Maybe Millennials Were Raised by Aliens Too

 

We Thought Teletubbies Were Normal

Recently I noticed something interesting on social media. Apparently, millennials have collectively decided that Gen Z and Gen Alpha are being raised on “strange content.” 

The word strange gets thrown around a lot, usually by people who once thought planking was a personality trait. 

As a millennial myself, I was expected to nod along and say, “Yes, the youth are doomed.” Instead, I found myself staring at my screen thinking, ‘Have we met our own childhood?’

I grew up in a rural area in Indonesia, where television had two moods: grainy and slightly less grainy. 

After school, I would sit in front of the TV with the seriousness of someone attending a spiritual ceremony. Doraemon was there. Hattori was there. These felt normal. A blue robotic cat from the future who pulls gadgets out of a pocket on his stomach is somehow considered reasonable storytelling. A ninja kid living secretly with a regular family? Acceptable. Nobody panicked about that.

But then I remembered the other things we watched.

Teletubbies, for example. Four pastel creatures with televisions embedded in their stomachs, living in a grassy dome with a baby sun that giggled at them from the sky. 

As a child, I accepted this without question. Of course the sun has a human baby face. Of course the vacuum cleaner is alive. Of course they speak in broken language like enlightened toddlers. We watched it calmly, as if this was a documentary about suburban life.

Now millennials scroll past Gen Alpha content and say, “What is this nonsense?” I want to gently remind them that we once sat cross-legged on the floor and watched Tinky Winky carry a red handbag while a windmill spun in the background for no clear reason. 

Nobody explained why the Teletubbies existed. Nobody clarified their mission. They simply wandered, giggled, and occasionally fell down hills. And we were emotionally invested.

Then there was Kyoudai Ken Byclosser. I did not realize how surreal this show was until adulthood handed me perspective like an unwanted gift. 

The series, originally aired in Japan in the mid-1980s, followed two brothers who transformed into heroes to fight an evil organization. That part is standard tokusatsu logic. The unusual detail arrives when one of the brothers, Ken, uses a motorcycle as part of his fighting arsenal. He literally shoulders the bike as if it is a medieval weapon, and in finishing moves, the machine fires a laser cannon.

As a child, I thought, “Yes, this makes sense. If I were a hero, I would also carry transportation equipment on my shoulder and convert it into artillery.” It never occurred to me that motorcycles are designed to be ridden, not wielded. The physics did not bother me. The logistics did not bother me. I watched a man lift a bike like it was a decorative handbag and blast villains with it, and I accepted it as peak engineering.

Looking back, it feels like the kind of idea born at three in the morning during a brainstorming session where someone refused to go home. “What if the hero carries the bike?” “Carries it how?” “On his shoulder.” “Why?” “Because it looks cool.” And everyone else just nodded.

Yet somehow, that show did not traumatize us. We grew up, we paid taxes, we learned to cook rice properly. Nobody blamed Byclosser for our emotional damage.

And then we reach the crown jewel of my childhood confusion. Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills.

Even the title sounds like someone describing a dream after eating expired noodles. The show aired in the mid-1990s and followed four teenagers who discover a glowing chamber beneath a swimming pool. Inside this chamber, they receive alien tattoos that grant them powers, allowing them to transform into armored warriors to fight evil. Their mentor was an alien named Nimbar who resembled a glowing, floating head with dramatic hair and the energy of someone who had not slept in centuries.

At the time, I watched it with full sincerity. I did not question why the alien base was under a public pool. I did not question why the villains often looked like they were assembled from leftover Halloween decorations. The costumes were bright, almost aggressively shiny, as if the budget went entirely into reflective fabric. The dialogue had the tone of a school play where everyone forgot rehearsal but committed anyway.

What made it uncanny was not the premise. Children accept glowing tattoos easily. It was the atmosphere. The show carried a slightly off rhythm, like it existed half a second out of sync with reality. The villains had names like “Gorganus” and delivered lines with theatrical intensity that felt almost too intense. Scenes unfolded with a kind of stiff enthusiasm. It was similar to Power Rangers in structure, but there was a certain homemade quality that made it feel both earnest and unsettling.

As an adult, I rewatched clips out of curiosity. I expected nostalgia. Instead, I felt something closer to anthropological confusion. The lighting was strange. The sets felt simultaneously colorful and empty. The alien mentor floated in a chamber that looked like it was designed by someone who had just discovered glitter. And yet, none of this stopped us from loving it.

This is why I struggle when millennials declare Gen Alpha content “bizarre.” Every generation thinks the next one is consuming something abnormal. We forget that our own childhoods were stitched together from low-budget aliens, magical robotic cats, pastel creatures, and men firing lasers from motorcycles balanced on their shoulders.

The real difference is exposure. Gen Z and Gen Alpha are growing up with the internet amplifying everything. Their strange shows are visible globally. Ours were broadcast quietly at four in the afternoon, witnessed only by a handful of children eating fried snacks on tiled floors.

I sometimes imagine Gen Alpha twenty years from now, defending whatever surreal animated thing they are watching today. They will say, “You think that was weird? You watched a man whose superpower was motorcycle artillery.” And I will have no defense.

The truth is, childhood content has always been strange. It has to be. Adults create these shows, but they try to remember what imagination felt like before rent existed. Sometimes the result is brilliant. Sometimes the result is a floating alien head under a swimming pool. Either way, children do not analyze it. They simply watch.

When I think about it now, I feel oddly grateful. Those strange shows did not ruin us. They stretched our imagination in directions that logic would never approve. They allowed us to believe that gadgets could emerge from pockets, that ninjas could share bedrooms, that motorcycles could become laser cannons, and that glowing tattoos might activate if we found the right secret chamber.

Maybe that is the point. Every generation grows up surrounded by content that adults consider slightly concerning. And every generation survives it. We carry a few odd memories, a few confused questions, and a deep fondness for something that makes no sense when replayed in HD.

So when I see millennials frowning at Gen Alpha’s cartoons, I just smile quietly. I remember the baby sun laughing at me from the sky. I remember a hero lifting a motorcycle like a trophy. I remember a glowing alien head giving instructions from beneath a pool.

And I realize we were never normal either. We were just strange in lower resolution.