A man has gone viral for listing things that are younger than Joe Biden and Donald Trump, from ciabatta bread to color TV.
At 81 and 78 respectively, incumbent Biden and former U.S. President Trump are the two oldest potential presidents in history.
Ronald Reagan—who was 69 at the time of his inauguration—had been the oldest president but Trump was 70 when he was inaugurated and Biden was 78.
After a debate between the two nominees sparked concerns about Biden's age in particular, a major discussion began online, summed up in a viral video by influencer Brian Xu.
He told Newsweek he made the video in "despair after watching the first presidential debate and thinking, 'Wow they're fossils, why aren't they just retired by now?'
"I started wondering 'But how old though?' and started searching for people and events that contextualized the fossilization more vividly."
Xu took to TikTok with a simple premise: things younger than Biden and Trump, who were born on November 20, 1942, and January 14, 1946.
The list included the country of India, which gained independence in 1947, and the states of Alaska and Hawaii, which joined the United States in 1959.
Interracial marriage was only permitted nationwide in the U.S. in 1967, and the final execution by guillotine in France occurred in 1977.
Xu's video explains that color TV was invented in 1954 and ciabatta bread was only created in 1982.
It has had over 18 million views and 3 million likes since being uploaded just one week ago, with thousands of people leaving comments.
"The fact that Bill Clinton was first elected over 30 years ago and he's still younger than those two is insane and just a big oof on our whole government system," one commenter wrote.
"Wait, you're telling me for Biden's first 17 yrs of life, he only knew 48 states?" another said, and one wrote: "I BEG YOUR FINEST PARDON?! Our current president was born during WORLD WAR 2?!"
And as one person put it: "I get they were old but this really put it in a perspective I could understand it's somehow more insane [than] I expected."
Data scientist and content creator Xu told Newsweek he felt both "slightly amused and slightly unsettled to see so much bipartisan concern about age in the comments of these videos."
"I'm currently living in New York City and previously was in San Francisco and grew up in Mississippi so coming from communities at various ends of the political spectrum," he explained.
Xu, who posts to TikTok and Instagram under the username @bri_xu, went on to say the comments on the video, with many people naming other things younger than the two presidential hopefuls, "are helping me make a part two."
That part two has since been created, and has already racked up close to 7 million views in two days, with highlights including the polio vaccine and ending segregation in schools.
At the other end of the scale of presidential ages, Teddy Roosevelt was the youngest-ever U.S. president, taking office at 42, followed by John F. Kennedy at 43 and Bill Clinton who was 46.
On average, presidents are sworn in at 55 years old, according to Potus.com.
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About the writer
Rachael O'Connor is a Newsweek Life & Trends reporter based in Leeds, U.K. Her focus is on reporting trends from ... Read more
