child or someone who doesn't speak English very well or maybe an English-speaking adult who happens to type like that. There's a lot of different people in the world.

When they're adamant that voting third party in the United States will be useful in some capacity, I assume they're 13

I aint reading allat💀💀💀💀💀💀💀

Like if gay is bad and u a sigma (YT shorts raised me)
👇

They're getting private messaged by YouTubers

"Redditors of Reddit, how do you sexily sex the sex out of sexy sex???"

Serious response: you can't really make a very general rule. There are a lot of people who write quite maturely since their teens, and a lot of people who are morons since their teens and have endless dedication and determination to remain in that state for as long as they breathe.

Not understanding the difference between pre and post 9/11 politics

I'm actually gonna give the benefit of the doubt and assume this is actually a grown idiot lol

Specifically in games: constantly repeating the flavor of the month insults. Typically some influencer comes up with a funny insult then for the rest of the month some kids use that one singular insult for every situation

I don't know about you all, but I have been posting as an adult human male for a numbers of years now despite being a 4 year old Alaskan Malamute. No one seems to notice or care.

I don't know

Edit: thanks for all the likes! I never got 100 before!!! 💀

Kids care too deeply about the most shallow things

For me personally the first tell is when they are morally loading every statement in an argument and are unable to engage with a topic directly. Adults should be able to discuss or debate certain topics on the value of the arguments alone without feeling pressured to include a declarative virtue signal in every clause.

Assuming that getting married means you'll never masturbate again.

A lack of understanding interpersonal interactions.

And it’s more of a feeling than it is any single behavior. You just… know it when you see it. They simplify too much, think values/morals/rules are shared, obvious, and uniform, and that getting along with others happens solely on their terms. They kind of act like everyone but them is an NPC - not realizing to everyone but them, they’re the NPC.

I can't say there is one. Every time i think to myself something like "goddamn, this person is immature" I remind myself that there's a high number of immature adults in the world including myself, so...?

I'm 62. I'm accused of being a kid all the time.

Username with a year that tracks as a kid.

Trick question: assume everyone is a child until proven otherwise.

Excessive edginess

It's important to differentiate it from like. Having extreme opinions. There are plenty of adults with extreme opinions and they are a whole other conversation. -- But only people under a certain age (not strictly kid, mind, though most people have shaken this off by their mid 20s) have a penchant to arrive at extreme opinions specifically because they are "edgy" and "cool".

This tends to also come with a particularly needless hostile attitude, where they very quickly and easily start with the verbal abuse.

They are on TikTok and not Lemmy

Enthusiasm.

They are a lemmy.world user

Asking basic questions that can usually be answered with internet experience ("how do bans/kicks work", or "what is an administrator", "what is LAN" etc.)

Flaunting "new" features that existed on older products. ("This game let's us upload our own music to soundtrack!", "I've never seen a platformer like this" etc.)

I honestly can’t tell. Whenever I see a dumb outrage for video games, I tell my self that it’s a kid, but deep down I I really don’t know

Their usernames are the random ones proposed by the platform, such as Lazy_Platform_34.

The neat thing about anonymous discussion on the Internet is that it doesn't matter. What you have to say is all that matters.

I don't know anything about anyone and that's great.

Using a year as an extremely long period of time, never uses "talk it out" as a solution to anything, mentions a YouTuber you've never heard of as if they're a global celebrity.

Also related to the first point, losing their mind over something that delays their education/life plans by 4 months or more.

My general metric:

Hahaha = gen x

Lol = older millenial

Lmao = younger millenial

💀 = Gen z

When someone asks what’s a dead give away someone is a kid, it tells me they’re not old enough to remember the ASL days.

Excessive swearing, as if they just learned how to say “fuck”.

Not that any damn amount of fucking swearing means they are are a young fucker, but you can fucking tell when you read that shit and they manage nine goddamn swear words in one fucking sentence you know they’re a young bitch who aren’t allowed to swear any other damn time.

Poor grammar/orthography