Almost every time I open Instagram I see a twenty-something year old making fun of their Millennial or Gen-Alpha counterparts with some meme, skit, or “-core” video.
These over-exaggerated, hard to watch videos are a staple of what I call “generation culture”. It’s the part of every human being that deeply resonates with the people in your age group, or generation.
Though most of these videos are meant to be harmless and simply poke fun at our predecessors, some have actual animosity behind them. They hold actual concern about what generation they’re in and how that reflects on their experiences as a person. The big question is: why do people care?
Every generation has its own host of traits, words, or cultural facets that other generations deem “cringe” or “childish”, when the truth is we all have those phrases and aspects of our age group.
Millennials, while it hurts to hear “doggo” or “fresh” used in the modern day, we can’t act like “fire”, “lowkey”, or the entire concept of the dab doesn’t have the same effect.
We as a society look down on those we deem too different from ourselves, but the reality is each generation has its own unique charm formed by the environment around them, and judging the traits that come from the time we were raised in would be hypocritical.
The real hypocrisy comes from us Gen-Z’ers. Right now, “nostalgia-core” videos are one of the most popular things on social media, but the items, experiences, and fashions are from a time before our own – more fitting to our Millennial counterparts.
This phenomenon of memories of something you never experienced, also called anemoia, is perhaps a reflection of how misplaced Gen-Z feels. Stuck between older adults and the modern generation and not sure how we fit into the world. Too young to be serious parts of the real world (or even fully done with our education), too old to keep up with the culture kids are building now.
Generation Beta starts next year, in 2026. Will Gen-Z become the new Millennial, doomed to be ridiculed by the younger generations? Does it matter?
The understanding gap that exists and our lack of awareness around how similar we are to our older counterparts will continue unless we can exist in each other’s world seamlessly. As technology evolves and becomes more incomprehensible to us, we will become the outdated ones to Gen Alpha, and soon Gen Beta.
The cycle will only continue this way until we learn to stop judging each other for traits formed by the environments and pop culture of when we were born. So, can we agree to let bygones be bygones and coexist in our unique brands of cringe?
