>Millennials, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed true believers who’d taken school field trips to visit the Amistad, voted for Obama, and repeated plucky slogans about the power of higher education and world peace didn’t yet have the tools or tragedies to question their precooked narrative.
Excuse me? Maybe you didn't, maybe most didn't, but I wasn't the only 6th grader reading DailyKos, and I know that for a fact.
How old are you? You seem to swallow whole every lie Gen Z tells about themselves. "Anti-perfection, authentic" - are you serious? You can't be. This is the generation that won't leave the house because they aren't "that girl." It seems like your entire knowledge of Gen-Z comes from their curated, filtered appearances on apps of their choosing. You have no idea how these people really live - none.
There was and is a far more unmoored subculture among millennials - not just "unmoored" in the simple sense you use the term, but truly free - unmoderated and uncensored- and it's been the driving force between every durable internet thing of the past 20 years. You, normie, just aren't a part of it. Sell your hotcakes to clueless boomers all you like, but don't for a second think you really know what's going on.
By the way, no, it really is the phones making Gen Z stupid. I know you'd prefer a grand historical narrative, but wake the fuck up. They can barely read and they can't do math. They lack a grasp on basic historical facts because brutal, untreated phone addiction has robbed them of any chance at an education. They believe anything because they are fucking stupid. If smartphones had existed then, boomers would have been at least this bad - probably worse.
Good luck with all your marketing crap. You can sell these morons anything, as long as they don't have to leave bed to get it. And try not to be too evil while you participate in their utter mental capture by brand and product. If it wasn't you doing it, it would probably be someone worse. You can tell yourself that anyway.
I’m so old that I thought a Kiwi Girl would be a girl selling shoe polish. But then I realized that you probably have to be my age to have worn shoes that required being polished. This younger generation Z is very concerned about recycling and the environment, I am too. But they will buy shoes that can’t be repaired so they just put them in the landfill and buy another pair that can’t be repaired. I still have a pair of Allen Edmonds shoes that I purchased 44 years ago. Told you I am old. Another thing it’s hard to find a good cobbler now days but I’m lucky because I know of 5. So if you’re one of us folks that know what a real leather shoe looks like and you ever need a cobbler just send me a message. Didn’t mean to get on a rant about shoes but the Kiwi girl just sent me down a rabbit hole. Oh I’m 76 years old.
Judging by the comments so far you have hit a nerve of some kind.
My immediate reaction to your American Mind piece was that if "idpolshevik" can be a thing then so can "idgenshevik" - the notion that the cohort you happen to have been born in defines you. Or more likely the cohort you turned fifteen or twenty in.
I was born in 1961 which makes me a boomer for sure ("pops" as 'spiky' put it, which was funny). As (s)he also said, the chronological facts of our existence don't define us. Sure, waking up in a world where every dumbass gazes 24/7 at a black mirror is disquieting. Only drug dealers and real estate leeches used mobile phones in the early days. But then I took a holiday in South Africa where the trad wired networks were useless so EVERYONE had a cellphone. These days in most of Africa only the affluent minority have them, everyone else hires ten minutes on someone else's 'phone and actually use it to talk to people with. Imagine that.
Like many people in their 60s I've lived in a variety of places, absorbed stuff from just about everywhere, and I have never watched Star Wars. I didn't live in a properly heated house until I was about 22 and was about the same age before I had sufficient income to choose my own clothes. I would prefer to listen to 100 gecs than The Doors, and have never owned an Eagles album. I resent being stereotyped by people one-third my age.
The whole generational thing (as 'Spiky' hints also) is market niche bullshit.
P.s. I liked your article on 'Vibecamp' as well. Sounds like the perfect distillation of Californian therapy speak, consumerism, Godlessness and autism.
>Millennials, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed true believers who’d taken school field trips to visit the Amistad, voted for Obama, and repeated plucky slogans about the power of higher education and world peace didn’t yet have the tools or tragedies to question their precooked narrative.
Excuse me? Maybe you didn't, maybe most didn't, but I wasn't the only 6th grader reading DailyKos, and I know that for a fact.
How old are you? You seem to swallow whole every lie Gen Z tells about themselves. "Anti-perfection, authentic" - are you serious? You can't be. This is the generation that won't leave the house because they aren't "that girl." It seems like your entire knowledge of Gen-Z comes from their curated, filtered appearances on apps of their choosing. You have no idea how these people really live - none.
There was and is a far more unmoored subculture among millennials - not just "unmoored" in the simple sense you use the term, but truly free - unmoderated and uncensored- and it's been the driving force between every durable internet thing of the past 20 years. You, normie, just aren't a part of it. Sell your hotcakes to clueless boomers all you like, but don't for a second think you really know what's going on.
By the way, no, it really is the phones making Gen Z stupid. I know you'd prefer a grand historical narrative, but wake the fuck up. They can barely read and they can't do math. They lack a grasp on basic historical facts because brutal, untreated phone addiction has robbed them of any chance at an education. They believe anything because they are fucking stupid. If smartphones had existed then, boomers would have been at least this bad - probably worse.
Good luck with all your marketing crap. You can sell these morons anything, as long as they don't have to leave bed to get it. And try not to be too evil while you participate in their utter mental capture by brand and product. If it wasn't you doing it, it would probably be someone worse. You can tell yourself that anyway.
I’m so old that I thought a Kiwi Girl would be a girl selling shoe polish. But then I realized that you probably have to be my age to have worn shoes that required being polished. This younger generation Z is very concerned about recycling and the environment, I am too. But they will buy shoes that can’t be repaired so they just put them in the landfill and buy another pair that can’t be repaired. I still have a pair of Allen Edmonds shoes that I purchased 44 years ago. Told you I am old. Another thing it’s hard to find a good cobbler now days but I’m lucky because I know of 5. So if you’re one of us folks that know what a real leather shoe looks like and you ever need a cobbler just send me a message. Didn’t mean to get on a rant about shoes but the Kiwi girl just sent me down a rabbit hole. Oh I’m 76 years old.
Judging by the comments so far you have hit a nerve of some kind.
My immediate reaction to your American Mind piece was that if "idpolshevik" can be a thing then so can "idgenshevik" - the notion that the cohort you happen to have been born in defines you. Or more likely the cohort you turned fifteen or twenty in.
I was born in 1961 which makes me a boomer for sure ("pops" as 'spiky' put it, which was funny). As (s)he also said, the chronological facts of our existence don't define us. Sure, waking up in a world where every dumbass gazes 24/7 at a black mirror is disquieting. Only drug dealers and real estate leeches used mobile phones in the early days. But then I took a holiday in South Africa where the trad wired networks were useless so EVERYONE had a cellphone. These days in most of Africa only the affluent minority have them, everyone else hires ten minutes on someone else's 'phone and actually use it to talk to people with. Imagine that.
Like many people in their 60s I've lived in a variety of places, absorbed stuff from just about everywhere, and I have never watched Star Wars. I didn't live in a properly heated house until I was about 22 and was about the same age before I had sufficient income to choose my own clothes. I would prefer to listen to 100 gecs than The Doors, and have never owned an Eagles album. I resent being stereotyped by people one-third my age.
The whole generational thing (as 'Spiky' hints also) is market niche bullshit.
Regarding Gen Z - what happens next?
P.s. I liked your article on 'Vibecamp' as well. Sounds like the perfect distillation of Californian therapy speak, consumerism, Godlessness and autism.
So Gonzo.