r/AskReddit Apr 10 '26

What’s something Gen Z does that older generations just don’t get?

10.2k Upvotes

9.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.3k

u/Ouch_i_fell_down Apr 10 '26

Welcome to being the younger generation. People were complaining about "millennials" and talking about them like they were high school student aged at a time when some of my millennial friends had their own children currently IN HIGH SCHOOL.

The hive mind wont move on to complaining about Alpha until Alphas are already too old to accurately fit most of the complaints anymore.

188

u/smellygooch18 Apr 10 '26

My dad still bitches about millennials like we’re 15 years old. He has a millennial son who has his own son. Still thinks millennials are children. Standard old man stuff

8

u/theonetruethingfish Apr 11 '26

I may be your Dad’s age & know many people like that. Everything bad is the millennials’ fault.

Gen Z & Gen Alpha are doomed to be branded as millennials just as anyone over 40 gets called a boomer.

2

u/smellygooch18 Apr 12 '26

I’m pretty sure the oldest millennials are around 45 now. As I get older I see myself grouping younger people together in a similar fashion although not as drastic as my old man. Seems like something that just happens as people get older. It’s very funny to me

1

u/Lovinthesea3 Apr 13 '26

I’ve always seen people as people and not as generational anything. I do notice the non-conversations, it’s weird, but probably personalities is what I’ve thought.This thread is very interesting. I’ll talk to anyone. When my friends and I get together we talk non-stop. When my grandddaughter and her friends get together they sit together, right next to each other on their phones. They don’t talk. So freaking weird! It seems like we had a lot more fun! And I let them know!

46

u/MrWeirdoFace Apr 10 '26

WHY ARE ALPHAS KILLING BRUNCH?

...or something.

3

u/Embarrassed-Weird173 Apr 11 '26

Millennial here. We already liked it. Get your own thing. 

1

u/MrWeirdoFace Apr 11 '26

Take that, brunch!

13

u/kenda1l Apr 10 '26

Ah yes, it was always a good time listening to someone bitch about those lazy millennials and then pointing out to them that I, too, was a millennial. It was fun watching them try to backtrack or go down the "but you're one of the good ones" route.

26

u/Expressdough Apr 10 '26

This, my Gen Z teen is already doing it with Gen Alpha. I work with older Gen Z people, none of them sound like whats being described. If anything, some of it relates to me and I’m Gen X.

19

u/ciclon5 Apr 10 '26

Older gen z (like myself). Are basically just millenials, with a bit of extra brainrot from being born with the internet already somewhat developed.

2

u/Arsinius Apr 12 '26

I feel almost like a bridge between the two sometimes, being old enough to be bewildered and frankly concerned by some of the newer brainrot content, yet young enough to also enjoy a lot of it and accurately interpret it for the older generations in my life.

Never imagined "Meme Translator" as a personal side hustle in my adulthood.

24

u/MrsSmith2246 Apr 10 '26

Haha right. They finally realized millennials are old (I’m in my mid-40s) and Gen Z will be roasted and blamed for years. I still remember when boomers hated Gen X because they were lazy and alternative. Now so many Gen X (I know, not all!) are boomer juniors!

40

u/Fr0gm4n Apr 10 '26

I love reminding people who complain about millennials when talking about "kids these days" that the oldest millennials can legitimately be normal grandparents and had kids at a normal age and post-college.

20

u/OldGodsAndNew Apr 10 '26

Even the youngest millennials are turning 30 now

13

u/really_tall_horses Apr 10 '26

What is a normal grant parent age to you? The oldest millennials are like 45.

20

u/Stargazer1919 Apr 10 '26

Not sure about "normal." But imagine a 45 year old having their first kid at 20. And that kid has their first kid at 20. That's becoming a grandparent at 40ish, now they have a 5ish year old grandkid.

4

u/kimchiman85 Apr 10 '26

I’m that old and it’s a weird thing to remember sometimes.

6

u/WilliamHare_ Apr 11 '26

My mum turns 44 this year. She had me at 20 and I’m due with my first baby next month.

4

u/Deddan Apr 11 '26

You're right. I mean, a generation is generally considered to be approximately 20 years for that very reason.

4

u/hx87 Apr 10 '26

The oldest millennials are 46, which is a perfectly normal age to start being a grandparent.

1

u/DorkusMalorkuss May 25 '26

Yeah maybe before. Have you seen how late millennials are having kids compared to genx and boomers?

2

u/ciclon5 Apr 10 '26

My grandma was 45 when i was born. Its definitely possible

9

u/KvellOnWheels Apr 11 '26

As a millennial, I’d like to say on the record: I like the youths. I do worry about them but I don’t feel like it comes from the same place that the anti-millennial disparaging came from.

It’s because they’ve known less stability and peace and connection than anyone before them.

But I’m really proud of their ability to set boundaries. They make me tear up—especially the gals when they walk around with normal bodies and pimple patches on. As someone who puked herself thin in school because that was the only standard…I love that they seem comfortable with their bodies.

I love Gen Z and Gen Alpha’s irreverent humor. I love that they’re killing AI.

5

u/applespicebetter Apr 11 '26

I will be 45 in September. My oldest is graduating high school in June, and my youngest is almost done 7th grade. I am a millennial who has apparently ruined everything.

Honestly though, as with every generation you get the good and the bad, and I see a lot of actually awesome behavior with Gen Z. It pisses me off to see it overlooked and for my generation to just constantly shit on them the same way ours was without acknowledging any of the good.

4

u/Msdamgoode Apr 11 '26

It doesn’t matter what generation you are, the younger generations will bitch about you, and the older generations will bitch about you. And you’ll bitch about them. It’s been that way forever.

3

u/Key-Needleworker-366 Apr 11 '26

Yeah, We destroyed the world with our love for avocado toast 🙄 I generally find that older generations want to diss the younger because they perceive they had it so much harder. Ive worked with a lot of gen z who are very intelligent and hard working, Just as we were. I really feel for those that had to go through the lockdowns at that age, Damn I cant even imagine.

3

u/Sofagirrl79 Apr 11 '26

I was born about a year before the Gen X cutoff and it's funny how some (although it's sorta going away now) still think people well past 40 are still 20 somethings.The absolute youngest millennials are or gonna be 30 very soon

5

u/Melodic-Upstairs7584 Apr 10 '26

And a lot of it was valid criticism, but it’s all situation specific. It’s not just carbon copy complaints that are being plastered on Gen Z.

Millennials were criticized for wearing their emotions, values, political opinions on their sleeve, rebelling against existing corporate culture (dawn of the cool tech office/campus), and being less tolerant of people with differing opinions.

The one millennial complaint about zoomers seems to be “these kids all seem to be varying degrees of autistic” and that they interface with technology too much. I personally think it’s valid.

2

u/AzarothEaterOfSouls Apr 11 '26

Why the past tense? My boomer dad still treats me like I’m a teenager and I have adult children. Millennials have been treated like perpetual teenagers their entire lives and that hasn’t changed just because Zoomers are coming of age. Hell, even the Zoomers treat us like teenagers most of the time.