Teens in TS4...

I think the OG meme is definitely a bit of a stretch, despite the fact that I too have mixed up teens and young adults a few times in game myself. And while I can understand wanting a more noticeable difference to tell the two lifestages apart, I don't think it's as much as their height and stature that's a problem since teens do look wildly differently than one another.

I reached my full height and completed puberty at about 10-11 years old. Until then, people thought I was older due to being taller than most kids my age and having a mature woman's body. This stopped sometime between middle school and high school where I easily became one of the shortest kids in my class since I was done growing and everybody else was at the height of reaching puberty. Since about age 16 and even now, I often get mistaken for being much younger than I really am. I'm 24 but I definitely don't look like it due to having a bit of a baby face and now being much shorter than the average woman. Except for some changes in my style (both hair and clothing) I look the same now as I did in my teens. So the teenager vs young adult change is not at all that shocking or weird to me.

I'd be more likely to say that the problem lies in the fact that there's too much of a gap between life stages if anything. Whether you think it's between toddler and child or child and teen (since I've seen both mentioned) the real problem is that there's too much of a gap. Same as young adult and adult. (I have to consider the YA span lasting from about 19/20 to at least 40 since the "adults" easily look like middle aged folk.

My second proposition was actually going be exactly as @CAPTAIN_NXR7 pointed out... that the difference is more aesthetic than anything really. While I can understand why teen through elder all share the same clothing, I think a big part of what contributes to the problem is there isn't enough variety that is aimed towards the different age groups. Discover University is very "YA in yours 20s" in my opinion and based on how I dress in real life, I think it's extremely accurate (jeans, sweaters, sweat pants, leggings, sneakers, you get the idea) and there are some good clothing for the "adults" as well in packs like Seasons, Dine Out. But teens and elders could use a few more pieces stylized towards their age groups.

Now I know everyone has their own style regardless of age and it's still possible to create good teenage and elder looks in CAS, but they do take a good bit of work and I'm speaking in general, stereotypically. For teenagers in particular, I think a few more "experimental" looks would do the trick, as your teenage years is really the time you experiment with clothing and hair, sometimes even making atrocious decisions like when I got my hair cut above my shoulders. Just from my middle school and high school years, I'm thinking emo inspired styles, or clothing like you would get from Hollister, Abercrombie, etc like what the popular crowd wore. Or heck, go back even further to things like Mean Girls "Plastic" fashion or look at what today's teens are wearing. Basically, just some more experimental clothing, hairstyles, and accessories.


ETA: Giving them different walkstyles can help differentiate them as well, especially "perky," "bouncy" or "sluggish."

I don't think the original meme is a exaggeration at all. This is a teenager in the sims 4.

I also think the Charm family is hands down the worst family to ever exist in the sims 4, but that's another topic entirely.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/2200748cc6e0dcb36e90e85b6ce7325a/88575c0a321e3793-64/s540x810/8ca9fe11838643ea458aee668c512647ad35ffba.jpg

"Zeldaboy180;c-18032797" wrote:
I don't think the original meme is a exaggeration at all. This is a teenager in the sims 4.

I also think the Charm family is hands down the worst family to ever exist in the sims 4, but that's another topic entirely.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/2200748cc6e0dcb36e90e85b6ce7325a/88575c0a321e3793-64/s540x810/8ca9fe11838643ea458aee668c512647ad35ffba.jpg

Yeah, I agree that Gemma looks like 16 going on 40, but she’s not that representative of teens in the game, either. For that you have to look at Yukie Behr, Cassandra Goth or Malcolm Landgraab. They still look young to me, on the latter end of their teen years, in a somewhat glamorized TV and motion picture type of teenage representation. Seriously, as good as CAS is in S4, if you want more typical teens, they can be created.

Here's Gemma Charm looking more like a teen after a makeover. In the original her face is too full, the hairstyle is too rigid and accentuates the fullness in the face, and the clothing is all wrong. Remove all the makeup and she'd probably look even younger.

https://i.imgur.com/1fgnj5t.png

"simgirl1010;c-18032810" wrote:
Here's Gemma Charm looking more like a teen after a makeover. In the original her face is too full, the hairstyle is too rigid and accentuates the fullness in the face, and the clothing is all wrong. Remove all the makeup and she'd probably look even younger.

https://i.imgur.com/1fgnj5t.png

Wow! That’s a great makeover. The thing I see in the game teens (other than Gemma, who isn’t typical) is that they are generating pop culture idealized teens. Whether that comes from movies and TV where the actors are pushing 30, or Social media stylists who pile on the makeup and filters, or our own community cc that makes everyone from toddlers up look like adult fashion models, I don’t know. Thing is, the tools are in the game to make them different if you want, as @simgirl1010 has shown.

"cyncie;c-18032806" wrote:

"Zeldaboy180;c-18032797" wrote:
I don't think the original meme is a exaggeration at all. This is a teenager in the sims 4.

I also think the Charm family is hands down the worst family to ever exist in the sims 4, but that's another topic entirely.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/2200748cc6e0dcb36e90e85b6ce7325a/88575c0a321e3793-64/s540x810/8ca9fe11838643ea458aee668c512647ad35ffba.jpg

Yeah, I agree that Gemma looks like 16 going on 40, but she’s not that representative of teens in the game, either. For that you have to look at Yukie Behr, Cassandra Goth or Malcolm Landgraab. They still look young to me, on the latter end of their teen years, in a somewhat glamorized TV and motion picture type of teenage representation. Seriously, as good as CAS is in S4, if you want more typical teens, they can be created.

I have no issues making MY sims look like teens. However, when it's time for my teen to go off it into the world and befriend/romance other teens, what am I to do when the randomly generated townies look like balding eggs?

There's a couple of solutions to this, and there's also plenty of ways to make teens stand out WITHOUT shortening them.

They need to adjust the body portions for randomly generated townies. I'm fine with body diversity, I want some sims to be fat, skinny, black, asian, etc. But when ALL of your sims are Asian townies who have extremely wide hips, weird skin, bright hair and a pregnant belly, that is not body diversity. So it's not a teen specific issue, but it affects them.

Secondly, teenagers need their own clothing tags so that they only spawn in "appropriate" teenage clothing. This would not negatively impact anyone, as clothing tags are optional, and be removed.

Teenagers also need their own voice actors. Teenagers do not sound like adults, particularly males. Their voices are scratchy and breaky as their voices deepen.

"simgirl1010;c-18032810" wrote:
Here's Gemma Charm looking more like a teen after a makeover. In the original her face is too full, the hairstyle is too rigid and accentuates the fullness in the face, and the clothing is all wrong. Remove all the makeup and she'd probably look even younger.

https://i.imgur.com/1fgnj5t.png

Agree 100%. Her clothes are not appropriate, her hair is meh, too much makeup, face is too round, and she has a pregnant belly which looks weird.

I made two versions of her. One where I barely changed anything, and another where I changed her hair and added freckles. Even adding freckles does WONDERS for teens of both genders and gives them a more youthful appearance, same with braces and acne.

I had to upload it to twitter for some reason, I know you already follow me so my apologies, but I have always used lightshot to post pictures on the sims forums, and they just do not want to work now.

https://twitter.com/LuckyLunayre/status/1479780032180633603

I just responded to your tweet. I found that pic online. I can't even remember if I still have that family in my game but I'd love to try a makeover if I do.