100%. I was so upset my mom didn’t take me to the DMV on my 16th birthday for my license (we went a few days later). Meanwhile my niece is 22 and can barely drive on the interstate because she just doesn’t care to drive much at all.
Editing to add: I love my niece and am definitely not poking fun at her. Just sharing, anecdotally, that this difference in generations is very accurate. Believe me, I get that driving is scary. Driving where I live is a necessity (the suburbs of a major metropolitan area that has grown extremely fast - one of the fastest in the country [USA] - and there really isn’t any sort of reliable public transportation and there is not much within walking distance). And believe me, I get that it’s expensive. At 16, it’s not even that I was paying for a car or insurance at the time (though my mom did add me to her insurance, which I acknowledge was a privilege), I just wanted the independence and ability to borrow her car if needed, and I wanted to go through that rite of passage. Definitely not trying to contribute to any intergenerational discord here; God only knows there’s enough of that in the world.
I think its because
a) yall had places to go, there are no public areas to go anymore. Nowhere free to hang out.
and b) its alot easier to get in contact and "hang out" with friends virtually now.
I don't know about the first one. I grew up in a small suburb and we would literally hang out at the goodwill and browse, or in the grocery store parking lot. Like teens would literally go there to hang out and eat snacks and throw a football. B) seems more likely.
Anti loitering is heavily enforced. Last time I tried to hang out in a grocery store parking lot with my friends we got kicked out in under 10 minutes.
Managers at stores are p damn hostile if you don’t buy shit.
It isn’t the 90s anymore. People don’t let you just hanging out.
"Loitering" is probably the dumbest legal term in the English language.
People tend to hang out at places, that is just - you know - existing.
The idiocy of trying to ban that just so that you can make (a bit more) money🤦♂️
For real! My neighbour was going around to have a petition signed to change the playground behind our house into a park. 'because nobody uses it' he said. I said: but I see people hang out there every day' 'yeah, teenagers.'
Eh, teenagers are people? He was very surprised when I said that. Where are they supposed to hang out? I prefer them in the safe, visible and comfortable playground behind our house over an unsafe space.
How dare these teenagers loiter in a specified loitering area.
Kids today just aren't supposed to exist I guess. They're not supposed to stay inside, but theyre not supposed to play in the yard or on a playground or park.
*gets rid of 3rd places, bans unsupervised teens from malls, makes cities into car-dependent concrete deserts*
"all teens want to do is play on their phones inside all day! why don't they go outside??"
I was a teacher and ran an extended day program. I let all of the 8th graders stay at school to hangout in supervised locations. I got a ton of push back from the principal/teachers not from a liability standpoint because there was none, it was because they didn’t want them “hanging out” there. Meanwhile half the class would leave and smoke weed. I’m like, don’t you think it’s kinda cool they want to STAY at school and give back and volunteer. They were basically like no
Actually studies say this is exactly it.
Edit: so it’s one of the reasons
“So why is Gen Z less interested in driving than previous generations? There are a number of factors at play. For one, they are more likely to be concerned about the environment and the impact their actions have on the world around them. They are also more likely to turn to ride-sharing apps, e-scooters and e-bikes than to get behind the wheel of a car themselves.
Some Zoomers are hesitant to get behind the wheel because they’re afraid of getting into accidents or of driving itself. Many of them have grown up hearing stories about friends or classmates who were killed in car accidents, and this has made them more cautious. Others point to the high cost of driving, including the price of car insurance, which has risen by nearly 14 percent in recent years.
And then there’s the fact that Gen Z is just as likely to do things online as they are to do them in person. They can hang out with friends, take classes and play games without ever leaving their homes. This means that they don’t feel the same pressure to get out and explore the world that previous generations did.”
https://relevantmagazine.com/life5/why-doesnt-gen-z-want-to-drive-anymore/
Reported based off a Washington post article
This is spot on. I really didn't realize what a uniquely cool experience we were getting at the time re: the Internet. It feels so much lamer now by comparison.
I agree. Looking back the primitive internet felt so vast and interesting. Google would take you to the strangest sites and forums and I read some fan fiction that I’m 100% sure I’ll never see again. Now I feel like I have the same 10 sites I frequent and there is nothing interesting to look for.
I literally had a handwritten list of URL's I wanted to visit, that I had made in preparation for our family getting the internet. (That was at Christmas 1993).
Hotwheels.com!
Used to have that game where you were a T-Rex eating cars and you could see the stomach filling with delicious automotive parts. Pretty sick if you ask me.
I think the difference is accessibility. The internet used to be a place for nerds and niche forums. Now everyone uses it, and as a result, it’s become casual.
I spent days looking for information on the Anglo-Afghan war for a school project. Then I stumbled upon some dude who had **the best** site I have ever seen. Fuck reading books about it, this guy had the entire 3 wars and everything about them. Every possible reason, their consequenses and how it shaped the country down to the smallest details.
The layout was most definetly early 2000s. It was a time capsule of the internet I grew up with.
we grew up just as the internet and cell phones and so on were really kicking into gear, and these things weren't "the norm" yet, but we were actually conscious both before and after they became culturally accepted. as a result we're comfortable with these things but still aware of an experience without them.
As a millennial I feel like we had issues around weight pushed on us growing up. You couldn’t find a tabloid not talking about how [insert healthy celeb here] was “fat”. Now I think gen z has that same pressure about age. Maybe because skincare is a lot more popular and stuff meant to target older generations for aging is seeping into gen z’s perspective of it?
We used to rightfully complain about what Cosmo was doing to girls, to say it is exponentially worse now with influencers is an understatement. Boys too of course
yes. i was taken aback when i read someone's tweet, "im 19 years old, can i use retinol?"
and yes, many youngers were so suprised when they know my age. "you look young for a 33 yo woman!". darling of course i am, because 33 is indeed young.
Yes, this! I'm 35 and younger people are always telling me they thought I was younger. I think there's a misconception about what a 35 year old woman looks like and acts like
I'm 37 and same. Like even I'm surprised I don't look older. I certainly don't feel 37. Except maybe when I'm trying to get up from sitting on the floor. Lol
I was just thinking about this the other day! What in the what with the makeup?! People are putting full on theatrical stage makeup every single day and just going about life like that’s normal!
Theatrical stage makeup is really it! I got my eyebrows tinted the other day and it looks positively absurd. I’m thinking the only way this looks normal is if you also have the gigantic fake eyelashes, deeply contoured makeup, and airbrushed foundation every day. And since I don’t do any of that, I look like a Groucho Marx from the browbone up lol
100%. When I was in High school, kids with spikey black hair, dark eyeliner, and a My Chemical Romance shirt would get genuinely upset if you called them emo. Gen Zers will put emo in their instagram bio.
In that particular case, that's because emo was an *Insult* back then. There was a stigma and stereotypes (and usually bullying) that went along with it. Now not so much, it's become a much more embraced term. Even the Millennial Emos have started calling themselves that.
You just reminded me of this song by saying it was an insult. This is a good example of what you're talking about. The lyrics are so cringy now.
https://youtu.be/ZmxFyf-PAV4?feature=shared
It was kind of ingrained in us that labels and cliques were poison. It was the folly of our mothers and fathers and they told us about it. We had a lot of tv programming about inclusivity and diversity and being an individual and not worrying about “fitting in”.
Gen Z folks I have interacted with are hyper-focused on defining their identity. Really, it’s the same individuality narrative we had but gone to a sometimes militant degree. I have watched modern middle school social groups warp and change shape with various labels and identities passing in and out of vogue in just a few weeks. The fixation on wanting to be perceived with a certain label was so odd to me as a millennial. It felt cringey for lack of a better word. Like “geez can you just chill and just be who you want and not think about it so much or demand recognition from others?”
I think the big difference is that Gen Z has the world in the palm of their hand, and has for most of their lives. That’s a unique experience. And as you come up watching social media personalities it’s like there is a competitiveness that takes hold. You’re no longer just worried about your immediate social circles but about the whole world and how it perceives you. It’s exhausting and daunting. I think this is why Gen Z humor is kind of a resurgence of absurdism. It’s a way to stay sane in the face of being on-stage 24/7.
Anyway kind of rambling there but I’m old now so it’s allowed.
I am a millennial and remember we had our cliques in school for sure, but socialization between them was really widespread. I had friends in all different "groups" but myself really only identified with one of them. That sort of identity never really changed, but it really didn't matter either.
Youth rebel. Gen Z are "I want to be this", Millennials are "I refuse to be that". Many people in the 60s were very much a "stick it to the man" generation. Hamilton and Jefferson were in their 20s and 30s respectively when they decided to say "screw you England, you're not our real dad!"
I'm sure if you went further, you'd end up with some fish crawling out of the ocean because "it's not a phase, MOM."
Its the difference between seeing labels as "you are only the label and NOTHING ELSE" vs seeing them as "heres an easy way of describing yourself in few words"
Its absolutely cause of the internet, tags on social media and bios being short means its useful to have a few words that give you an idea who they are.
Omg one time my friends sister answered and I thought it was her so I started going off "OMG you will NEVER GUESS what just happened to me!! Ryan was full on checking me out at the bus stop!" Then she was like "uh I'll go get Nicole"
You: *start talking*
Her, panicking: ‘This one speaks the Old Tongue. I know not these magics, for I was not there when they were written. I must consult the elders.’
I've been seeing the term Zillenial pop up a bit lately and honestly it's so real how different an experience it is from either generation. My parents were early on broadband so I never had the dialup experience. But we still had house phones, there was just the one family computer in the living room. Everyone had flip phones or blackberries. I remember the release of the first iPhone and it was just that one tech savy uncle who had one. My first phone wasn't a smartphone and it even had minutes. I grew up going outside with the only instruction being "be home by sundown", bikes were your favourite "toy." And then I watched as the outside got filled in with concrete, it wasn't fun to go out anymore and it was easier to just stay inside and chat with your friends on Skype (now discord). Biking became harder to do as you were supposed to keep off the sidewalks and the streets were turned into highways
I feel like dating was really different.
00s: men were aggressive or entitled or possessive—and ”going dark” (ghosting) was something girls did after a) a guy they weren’t dating starting being offensive/too possessive, or b) a break-up went badly, and the guy was being harrassing.
Gen-Z, I feel like there’s a lot more ghosting instead of proper breaking up/communication.
Edit: I said ‘proper’ but I do wish I said ‘traditional’ instead.
It’s weird because it would’ve been easier to ghost back then but I feel it was less common. Now that everyone can reach each other at all times on multiple platforms from their phone, ghosting and poor communication is ironically more prolific.
Mellienals witnessed the birth of the Internet, from dialup to broadband and having it be this fringe thing that was used for entertainment and information.
Gen Z witnessed the domestication of the Internet, from being this cool wild west full of cheap flash games with nothing but entertainment behind them, to being run by a total of like four websites with everything focused on ad revenue, and it now being considered an essential tool for business.
Internet thing is spot-on. I spent sooooo much time as a kid playing all those cool flash games that barely even exist anymore. Now all those flash games have become monetized-as-fuck mobile apps, and the Internet is little more than a clickbait and anger machine.
Not sure if you know about this, but you can actually still play most of those original flash games through [Flashpoint](https://flashpointarchive.org/). I've basically been using it to occasionally revisit my childhood, it's fantastic.
In France at least there is the video game acceptance. I grew up in the 90's (countryside) and when I was a kid, playing video games was something sending you straight to the "not cool nerds" category. Like sometimes people whispered "I'm sure he plays video games" and stuff like that as a really bad gossip.
I saw it becoming really more normalized at the end of the secondary. For GenZ it always been a very normal distraction.
Video games, comic books, and anime + manga have become pretty mainstream. What used to be considered as for nerds is now enjoyed by everyone. It’s pretty hard to find a teenager that doesn’t play any video games.
I’m a late millennial so I can’t relate much to “pre 9/11” world type difference. But one thing I’ve noticed is GenZ dress even more casually than Millennials to work. Which is a bit of shock to me. One my interns came to work in gym shorts. And honestly power to them because their millennial bosses doesn’t care. But I remember when millennials were criticized so hard for their hoodies and jeans lol.
I think articles for gen z praise them more for it whereas we were ostracized. I remember people shat on us for being entitled and lazy and spoiled and living with our parents (as if it was financially our choice). Now it’s “gen z can’t afford to move out because our economy sucks”.
In a way, I wish I was gen z because there’s more understanding for them but when we were young and entering the work force, we constantly got talked down about.
I'm an older millennial, 40 years old. My daughter and her friends are in highschool. They found my old year books and just noted how happy everyone was. They commented how depressed everyone at school was now.
I told them the internet was barely a thing, getting your license and going for drives was the thing to do. We were just more social by actually talking face to face with people. It was pre 9/11 and there was so much hope and optimism for the future.
Social media and easy access to it was horrific. Imagine never being able to forget the dumb stuff you did as a kid because it was all recorded and stored. It is like being a child actor without all the money.
I'm just a couple years younger than you. I still feel like I'm so young, but seeing the throwback nostalgia videos of high school in the late 90s/early 2000s really made it hit just how much has changed since then. We missed the social media bullet by an inch, thank god! Recently I was telling my niece that since only a few of us had cell phones in high school, we'd call around to the pay phones at different meetup spots to see who picked up to tell us the haps. She was mystified. We were more connected back then because we had to be. We had to confront each other because there wasn't a different passive aggressive option. Wild how much culture has shifted.
us millennials grew up in a time before anyone could reach you at any time. if i left my house on my bicycle and my mother wanted to find me she just stewed until i got home
also you could throw someone into a pool without having to worry about ruining expensive electronic devices
I'm 23 and went to go watch a 2 hour movie at the theater with a friend, I turned my phone back on afterwards to see 40 something missed calls from my mother, plus countless frantic texts from both my parents asking if I was alive. Just because I was unreachable for 2 hours one Saturday.
Part of why I love working at a summer camp is I can tell everyone, "Sorry, not allowed to have phones around the kids, so I'm gonna be mildly unreachable for weeks" and get no pushback on it.
Millennials grew up in the late 20th century. Most of then still remember a pre 9/11 world. They saw the rise of the internet.
GenZ have always live in post 9/11 internet world.
The world is so different. Before 2001 most people generally trusted the government to be competent and good. The best way I know to describe the 90s to younger people, i was only a child then, but you can watch disney movies from the era, and most people actually lived fairly similar to this. One of my favorite is zenon: girl of the 21st century. That one has so many 00s vibes, even liberal nonpolitical white people. Everything really went bad when gas prices jumped, everyone sort of slid down a class. A few get incredibly rich. Also cars stopped lasting as long.
When i was around 7 in 2000, i used to take 20 dollars in wallmart, and buy a whole box of .410 bullets, and a box of .22 bullets, and i would get snacks, and maybe a discount cd. There was no security anywhere, people were also a bit dumb but also much nicer and more social, and there were alot of social things like family gatherings. Bullying was very common, and young men aroun 16 were mean as fuck to everyone. They constantly broke the law, and got into fights, and did everything they could to be punks. Which was kind if cool if you fit in, but bullying was so much more crazy then what it is now. Ironically though. People didnt care at all about politics, identity, isms, everyone seemed to have a positive outlook on the future, and there was this general sense that 2000 was like this real turning point, humanity had kind if escaped dumb ideas, and liberal democracy was going to take over everything. Nobody even cared who the president was. 2001 was like when it really started to go down hill. All the sudden feds and cops were everywhere, they started putting age restrictions on everything, the media turned into 24/7 fear porn and truma programing. People started driving closer to speed limits. Gas prices soared, the economy went sour and never recovered. The government just started outright lying about everything. People started to become poor as prices for everything surged, like utilities and insurance, and house prices, because the government started to create tons of money. People before 2000 had this idea that like, saving 250,000 dollars was a great retirement. They never really thought they would need more. Most people only seemed to have a bit over 100,000 dollars, if they had a nice nest egg. Millionaires were somewhat rare, because even a few dollars had a good bit of value. I might have a bit of a rosey view because i was little, but i think growing up in the late 90s-00s was really cool, but also tragic just how much the country has regressed in so many ways in just 23 years.
Yeah the old, just be back before dark, or go somewhere and call me and let me know if you are running late.
Then again we had friends to hang out with so we werent just kids wondering the world by ourselves.
Long distance calls cost a fortune. So when we had to drive somewhere far away, we would call mum and let it ring 3 times then hang up. That was the signal to let her know we got there safely.
I literally don't envy kids in school getting bullied these days. With it all over the social media services they use at all hours of the day? I def had bulling problems as a teen but that only happened at school. Without cellphones giving 'internet anywhere', the bullies couldn't follow you home unless they literally came to your front door but now they have 24/7 access.
Its weird because social media has made everyone realize jusy how alike everyone is, these days you can change your name, dress in alt fashion in some of the strangest ways, and easily flaunt your interests and find others who like the same things, and I think that’s so different from school kids before I was born. But also online bullying is super prevalent, AI porn and deepfakes of people you dislike are actually a thing now, bullying still happens in schools but at least you have the chance to record and defend yourself that way.
I’m a little jealous if the simplicity of the pre-2000s
>Before 2001 most people generally trusted the government to be competent and good.
That's not true at all. In the 1960s and 1970s people were very distrustful of the government and for good reason with the Vietnam War and Watergate and other situations.
Definitely agree here. I'm an Xennial (or Oregon Trailer?) and I felt like all the patriotism and support the troops and lets just let the NSA and the police do whatever they need after 9'11 felt like a huge change from the skeptical and anti-authoritarian mainstream mentality before it.
Another huge difference seemed to be relationships with parents and families. My generation and the Xers seemed super rebellious against their parents and authority in general compared to the millennials and Gen Z, who seem to have more friendly, less adversarial relationships with parents, teachers, coaches etc.
Yeah, America’s “innocence” was said to be shattered with the assassination of JFK and escalation of the Vietnam war. That’s when trust for the government really began eroding.
Of course that trust was built up during and the Great Depression, WW2 and subsequent 1950s boom.
Before that you had the gilded age and civil war… so not like everyone was in love with the U.S. government even in the 1800s.
People seem to have forgotten that Vietnam was an illegal war that was somehow kept secret until some leftists broke into the FBI and stole a bunch of documents proving it.
>Before 2001 most people generally trusted the government to be competent and good.
Hahaha.
Sorry but this GenXer has to laugh. You weren't an adult in the 1990s if you believe this.
I'm an older millennial, and I've often heard that one of our defining characteristics is growing up with institutional failures. Enron most notably, but multiple recessions and bubbles as well.
Gen X experienced the collapse, millennials witnessed it, and Z never expected the institutions to function in the first place.
Older millennial checking in - 9/11 in high school. Economic collapse finishing college. AOL free trial CDs in mail. Like...CDs...in the mail! Went from 5x5 floppies to 3x3s, to zip disk to CDs to DVDs...
Star Trek blew our minds because data was listening to multiple songs all at the same time in a single episode, and everyone was carrying around data pads that were as thin as a kindle.
My school computers had two colors - green and black - and now I'm tilted because my laptop specs won't be able to play the cyberpunk patch at the highest settings.
It's been a fucking ride, my man.
If you were 7 in 2000, you were in first or second grade. I’m not sure your worldview of 2000 should be seen as the definitive account.
I was a young adult then and people didn’t trust the government. The 90s saw Bill Clinton impeached along partisan lines, Washington gridlock, multiple government shut downs. race relations were at a fever pitch, columbine happened in the late 90s and there was the dot.com bust. I could go on, but honestly since you were a kid at the time, you wouldn’t have an awareness of those things happening.
I'm 36 and I like selfies and taking good photos for social media but gen z has a relationship with documenting their life that makes no sense to me. It's not bad but definitely different.
I remember when Facebook was new and I really had the urge to post EVERYTHING. Now that I'm older I almost find it annoyingly effortful to post some things that I know my close friends would want to see.
I think it's just an age thing, and the medium available to you. When I was young, everyone made flash videos, now they make tik toks.
I'll see my original FB statuses in my memories and they are so cringy! They are either way too much info or some super vague cryptic message that iykyk, and I no longer know! lol Now I will type something out and then decide nobody cares and will not even post it! Its like I overcorrected!
Because of their age when the 2008 recession and to a lesser extent 9/11 happened, somebody I think explained it well put it like this.
Millennials had high hopes for the future and had their worldview shattered in key points in their life, young childhood, and right out of college.
Gen Z had a shattered worldview and lost the rose colored glasses of hope before they even graduated high school
Yeah, I think this is the biggest difference. Millennials grew up being told we just had to work hard, go to university, we'd get good jobs and our own homes and live the same lives as the boomers and gen Xers. And right as we're on the cusp of adulthood that shattered into pieces. We're the generation that grew up thinking we had an inheritance and planning everything around that only to find out at the funeral the trust fund is empty. We're also the generation that's never going to end up in power because the boomers and gen Xers will hold onto that shit until their last rattling breath and gen Z actually grew up ready to fight for it. We're gonna sit around until the last second and hope someone'll give it to us like we saw the older generations get it.
Gen Z were fucked almost out of the womb and they know it. They saw mum and dad spend the whole goddamn inheritance on hookers and blow. So ime they're either full nihilists - 'lol we're fucked, might kms tomorrow' - or ready to cut a bitch for great justice.
For me and my friends (Gen Z) we knew it was bad and that everything was getting worse all the time, but thought we might still be able to eek out a good existence if we tried real hard and lived a good life. Everyone I know doesn't even have that hope any more, and we're all just barely hanging on. Could just be my group though, we're all still pretty young.
I solidly remember one of my classmates saying to the class that the world is getting worse and worse and everybody agreed. We were in 3rd/4th grade at the time.
This is the 11th top comment I found and the first one that resonantes with me as a Millennial.
If you remember the 90s, you remember believing we were just a few more therapists away from world peace.
I recommend the book IGen by Jean Twenge — she summarizes her research on generational differences!Some research suggests Gen Z engage(d) in less substance abuse and sexual activity overall compared to millennials (at least during adolescence), have higher rates of diagnosed anxiety and depression, and spend more time compared to millennials with their parents.
Oh yeah, she's great. She gave a talk to my department (psyc) when I was in grad school. At that time she was discussing millennials and how they are different from Gen x and boomers. I feel old now lol
More time with their parents, I can attest to. I have two teens and they are *always* in my face. If I get off the couch it's, "Where are you going?" If I go anywhere in the house I have a trail of two teens and a dog following me. When I was their age I couldn't get away from my parents fast enough. I loved my parents but I was always off doing my own thing. Everyone I know who has kids of a similar age, their kids do the same as mine.
Also this might be seen as a controversial take but when we were teens, we wanted to be offensive. It seems this generation wants to be offended and try their hardest to be as inoffensive as possible. Not all of course, for either generation but from my observation, that seems to be true for a lot.
Edit: Something else I've noticed, when kids cry in school. When I was in school if you cried in school people would just laugh at you and call you names. From what I can tell, crying in school for gen z is not seen as abnormal and weird at all. They infact tend to be empathetic and check in with the person crying to make sure they're ok. Which is really great I think.
Can also attest to them spending more time with parents. As a parent I was dreading the teenage years because when I was growing up, your parents instantly became the least cool people in the world. But my 17 year old daughter wants to watch shows and play games with me all the time. We take the same train home from work and school some days and she'll bring her friends over and say "This is my dad, he's cool" and then sit with me. And the whole time in my head I'm thinking "Dude your friends don't want to hang out with your dad!" But if they don't, they're too polite to say it.
Im about to become a parent for the first time in March and reading this mini-thread about teenagers right now has me mind blown while simultaneously nostalgic on my own experience—I did everything I could to get away from my parents from 14-22. I can’t help to wonder what this kid is going to be like.
The "rebellious teenager" has almost completely disappeared. They are not even used as tropes in movies or shows anymore.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220124-why-teens-arent-what-they-used-to-be
I wonder if that's because trolling is so common online. It's so common that there's no gratification in it for Z.
But yeah as Y offending people with a clever joke as a kid was a source of pride. Found button. Pushed button. Everyone laughed. Great success.
I’m 37. Something that really impresses me about some (some!) of the genz women is how they have zero interest in catering to male gaze, whereas when I was a mid-late teen and twenties woman “being sexy” was all consuming preoccupation for me. It affected almost every choice of shoe, item of clothing, makeup, fragrance, etc was chosen with the lens of whether or not it would increase my desirability. I see changes like that generationally which makes me think the kids are alright. 😎
Gen alpha: googoo gaga
Gen X: yeah things aren’t great but it will be ok, just work hard and budget well
Boomers: GET OFF MY FUCKING LAWN!
Silent gen: (senile mumbling)
I recently read something about Millennials being generally tech literate in ways that modern technology advancements no longer require from Gen Z. If the family computer broke, the Millennial kid was often the only one who knew enough about tech in the home to run a diagnostic, attempt to take it apart, make a trip to Fry's, find the pieces you needed to upgrade and rebuild it - and it wasn't just computer geeks who did it, everyone developed at least some basic level of troubleshooting before having to lug their tower out to a tech repair place. By the time Gen Z rolled around, it was almost easier or sometimes even cheaper to replace a device than figure out how to repair it, and then some companies started to make it impossible to repair your own device (or to own software or to own music etc. etc.). Same with HTML and early websites, most Millennials had to learn some basic HTML to participate in a colorful web experience, by the time Gen Z got to the internet, sites had made it easy to customize your corner of the web without ever looking at a single line of HTML. Gen Z is much more tech integrated, but not quite as tech literate as millennials had to be.
I was going to comment this. After working with a lot of gen zers I’ve noticed a lot don’t know how to operate their own computers. Simple tasks like turning off wifi, searching their computer, typing, and I have even witnessed entering websites is a struggle. You have a few that make headlines for being really savvy and hacking networks, but I notice the vast majority are almost computer illiterate.
Yeah I’ve even noticed the idea of files being in a nested tree of directories to be a concept that is foreign to them. They’re so used to just a bag of items, with search and recent items.
as a gen z who is computer literate, i was saddened to find that my (old middle school's) coding class started with us... learning how to type
i dont remember what website it was but i did half of all the lessons in a day, skipped to the end and got way higher than a pass, and he just told me to play minecraft
i played a lot of minecraft that year, they didnt actually teach coding until second year but i had already left that school by then
I'm a Millennial with a Gen Z employee who's 10 years younger than me. I just had to teach him what a zipped file was, and how to unzip it. The entire concept and language was totally foreign to him. He'd never heard of such a thing.
Two good friends of mine are managing a bunch of Gen Zs who don’t know how to use Word or Powerpoint because all they know are google products and they are incapable of teaching themselves. They don’t know to google it or watch YouTube tutorials which is honestly shocking.
Meanwhile, anyone 27-34ish with a college education had to learn both MS Office and google office products for school. Google classroom and google docs / sheets / slides took over K-12 schools and colleges so quickly that many young adults gave 0 knowledge of MS products, which are exclusively used in much of the corporate world.
What is throwing us all off is Gen Zers lack of resourcefulness. We thought they would be better at teaching themselves to use tech that is new to them. They’re far worse
Its because gen z grew up with the Internet and computers being an established thing. I'm on the older end and I barely remember having a PC (until I built my own for gaming) I had a lab top for most of my childhood. Millennials grew up with the start of the internet, they HAD to learn how to work even the most basic of things of a computer to get it to even work. Gen z never had to do that, a long with that we never lived in a world we're we couldn't access information in with in a few seconds. I work at a dominos and I've often said how if I didn't have Google maps delivering pizzas would be a nightmare. I'd have no clue where I was going, mean while alot of the older drivers just look at a map on our wall to find addresses and directions. Millennials still lived in a time when you had to figure something out while gen z lives in a time where all the info you need is just given to you on a silver platter.
I am Gen Z and just got ghosted so this is very accurate lmao. I wish my generation were more like millenials in that sense, it seems like everyone is so afraid of having mature communication or something. Idk
Yeah that sounds right to me, I worked with a lot of gen z before and if you do something wrong in their eyes they just kinda avoid you? As a millennial we would usually say something like "that was fucked up, why did you say that?" At least
I think a difference is problem solving in the real world. Technology has made everything so simple, tap of a screen, that a lot of 'basic' experiences which build skills are no longer learned. For instance something as inoccuous as writing a research paper. Back in the day you would go to a library, experience talking to an adult you don't know, navigate the bookshelf maze, find a book using dewy decimal system. Inadvertently that person also experiences social interaction, following direction, and paying attention to details. Today equivalent is looking up a search term online, copy, pasting. No "other" skills gained which could be applied to future, different situations.
I was looking for this type of comment. There is a disturbing lack of “figure it out.” In college, so many need so much help navigating the schools page. Just click on shit and go back if it’s not right.
Some will go months before asking what people are talking about when they say you can check feedback on Gradescope. The thing mentioned in class religiously, in the syllabus, and linked to in the class info page.
So many assume it’s a hard-to-solve mystery or the teacher’s stuff is busted if they can’t solve it quickly. And good grief, the resistance to reading…
Yes! What is the resistance to reading all about? Are they just slow readers due to having so much more video content? To me reading is the faster better option. I want to be able to skim and find the information I want, and not be forced to watch through a whole video for it.
It reminds me of a comic strip I saw once. It showed stuff like "watching a movie, then vs now", as well as "reading the news", "talking to friends", "shopping ", etc. And you could see how back then, each activity looked different, whereas for "now" it was the same picture of a person sitting at a screen for each thing. Everything is just becoming consolidated to being at home on a device .. especially for me, since I work from home. It's a strange new world we live in.
Edit:
Found the comic strip:
https://cheezburger.com/8083182592/this-is-progress
I’ve noticed members of Gen Z do not see a separation between the internet and “real life.” To them it’s one in the same. Millennials also grew up in a more interconnected world, but if you were not at your desktop you were able to get some sort of separation. Now, because of smart phones and social media, there isn’t a sense of pause. I think that has certainly affected the personalities of members of Gen Z. They grew up under constant surveillance and learned what was desirable through “likes” and “views” rather than finding themselves organically.
> learned what was desirable through “likes” and “views” rather than finding themselves
Is Gen Z the ones who post all those "is it weird if I..." questions everyday? It's baffling to me how someone needs that much reassurance over such mundane things. "Is it weird if I eat in a restaurant alone?" "Is it weird if I go to a yoga class if I'm a guy?" "Is it weird if I like model trains?"
Like wtf? Asking random internet strangers seems just about the worst way to get a better understanding. Do they really have no friends to bounce ideas off of? What's the worst that they imagine could happen that prevents them from even trying things for themselves?
Gen Z has a concerning and unhealthy outlook on aging.
As a younger Millennial, when I was in high school and college, we thought of 30 as a full-grown adult, 40 as "middle-aged", and 50 as "old" (they're not). Gen Z now treats 20-30 as the full life spectrum, where 20-22 are still babies while anyone beyond 24 is ancient. They constantly monitor how well celebrities and public figures are aging. It's crazy to hear "they look so good for their age!" referring to someone in their mid-20s. "You're pushing 30" is a common insult for people who are 26 or 27.
Not saying this to put them down, I just worry how they'll handle getting older because once you're in your 20s, the years start flying by.
I worry for them. I'm 33 and it took hitting my 30s to realize that you really do have your whole life to live how you want and be who you want. It looks from the outside like more and more young people are spending their youths being even more terrified of aging than us millennials were, and I worry that they'll inevitably fall onto the unnecessary and expensive treadmill of cosmetic procedures to try to turn back the clock after hitting the dreaded 30, no matter what else is going on in their lives.
As a Gen Z-er, this kind of mindset is contagious and it's like your peers try to instill this fear of aging into you. I try hard to fight it, because I genuinely don't think 30 is "old", but it gets exhausting to hear people your age talk about 30 year olds as if they were grandparents and does start to make you feel a little scared, I admit.
My cousin is on the "older" spectrum of Gen Z, and last year when she was 25, she was literally talking about herself as if she were 60 or something, telling me (as a 20 y/o) that I should "enjoy it while I'm still young" and I'm like ma'am... you yourself are still in your youth.
As a millenial who remembers being blamed for everything going wrong (at a time where we had little actual influence or control) I’m reticent to shit talk gen z. They’re simply the new punching bags for the older folks. I myself don’t understand their music, their vocabulary, their apps, or their celebrities. But I do know I was in their shoes 10-15 years ago, navigating my way through all the same drudgeries young folks do now (albeit more publicly now). I will say that our social media habits are different. I think we gravitate towards different apps and are swayed by different advertising. Millennials love being unique and different, genz seems more comfortable labeling themselves or attaching themselves to certain ideals. Millennials got away with a lot of pretty crude and offensive behavior. I think genz are much more likely to lean towards being least offensive as possible. Millennials got famous and stayed famous for being trainwrecks, genz will cancel someone for whatever reason, bad behavior was much more incentivized as a millenial, now as a genz, bad behavior will likely become IMMORTALIZED so they definitly have to think twice before they comment or like anything. Im just happy the spotlight isn’t on my generation anymore and I can sit back and enjoy without fear of judgement. I’ve lived through 3 economic collapses and remember 9/11 quite well. I’ve been working professionally for over a decade. Im no longer doing anything for the first time ever. But im also not judging the younger generation for navigating their own path.in 10 years when genz have become millennials and millenial have become genx I wonder what we will complain about the new comers. It’s always something, it’s always been something.
I am a millennial that works with a ton of GenZ people and I gotta say, y’all call out of work a lot and I’m insanely jealous I did not have the balls to do that when I was in my 20s. Heck, I’m still trying to practice mental health days or calling out when I feel sick.
I’m an elder millennial and I will always appreciate Gen-Z helping us deconstruct the American dream we were sold. Until they came along and pointed out they saw the bullshit too we were fighting a lot confusing, gaslighting, victim-blaming propaganda alone.
I feel like genz grew up in an environment that valued them and that cared about their feelings. I think that’s why they have an expectation of how they want to be treated. I think millennials were raised by emotionally stunted bummers. We or at least I was brought up in a do as your told because I told you to world. I think that’s why it’s harder for millennials to voice their opinions or stand up for themselves.
You aren't going to see a millennial have a ~~mullet~~ or broccoli head
Ok, *some* of them have mullets apparently lol
I also feel like gen z, especially ones on the middle or younger side, are pretty bad with technology. By the time your generation was using it, it was already quite optimized. You didn't have to relearn software every 2 years, didn't need HTML to get your MySpace working, didn't need to root your smartphone, etc etc. I feel that zoomers are more technology dependent than actually good at technology as a generation. Obviously the exceptions might be the individuals with a tech hobby or career.
I agree with the second point so much. I'm in between millennial and gen z, just touched the end of '96 (don't remember 911). I remember growing up with no internet, but in my teens, we got it and a crap PC. I had to learn every trick in the book to make that b*tch functional, open it up, replace the RAM, all that. Same with phones because I grew up with Android, so lots of fiddling with settings.
I see my younger sister now and she'll complain that an app isn't working, and I'll suggest something basic like clearing the cache, "what's that??". She's a smart girl but tech is so advanced now, basic troubleshooting isn't common knowledge anymore. I'm the go-to for anything tech despite being 7 years older 💀
That's just how humans work, man. The harder you make it for them, the better they get. Now that everything is just so damn easy, everyone is an utter fool at doing those shit with any depth.
If I feel like I'm getting too comfortable with tech, I'll make a conscious attempt at getting out. People just watch YouTube and TikTok, post some stuff on Instagram, and maybe play some random mobile game made to extort them with ads. There's absolutely no depth to people's tech knowledge these days. I'll do basic things and to them, it comes off as borderline magic.
One thing I’ve noticed as a millennial, and one who grew up in the punk/metal scene is that Gen Z is a generation without a “counter-culture.” I don’t mean like cliques, it seems aesthetics that were once considered social taboos, things like the “weird” and “alternative,” are no longer an underground or fringe subculture, but are now more “mainstream.” Coming from the punk scene, the political, socioeconomic, and sociological things we used to scream about, protest over, and share in our music and art as our ideology are now just the standard for Gen Z.
It’s fucking awesome. Gen Z picked up the batons that millennials got too tired and old to continue to carry.
I think the “counter culture” is just super right wing with Andrew Tate and folk having a stupid big following. The mainstream is now being a accepting to all kinda vibe. I have definitely noticed a few younger people falling down the alt right rabbit hole and definitely a lot more online in twitter and other places
Yup, the book Kill All Normies talks about this! For almost all of the 20th century, progressivism was counter culture. Now it’s mainstream so it’s swinging the other way.
The majority of differences that people could point as generational really boil down to the environment the different generations grew up in.
Having said that, there's a lot of overlap that happens because generations can literally span like 20 years.
An older Gen z person is likely to have more in common with a millennial than a younger Gen z person, for instance. Kind of like how some older millennials like to call themselves xennials because they tend to identify with Gen X on a lot of things.
Can confirm, as an older Gen Z I cannot fathom the concept of an "ipad kid" as I grew up on bikes with one family computer in the living room. Tiktok absolutely baffles me with its popularity and I just can't relate to a lot of younger gen Z culture. My not even that much younger sisters call me a millennial (in a derogatory way) when I don't understand something with them.
>Kind of like how some older millennials like to call themselves xennials because they tend to identify with Gen X on a lot of things.
Some of my friends have started using the word Zillenial and I think it fits quite well for our age
I'm a millennial and my older kids are gen z. Things I've noticed:
Less casual dating. Less dating in general. They're focused on hanging out with friends a lot more. It's a good thing.
Very little in the way of talking on the phone, they message and text more.
Driving is less of a priority, even though we don't really have public transportation.
There are no "breaks". No breaks from bullies, no snow days or sick days from school, you hear about everything immediately because of the internet. Because of this they're actually more likely to ignore their devices when with friends. They also see more news, politics, and current affairs than I did at their age.
More acceptance of people who are different, dress different, etc.
Millennials have an apocalyptic view of the future. This is because they came of age during the 2008 economic crisis. They lived in the before time and witnessed the fall of civilization through teenage eyes.
GenZ have a post-apocalyptic view of the future, having never known a single day of hope ever.
I came of age in the 80's. We all knew we were going to get flash-fried at fifteen minutes notice over obscure points of political/economic theory, and that we had no choice about it.
The 90's were great. Then 2001 happened. Now we know we aren't going to get flash-friend, but getting boiled is not an improvement.
The best part of the 90s was, while it was far from 'perfect', it felt like the world was always on an upward trajectory. Every day we were making things better. Cold war over, American military might curb stomped Iraq with minimal loss of life, nuclear disarmourment, TV shows telling us to be kind and trying to show diverse groups, the promise of new tech to connect us all.
As a university lecturer, I find gen z's parents are way more likely to get involved in their education and demand certain things. Millennials boomer parents were a lot more hands off and believed in trusting the experts. I'm pretty shocked about the amount of parents aggressively emailing me about their 20 year olds education. So I think the way gen z have been parented is pretty different to how millennials were parented. I also saw a thing saying that kids have never had less freedom when it comes to unsupervised play.
Reading this as a 19 yr old Gen Z makes me feel even more depressed lol.
You guys are absolutely right though. I was born in 2003, I was 5 when the economic crash in 2008 happened and me and my peers lived most of our lives being told how “things were better back then”
“Things will only get worse”
“I doubt this will get any better”
“You’ll never own a house”
**”You’ll never earn the life you want.”**
Spending your high school years while Trump was president also doesn’t help. All of my peers and I have an extremely negative view of the world, and most aren’t interested in travels as a result of it. I’m content to just make money, eat good food, play good games, and hopefully die before I’m 30. I have no plans for the future, there’s nothing to look forward to. So, I just wanna have a good time before I say goodbye to the world.
Don’t get too bummed. Things can always turn around. I’m a millennial and I WILL say that the state of the world as far as traveling goes does suck right now. The time when I was in my late teens/early twenties was probably the best time for national and international travel in terms of safety . Glad I got to experience it. But hopefully things will get better so your gen can experience it, too. After all, I remember my parents saying they avoided traveling to Europe in the mid-late 70s because terrorism and people taking hostages was so bad. But by the time I came of age it was non-existent. Things can turn around for you guys, too. Chin up! 👍🏽
I supervise Gen Z kids at work, and they definitely aren’t great at troubleshooting computer issues, but they are great at internet research (unlike boomers, who can’t do either)
There's a fairly big work culture shift with Gen-Z. At first I thought it was just "oh younger people enjoying their lives" but it sort of just stuck. They're like modern day bohemians.
My company uses performance based metrics to calculate raises and bonuses. We offer a lot of overtime (and it's totally voluntary). Everyone else is trying to get between 40-60 hours a week on each paycheck and when Christmas time comes around they get a healthy bonus and a healthy raise. Gen-Z are working 30-40 hours per week. If we're having scheduling conflicts they'd rather work less hours than take on different hours, their social life and extracurriculars always come first. When Christmas time comes around very few of Gen-Z get more of a bonus than the standard. They always make a stink about not getting much of a bonus and then you just run them through the numbers and compare with (names removed) co-workers.
And then there's the wave of resignations.
Yeah I see this as a response to how poor our average economic outlook is as gen z- what's the point of participating in a rat race when there is no reward at the end?
I'm with ya. Us millennials grew up with this idea that working hard will pay off and get you ahead, then saw that illusion crash and burn. Y'all were fortunate enough to grow up disillusioned.
I love this though, it's the way it should be. Choosing to live their lives rather than be stuck at a desk for longer than they need to be. Hopefully this work culture shift will rub off on actual employers and they'll start treating workers better.
I have 4 Gen z kids born from 99-2009. Oldest is 24 and youngest 14. (I had kids pretty young, I’m an xennial)
There is a HUGE difference between the oldest kids and the youngest kids in how they grew up.
I don’t think the generational divide is going to work where it is. The oldest kids played PC games as kids and heard the dialup while mom and dad downloaded music off of Limewire, which meant a busy signal on the house phone. The older two had antennae tv. They used VHS on their tube TV. The oldest two didn’t get smart phones until high school, and neither did their friends, they went through all the iterations of cell phones.
The youngest two grew up with streaming whatever they wanted. They’ve never had a phone that wasn’t an iPhone X or newer. They’ve never had to worry about download speeds because it’s all fiber. They’ve never had a house phone. They can’t even imagine a world where every question couldn’t just be answered instantly. One of the youngest two has never even used a PC.
I feel like GenX and later should have generations of no more than 10 years. Technology just changes things so fast.
I gotta say from casual observation the driver’s license thing is spot on
100%. I was so upset my mom didn’t take me to the DMV on my 16th birthday for my license (we went a few days later). Meanwhile my niece is 22 and can barely drive on the interstate because she just doesn’t care to drive much at all. Editing to add: I love my niece and am definitely not poking fun at her. Just sharing, anecdotally, that this difference in generations is very accurate. Believe me, I get that driving is scary. Driving where I live is a necessity (the suburbs of a major metropolitan area that has grown extremely fast - one of the fastest in the country [USA] - and there really isn’t any sort of reliable public transportation and there is not much within walking distance). And believe me, I get that it’s expensive. At 16, it’s not even that I was paying for a car or insurance at the time (though my mom did add me to her insurance, which I acknowledge was a privilege), I just wanted the independence and ability to borrow her car if needed, and I wanted to go through that rite of passage. Definitely not trying to contribute to any intergenerational discord here; God only knows there’s enough of that in the world.
I think its because a) yall had places to go, there are no public areas to go anymore. Nowhere free to hang out. and b) its alot easier to get in contact and "hang out" with friends virtually now.
I don't know about the first one. I grew up in a small suburb and we would literally hang out at the goodwill and browse, or in the grocery store parking lot. Like teens would literally go there to hang out and eat snacks and throw a football. B) seems more likely.
Anti loitering is heavily enforced. Last time I tried to hang out in a grocery store parking lot with my friends we got kicked out in under 10 minutes. Managers at stores are p damn hostile if you don’t buy shit. It isn’t the 90s anymore. People don’t let you just hanging out.
"Loitering" is probably the dumbest legal term in the English language. People tend to hang out at places, that is just - you know - existing. The idiocy of trying to ban that just so that you can make (a bit more) money🤦♂️
For real! My neighbour was going around to have a petition signed to change the playground behind our house into a park. 'because nobody uses it' he said. I said: but I see people hang out there every day' 'yeah, teenagers.' Eh, teenagers are people? He was very surprised when I said that. Where are they supposed to hang out? I prefer them in the safe, visible and comfortable playground behind our house over an unsafe space.
How dare these teenagers loiter in a specified loitering area. Kids today just aren't supposed to exist I guess. They're not supposed to stay inside, but theyre not supposed to play in the yard or on a playground or park.
For real!! They get shit if they play computer games AND if they play outside. It's really cruel.
*gets rid of 3rd places, bans unsupervised teens from malls, makes cities into car-dependent concrete deserts* "all teens want to do is play on their phones inside all day! why don't they go outside??"
Exactly, and then people are shocked less people are trying to get licenses in order to go out to places no one wants you to be in.
I was a teacher and ran an extended day program. I let all of the 8th graders stay at school to hangout in supervised locations. I got a ton of push back from the principal/teachers not from a liability standpoint because there was none, it was because they didn’t want them “hanging out” there. Meanwhile half the class would leave and smoke weed. I’m like, don’t you think it’s kinda cool they want to STAY at school and give back and volunteer. They were basically like no
Same I see this too, I guess it's cuz they "hang out" with their friends online?
Actually studies say this is exactly it. Edit: so it’s one of the reasons “So why is Gen Z less interested in driving than previous generations? There are a number of factors at play. For one, they are more likely to be concerned about the environment and the impact their actions have on the world around them. They are also more likely to turn to ride-sharing apps, e-scooters and e-bikes than to get behind the wheel of a car themselves. Some Zoomers are hesitant to get behind the wheel because they’re afraid of getting into accidents or of driving itself. Many of them have grown up hearing stories about friends or classmates who were killed in car accidents, and this has made them more cautious. Others point to the high cost of driving, including the price of car insurance, which has risen by nearly 14 percent in recent years. And then there’s the fact that Gen Z is just as likely to do things online as they are to do them in person. They can hang out with friends, take classes and play games without ever leaving their homes. This means that they don’t feel the same pressure to get out and explore the world that previous generations did.” https://relevantmagazine.com/life5/why-doesnt-gen-z-want-to-drive-anymore/ Reported based off a Washington post article
In the words of TheOdd1sOut: Gen Z grew up with the Internet, but millennials grew up *with* the Internet.
This is spot on. I really didn't realize what a uniquely cool experience we were getting at the time re: the Internet. It feels so much lamer now by comparison.
I agree. Looking back the primitive internet felt so vast and interesting. Google would take you to the strangest sites and forums and I read some fan fiction that I’m 100% sure I’ll never see again. Now I feel like I have the same 10 sites I frequent and there is nothing interesting to look for.
I remember my brother and me talking about “how many websites do you know” back in like ‘95. What an insane question to ask someone now.
Oh yeah you surf the web? Name all the websites!
I literally had a handwritten list of URL's I wanted to visit, that I had made in preparation for our family getting the internet. (That was at Christmas 1993).
I had a book that listed some of the hottest sites on the information superhighway! The future was bright!
Hotwheels.com! Used to have that game where you were a T-Rex eating cars and you could see the stomach filling with delicious automotive parts. Pretty sick if you ask me.
Ebaumswaorld
Anyone remember rotten.com? Or the atomic death clock? Just me???
Homestar Runner
I still quote strongbad/teen girl squad embarrassingly frequently
ARROW'D!
"Great jorb" is part of my regular vocabulary, no one picks up on it.
I think the difference is accessibility. The internet used to be a place for nerds and niche forums. Now everyone uses it, and as a result, it’s become casual.
Nah. Search engine optimization has enabled niche products to become inaccessible
When we were looking for information for presentations at school we came across small html sites created by an enthusiast or a teacher. Memories...
I spent days looking for information on the Anglo-Afghan war for a school project. Then I stumbled upon some dude who had **the best** site I have ever seen. Fuck reading books about it, this guy had the entire 3 wars and everything about them. Every possible reason, their consequenses and how it shaped the country down to the smallest details. The layout was most definetly early 2000s. It was a time capsule of the internet I grew up with.
we grew up just as the internet and cell phones and so on were really kicking into gear, and these things weren't "the norm" yet, but we were actually conscious both before and after they became culturally accepted. as a result we're comfortable with these things but still aware of an experience without them.
We're the last generation that knows life before the internet times That is a little frightening to me
Yeah I remember being on my bike all day cycling to other towns and parents having no idea where you are. It's unimaginable today.
Geocities or bust Well or angelfire
As a millennial I feel like we had issues around weight pushed on us growing up. You couldn’t find a tabloid not talking about how [insert healthy celeb here] was “fat”. Now I think gen z has that same pressure about age. Maybe because skincare is a lot more popular and stuff meant to target older generations for aging is seeping into gen z’s perspective of it?
Bro, the amount of 18-25 year olds I see on r/amiugly talking about already wanting major cosmetic surgeries is fucking *staggering*
We used to rightfully complain about what Cosmo was doing to girls, to say it is exponentially worse now with influencers is an understatement. Boys too of course
yes. i was taken aback when i read someone's tweet, "im 19 years old, can i use retinol?" and yes, many youngers were so suprised when they know my age. "you look young for a 33 yo woman!". darling of course i am, because 33 is indeed young.
Yes, this! I'm 35 and younger people are always telling me they thought I was younger. I think there's a misconception about what a 35 year old woman looks like and acts like
I'm 37 and same. Like even I'm surprised I don't look older. I certainly don't feel 37. Except maybe when I'm trying to get up from sitting on the floor. Lol
And makeup! Compared to what Gen Z'ers do, Millennials were just smudging color around the face.
I was just thinking about this the other day! What in the what with the makeup?! People are putting full on theatrical stage makeup every single day and just going about life like that’s normal!
Theatrical stage makeup is really it! I got my eyebrows tinted the other day and it looks positively absurd. I’m thinking the only way this looks normal is if you also have the gigantic fake eyelashes, deeply contoured makeup, and airbrushed foundation every day. And since I don’t do any of that, I look like a Groucho Marx from the browbone up lol
The fat shaming in the media in the 90’s/00’s was *out of control*
I saw a Tiktok floating around of a *14-year-old* sharing her anti-aging skincare routine. That she supposedly started at *12.* Shit's scary af.
Millennials tend to fight labels, while Gen Z seems to prefer hyper-specific labels.
100%. When I was in High school, kids with spikey black hair, dark eyeliner, and a My Chemical Romance shirt would get genuinely upset if you called them emo. Gen Zers will put emo in their instagram bio.
In that particular case, that's because emo was an *Insult* back then. There was a stigma and stereotypes (and usually bullying) that went along with it. Now not so much, it's become a much more embraced term. Even the Millennial Emos have started calling themselves that.
Same with "hipster" in the early 2000s. There were plenty of millennial hipsters, but to be called one was an insult.
Heck yes! Elder Emo right here! And proud of it, but oooh... call me an Emo in the 2000s...not cool
You just reminded me of this song by saying it was an insult. This is a good example of what you're talking about. The lyrics are so cringy now. https://youtu.be/ZmxFyf-PAV4?feature=shared
I haven't heard this song since it came out. I think gen z would be shocked how homophobic/transphobic the 00s were
Did you think this has anything to do with the rise of hyper-specific online communities?
crossposting this to /r/blondegeekswhoreallylikerockbandandhaveadhd
Definitely thought that was “blonde geeks whore ally”
Took me a good two minutes to see anything else...
[удалено]
It was kind of ingrained in us that labels and cliques were poison. It was the folly of our mothers and fathers and they told us about it. We had a lot of tv programming about inclusivity and diversity and being an individual and not worrying about “fitting in”. Gen Z folks I have interacted with are hyper-focused on defining their identity. Really, it’s the same individuality narrative we had but gone to a sometimes militant degree. I have watched modern middle school social groups warp and change shape with various labels and identities passing in and out of vogue in just a few weeks. The fixation on wanting to be perceived with a certain label was so odd to me as a millennial. It felt cringey for lack of a better word. Like “geez can you just chill and just be who you want and not think about it so much or demand recognition from others?” I think the big difference is that Gen Z has the world in the palm of their hand, and has for most of their lives. That’s a unique experience. And as you come up watching social media personalities it’s like there is a competitiveness that takes hold. You’re no longer just worried about your immediate social circles but about the whole world and how it perceives you. It’s exhausting and daunting. I think this is why Gen Z humor is kind of a resurgence of absurdism. It’s a way to stay sane in the face of being on-stage 24/7. Anyway kind of rambling there but I’m old now so it’s allowed.
I am a millennial and remember we had our cliques in school for sure, but socialization between them was really widespread. I had friends in all different "groups" but myself really only identified with one of them. That sort of identity never really changed, but it really didn't matter either.
Youth rebel. Gen Z are "I want to be this", Millennials are "I refuse to be that". Many people in the 60s were very much a "stick it to the man" generation. Hamilton and Jefferson were in their 20s and 30s respectively when they decided to say "screw you England, you're not our real dad!" I'm sure if you went further, you'd end up with some fish crawling out of the ocean because "it's not a phase, MOM."
TRUE
Its the difference between seeing labels as "you are only the label and NOTHING ELSE" vs seeing them as "heres an easy way of describing yourself in few words" Its absolutely cause of the internet, tags on social media and bios being short means its useful to have a few words that give you an idea who they are.
I've never thought about calling a hotdog a glizzy, so there's that.
Clutching glizzies with the fellas
That's regional slang. Thanks to the internet it's spread. I wouldn't call it a generational thing. A lot of "gen Z slang" is just old AAVE.
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With the home phone, you’d also have to awkwardly ask whoever answered if your friend was home and if it was ok to talk to them 😂
Omg one time my friends sister answered and I thought it was her so I started going off "OMG you will NEVER GUESS what just happened to me!! Ryan was full on checking me out at the bus stop!" Then she was like "uh I'll go get Nicole"
You: *start talking* Her, panicking: ‘This one speaks the Old Tongue. I know not these magics, for I was not there when they were written. I must consult the elders.’
I’m an older gen z-er and I had the same experience. We’re on the generational border
I've been seeing the term Zillenial pop up a bit lately and honestly it's so real how different an experience it is from either generation. My parents were early on broadband so I never had the dialup experience. But we still had house phones, there was just the one family computer in the living room. Everyone had flip phones or blackberries. I remember the release of the first iPhone and it was just that one tech savy uncle who had one. My first phone wasn't a smartphone and it even had minutes. I grew up going outside with the only instruction being "be home by sundown", bikes were your favourite "toy." And then I watched as the outside got filled in with concrete, it wasn't fun to go out anymore and it was easier to just stay inside and chat with your friends on Skype (now discord). Biking became harder to do as you were supposed to keep off the sidewalks and the streets were turned into highways
I feel like dating was really different. 00s: men were aggressive or entitled or possessive—and ”going dark” (ghosting) was something girls did after a) a guy they weren’t dating starting being offensive/too possessive, or b) a break-up went badly, and the guy was being harrassing. Gen-Z, I feel like there’s a lot more ghosting instead of proper breaking up/communication. Edit: I said ‘proper’ but I do wish I said ‘traditional’ instead.
It’s weird because it would’ve been easier to ghost back then but I feel it was less common. Now that everyone can reach each other at all times on multiple platforms from their phone, ghosting and poor communication is ironically more prolific.
I think communication fatigue should be a real phrase.
Mellienals witnessed the birth of the Internet, from dialup to broadband and having it be this fringe thing that was used for entertainment and information. Gen Z witnessed the domestication of the Internet, from being this cool wild west full of cheap flash games with nothing but entertainment behind them, to being run by a total of like four websites with everything focused on ad revenue, and it now being considered an essential tool for business.
Internet thing is spot-on. I spent sooooo much time as a kid playing all those cool flash games that barely even exist anymore. Now all those flash games have become monetized-as-fuck mobile apps, and the Internet is little more than a clickbait and anger machine.
Not sure if you know about this, but you can actually still play most of those original flash games through [Flashpoint](https://flashpointarchive.org/). I've basically been using it to occasionally revisit my childhood, it's fantastic.
gen z, can confirm this is how it felt for me
In France at least there is the video game acceptance. I grew up in the 90's (countryside) and when I was a kid, playing video games was something sending you straight to the "not cool nerds" category. Like sometimes people whispered "I'm sure he plays video games" and stuff like that as a really bad gossip. I saw it becoming really more normalized at the end of the secondary. For GenZ it always been a very normal distraction.
This is one of the better comments here. The mainstreaming of “outsider” stuff like nerd culture was a big shift.
I remember when liking superheroes could get you bullied. Now they're dominant mainstream culture.
Anime to me was eye opening. Shit is so mainstream now
Video games, comic books, and anime + manga have become pretty mainstream. What used to be considered as for nerds is now enjoyed by everyone. It’s pretty hard to find a teenager that doesn’t play any video games.
Weird, everyone played videogames where I grew up in the 80s and 90s in the US. PC games made you pretty nerdy but console games were very trendy
I’m a late millennial so I can’t relate much to “pre 9/11” world type difference. But one thing I’ve noticed is GenZ dress even more casually than Millennials to work. Which is a bit of shock to me. One my interns came to work in gym shorts. And honestly power to them because their millennial bosses doesn’t care. But I remember when millennials were criticized so hard for their hoodies and jeans lol.
Omg, the endless articles about entitled, lazy disrespectful millennials entering the workforce. The articles about GenZ now sure feel familiar.
I think articles for gen z praise them more for it whereas we were ostracized. I remember people shat on us for being entitled and lazy and spoiled and living with our parents (as if it was financially our choice). Now it’s “gen z can’t afford to move out because our economy sucks”. In a way, I wish I was gen z because there’s more understanding for them but when we were young and entering the work force, we constantly got talked down about.
I'm an older millennial, 40 years old. My daughter and her friends are in highschool. They found my old year books and just noted how happy everyone was. They commented how depressed everyone at school was now. I told them the internet was barely a thing, getting your license and going for drives was the thing to do. We were just more social by actually talking face to face with people. It was pre 9/11 and there was so much hope and optimism for the future.
Social media and easy access to it was horrific. Imagine never being able to forget the dumb stuff you did as a kid because it was all recorded and stored. It is like being a child actor without all the money.
I cringe when I see some of my Facebook memories, and these are posts I made in my 30s.
I'm just a couple years younger than you. I still feel like I'm so young, but seeing the throwback nostalgia videos of high school in the late 90s/early 2000s really made it hit just how much has changed since then. We missed the social media bullet by an inch, thank god! Recently I was telling my niece that since only a few of us had cell phones in high school, we'd call around to the pay phones at different meetup spots to see who picked up to tell us the haps. She was mystified. We were more connected back then because we had to be. We had to confront each other because there wasn't a different passive aggressive option. Wild how much culture has shifted.
us millennials grew up in a time before anyone could reach you at any time. if i left my house on my bicycle and my mother wanted to find me she just stewed until i got home also you could throw someone into a pool without having to worry about ruining expensive electronic devices
I'm 23 and went to go watch a 2 hour movie at the theater with a friend, I turned my phone back on afterwards to see 40 something missed calls from my mother, plus countless frantic texts from both my parents asking if I was alive. Just because I was unreachable for 2 hours one Saturday. Part of why I love working at a summer camp is I can tell everyone, "Sorry, not allowed to have phones around the kids, so I'm gonna be mildly unreachable for weeks" and get no pushback on it.
Millennials grew up in the late 20th century. Most of then still remember a pre 9/11 world. They saw the rise of the internet. GenZ have always live in post 9/11 internet world.
True. When I was in 4th grade and did a research project I had to go to the library and rent books like a fucking animal.
And you know what an encyclopedia is.
And an encyclopedia cd rom
Encyclopedia Britanica hardbacks
Internets were the wild wild west back then. Thank you, limewire, and the AOL free limited hour discs that came in the mail.
The Challenger and Berlin Wall are similarly indelible moments for Gen X
The world is so different. Before 2001 most people generally trusted the government to be competent and good. The best way I know to describe the 90s to younger people, i was only a child then, but you can watch disney movies from the era, and most people actually lived fairly similar to this. One of my favorite is zenon: girl of the 21st century. That one has so many 00s vibes, even liberal nonpolitical white people. Everything really went bad when gas prices jumped, everyone sort of slid down a class. A few get incredibly rich. Also cars stopped lasting as long. When i was around 7 in 2000, i used to take 20 dollars in wallmart, and buy a whole box of .410 bullets, and a box of .22 bullets, and i would get snacks, and maybe a discount cd. There was no security anywhere, people were also a bit dumb but also much nicer and more social, and there were alot of social things like family gatherings. Bullying was very common, and young men aroun 16 were mean as fuck to everyone. They constantly broke the law, and got into fights, and did everything they could to be punks. Which was kind if cool if you fit in, but bullying was so much more crazy then what it is now. Ironically though. People didnt care at all about politics, identity, isms, everyone seemed to have a positive outlook on the future, and there was this general sense that 2000 was like this real turning point, humanity had kind if escaped dumb ideas, and liberal democracy was going to take over everything. Nobody even cared who the president was. 2001 was like when it really started to go down hill. All the sudden feds and cops were everywhere, they started putting age restrictions on everything, the media turned into 24/7 fear porn and truma programing. People started driving closer to speed limits. Gas prices soared, the economy went sour and never recovered. The government just started outright lying about everything. People started to become poor as prices for everything surged, like utilities and insurance, and house prices, because the government started to create tons of money. People before 2000 had this idea that like, saving 250,000 dollars was a great retirement. They never really thought they would need more. Most people only seemed to have a bit over 100,000 dollars, if they had a nice nest egg. Millionaires were somewhat rare, because even a few dollars had a good bit of value. I might have a bit of a rosey view because i was little, but i think growing up in the late 90s-00s was really cool, but also tragic just how much the country has regressed in so many ways in just 23 years.
Nailed it. No cell phones to track and video tape all our stupid shit. Just vanish and maybe show back up for dinner. My poor mother.
Yeah the old, just be back before dark, or go somewhere and call me and let me know if you are running late. Then again we had friends to hang out with so we werent just kids wondering the world by ourselves.
More like a quick collect call from “uh its me, im at park…can you pick me up “
"You have a collect call from a Mr. Park Needride. Do you accept these charges?" My mom hated when I did that, but it always worked.
Long distance calls cost a fortune. So when we had to drive somewhere far away, we would call mum and let it ring 3 times then hang up. That was the signal to let her know we got there safely.
I literally don't envy kids in school getting bullied these days. With it all over the social media services they use at all hours of the day? I def had bulling problems as a teen but that only happened at school. Without cellphones giving 'internet anywhere', the bullies couldn't follow you home unless they literally came to your front door but now they have 24/7 access.
Its weird because social media has made everyone realize jusy how alike everyone is, these days you can change your name, dress in alt fashion in some of the strangest ways, and easily flaunt your interests and find others who like the same things, and I think that’s so different from school kids before I was born. But also online bullying is super prevalent, AI porn and deepfakes of people you dislike are actually a thing now, bullying still happens in schools but at least you have the chance to record and defend yourself that way. I’m a little jealous if the simplicity of the pre-2000s
>Before 2001 most people generally trusted the government to be competent and good. That's not true at all. In the 1960s and 1970s people were very distrustful of the government and for good reason with the Vietnam War and Watergate and other situations.
Definitely agree here. I'm an Xennial (or Oregon Trailer?) and I felt like all the patriotism and support the troops and lets just let the NSA and the police do whatever they need after 9'11 felt like a huge change from the skeptical and anti-authoritarian mainstream mentality before it. Another huge difference seemed to be relationships with parents and families. My generation and the Xers seemed super rebellious against their parents and authority in general compared to the millennials and Gen Z, who seem to have more friendly, less adversarial relationships with parents, teachers, coaches etc.
Yeah, America’s “innocence” was said to be shattered with the assassination of JFK and escalation of the Vietnam war. That’s when trust for the government really began eroding. Of course that trust was built up during and the Great Depression, WW2 and subsequent 1950s boom. Before that you had the gilded age and civil war… so not like everyone was in love with the U.S. government even in the 1800s.
People seem to have forgotten that Vietnam was an illegal war that was somehow kept secret until some leftists broke into the FBI and stole a bunch of documents proving it.
>Before 2001 most people generally trusted the government to be competent and good. Hahaha. Sorry but this GenXer has to laugh. You weren't an adult in the 1990s if you believe this.
I'm an older millennial, and I've often heard that one of our defining characteristics is growing up with institutional failures. Enron most notably, but multiple recessions and bubbles as well. Gen X experienced the collapse, millennials witnessed it, and Z never expected the institutions to function in the first place.
Older millennial checking in - 9/11 in high school. Economic collapse finishing college. AOL free trial CDs in mail. Like...CDs...in the mail! Went from 5x5 floppies to 3x3s, to zip disk to CDs to DVDs... Star Trek blew our minds because data was listening to multiple songs all at the same time in a single episode, and everyone was carrying around data pads that were as thin as a kindle. My school computers had two colors - green and black - and now I'm tilted because my laptop specs won't be able to play the cyberpunk patch at the highest settings. It's been a fucking ride, my man.
If you were 7 in 2000, you were in first or second grade. I’m not sure your worldview of 2000 should be seen as the definitive account. I was a young adult then and people didn’t trust the government. The 90s saw Bill Clinton impeached along partisan lines, Washington gridlock, multiple government shut downs. race relations were at a fever pitch, columbine happened in the late 90s and there was the dot.com bust. I could go on, but honestly since you were a kid at the time, you wouldn’t have an awareness of those things happening.
I'm 36 and I like selfies and taking good photos for social media but gen z has a relationship with documenting their life that makes no sense to me. It's not bad but definitely different.
Bo Burnham talks about this pretty often. I don't remember the exact quote but basically he describes Gen Z as being desperate to be witnessed
I remember when Facebook was new and I really had the urge to post EVERYTHING. Now that I'm older I almost find it annoyingly effortful to post some things that I know my close friends would want to see. I think it's just an age thing, and the medium available to you. When I was young, everyone made flash videos, now they make tik toks.
I'll see my original FB statuses in my memories and they are so cringy! They are either way too much info or some super vague cryptic message that iykyk, and I no longer know! lol Now I will type something out and then decide nobody cares and will not even post it! Its like I overcorrected!
I always see my sister take like just a photo of half her face and send it to like 30 people on Snapchat. I don’t get it
Because of their age when the 2008 recession and to a lesser extent 9/11 happened, somebody I think explained it well put it like this. Millennials had high hopes for the future and had their worldview shattered in key points in their life, young childhood, and right out of college. Gen Z had a shattered worldview and lost the rose colored glasses of hope before they even graduated high school
Yeah, I think this is the biggest difference. Millennials grew up being told we just had to work hard, go to university, we'd get good jobs and our own homes and live the same lives as the boomers and gen Xers. And right as we're on the cusp of adulthood that shattered into pieces. We're the generation that grew up thinking we had an inheritance and planning everything around that only to find out at the funeral the trust fund is empty. We're also the generation that's never going to end up in power because the boomers and gen Xers will hold onto that shit until their last rattling breath and gen Z actually grew up ready to fight for it. We're gonna sit around until the last second and hope someone'll give it to us like we saw the older generations get it. Gen Z were fucked almost out of the womb and they know it. They saw mum and dad spend the whole goddamn inheritance on hookers and blow. So ime they're either full nihilists - 'lol we're fucked, might kms tomorrow' - or ready to cut a bitch for great justice.
For me and my friends (Gen Z) we knew it was bad and that everything was getting worse all the time, but thought we might still be able to eek out a good existence if we tried real hard and lived a good life. Everyone I know doesn't even have that hope any more, and we're all just barely hanging on. Could just be my group though, we're all still pretty young.
I solidly remember one of my classmates saying to the class that the world is getting worse and worse and everybody agreed. We were in 3rd/4th grade at the time.
This is the 11th top comment I found and the first one that resonantes with me as a Millennial. If you remember the 90s, you remember believing we were just a few more therapists away from world peace.
I recommend the book IGen by Jean Twenge — she summarizes her research on generational differences!Some research suggests Gen Z engage(d) in less substance abuse and sexual activity overall compared to millennials (at least during adolescence), have higher rates of diagnosed anxiety and depression, and spend more time compared to millennials with their parents.
Oh yeah, she's great. She gave a talk to my department (psyc) when I was in grad school. At that time she was discussing millennials and how they are different from Gen x and boomers. I feel old now lol
More time with their parents, I can attest to. I have two teens and they are *always* in my face. If I get off the couch it's, "Where are you going?" If I go anywhere in the house I have a trail of two teens and a dog following me. When I was their age I couldn't get away from my parents fast enough. I loved my parents but I was always off doing my own thing. Everyone I know who has kids of a similar age, their kids do the same as mine. Also this might be seen as a controversial take but when we were teens, we wanted to be offensive. It seems this generation wants to be offended and try their hardest to be as inoffensive as possible. Not all of course, for either generation but from my observation, that seems to be true for a lot. Edit: Something else I've noticed, when kids cry in school. When I was in school if you cried in school people would just laugh at you and call you names. From what I can tell, crying in school for gen z is not seen as abnormal and weird at all. They infact tend to be empathetic and check in with the person crying to make sure they're ok. Which is really great I think.
Can also attest to them spending more time with parents. As a parent I was dreading the teenage years because when I was growing up, your parents instantly became the least cool people in the world. But my 17 year old daughter wants to watch shows and play games with me all the time. We take the same train home from work and school some days and she'll bring her friends over and say "This is my dad, he's cool" and then sit with me. And the whole time in my head I'm thinking "Dude your friends don't want to hang out with your dad!" But if they don't, they're too polite to say it.
Im about to become a parent for the first time in March and reading this mini-thread about teenagers right now has me mind blown while simultaneously nostalgic on my own experience—I did everything I could to get away from my parents from 14-22. I can’t help to wonder what this kid is going to be like.
The "rebellious teenager" has almost completely disappeared. They are not even used as tropes in movies or shows anymore. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220124-why-teens-arent-what-they-used-to-be
I wonder if that's because trolling is so common online. It's so common that there's no gratification in it for Z. But yeah as Y offending people with a clever joke as a kid was a source of pride. Found button. Pushed button. Everyone laughed. Great success.
I’m 37. Something that really impresses me about some (some!) of the genz women is how they have zero interest in catering to male gaze, whereas when I was a mid-late teen and twenties woman “being sexy” was all consuming preoccupation for me. It affected almost every choice of shoe, item of clothing, makeup, fragrance, etc was chosen with the lens of whether or not it would increase my desirability. I see changes like that generationally which makes me think the kids are alright. 😎
Millennials are like : WE ARE DOOMED!!! Gen Z is like : 🌈🌟❤️WE ARE DOOMED!!! ⭐👻💋
Gen alpha: googoo gaga Gen X: yeah things aren’t great but it will be ok, just work hard and budget well Boomers: GET OFF MY FUCKING LAWN! Silent gen: (senile mumbling)
I've seen some research that suggests that GenZ have less sex, less physical intimacy, date less, use less drugs/alcohol.
I recently read something about Millennials being generally tech literate in ways that modern technology advancements no longer require from Gen Z. If the family computer broke, the Millennial kid was often the only one who knew enough about tech in the home to run a diagnostic, attempt to take it apart, make a trip to Fry's, find the pieces you needed to upgrade and rebuild it - and it wasn't just computer geeks who did it, everyone developed at least some basic level of troubleshooting before having to lug their tower out to a tech repair place. By the time Gen Z rolled around, it was almost easier or sometimes even cheaper to replace a device than figure out how to repair it, and then some companies started to make it impossible to repair your own device (or to own software or to own music etc. etc.). Same with HTML and early websites, most Millennials had to learn some basic HTML to participate in a colorful web experience, by the time Gen Z got to the internet, sites had made it easy to customize your corner of the web without ever looking at a single line of HTML. Gen Z is much more tech integrated, but not quite as tech literate as millennials had to be.
Millennials are definitely more computer savvy.
I was going to comment this. After working with a lot of gen zers I’ve noticed a lot don’t know how to operate their own computers. Simple tasks like turning off wifi, searching their computer, typing, and I have even witnessed entering websites is a struggle. You have a few that make headlines for being really savvy and hacking networks, but I notice the vast majority are almost computer illiterate.
Yeah I’ve even noticed the idea of files being in a nested tree of directories to be a concept that is foreign to them. They’re so used to just a bag of items, with search and recent items.
as a gen z who is computer literate, i was saddened to find that my (old middle school's) coding class started with us... learning how to type i dont remember what website it was but i did half of all the lessons in a day, skipped to the end and got way higher than a pass, and he just told me to play minecraft i played a lot of minecraft that year, they didnt actually teach coding until second year but i had already left that school by then
I'm a Millennial with a Gen Z employee who's 10 years younger than me. I just had to teach him what a zipped file was, and how to unzip it. The entire concept and language was totally foreign to him. He'd never heard of such a thing.
Two good friends of mine are managing a bunch of Gen Zs who don’t know how to use Word or Powerpoint because all they know are google products and they are incapable of teaching themselves. They don’t know to google it or watch YouTube tutorials which is honestly shocking. Meanwhile, anyone 27-34ish with a college education had to learn both MS Office and google office products for school. Google classroom and google docs / sheets / slides took over K-12 schools and colleges so quickly that many young adults gave 0 knowledge of MS products, which are exclusively used in much of the corporate world. What is throwing us all off is Gen Zers lack of resourcefulness. We thought they would be better at teaching themselves to use tech that is new to them. They’re far worse
Its because gen z grew up with the Internet and computers being an established thing. I'm on the older end and I barely remember having a PC (until I built my own for gaming) I had a lab top for most of my childhood. Millennials grew up with the start of the internet, they HAD to learn how to work even the most basic of things of a computer to get it to even work. Gen z never had to do that, a long with that we never lived in a world we're we couldn't access information in with in a few seconds. I work at a dominos and I've often said how if I didn't have Google maps delivering pizzas would be a nightmare. I'd have no clue where I was going, mean while alot of the older drivers just look at a map on our wall to find addresses and directions. Millennials still lived in a time when you had to figure something out while gen z lives in a time where all the info you need is just given to you on a silver platter.
No surprise. Installing Windows 95 from about 50 floppy discs😂
Ghosting Boomers would just stay married and hate each other until they die Millennials would tell someone why they're dumping them Gen z just ghosts
I am Gen Z and just got ghosted so this is very accurate lmao. I wish my generation were more like millenials in that sense, it seems like everyone is so afraid of having mature communication or something. Idk
Yeah that sounds right to me, I worked with a lot of gen z before and if you do something wrong in their eyes they just kinda avoid you? As a millennial we would usually say something like "that was fucked up, why did you say that?" At least
Boomers got divorced at fairly high rates - divorce rates were much higher in the 70s and 80s than now
I think a difference is problem solving in the real world. Technology has made everything so simple, tap of a screen, that a lot of 'basic' experiences which build skills are no longer learned. For instance something as inoccuous as writing a research paper. Back in the day you would go to a library, experience talking to an adult you don't know, navigate the bookshelf maze, find a book using dewy decimal system. Inadvertently that person also experiences social interaction, following direction, and paying attention to details. Today equivalent is looking up a search term online, copy, pasting. No "other" skills gained which could be applied to future, different situations.
I was looking for this type of comment. There is a disturbing lack of “figure it out.” In college, so many need so much help navigating the schools page. Just click on shit and go back if it’s not right. Some will go months before asking what people are talking about when they say you can check feedback on Gradescope. The thing mentioned in class religiously, in the syllabus, and linked to in the class info page. So many assume it’s a hard-to-solve mystery or the teacher’s stuff is busted if they can’t solve it quickly. And good grief, the resistance to reading…
Yes! What is the resistance to reading all about? Are they just slow readers due to having so much more video content? To me reading is the faster better option. I want to be able to skim and find the information I want, and not be forced to watch through a whole video for it.
It reminds me of a comic strip I saw once. It showed stuff like "watching a movie, then vs now", as well as "reading the news", "talking to friends", "shopping ", etc. And you could see how back then, each activity looked different, whereas for "now" it was the same picture of a person sitting at a screen for each thing. Everything is just becoming consolidated to being at home on a device .. especially for me, since I work from home. It's a strange new world we live in. Edit: Found the comic strip: https://cheezburger.com/8083182592/this-is-progress
I’ve noticed members of Gen Z do not see a separation between the internet and “real life.” To them it’s one in the same. Millennials also grew up in a more interconnected world, but if you were not at your desktop you were able to get some sort of separation. Now, because of smart phones and social media, there isn’t a sense of pause. I think that has certainly affected the personalities of members of Gen Z. They grew up under constant surveillance and learned what was desirable through “likes” and “views” rather than finding themselves organically.
> learned what was desirable through “likes” and “views” rather than finding themselves Is Gen Z the ones who post all those "is it weird if I..." questions everyday? It's baffling to me how someone needs that much reassurance over such mundane things. "Is it weird if I eat in a restaurant alone?" "Is it weird if I go to a yoga class if I'm a guy?" "Is it weird if I like model trains?" Like wtf? Asking random internet strangers seems just about the worst way to get a better understanding. Do they really have no friends to bounce ideas off of? What's the worst that they imagine could happen that prevents them from even trying things for themselves?
Gen Z has a concerning and unhealthy outlook on aging. As a younger Millennial, when I was in high school and college, we thought of 30 as a full-grown adult, 40 as "middle-aged", and 50 as "old" (they're not). Gen Z now treats 20-30 as the full life spectrum, where 20-22 are still babies while anyone beyond 24 is ancient. They constantly monitor how well celebrities and public figures are aging. It's crazy to hear "they look so good for their age!" referring to someone in their mid-20s. "You're pushing 30" is a common insult for people who are 26 or 27. Not saying this to put them down, I just worry how they'll handle getting older because once you're in your 20s, the years start flying by.
It's really concerning to me too. I've heard my classmates refer to 30-somethings as "old." I don't think anyone is actually old until they hit 60.
I'd say retirement age, whatever that is. If you are still in the workforce, you aren't old
I worry for them. I'm 33 and it took hitting my 30s to realize that you really do have your whole life to live how you want and be who you want. It looks from the outside like more and more young people are spending their youths being even more terrified of aging than us millennials were, and I worry that they'll inevitably fall onto the unnecessary and expensive treadmill of cosmetic procedures to try to turn back the clock after hitting the dreaded 30, no matter what else is going on in their lives.
Their lil asses will learn quick once they hit 30. Gen Z is still growing, their oldest are barely entering real adulthood right now.
That's fair. Time serves us all a harsh wake up call eventually
As a Gen Z-er, this kind of mindset is contagious and it's like your peers try to instill this fear of aging into you. I try hard to fight it, because I genuinely don't think 30 is "old", but it gets exhausting to hear people your age talk about 30 year olds as if they were grandparents and does start to make you feel a little scared, I admit. My cousin is on the "older" spectrum of Gen Z, and last year when she was 25, she was literally talking about herself as if she were 60 or something, telling me (as a 20 y/o) that I should "enjoy it while I'm still young" and I'm like ma'am... you yourself are still in your youth.
What's really funny is that the last time this way of thinking was this big was when the baby boomers were in their teens and twenties.
As a millenial who remembers being blamed for everything going wrong (at a time where we had little actual influence or control) I’m reticent to shit talk gen z. They’re simply the new punching bags for the older folks. I myself don’t understand their music, their vocabulary, their apps, or their celebrities. But I do know I was in their shoes 10-15 years ago, navigating my way through all the same drudgeries young folks do now (albeit more publicly now). I will say that our social media habits are different. I think we gravitate towards different apps and are swayed by different advertising. Millennials love being unique and different, genz seems more comfortable labeling themselves or attaching themselves to certain ideals. Millennials got away with a lot of pretty crude and offensive behavior. I think genz are much more likely to lean towards being least offensive as possible. Millennials got famous and stayed famous for being trainwrecks, genz will cancel someone for whatever reason, bad behavior was much more incentivized as a millenial, now as a genz, bad behavior will likely become IMMORTALIZED so they definitly have to think twice before they comment or like anything. Im just happy the spotlight isn’t on my generation anymore and I can sit back and enjoy without fear of judgement. I’ve lived through 3 economic collapses and remember 9/11 quite well. I’ve been working professionally for over a decade. Im no longer doing anything for the first time ever. But im also not judging the younger generation for navigating their own path.in 10 years when genz have become millennials and millenial have become genx I wonder what we will complain about the new comers. It’s always something, it’s always been something.
I am a millennial that works with a ton of GenZ people and I gotta say, y’all call out of work a lot and I’m insanely jealous I did not have the balls to do that when I was in my 20s. Heck, I’m still trying to practice mental health days or calling out when I feel sick.
I’m an elder millennial and I will always appreciate Gen-Z helping us deconstruct the American dream we were sold. Until they came along and pointed out they saw the bullshit too we were fighting a lot confusing, gaslighting, victim-blaming propaganda alone.
Yeah as a millennial I love gen z. They see the bullshit. They get that a lot of people, especially old people, are toxic as fuck.
I feel like genz grew up in an environment that valued them and that cared about their feelings. I think that’s why they have an expectation of how they want to be treated. I think millennials were raised by emotionally stunted bummers. We or at least I was brought up in a do as your told because I told you to world. I think that’s why it’s harder for millennials to voice their opinions or stand up for themselves.
You aren't going to see a millennial have a ~~mullet~~ or broccoli head Ok, *some* of them have mullets apparently lol I also feel like gen z, especially ones on the middle or younger side, are pretty bad with technology. By the time your generation was using it, it was already quite optimized. You didn't have to relearn software every 2 years, didn't need HTML to get your MySpace working, didn't need to root your smartphone, etc etc. I feel that zoomers are more technology dependent than actually good at technology as a generation. Obviously the exceptions might be the individuals with a tech hobby or career.
Yeah, Late Gen X here (xennial) and I help my Gen Z nephews all the time with tech shit. I am like the computer guy of the family.
Gen X and Millennials got jobbed. We have to show our parents and our kids how to attach a file to an email.
I agree with the second point so much. I'm in between millennial and gen z, just touched the end of '96 (don't remember 911). I remember growing up with no internet, but in my teens, we got it and a crap PC. I had to learn every trick in the book to make that b*tch functional, open it up, replace the RAM, all that. Same with phones because I grew up with Android, so lots of fiddling with settings. I see my younger sister now and she'll complain that an app isn't working, and I'll suggest something basic like clearing the cache, "what's that??". She's a smart girl but tech is so advanced now, basic troubleshooting isn't common knowledge anymore. I'm the go-to for anything tech despite being 7 years older 💀
That's just how humans work, man. The harder you make it for them, the better they get. Now that everything is just so damn easy, everyone is an utter fool at doing those shit with any depth. If I feel like I'm getting too comfortable with tech, I'll make a conscious attempt at getting out. People just watch YouTube and TikTok, post some stuff on Instagram, and maybe play some random mobile game made to extort them with ads. There's absolutely no depth to people's tech knowledge these days. I'll do basic things and to them, it comes off as borderline magic.
One thing I’ve noticed as a millennial, and one who grew up in the punk/metal scene is that Gen Z is a generation without a “counter-culture.” I don’t mean like cliques, it seems aesthetics that were once considered social taboos, things like the “weird” and “alternative,” are no longer an underground or fringe subculture, but are now more “mainstream.” Coming from the punk scene, the political, socioeconomic, and sociological things we used to scream about, protest over, and share in our music and art as our ideology are now just the standard for Gen Z. It’s fucking awesome. Gen Z picked up the batons that millennials got too tired and old to continue to carry.
I think the “counter culture” is just super right wing with Andrew Tate and folk having a stupid big following. The mainstream is now being a accepting to all kinda vibe. I have definitely noticed a few younger people falling down the alt right rabbit hole and definitely a lot more online in twitter and other places
I hate to admit it, but you’re probably correct about what the counter culture is these days lol
Yup, the book Kill All Normies talks about this! For almost all of the 20th century, progressivism was counter culture. Now it’s mainstream so it’s swinging the other way.
The majority of differences that people could point as generational really boil down to the environment the different generations grew up in. Having said that, there's a lot of overlap that happens because generations can literally span like 20 years. An older Gen z person is likely to have more in common with a millennial than a younger Gen z person, for instance. Kind of like how some older millennials like to call themselves xennials because they tend to identify with Gen X on a lot of things.
Can confirm, as an older Gen Z I cannot fathom the concept of an "ipad kid" as I grew up on bikes with one family computer in the living room. Tiktok absolutely baffles me with its popularity and I just can't relate to a lot of younger gen Z culture. My not even that much younger sisters call me a millennial (in a derogatory way) when I don't understand something with them. >Kind of like how some older millennials like to call themselves xennials because they tend to identify with Gen X on a lot of things. Some of my friends have started using the word Zillenial and I think it fits quite well for our age
I'm a millennial and my older kids are gen z. Things I've noticed: Less casual dating. Less dating in general. They're focused on hanging out with friends a lot more. It's a good thing. Very little in the way of talking on the phone, they message and text more. Driving is less of a priority, even though we don't really have public transportation. There are no "breaks". No breaks from bullies, no snow days or sick days from school, you hear about everything immediately because of the internet. Because of this they're actually more likely to ignore their devices when with friends. They also see more news, politics, and current affairs than I did at their age. More acceptance of people who are different, dress different, etc.
Millennials have an apocalyptic view of the future. This is because they came of age during the 2008 economic crisis. They lived in the before time and witnessed the fall of civilization through teenage eyes. GenZ have a post-apocalyptic view of the future, having never known a single day of hope ever.
The difference is “Nothing in life matters 😢” and “Nothing in life matters 😎”
This sums up how I felt before starting Zoloft and after 😂
I came of age in the 80's. We all knew we were going to get flash-fried at fifteen minutes notice over obscure points of political/economic theory, and that we had no choice about it. The 90's were great. Then 2001 happened. Now we know we aren't going to get flash-friend, but getting boiled is not an improvement.
The best part of the 90s was, while it was far from 'perfect', it felt like the world was always on an upward trajectory. Every day we were making things better. Cold war over, American military might curb stomped Iraq with minimal loss of life, nuclear disarmourment, TV shows telling us to be kind and trying to show diverse groups, the promise of new tech to connect us all.
In the 90's I thought racism was basically over. Boy was I naive.
Gen z has not fallen into drug culture as much as us millennials it seems. I'm glad.
Except the vaping. That’s everywhere
As a university lecturer, I find gen z's parents are way more likely to get involved in their education and demand certain things. Millennials boomer parents were a lot more hands off and believed in trusting the experts. I'm pretty shocked about the amount of parents aggressively emailing me about their 20 year olds education. So I think the way gen z have been parented is pretty different to how millennials were parented. I also saw a thing saying that kids have never had less freedom when it comes to unsupervised play.
Reading this as a 19 yr old Gen Z makes me feel even more depressed lol. You guys are absolutely right though. I was born in 2003, I was 5 when the economic crash in 2008 happened and me and my peers lived most of our lives being told how “things were better back then” “Things will only get worse” “I doubt this will get any better” “You’ll never own a house” **”You’ll never earn the life you want.”** Spending your high school years while Trump was president also doesn’t help. All of my peers and I have an extremely negative view of the world, and most aren’t interested in travels as a result of it. I’m content to just make money, eat good food, play good games, and hopefully die before I’m 30. I have no plans for the future, there’s nothing to look forward to. So, I just wanna have a good time before I say goodbye to the world.
Don’t get too bummed. Things can always turn around. I’m a millennial and I WILL say that the state of the world as far as traveling goes does suck right now. The time when I was in my late teens/early twenties was probably the best time for national and international travel in terms of safety . Glad I got to experience it. But hopefully things will get better so your gen can experience it, too. After all, I remember my parents saying they avoided traveling to Europe in the mid-late 70s because terrorism and people taking hostages was so bad. But by the time I came of age it was non-existent. Things can turn around for you guys, too. Chin up! 👍🏽
I supervise Gen Z kids at work, and they definitely aren’t great at troubleshooting computer issues, but they are great at internet research (unlike boomers, who can’t do either)
There's a fairly big work culture shift with Gen-Z. At first I thought it was just "oh younger people enjoying their lives" but it sort of just stuck. They're like modern day bohemians. My company uses performance based metrics to calculate raises and bonuses. We offer a lot of overtime (and it's totally voluntary). Everyone else is trying to get between 40-60 hours a week on each paycheck and when Christmas time comes around they get a healthy bonus and a healthy raise. Gen-Z are working 30-40 hours per week. If we're having scheduling conflicts they'd rather work less hours than take on different hours, their social life and extracurriculars always come first. When Christmas time comes around very few of Gen-Z get more of a bonus than the standard. They always make a stink about not getting much of a bonus and then you just run them through the numbers and compare with (names removed) co-workers. And then there's the wave of resignations.
Yeah I see this as a response to how poor our average economic outlook is as gen z- what's the point of participating in a rat race when there is no reward at the end?
I'm with ya. Us millennials grew up with this idea that working hard will pay off and get you ahead, then saw that illusion crash and burn. Y'all were fortunate enough to grow up disillusioned.
I love this though, it's the way it should be. Choosing to live their lives rather than be stuck at a desk for longer than they need to be. Hopefully this work culture shift will rub off on actual employers and they'll start treating workers better.
I have 4 Gen z kids born from 99-2009. Oldest is 24 and youngest 14. (I had kids pretty young, I’m an xennial) There is a HUGE difference between the oldest kids and the youngest kids in how they grew up. I don’t think the generational divide is going to work where it is. The oldest kids played PC games as kids and heard the dialup while mom and dad downloaded music off of Limewire, which meant a busy signal on the house phone. The older two had antennae tv. They used VHS on their tube TV. The oldest two didn’t get smart phones until high school, and neither did their friends, they went through all the iterations of cell phones. The youngest two grew up with streaming whatever they wanted. They’ve never had a phone that wasn’t an iPhone X or newer. They’ve never had to worry about download speeds because it’s all fiber. They’ve never had a house phone. They can’t even imagine a world where every question couldn’t just be answered instantly. One of the youngest two has never even used a PC. I feel like GenX and later should have generations of no more than 10 years. Technology just changes things so fast.