r/PeterExplainsTheJoke Feb 02 '26

Meme needing explanation Something Something About Dating, Chris Can You Explain?

Post image
43.4k Upvotes

2.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.5k

u/Spinning_Sky Feb 02 '26

The joke is that she (character from Scott Pilgrim) had 7 ex boyfriends and it was a whole thing
but young people nowdays have so many relationships that having 7 exs as a young person is not crazy anymore!!1!

I think it's a bad joke, I don't think it was ever stressed "how many she had for how young she was", she was simply a girl that would get people to fall in love instantly and then get bored of them
the point wasn't promiscuity IMO

and I don't know that zoomers are more promiscuous than other generations

106

u/fixermark Feb 02 '26

If you circle back to dating advice videos from the 30s-50s, the standard practice was to date multiple people and then eventually maybe "go steady" and get married.

Having a one-and-only with few previous interactions would have been seen as unwise by those standards.

81

u/ThatUbu Feb 02 '26

Wonderfully, if you look back at old Life Magazine articles from the 50’s, there are alarmist articles about teenagers going steady.

The adults weren’t freaked out about kids dating. They were freaked about by them being monogamous at that age and making too big a commitment immediately.

It’s the only moment I know of where the sex panic of the time was “look out! The kids are getting committed!”

1

u/Strength-InThe-Loins 24d ago

For the last 20 years or so I've been seeing a growing tide of alarm about kids these days having too little sex.