Zoomers stay winning. Millennials are turning into their parents.
If you were born in 1999 you were absolutely not a millennial, and definitely not 2001 are you kidding me? I think the best line is “If you don’t remember 9/11 you’re Gen Z” which puts the border around 96/97.
“If you don’t remember 9/11 you’re Gen Z” may sound good, but realistically someone born in 1997 definitely won’t remember it, you have to have been at least seven or six, but every millennial remembers 2005 or 2008
Sure, a 2001 millennial baby is a weird hybrid creature whose first defining memory is something like Katrina or when they were 8 and their parents lost their house in the 08 crash, but I’m perfectly comfortable calling a 2002 baby the first Zoomer. You can’t judge a cohort by its border years, no matter the generation, the first and last years will always be out of place and strange
But the critical year of the millennial cohort wasn’t 9/11 despite its flashiness, it was 2008 and all millennials were conscious for it, while the true consciousness defining year for Zoomers was 2016
9/11 isn’t the real flashpoint, but it’s a good mark for an individual person. People born in 98 have much more in common with people born in 03 than with people born in 93.
Not remembering 9/11 means they don’t remember a time before the war on terror. They were aware for 2008, but only vaguely, depending on how affected their parents were. Millennials were entering the workforce. And yes 2016 was the real defining year for Zoomers, which if you were born in 97/98 was also the year you graduated high school, the oldest Zoomers.
The biggest “general vibes” difference as I can think to put it is that Millennials were told that if they did everything right they had a bright future ahead and it was dashed, while Zoomers have never known a US that wasn’t already in terminal decline, and have never had much hope of a better future.
