Hello friends, if you’re a Zoomer like me (Well maybe, I was born in '96 so I’m either the last Millennial or the first Gen Z) you may have noticed that we’re often the butt of many jokes. “The worst generation of snowflakes ever” or something of that nature. I will admit, we seem a little strange compared to old folks but when you actually take a step back and look at the facts it makes perfect sense.
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Zoomers have dumb language. One of the biggest things Zs get mocked for is lingo: Skibidibop rizz with the gyatt, deadass smh at my goofy ahh uncle. Took me a while to realize it, but when’s it’s not just memespeak the reason there are so many nonsense words floating around now is because big tech and social media has become so ludicrously censor happy that you need to talk like a fucking baby to avoid getting your post flagged for one reason or another. Even saying too many normal words in the “wrong order” is enough to get shadowbanned these days.
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Kids are inside and on their phones too much. What the fuck else are you expecting them to do? Putting aside the 2 year lockdown due to a pandemic, there’s not many options for outside activities. Parks and playgrounds and other things just aren’t safe a lot of the times. Whether it’s animals, shady characters, or the jungle gym being delapidated. Teens can’t go to the malls anymore because they’re all closing and anywhere they gather is immediately swarmed with the cops. Nowadays, you go to any big city and the most happening spot is a McDonald’s or something because at least you can eat and socialize without getting dirty looks.
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Z’s are immature and rely on their parents for everything. I had a professor tell me that a not insignifigant amount of zoomers show up to job interviews with their parents and that’s bad. I’ll admit that everyone needs to grow up eventually but…when did attentive parents become a bad thing? Most older people I know had a bad relationship with their folks or they passed away early, so they were forced to mature sooner. Now this one is purely subjective because I can’t speak for every 20 something and their parents but this just seems like another generational gap that’s caused by shifting social values.
I can go on but I just had to jot all this down. The kids aren’t crazy, you’re just just not noticing how hard they’ve been hit by the downward spiral of the western world.
I feel like there are more poignant things to notice about gen z and gen a like how they’re increasingly conservative, kind of like how gen x were more conservative than boomers
Middle/high school white boys have long been prone to a reactionary phase, that doesn’t say anything about the generation as a whole
In 2020 31% of gen z voters voted Trump (with 28% voter turnout), compare that to 43% of millennials and 46-52% of other generations, that’s significantly less conservative than any other gen. Polling shows 18-24 year olds as the most progressive on social issues by a lot
Boomers grew up in times of rapid technological progress, with wars threatening to destroy humanity and fought with the utmost brutality, while AES countries were in their most prosperous phase and reform was improving quality of life in the west. Truly a groovy time to fight the stale elites for socialism with real freedom to do whatever you want to do.
GenXers grew up in a time where the warmongering of the boomer era seemed to bear fruit, as one of the sides of the conflict basically gave up. Thus, communism was “proven” “not to work”, and that also meant adjacent organizations like unions or the same reforms from the 60s and 70s. Growth was high, so getting kicked in the ass by capital seemed justified, and even necessary because there was no alternative.
Millennials saw the promises of neoliberalism not get fulfilled in the biggest recession since the 1920s, while adventures around the world brought back terrorism, dead soldiers and budget holes in the west. The 1% did what it wanted, and the 99% suffered for it.
Zoomers grew up in a time where climate change was getting progressively worse and the ruling class was completely uninterested in doing anything about it. That was not the only crisis. Everything kept getting worse, so it was time to start searching for old ideas. The few remaining boomer leftists have interesting ideas… I’m sure they will live up to expectations.
Gen Alpha is growing up in a time where there’s a renewed battle between good (we) and evil (they). We must fight to the last Ukrainian to ensure morality wins. The decline our society has two causes, the forces of evil from abroad, and the forces of evil within.
Basically, it’s not a characteristic of something as nebulous as generations, but is caused by material conditions present in the affected times.
you may have noticed that we’re often the butt of many jokes
This is not a new phenomenon. You can find ancient Greek writings complaining about the youngest generation. “Kids these days” is just what happens when you’re not one of the kids. It happened to us and it will happen to you.
I’m a Zoomer and I never thought about this
Everything they say about GenZ is also things they said about millenials, of which I am, and which I’m sure they said about Xers and before as well.
Especially going to job interviews with your parents… I actually learned it was super common for Xers to have their parents negotiate everything for them, including jobs. Sometimes they might not even take you to the interview with them lol, at least there’s some progress.
When I was young it was the walkman that was gonna be the ruin of society. You actually had psychologists on TV giving their theories as to how the youth uses the walkman to further alienate themselves from society or whatever. And in the 80s they had the Satanic cults panic lol.
They also said we were lazy, that we wanted everything handed to us, that we didn’t want to work… and the same people that said that 10 years ago are saying that again but against GenZ. 20 years ago we spent too much time on the TV and it was gonna rot our brain, and now kids apparently spend too much time on the phone and it’s gonna melt their eyes lol.
Maybe the real question is not whether this or that generation is the most spoiled, etc. But whether boomers are the most brainwashed into thinking they got everything through their own personal hard work, grit, and determination. I’m sure it wasn’t always easy but the mere fact of workers being able to get an affordable education and nice house is pretty much unheard of in any other era. To hear them tell it, everyone else is a weakling for not building their own house while working 16 hours a day without nutritional food.
Either that, or we only hear so much about boomer complaints because their kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids are all online talking shit about the general lack of boomer self-awareness. (There are some good boomers, mind you.)
Looking into the job stuff specifically, it kinda sounds like the employers in question are mad that college graduates have a sense of self worth and don’t want to get paid peanuts. One of the big complaints is that young people have “unreasonable salary expectations” and that could mean a billion different things in this economy.
Its the no body wants to work, I dont know anyone who doesn’t want to work, i know people who dont want to work for penuts, or cannot magoc 5 years experience right out of collage, and no one with 5 years experience want an entry level job
That’s it. Many people would be glad to work their way up from an entry level position that doesn’t need years of higher ed and a pricetag of $000s. Those jobs just don’t exist unless you’re connected. And if you’re connected, you’re not really working you’re way up, anyway.
You actually had psychologists on TV giving their theories as to how the youth uses the walkman to further alienate themselves from society or whatever.
Capitalism systematically atomizing society in a coordinated drive to extract profits: I sleep.
Young person listens to music while outside: REAL SHIT.
To your first point, most Black millennials either made up 99% slang used today (with some residuals from the previous gens, gotta give credit), i.e. “goofy ahh” is how you’d sound if you said goofy ass out loud irl, with certain accents sometimes skipping over the “s” sound (personally I say the whole joint but it’s personal preference)
So really it’s just AAVE being stolen, watered down and regurgitated so all the white suburban kids can sound cool. And they just chalk it up to “online speak”, like nah you’re appropriating a whole dialect, and that’s why you sound so goofy.
I grew up in Philly so when people online started actually typing out the “ahh” I wanted to die.
Yep, and now people can make fun of it without the obvious dog whistles because it has been so far removed from Black people. I’ve seen people make fun of the way Black influencers talk online under the guise of making fun of “Gen Z speak”.
It’s the reason we keep having to make up new shit tbh but the problem is that with the internet giving people such easy access to our culture it’s impossible to do anything about…at the end of the day it would be nice for people to just respect our culture but can’t have that 💀
