Netizens Worry as Viral Video Puts Into Perspective Just How Old Biden and Trump Are: 'Fossils'

Arguments over the age of the two presidential candidates, and their ability to govern, still dominate the US political realm. Former President Donald Trump, 78, was the oldest first-term president during his tenure until Joe Biden, 81, came along. The first 2024 presidential debate on June 27 particularly seemed to seal the fate of Biden as someone unfit for a second term in the Oval Office. In light of the same, recently, a video of a man listing things younger than both Biden and Trump went viral, as reported by Newsweek.

Digital creator Brian Xu, in his list, cited former President Bill Clinton (who was 46 when he took the Oval Office), the country of India (which gained independence in 1947), diamonds on engagement rings, color TV, the US interstate highway system, the US states of Alaska and Hawaii, birth control pills, Walmart, pineapple on pizza, legal interracial marriage, calling 911, high fives, last French guillotine execution, CNN, and ciabatta bread as examples to argue his case. On the contrary, Teddy Roosevelt was the youngest US president at 42, followed by John F. Kennedy at 43. Xu also claimed that 'over 95% of the US population is under 78 years old.'

With his video making the rounds on TikTok and Instagram, Xu has now also shared part 2 and part 3 to the same. While speaking to Newsweek, he revealed that 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?'" He added, "I started wondering, 'But how old though?' and started searching for people and events that contextualized the fossilization more vividly."

The first video racked up millions of views and likes, as netizens flocked to weigh in. A person enquired, "They were both in their late/mid-thirties when high fives were invented????" while another Instagram user remarked, "They force everyone else to retire at 65 but the biggest job of them all...the age is limitless! Make it make sense!" In a similar vein, another echoed, "Is it that hard to have a candidate who is younger than 70? Come on man it's my first time voting soon and THIS is who I'm stuck with. Nahh."

On TikTok, an individual reasoned, "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." Another opined, "I got they were old [sic] but this really put it in a perspective I could understand...it's somehow more insane [than] I expected." Meanwhile, Xu admitted that he felt "slightly amused and slightly unsettled to see so much bipartisan concern about age" in the comments that poured in.