As a millennial, I recognize that us 90’s kids just look like very tall teenagers, where as people our age back 30 to 40 years ago actually LOOKED like they were in their 20’s. Why is this?
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“Neoteny” is technically a genetics term that means an evolutionary change that results in the retention of younger features or characteristics into adulthood, i.e. a failure to progress to a more adult phase. This is something that requires selection over generations to produce, and happens if these younger characteristics are adaptive.
What may be at work here is that the hairstyles and clothing worn by people in older photos was youthful *at that time*, but is now only worn by old people — the same people that wore it back then.
If you look at the way young people dressed in any earlier era, what was youthful and different became “old people’s fashion”, and was then replaced by something else.
Look at the early cartoons of parents being shocked by the “dandy” or “macaroni” style of youth in the 1700.
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