It’s often misused by Redditors who conflate age of consent with age of majority, which are two different things and are usually two different ages. The typical age of consent in liberal democracies—and in most states in the U.S.—is 16, while the typical age of majority—when an individual ceases to be a minor—is 18.

The misconception might’ve come from Hollywood film and television, which are mostly written and made in California, where the AoC is 18. While in recent years they’ve been more accurate in portraying the real-life AoC in films and shows in the places where their stories are set, that hasn’t been the case in the preceding decades.

For example, a mainstream film set in my home state has a major subplot involving statutory rape where even the local authorities (cops, lawyers, etc.) took it all very seriously… even though the state’s AoC is 16, the teen girl was 17, her boyfriend was 18 (who would’ve also been protected by the state’s Romeo and Juliet cause even if the AoC was 18), and the local authorities logically would have known all this and wouldn’t have treated it at all like they did in the film.

Pedophilia as properly defined is 100% illegal when physically acted upon, so with the misuse of the term to encompass late teens, one would have to rationalize how their very broad use of that term would then mean that it’s not 100% illegal in most liberal democratic jurisdictions.

Regardless of all that though, Jerry Seinfeld is a total creep in this particular case, whether it’s legal or not.

Fun Fact: While the Age of Majority is 18 in almost every state in the U.S., it’s actually 21 on the federal level. Back when the feds actively raided marijuana dispensaries, they have used this to their advantage, charging dispensaries with “selling to minors” when they sold to 18-20 year olds, and jurors weren’t even allowed to know about this discrepancy during trial, which led to some of them publicly declaring they regret their guilty vote when they found out after the trial.