Skip Navigation
188 comments

  • I work in IT support, and I have for longer than I'd like to admit. I'm on the very early edge of millennial. I was born a few years after the generation "started". My older brother was on the transition between millennial and gen X and my oldest sibling was very gen X. My parents were part of the prior two generations (boomers etc), and I tend to work along side and for all sorts of people from all of these generations.

    Earlier than gen X, eg boomers and older, are usually technology adverse, they don't like change. I find many are kind of "set in their ways". Of course there are exceptions to the rule, but they seem to be fairly rare. They like to do things using methods that are tried and true, but often reluctantly agree to use computers instead of paper because that's what others are doing. Even so, they're fairly adverse to updates and changes that modify how things get done. They have money, and you can't have any of it. Often, they have little understanding of the problems faced with current generations, likely because they did not have the same challenges, and despite their stories of "back in my day" about how hard things were for them, they actually had it rather easy in terms of cashflow and buying power. They made less, sure, but when they were able to buy a mid sized, single family, fully detached home for the same dollar value as a "cheap" car costs now, their money went much farther (around $20k).

    Gen X is kind of lost. What I mean is that they don't really have too many traits that stand out. As far as I can see, they're hyper independent, mostly riding the coat tails of the bombers economically, so, while they didn't have it quite as easy as boomers did (despite what boomers might think/say), it also wasn't significantly harder for them. They were mostly able to follow a fairly typical life path, get an education (HS/college/uni), get a career, buy a house, have a family (if desired). Politically, from what I've seen, gen X is the most diverse group and they're usually following along with whatever is regionally popular. Not because it's popular, but because they're surrounded by it. From what I've seen this group is the most adaptable to their neighboring community, mostly just trying to fit in and not be bothered. Right now they're a large part of working professionals.

    Millennials are usually post college, debt laden individuals that are just tired. They were trying to kick-start their lives in some of the craziest times imaginable. Many early millennials who were able to quickly move through the education system, and immediately get into a career and the housing market follow more along the lines of gen X. If you were held back for any reason or you were caught up in a situation that held you back, you shared fate with many of the later millennials. The majority of millennials were caught up in every economic crisis short of a complete collapse of the money system during the years that they should have been starting their careers. Homes rose in price swiftly and vehicles didn't lag far behind. Driven by sheer determination to succeed, many accrued significant debt that they just want to balance out. This group is the most technically malleable and can adapt to most technology changes in the shortest time. Growing up on landlines and home PC's/consoles/electronics that all significantly changed their designs, capabilities and interfaces every 4-5 years. Many seem to be problem solvers and want to be helpful/useful. Many have, and some still do, hold onto the ideal that their contribution should be impactful. Most just want to be acknowledged and told they're doing well, while making enough to pay their bills and debts. For many the dream of owning a home is dying or dead. Renters, car owners, debt holders. They're growing rather jaded about it as they get older.

    Gen Z have their own language. Millennials did too but mostly in cultural memes, with the zoomers, it's less cultural reference and more of a short hand derived from cultural references. Things that on their own, don't make any sense and are not even full sentences in any way shape or form. They follow in the aftermath of the economic crisises of millennials and have many of the same economic challenges. Many of those challenges are simply more severe. Prices are higher than ever, buying power is at an all time low. Surrounded by toxic "hustle" culture and many seem to want nothing to do with that. Many find humor in randomness and unexpected happenstance rather than traditional subversion of expectation as humor. They're quickly becoming the most socially aware and active generation, and want change. Technologically growing up on iPhones and Androids rather than home PC's, many are not very adaptable to changes in technology though zoomers are one of the highest use groups for the technology. They use it, they don't really understand it very well, so when things break, even if they're only non fictional in their current state, things are replaced rather than fixed. Eg, if their iPhone is too slow, rather than trying to find out why or trying to fix the issue, better to simply upgrade to whatever apple is currently pushing. Due to this, they needlessly spend more money than their older generation counterparts. This is by design by the actions of corporations, fostering a single use, replace, not repair mentality. They're not lazy or lacking in motivation at all, despite appearances that may show a lack of success, instead the lack of success is driven by an inability to find adequate employment that will pay enough to allow them to prosper. The majority will be "held back" from the "typical" life path of education > career > home ownership > family, because of their inability to prosper due to high prices and low wages.

    Overall, through the generations there has been a decline in community as a function of geography, and an increase in community as a function of shared interest, mainly due to the growing and universal access to the internet. The internet has allowed both good and bad to be accessible at a moment's notice. This has shortened the tolerance to delays and given a sense of urgency to even the most trivial and mundane of requests. With the immediate response available from growing internet connectivity, demand for more frequent, more detailed updates from everything has grown significantly, eroding confidence in others to fulfill their obligations unless they communicate that "we're doing things" (so to speak). Even something as simple as ordering take out or having things shipped, if there is no tracking and reporting, then it might as well not be happening.

    Over all, IMO, the problems faced by the current generations tend to be more centered around artificial issues created by corporations. They want to pay less, earn more, and overall turn a larger and larger profit. This is neither surprising, nor helpful to most. It does however explain the single use, replace rather than fix, nature of things that has been growing. The rise in rental vs ownership has increased the cost of living and is on track to build a service-based lifestyle where personal ownership doesn't happen. Everything is provided for a "low" recurring fee, which has so significantly outpaced any rise in wage that most will be unable to accrue any amount of savings.

    For me, all of this has made it very clear what future we're in store for, and bluntly, it's not very pleasant. Perpetual home rental, no personal ownership of vehicles (you simply tap a button on your phone and if one is available, it will arrive for you to use, little more than a taxi service), video, audio and other media will be rental only, streaming over the internet, which is a monthly service fee. This leads to near zero ability for customization of your lifestyle. You have no choice in terms of the appliances and devices you use, the car you drive, your home's design... The list goes on. So if you want or need something different, you're completely out of luck. Conform or die.

  • There's strong statistical evidence suggesting that millennials are, on average, older than gen z'ers. It not clear from the latest studies what could have caused this presumed age gap.

    Those same studies also evidenced the startling fact that the tested individuals shared over 99.9% of their genome and could in fact belong to the same species, which is what prompted all the recent controversy after one of the lead researchers said in a televised interview that "they're all people".

  • As a millenial I found I had a lot more in common with my Gen Z brother than I do with my boomer father. However, the little shit treated and thought of me like I'm a boomer. He'd consider my shitty FPS playing on console to be a sign "I couldn't play games" (I'm a PC gamer).

    I'd like to think he'll mature and realise he was being a little cunt but I doubt he will.

    • Gen Z (especially women) are typically a bit more progressive than millennials. There's a minority of Gen Z conservative men, but it's overstated.
    • Arguably better media literacy amongst Gen Z, likely because they grew up with social media at its peak.
    • Better tech literacy amongst millenials perhaps due to multiple major technical changes during that period and harder to use systems

    I'd say though that millenials and Gen Z are actually very similar on the whole in their beliefs, just with differences in degree. There's a bigger gap from both of these generations to Gen X and Boomers. You can see this from the much higher conservative voting rates that kick in from Gen X and later.

    • I keep seeing report after report that Gen Z keeps falling for internet scams at an alarmingly high rate

      ...which, I mean, idk, maaaybe?

      Media literacy and scam discernment, I feel like we as millennials grew up alongside the rise of disinformation and the greater Enshitification of the internet, like this is our wheelhouse.

      I remember icq, yahoo chat rooms, Napster and limewire, playing MUDS and ADOM, then digg, myspace. I remember when the Internet was fun, now, it's just advertisers. I quit Facebook 7 years ago. I quit reddit with the API dick punch. I've been advertised to so much in my life that if I see a movie trailer it makes me not want to see it.

      The internet can be great. Getting knowledge off it is amazing. I personal feel like the library of Congress should be made available online for free and all this knowledge thats hiding behind pay gates needs to be visited by the freedom fairy. I hope I can help facilitate this in my lifetime.

      With media, I can only speak for myself, but I quit watching news in 2008. Ill read my news and not have some talking head attempt to emotionally manipulate me while they leave out key facts that don't fit their narrative, thanks. Televised news has been more detrimental to us as a whole, imo.

      My bullshit meter is simple. If whom or whatever is saying something that makes it an us vs them issue, dividing the people up, then they're wrong. Almost universally. If your answer is only found down around the fallen, you aren't bringing an answer, yr bringing an excuse to violence.

      Real leadership, real progress, lifts up those it encounters. The rising tide is supposed to lift all ships. Cept in this dystopic reality, motherfuckers chained everyone's ships to the dock and the rising tide just overcame and sank them. Rich get richer, poor get poorer, until the poor get even.

      I'm dismayed we have to keep repeating this pattern. America had the same problems 100 years ago. We've had an entire century to do something about it, but fucking NOPE. An entire century wasted in my opinion. Better tech is cool, but if it doesn't improve the lives of us all, than it fails the reasoning for tools existing in the first place, which is to relieve society if the many necessary hours of labor.

      • I keep seeing report after report that Gen Z keeps falling for internet scams at an alarmingly high rate

        ...which, I mean, idk, maaaybe?

        I feel like very young people are just more likely to get scammed due to lack of life experience. There are just a bunch of new avenues for scammers to access young people. I bet it pans out that it's not the generation, it's the age group.

  • I'm Gen-Z, my parents are older Millennials

    Millennials use the Internet but they don't get it like Gen-Z does. Most of my peers seem to have a much better understanding of online culture than most millennials do. They use much more irony in both online and irl conversations.

    One thing I noticed was that millennials have weebs, but Gen-Z doesn't. It's not something special for Zoomers to watch anime or be interested in Japanese media/culture. Almost all of my peers watch anime or consume some other Japanese media frequently. My parents didn't watch anime until my sister got them to.

    Gen-Z is more individualist in less of a "the only person that matters is me" sort of way and more of a "you can't count on anyone, especially the government to help you" sort of way. You can see this through Gen-Zs political engagement. Most of my peers are differently engaged that millennials. Most people my age don't affiliate with a specific party, but rather by an ideology.

    Also, Gen-Z is much more depressed

    • Your parents sound more like gen x to me, but there are blurred lines between all the generations.

      Your comments about tech understanding is almost completely opposite to most other comments, which is my main reason for thinking that. But I know plenty of millennials that are shit with tech too.

      My experience in IT is that most of gen z doesn't care about understanding anything on the Internet outside of social media, and they do excel at social media compared to others but I see fewer and fewer young people interested in how any of it works. They seem to be completely content with consuming media but even most of the big game streamers are millennials it seems like. Gen z seems completely ok with walled gardens and black box services as long as they 'work' .

      • My experience in IT is that most of gen z doesn't care about understanding anything on the Internet outside of social media

        Yea, I've found this frustrating as the "tech guy"

        classmate has a problem

        "It's impossible, I don't know how to fix it"

        I Fix it with simply restarting the program.

        They seem to be completely content with consuming media but even most of the big game streamers are millennials it seems like.

        Every generation is like this. Typically, the media of a generation is made by older generations. Much of Boomers music was made by the silent generation. Most of the Millennial pop culture was made by Gen-X and Boomers. I would argue that millennials and gen-z are set apart by how to prevent their own generation is in their own pop culture.

188 comments