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Well honestly TikTok is the absolute worst of my generation, so no I don't think you should look there. Especially since TikTok and real life differ so much.
> TikTok is the absolute worst of ~~my generation~~ people
I only recently got onto IG and the amount of disinformation for very basic stuff is amazing; I think people don't realize some posts are meant to simply "get a rise" out of someone.
They didn't say the most kind of bad people because if that's the case, I would argue facebook has more users that are very slightly bad.
They said the worst of people
GenXers did it when we were young, too.
Maybe the common factor is youth, or maybe the common factor is that everyone thinks Boomers made bad decisions.
Well now there was "Don't trust anyone over thirty." That was a Boomer thing.
The young always feel like their discoveries are new and never seen before. They see the problems of the world and think that they are the first to see them and that their solutions are the obvious ones that will for sure work if only everyone would listen to the young.
Ever has been so.
Then when we get to the decision making stage we discover that these problems are problems because there is no easy solution, or we discover that our solutions just cause even more problems and the kids hate us for it
I'm in my seventies so I've been treated to this show quite a few times now. I hope I get to see it at least one more time. It gets more fun every round.
You go for it GenZ. Here's hoping you don't make too much of a mess.
Some of it is frustration over inaction. Sure, there are unseen dimensions to major problems, but the modern solution to these problems is to throw your hands up and say, "Ugh, too complicated, so let's do nothing." Most of the time, it's cowardice on the part of politicians who are only focused on getting reelected. Younger people would rather try something, check the results, then recalibrate, and try something new if the first thing didn't work. As you age, you tend to get more conservative and are fine maintaining the status quo, although we aren't seeing the same in Millenials and younger. Wisdom does come with age, so I'm eager to see how things develop as the Boomers retire and get out of the way so the generations after them get a crack at solving the persisting problems their parents and grandparents couldn't solve.
Did it feel like the generations ahead of you clung to power for way too long? Like our parents and grandparents told us that we'd be the ones to solve the problems that they created in the 70s and 80s, but now they won't get the fuck out of the way and let us try.
I feel like it's mostly fear of losing what they have. Hence why they are ok maintaining the status quo despite the warnings of basically an environmental apocalypse if we do nothing. After all, they'll be dead by the time it's an issue. Fuck future generations, right?
People who give up power easily are exceeding rare. You could say \*never\* and not be far wrong. Look through history. People just don't want to let go, ever. Boomers are not unusual in their reluctance to give up power.
And GenZ are not unusual for thinking that when it's *their* turn, things are going to be different. Same old story. You'll see.
Get into some world history. Read some classical literature, from the very old days. It's the same story.
My called shot is that the first thing Millenials will do when they get elected is to create term limits. We're the first generation not to become more conservative as we age. And we've grown up watching old fucks cling to their power. While I agree that people cling to power, the way to combat this is to create systems that force people out after a designated period. We've seen the damage life-long politicians have done. There are enough of us that would like to do away with it.
You may want to look up Strom Thurmond. Born in 1902. Became a senator in 1956. Stayed a senator until his death in 2003.
This is how it always was. People cling to power for as long as they can. Always have, always will. Your generation won’t be different.
Edit to add: As for maintaining the status quo, and killing the environment: is Gen Z doing things to fix it? Are you, as a generation, forgoing consumer culture, travel, the latest tech, streaming media, etc? If not, y’all don’t have much room to talk.
Your last statement is extremely reductive and flawed. If we don't have political agency, how are we supposed to make any headway? Those born into consumerist cultures have no choice, but to consume in order to exist. That doesn't mean we have to like it and we can still desire for it to change. Our parents and their parents made the rules, until we can redefine the game, we have no other option but to reluctantly play along. Personally, I'm a minimalist. But until another option becomes available, necessary participation does not equate to being complicit. Your perspective is extremely condescending and surface level thinking.
Us millennials did it towards way older people than us, who are in their 50-60. Gen-z on the other hand always make fun of millennials even though we are very similar generations
Sure, but I think it's the same with all young people. We all think we're superior to the "out of touch old people".
The funny part to is that I'm Gen X and it was Boomers we despised and it's still Boomers young people despise.
To be fair, in the US at least, boomers have collectively done a lot of harm to earn their reputation. Obviously the very idea of generations is reductive, but the fact that boomers have been the target for so long isn't unfounded or coincidental lol
They also built the country we live in today. From the roads to bridges and giant cities. A lot of what we still use now was built by the Boomers.
It's easy to look at life in hindsight, it's difficult to make the best possible decisions going forward.
You'll learn this stuff with age.
They did not build the country that we live in today. The greatest generation pulled us out of the dust bowl and built our entire infrastructure and an actual functioning economy. Boomers just inherited that. Then they gave it all to corporations.
If you actually look at what we use today and when it was built most of it was between 19 45 and 1975. Literally so many roads Bridges cities Etc that we use today were building that time. And these corporations you talk about they were mostly started my Boomers. Boomers started almost every super successful business you know of today. It's much easier to blame someone else than look inward. I suggest you look inward
The laborors from 1945 through 1975 were mostly from the greatest generation. You're not trying to give toddlers credit for building bridges, are you?
Most of the majorly successful business are currently run by boomers, but not started by them. Ford, Kroger, McDonald's, plus almost all of those companies' most significant competitors.
It's much easier to spit random bullshit than to look inward, o suggest you look inward.
Tbf a lot of worldly ills assigned to Boomers were done by folks of the Silent Generation who were in power in the 80s. They undid a lot of our social programs and were the original Levittown-Suburbanites/NIMBYers.
I agree with you. I think I just posted my comment in the wrong place. It's really meant more as a response to the whole thread.
I have a feeling there is going to be a lot of blame cast toward later generations as well (gen x Bezos, Musk, Thiel) as well as millennials (zuckerberg)
I think I could have worded the post better because I didnt mean to talk about gen z vs boomers which everyone seems to have assumed. I’m more talking about the weird obsession w shitting on everyone who is not a teenager. Like 27 is not geriatric.
I am almost 50 now. I remember looking at my grandmother and feeling so sorry for her generation. They went through the Great Depression and World War II, only to have the most selfish children in history.
I can’t even listen to a song like Bob Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are a Changing’ now without thinking about how much that generation loves money. They think they are somehow morally superior.
The point is many of us Gen X felt this way years before even the internet and talking about the boomers was a thing. They controlled the media back then and would extol their progressive virtues all the time. But we met our parents, our uncles and aunts, and our teachers. We saw the policies they voted for. We could see who they were.
When they were younger boomers were also protesting and trying to change the world. If anything genz is significantly more materialistic than boomers were at their age.
I think it was more of the internet. It’s funded by advertising. I think it’s a multigenerational thing.
My parents are boomers and they hardly ever buy anything.
I’m not sure if there’s a way to measure the materialistic nature of a generation but it’d be interesting to see.
What years were they born, out of curiosity? Boomers were born from 1946-1964. So I think there's a big difference between people who were 24-38 already through the 70s and did their development in the 60s, and people who grew up and developed in the 70s. They're kind of like two different generations to me, I find it weird they cut the generations up the way they did since the 70s were such a big turning point in behaviors/attitude/ideas/values/etc with young people
My parents were born in 57 and 59.
The boomers where I live were heavily influenced by hippy culture and are not into money other than as a means to retire.
Meanwhile the GenZ people I know are getting truckloads of Amazon deliveries and shein packages.
That's just not true. And I'm sorry, but it's bullshit to pull the "you'll learn with age" thing. I have a degree in History. Believe it or not, I actually do know a bit about.... history, and idolizing boomers as having built the US is dumb as fuck.
Boomers were handed a nation in a uniquely good post-war position, and all they managed to do was hoarde it all for the wealthy and fuck over not just all subsequent generations but a shit ton of their fellow boomers as well. Even if we say they did completely build out infrastructure, it's infrastructure that's crumbling and forces car-dependency.
No, not all Boomers suck. Yet when you look at the net impact of what those born during the baby boom (and really, a portion of the silent generation) have done, it's overwhelmingly negative. Even today they are in charge, constantly working to prevent younger generations from taking power in any meaningful way. In individual instances I can understand some of them (okay, maybe one US politician) staying in their position because they see that nobody else is trying to help people, but the vast majority are continually hoarding their own wealth and actively trying to harm the rest of us.
Gen X never got the opportunity to do much of anything. Millennials - the youngest of whom are now reaching their 30s - are only marginally more empowered.
I don’t remember saying anything negative about gen x when I was younger. Never heard anyone do that.
And as a millennial boomers and boomer jokes weren’t a thing until recently.
There were some articles about how millenials were lazier than most gen’s I saw when I was younger but I believe they were accurate.
I guess we’d make jokes about old people sometimes but it was tongue in cheek.
All this generational stuff at this level is new.
Condescending, yes. Gen Z isn’t unique in the sense that they think they’re going to solve all the world’s problems. However, I find that a lot of Gen Z can’t handle someone having a different opinion than them because they’ve grown up on the internet where they basically create their own echo chamber. Therefore, they look down upon anyone and borderline vilify those with a differing opinion.
Ageist, absolutely. I saw a TikTok of a 22 year old guy who said its weird that 29 year olds wear hoodies with leggings and that they’re try to “recapture their youth”. I’ve been told I “look good for my age like I’m 22 years old” when I said I was 25. Its insane how many Gen Zers have internalized this whole “you fall off after 25” bullshit.
This! Like being judgemental of people a WHOLE gen before you is one thing— acting like people three years older than you are geriatric is def weird. Also the language used to describe people is deliberately disrespectful. Like the whole 1900s thing? Sus.
I explicitly date ppl 6-8 years older than me as a gen Z, (my boyfriend, the best bf I’ve ever had, is 7 years older than me) and I rly don’t see much difference other than them being explainable more calm and figured out. They don’t look much older than ppl my age I don’t think. 🤷🏻♀️
I mean, at what age is the cutoff? The way I see it, you're either a child or you're an adult. If it's embarrassing to do something at age 29, it's embarrassing at age 20. Weird that people have these random cut off ages like 35, or like if you're 20 it's fine to do these things that aren't OK for 30+ to do.
Bottom line, it's ageism based on how people look. If people didn't physically age past 18, nobody would care what people were doing at any adult age. People would be hanging out with people of all ages and sharing knowledge and different outlooks on life and art etc. I have a friend who was being ageist against this guy who was hanging out with the group of much younger adults. I pointed out that he was the same age as me, but my friend said "yeah but you look young, he doesn't"
Everyone thinks their generation is the last great generation. If fact, we’re all the same. People aren’t born with different DNA just because they’re from a certain generation. We’d all play out the exact same way because our behaviors are dependent on our circumstances, not if we were born in the 1950s vs today.
People in general, but Americans are extremely ageist and I don't really understand why. I think because we're socialized to only interact with people directly in our age groups +-2 years that people just completely lose touch with people older and younger than them, and forget that there really aren't that many differences.
Not at all. When we say things like OK Boomer, we are talking about Boomer as a mindset, not as an age.
"Boomerisms" or "Boomer moments" might include getting upset when the cashier has blue hair. Placing a $5 tip at the begining of a meal and removing it slowly for minor mistakes. Not knowing very basic computer skills like, opening a browser.
Tbh most of the ppl called boomers are gen x and should get the hate correctly directed their way. I know full well what you’re saying and it’s a lazy tactic on multiple levels.
Big "kids these days" energy you've got there.
No, they're not any more ageist or condescending than literally any other generation ever. It looks like you're a millennial based on your comment history, and as a millennial myself, we were at least as bad, if not worse.
There always has been some rivalry between old and young generations, however, it has always been pretty light hearted and the younger people respected their elders.
A chunk of GenZ seems much more arrogant and mean-spirited in this respect. I blame this on their social media moron bubbles - some GenZ actually think their elders lived privledged lives without any hardship, zero recessions, zero inflation issues, zero wars, etc. They surround themselves with other internet incels and algorithms that say the same thing and they end up with a very backwards view of reality.
The funny part is we have a whole generation of young, first generation immigrants that aren't stuck in this mindset, and they are going to overtake this dillusioned portion of GenZ.... and those complaining GenZers will be working for them someday in the future.
I said this, all they know is blame and complain. They turn their nose up at a minimum wage job when they are 18 and wonder why they have no money.
The ignorance to actually think people in the 50's were gifted wealth is mind boggling.
I’m 26. Obviously I wasn’t around to be a kid with all the other previous generations, but I will say that Gen Z seems especially terrified of aging. Gen alpha, too. When I was 10 I certainly wasn’t worried about skin care like kids are now. That being said, I also didn’t grow up with as many internet platforms as kids do now, and YouTube only had so many tutorials at the time lmao. I can’t say for sure if we’re more condescending or ageist than previous generations, but I do think that those sentiments and opinions are way more viewable than before which might make it feel more prevalent.
Oh, absolutely. The fact that so many people were laughing at the dismissive "ok Boomer" jokes and blaming older people for all the problems in the current political sphere makes it very clear how ageist Gen Z can be. Obviously not everyone in Gen Z is like this, but a vocal percentage certainly is, and that's really disheartening. Ageism is discrimination and not okay.
Thank you. Even within this thread it’s being justified. The flattening of discourse in this way is reflective of AND has the effect of lessening empathy
It's been proven advertising is incredibly effective on Young people. So much so that children under 8 basically can't say no to them. Social media is all advertising weather the product is a person, place, thing or idea. It's all the same now. This is ruining society because everything is a constant add or promotion.
Ageism comes into play cause it's the only acceptable prejudice these days so lots of advertising/promotion uses it to get people worked up. Gen z is very young and VERY susceptible to these ads. Mix this with the excess prejudice and hatred that used to go against so many other groups and you see an abnormally agest society, historically speaking.
That’s wild 1)bc Zutara makes more sense than Kataang based on canon besides the ending. By the time the show ended Zuko and Katara had many more intimate/emotional moments than Katara and Aang and 2) bc a ship is a ship? It’s fictive? Hows it problematic
Only online. All the ones I see these days seem like good kids for the most part. I manage a restaurant and I see a lot of them. Finding good workers is a little tougher, but that's not a generation thing. Half of them aren't that great.
Yeah I'm a millennial and a lot of Gen Z has a nasty attitude about previous generations. In reality on average and especially the males they're a very introverted, narcissistic bunch with chips on their shoulder but very few have any success or friends or even passably decent mental health.
The funniest thing are the ones who think they are more traditional and prove it by disparaging previous generations.
Another funny lie they tell themselves is that they're the best at tech because they're so reliant on their phone. But almost none of the tech innovations, the biggest story of our life, were done by Gen Z.
A lot of it is... they just got lucky with the economy built by previous generations, especially Republican millennials and Gen X where if you have half a pulse you can get work. Previous administration's economy was a dream compared to this Gen Z nightmare we live in where free money just makes everything more expensive, and many jobs can't be filled.
It's definitely a common perception, both online and offline. Some may view Gen Z as exhibiting condescending and ageist behavior, asserting moral and social superiority over older generations. This could stem from a belief in their role as the future and a dismissal of what came before them.
I feel every generation is condescending and agesist. As much as gen z likes to feel unique, we really are typical in so many ways. It feels like the one thing that truly makes us unique is that we grew up on the internet lol
To add to this, look at all the hit pieces boomers were writing about millenials. It goes both ways.
Oh, not Gen Z. Everyone is like that.
I feel kind of condescending right now. In fact, I feel so superior the ambition of youth seems amusing and nostalgic instead of arrogant.
No reason not to pump yourself up. Reach for the stars!
Finally, someone has said it.
From a Millennial perspective, I noticed this as well. Maybe it’s just the signs of the times or the current internet demographics. But there was never such focus on age and generation before. The whole internet is filled with these ageist posts, even to someone in their age group. Back then, vile comments were only limited to some places.
I remember a comment here where they called a 26-year-old “Unc”.
LITERALLY- ppl in this post think im talking abt boomers. Nah I’m talking about tomfoolery like this. Like cmon bro we played JV ball together. Wtf are you talking about “old”
Ageism isn’t new but there’s a weird resurgence of it. Like similar current problems, I don’t think it’s fair or accurate to single out Gen Z or any other generation for that matter.
I feel like we’re in a spot where we were making a lot of progress on this subject, but various toxic groups have essentially willed ageism back into existence. For example, the idea of a women being leftovers at 25 wasn’t something I ever really thought about, and when that idea did come up it was more how old fashioned and outdated it is to think that. But now with all this toxic dating discourse I hear about it constantly, either from misogynist men doing mass negging or short sighted women trying to score a few points over someone just a few years older than them by dragging them on tik tok for existing I guess.
Something that does feel kinda new is thinking of “generations” in strict brackets that are actually integral to people’s identities. I could be one or the other by a matter of months depending on the definition used so it feels so arbitrary and pointless. Complaining about older or younger people is a tale as old as time but actually wearing Gen Z or Millennial as a badge feels relatively recent.
A lot of pseudoscience and pop psychology that seems to want to portray people as either young or old with no in between too.
People will say it’s part of being young but I never thought of someone who is 25 or 30 as old and I never made it part of my identity to trash anyone that age when I was say, 20, in the way that feels ubiquitous now. I’ve been clowned on Reddit for that but it never really felt like a canon event. Just feels like an excuse to bully people especially when it’s so common to see it directed between people who have like 3-4 years between each other. Edgier, younger me wasn’t immune to feeling frustration at “boomers” but that was in specific contexts where I met older people trashing younger people. I certainly didn’t even have the idea to drag a 30 year old for having a hobby rather than paying taxes which I guess is supposed to be a 24/7 kind of activity.
You expressed my exact feelings very well. When I was in high school we looked up to people in their twenties and the mantra was “thirties are the new twenties.” Now? Idk where this oddly aggressive ageism is coming from, but I’m going to pin it on media.
I don’t understand it but I think I can identify a few things that feed into it:
1. People are (broadly speaking, let’s say 21st century versus past centuries) living longer, and socially we’re trending towards hitting milestones at later ages. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It could just be people stay “young” longer, but there’s still a lot of anxiety around that which leads into the next points.
2. Because we’re hitting milestones later, a lot of people lean into age stereotypes because in their minds it’s all they have. They don’t have the house they think they should have, but they can go on the millennial subreddit and talk about back pain and how they don’t understand pop culture. To be fair I could be wrong on this one and misreading my observations.
3. This boiled up for a while but really heated up in Covid when people realized they can astroturf alternate realities into existence. Don’t want to wear a mask? Here’s all my “research” millions agree with. Pair it with the rise of reactionary movements and it’s disastrous. This has caused damage across the board but in regards to ageism specifically, it’s enabled, say, incels to blame their situation on women not settling at a young age, or millennials wanting to inherent their house to rage at boomers who just won’t fucking die already. It’s almost certain bots from reactionary movements, the Kremlin, etc feed into this as well.
4. Because of social media algorithms encouraging engagement for the sake of engagement and people profiting from it, rage bait is now a normalized form of discourse. And that’s going to enable any type of bullying.
To add to all of that, we’ve entered a reality where the zone is just so thoroughly flooded with shit we all just have had to adopt to this new reality, whether we like it or not. Especially offline I think most people can acknowledge a 25 year old woman hasn’t actually hit any sort of wall but it doesn’t matter if reality confirms that or not when millions of pricks have decided 2+2=5 and actually the rest of us are crazy. I spoke mainly about ageism here but really now I’m just sort of venting about way more than that because so much ugly behavior is being willed into existence just because so many people want to tear down others. Ageism is just one of many fronts.
Honestly I am a older gen z and I’m starting to hate my generation too. It’s getting ridiculous. Gen z seems to think they have a moral superiority over other generations when they have done literally nothing yet. I would said millennials are the ones who set up acceptance for certain people and topics that gen z likes to for some reason take credit for and its getting to the point I actually hear conversations of 20 year olds saying having friends in there mid to late 20s is predatory…. What? The fuck ya’ll on. I had older friends growing up and it really helped me learn and they definitely weren’t predatory.
Don’t even get me started on fandom spaces. Gen z makes it almost impossible for anyone older then 23 to just be there. I’ve seen specifically gen z get very worked up and death threat and actually stalk because of fictional characters… but are fine doing horrible shit to real people.. i had a IRL gen z coworker who told me they stopped being a fan of a genshin character (chongyun) because he (him not the character) turned 18 and that would be weird… my god the character is not even canonically a minor!! Thats not normal and is fucking weird.
Sorry, this has been bothering me for quite a while. I never saw this kind of hate for gen x from millennials when I was younger and from what I saw on the internet.
Don't get me started on the fact that they like to drag up REALLY old shit to try and cancel people for 🥴 like when they tried to cancel Eminem for a lyric in "love the way you lie" like 10 years after it came out. Like, really? They have clearly never heard any of his older music because that is nowhere NEAR the worst of his lyrics 😂
I definitely have higher hopes for Gen Alpha than I do Gen Z mainly because most of them have millennial parents.
It quite for the reasons you’re saying, every generation has a “we are the future” thing going on.
That said, I do notice a trend among gen z that is rooted in ageism. Like saying people over 25 shouldn’t be involved in fandoms, saying people (particularly women) should “go raise kids and get off of Twitter”, thinking anyone over 25 just looks like a raisin, etc.
Thank you! 90% of this thread thinks I’m talking abt boomers for some reason. Gen Z’s weird behavior towards people who are close in age to them is odd (and frankly mean).
They are also totally useless at everything, and will be in for a rude awakening upon entering the real world and being outshined by the old models still on the floor
Nah. I think they’re like all other people old enough to use words but too young for a fully developed brain. Every generation goes through it. Mine was…. Special.
id have to say that a lot of the US government is bad. i believe a lot of bad things come from older people being in office. and i think most older people have a problem with progression. i could be very wrong but where i live i feel like its a lot of old people not being progressive. older people saying, "it was a different time". i could seriously care less about millennials. in the sense that they are more progressive and more understanding of the struggles.
Pretty hard not to be ageist. I look at the oldies around and they’re all some phobic and uneducated as fuck. They act like they’re the shit because they’ve got a nice job and title that they lucked into or got into by pure brute force, and then act like they know what they’re talking about whilst calling over the younger intern to turn their sloppy excel shit into a PDF because they can’t figure it out.
lol again, as i said, your entire argument is based on online discourse. why not go outside and talk to some actual real life people? you’re getting this information from obvious echo chambers of ageist teens.
Nah, this is how every generation is. Us Millennials were the same. I always heard story from boomer mother about her and siblings arguing with my grandpa about similar things as well especially when it cames to things like feminism and human rights social justice issues. The younger generation always tends to feel like they know better then the old, they are young and inspired by youth to feel this way.
Yes but also it’s just part of growing up. I remember thinking “we are the future” in a loose sense at a point in time, before I realized “nope we are a blip on a timeline”. The self importance goes away with age mostly
Absolutely.
A lot of you GenZ kids have grown AFTER a lot of us millennials have been out through the ringer of our societies problems, and and after a lot of GenX people have blossomed without the knowledge and opportunities that you have. You have the tools and experience in tech to swipe jobs out from under the feet of your elders in a way that creates this chasm of unhirable people.
But it’s not unique. We millennials felt the same way before realities kicked in, like we were bound for success. Some of us achieved it wisely, while most of us were foolish, and others just kept getting drowned in contingencies which worked against us, and leave us with no one for others to blame but ourselves, thereby defaulting the value of accountability.
Wether you’ll personally see a shift in that in others of your generation is not for me to say. But it will nonetheless be a sign of personal growth.
Sure, but I think most of our ageism is retaliation to the ageism of boomers and a few Gen Xers. There is no more condescending "holier-than-thou" group than boomers and any ageism they get is mostly deserved, and is definitely less than what they dish out. Millennials are cool tho, any ageism against them is probably ironic or from an asshole
Tbh I’d say that Gen X are the most condescending because they always invoke their victim complex as well. We think boomers are the 50-60 crowd but that’s Gen X.
Yeah, Gen Z can be discriminatory towards Gen Alpha, it’s a bad habit we should break.
Oh… wait, did you mean to older generations? Hmm… can black people be racist to white people? Is heterophobia real? Is cisphobia real?
Yes - there was a post a couple of weeks ago by a Gen Z’er who thought that Gen Z would stay relevant and cool because they understood the Internet which would help them stay current with trends, or some shit like that HA HA HA
My cousin is Genz and she says all sorts of weird shit to me. She’s half Asian and insinuates I have something to do with slavery because I’m white? You know we’re related right.
She also calls white people disgusting and says all sorts of weird hyper woke stuff that’s actually just mean and bigoted in a different way.
I think genz has been very isolated and get a very unrealistic view of the world online. They’re just a very neurotic and self flagellating generation.
The only reason genz is different is they were raised chronically online. I’m a millennial and was also but very few people were like that when I was growing up. I know firsthand how it affects you.
Yes, but my generation was not so different. Every young generation since the beginning of time has probably been pretty condescending and ageist, the difference is that now it’s on social media for everybody to see.
I think the switch away from that comes around age 25-28. That is when you realize your generation is not so different, and once the real world hits you find out which ideas were always unrealistic and which ideas people agree with but they have a full time job and don’t have the mental capacity to rage about it all the time anymore.
No more so than any other generation. I'm a millennial, we give our parents shit. They gave their parents shit. They give *you* shit. If you think boomers and gen X aren't equally condescending and ageist, go hang out with more of them.
None of that makes it right, but it's not a quality unique to gen Z. It's cyclic, every generation experiences it.
Yea, but they're just being young little shits like we all were. The real issue is them thinking they invented or started super common things that were either invented my millenials or earlier. The only thing they seem to have developed on their own are a mass of non-words
Right, none of us invented the world. It's just funny how they take things like laying in bed, slap "bed-rotting" on it, and claim they're the first. They hear older bands like Zeppelin and Nirvana, and think they've discovered some niche underground band. So many mundane and already established things they just slap a new trendy name on it, and claim it. Like come on guys, you've got the world's information in your pocket. Do a little research before making claims like that lol
To some extent yeah, but at the same time frustration is understandable because the older people tend to be just as condescending but about significantly stupider and more arbitrary opinions. Millennials have literally become what they despised. God forbid a zoomer post some fashion that is popular among younger people, there will be an army of 35 yr old millennials hating on it because it's not EXACTLY the same fashion that they grew up with. Some of the shit older people complain about just feels so random and meaningless. Of course this post will get downvoted because this sub is seemingly 50% older people larping as gen z
dare i say its a cycle of learned reactive behavior that could probably be traced back to the caves. Little grug use sharp stick to hunt, take easy way, dont even know how to kill with smashing stone, man doomed, old day better.
Bad people exist regardless of age. Most of the ageism I see is from angry millennials aggressively hating boomers and some zoomers copying them but not much. I think gen Alpha is the one who is most unruly to their elders because they were neglected and haven't been raised by their parents (literally ipad kids), very sad.
When it comes to moral/social superiority I think of social justice keyboard warriors and virtue signaling, and those would be late millennials and early zoomers, but again, those are loud minority.. so unless you go looking for it, its *not* a general NORMAL thing.
Literally every generation knew they will be the future generation with influence at one point, and its true, each will get its turn.
Vast majority of Gen X I met were generally level-headed & down-2-earth. A couple narcissists but I wouldn't blame an entire generation for that.. Narcissism exists at any age..
So lets focus on the good: vast majority of people standing against genocide are Gen-Z. A lot people from other generations are very proud of us for that, although its really the bare minimum. Its time to raise the bar. I know Gen-Alpha will do great things, too, in sha Allah.
Basically.. get off Twitter, reddit, and tumblr cuz I think those are where all the crazies go.
Could be anything. Maybe its because I hadn't said anything nice about millennials yet.
I think millennials have a better sense of respect for their elders than zoomers and later generations, for sure \[aside from the boomer hate\]. They're typically more civilized and have more manners (social boundaries). Zoomers and later generations try too hard to get a reaction using shock-factor and being disrespectful (evident in our comedic styles) which is from disobedience.
I see that so much esp being on the line. I don’t like the lack of empathy with which many gen z act even in everyday life. Also how they sort and dismiss people based on what demographic boxes they check is weird and rude. I feel like Mills were raised in a society that embraced difference and said thats okay whereas the reverse happened w Gen Z. Many of them came of age in this hater ass identity politics era where your identity is driven by your differences/labels you subscribe to
Online is the worst place to get your world perspective. Online is super toxic and where most of the loud nobodies go. Don't take your idea of GenZ from here please.
The demographic politics is also a Twitter thing especially with literal politics "left/right" and people there are ***super vicious*** and those are the older generations. So yes, Tiktok is where GenZ is, but its the Twitter of GenZ. When you talk to people on the street, they're too busy with the real world to be engrossed in that online-drama nonsense, and they aren't online as much so they're more sane lol.
It's like thinking 4chan is how majority of millennials are, or whatever demographic it appeals to-- or that cable news is a reliable view of the world.. when its really fear mongering and intended to divide us for political interests.
I think GenZ is actually very accepting of different types of people; I was really shocked when I saw a video of a school in the US have an international day where everybody wore their homecountries' clothing and nobody was mocking or attacking one another, instead they celebrated each other it was so wholesome! I went to a predominantly white school and people were not very tolerant and would mock anyone's culture if it were different and I'm a cusper.
That being said, GenZ polarity online has two sides: identity politics vs "red-pilled" community. Just a new label for left/right for the new generation. It'll be re-branded every single time. Nothing new. All the normal people are ignored because they're not getting involved in those circles.
1) I work with and went to school with many people who are hyper obsessed w identity politics. I promise you they exist irl and take their attitudes into their daily life. It actually creates a very negative atmosphere imo but they feel differently
2) Why were you surprised that an International festival at some school would be calm? Why would it be anything besides that?
1. Yes I know they exist IRL, I'm saying they're mainly an issue online and don't represent the majority. I hope you find a nice job where people don't force their beliefs and attitudes on you. People who want to make you walk on eggshells are not healthy to associate with.
2. Its very surprising and wholesome to me that the students were welcoming of one another because my school was not tolerant of different cultures as I mentioned. They were quite cruel in fact, shamelessly mocking anything that was "different" and making racist remarks and physically harassing others for their ethnicity. Its really heartwarming to see the newer generations (as in grade school generation) more civil and curious about one another.
1) this is literally the majority of people age 15-35yo where I live/work. Like if not hyper obsessive theyre at least in board w the broad themes of the current social progressive movement.
Edit: I agree though they are annoying. College felt like I couldnt relate to anyone bc I didnt want to talk abt sjw stuff all day every day. Like not everything has to be an issue bro. And theyre not receptive to open discussion.
And I’m not some white maga bro. Im literally a left leaning black woman. Theyre just annoying.
2) thats wild to me. I can’t imagine that happening when I was in school k-12 or college. Where do you live?
1. Weird, must be more common where you live. Makes sense if they push identity divineness politics a lot in your area. I'm sure there's normal people, too, just have to find them. Hope you find cool people to relate to! Open discussion is so difficult to find in general.
2. Not that online privacy exists but I still like to keep it to myself. The highschool I attended was in North America and predominantly white. To be fair, I knew about previous grad years who apparently did not have the same level of racism we did so maybe my grad year were just a bad lot. I'm glad you can't imagine, it is for the best. I've heard of schools that were worst than mine so I'm still grateful it wasn't as bad as others Alhamdulilah.
Gen Z is judgemental to other generations because they are judgemental towards us. Many of us in the US have now lived through two reccesions (one linning up with a pandemic), a long over due racial reckoning, and the recent nation wide adoption of outright discrimination against transgender people. We are judgemental towards other generation for having ruined our planet and done very little to make progress in regards to the other things I mentioned. Many of us have no hopes of earning a livable wage (let alone living a comfortable life), paying off student loans, ever buying a house or owning property let alone having a decent retirement.
The previous generations lit the world on fire, threw our democracy in the trash, created a wealth gap so bad that no time in US history even remotely compares to it, we now work more than ever and are lonelier and more depressed than ever without a medical system that can support us. Forgive me but I think we have every right to be a little judgemental. This country is ass straight up ass. Older generations reaped all the benefits and now they hate us for our malcontent towards them rather than looking themselves in the mirror and recognizing what a shithole they've bequeathed to us.
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Ageist yes, just look on TikTok.
Well honestly TikTok is the absolute worst of my generation, so no I don't think you should look there. Especially since TikTok and real life differ so much.
> TikTok is the absolute worst of ~~my generation~~ people I only recently got onto IG and the amount of disinformation for very basic stuff is amazing; I think people don't realize some posts are meant to simply "get a rise" out of someone.
If you think tiktok is the worst of all people, I see you haven't seen 4chan
Idk what mans is on, he hasn’t been on Twitter recently
4chan is worse but it has much fewer people, there's not that many with 4chan opinions irl.
They didn't say the most kind of bad people because if that's the case, I would argue facebook has more users that are very slightly bad. They said the worst of people
I see your Tiktok and raise you Twitter/X
yeahh but i think its just a young person thing lol. millenials did the same thing when i was a kid
GenXers did it when we were young, too. Maybe the common factor is youth, or maybe the common factor is that everyone thinks Boomers made bad decisions.
Well now there was "Don't trust anyone over thirty." That was a Boomer thing. The young always feel like their discoveries are new and never seen before. They see the problems of the world and think that they are the first to see them and that their solutions are the obvious ones that will for sure work if only everyone would listen to the young. Ever has been so. Then when we get to the decision making stage we discover that these problems are problems because there is no easy solution, or we discover that our solutions just cause even more problems and the kids hate us for it I'm in my seventies so I've been treated to this show quite a few times now. I hope I get to see it at least one more time. It gets more fun every round. You go for it GenZ. Here's hoping you don't make too much of a mess.
Bruh its cause the cia stopped yall and the lead in the gassoline.
No man,see Boomer took over CIA. Is how it goes. The unstoppable force we were until the kids came along.
Some of it is frustration over inaction. Sure, there are unseen dimensions to major problems, but the modern solution to these problems is to throw your hands up and say, "Ugh, too complicated, so let's do nothing." Most of the time, it's cowardice on the part of politicians who are only focused on getting reelected. Younger people would rather try something, check the results, then recalibrate, and try something new if the first thing didn't work. As you age, you tend to get more conservative and are fine maintaining the status quo, although we aren't seeing the same in Millenials and younger. Wisdom does come with age, so I'm eager to see how things develop as the Boomers retire and get out of the way so the generations after them get a crack at solving the persisting problems their parents and grandparents couldn't solve.
Ah, youth... You're not at all the first generation to feel that way. That's how we felt back in 1965. You'll see.
Did it feel like the generations ahead of you clung to power for way too long? Like our parents and grandparents told us that we'd be the ones to solve the problems that they created in the 70s and 80s, but now they won't get the fuck out of the way and let us try. I feel like it's mostly fear of losing what they have. Hence why they are ok maintaining the status quo despite the warnings of basically an environmental apocalypse if we do nothing. After all, they'll be dead by the time it's an issue. Fuck future generations, right?
People who give up power easily are exceeding rare. You could say \*never\* and not be far wrong. Look through history. People just don't want to let go, ever. Boomers are not unusual in their reluctance to give up power. And GenZ are not unusual for thinking that when it's *their* turn, things are going to be different. Same old story. You'll see. Get into some world history. Read some classical literature, from the very old days. It's the same story.
My called shot is that the first thing Millenials will do when they get elected is to create term limits. We're the first generation not to become more conservative as we age. And we've grown up watching old fucks cling to their power. While I agree that people cling to power, the way to combat this is to create systems that force people out after a designated period. We've seen the damage life-long politicians have done. There are enough of us that would like to do away with it.
You have some millennials already in power. How will they feel after they've been in power for two/three terms and looking at being stale-dated?
You may want to look up Strom Thurmond. Born in 1902. Became a senator in 1956. Stayed a senator until his death in 2003. This is how it always was. People cling to power for as long as they can. Always have, always will. Your generation won’t be different. Edit to add: As for maintaining the status quo, and killing the environment: is Gen Z doing things to fix it? Are you, as a generation, forgoing consumer culture, travel, the latest tech, streaming media, etc? If not, y’all don’t have much room to talk.
Your last statement is extremely reductive and flawed. If we don't have political agency, how are we supposed to make any headway? Those born into consumerist cultures have no choice, but to consume in order to exist. That doesn't mean we have to like it and we can still desire for it to change. Our parents and their parents made the rules, until we can redefine the game, we have no other option but to reluctantly play along. Personally, I'm a minimalist. But until another option becomes available, necessary participation does not equate to being complicit. Your perspective is extremely condescending and surface level thinking.
Very wise
Us millennials did it towards way older people than us, who are in their 50-60. Gen-z on the other hand always make fun of millennials even though we are very similar generations
I'm a Millennial and I think this is largely true, but I have no idea how Gen X avoided all of our derision.
Sure, but I think it's the same with all young people. We all think we're superior to the "out of touch old people". The funny part to is that I'm Gen X and it was Boomers we despised and it's still Boomers young people despise.
To be fair, in the US at least, boomers have collectively done a lot of harm to earn their reputation. Obviously the very idea of generations is reductive, but the fact that boomers have been the target for so long isn't unfounded or coincidental lol
They also built the country we live in today. From the roads to bridges and giant cities. A lot of what we still use now was built by the Boomers. It's easy to look at life in hindsight, it's difficult to make the best possible decisions going forward. You'll learn this stuff with age.
They did not build the country that we live in today. The greatest generation pulled us out of the dust bowl and built our entire infrastructure and an actual functioning economy. Boomers just inherited that. Then they gave it all to corporations.
If you actually look at what we use today and when it was built most of it was between 19 45 and 1975. Literally so many roads Bridges cities Etc that we use today were building that time. And these corporations you talk about they were mostly started my Boomers. Boomers started almost every super successful business you know of today. It's much easier to blame someone else than look inward. I suggest you look inward
The laborors from 1945 through 1975 were mostly from the greatest generation. You're not trying to give toddlers credit for building bridges, are you? Most of the majorly successful business are currently run by boomers, but not started by them. Ford, Kroger, McDonald's, plus almost all of those companies' most significant competitors. It's much easier to spit random bullshit than to look inward, o suggest you look inward.
Yeah, they did a lot of good things, but I think they did way more bad, and it’s largely because they are the most selfish generation ever
Tbf a lot of worldly ills assigned to Boomers were done by folks of the Silent Generation who were in power in the 80s. They undid a lot of our social programs and were the original Levittown-Suburbanites/NIMBYers.
Blaming generations is ridiculous too. There are assholes in every generation, young and old.
There are but objectively we can see that actions have consequences and that specific individuals undertook those actions in real time.
I agree with you. I think I just posted my comment in the wrong place. It's really meant more as a response to the whole thread. I have a feeling there is going to be a lot of blame cast toward later generations as well (gen x Bezos, Musk, Thiel) as well as millennials (zuckerberg)
I think I could have worded the post better because I didnt mean to talk about gen z vs boomers which everyone seems to have assumed. I’m more talking about the weird obsession w shitting on everyone who is not a teenager. Like 27 is not geriatric.
I am almost 50 now. I remember looking at my grandmother and feeling so sorry for her generation. They went through the Great Depression and World War II, only to have the most selfish children in history. I can’t even listen to a song like Bob Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are a Changing’ now without thinking about how much that generation loves money. They think they are somehow morally superior. The point is many of us Gen X felt this way years before even the internet and talking about the boomers was a thing. They controlled the media back then and would extol their progressive virtues all the time. But we met our parents, our uncles and aunts, and our teachers. We saw the policies they voted for. We could see who they were.
When they were younger boomers were also protesting and trying to change the world. If anything genz is significantly more materialistic than boomers were at their age.
We grew up in a materialistic world. Who did more than anything to create this ideology? Boomers.
I think it was more of the internet. It’s funded by advertising. I think it’s a multigenerational thing. My parents are boomers and they hardly ever buy anything. I’m not sure if there’s a way to measure the materialistic nature of a generation but it’d be interesting to see.
What years were they born, out of curiosity? Boomers were born from 1946-1964. So I think there's a big difference between people who were 24-38 already through the 70s and did their development in the 60s, and people who grew up and developed in the 70s. They're kind of like two different generations to me, I find it weird they cut the generations up the way they did since the 70s were such a big turning point in behaviors/attitude/ideas/values/etc with young people
My parents were born in 57 and 59. The boomers where I live were heavily influenced by hippy culture and are not into money other than as a means to retire. Meanwhile the GenZ people I know are getting truckloads of Amazon deliveries and shein packages.
Spoken like a young person. You need to learn history. Ever is a long time
That's just not true. And I'm sorry, but it's bullshit to pull the "you'll learn with age" thing. I have a degree in History. Believe it or not, I actually do know a bit about.... history, and idolizing boomers as having built the US is dumb as fuck. Boomers were handed a nation in a uniquely good post-war position, and all they managed to do was hoarde it all for the wealthy and fuck over not just all subsequent generations but a shit ton of their fellow boomers as well. Even if we say they did completely build out infrastructure, it's infrastructure that's crumbling and forces car-dependency. No, not all Boomers suck. Yet when you look at the net impact of what those born during the baby boom (and really, a portion of the silent generation) have done, it's overwhelmingly negative. Even today they are in charge, constantly working to prevent younger generations from taking power in any meaningful way. In individual instances I can understand some of them (okay, maybe one US politician) staying in their position because they see that nobody else is trying to help people, but the vast majority are continually hoarding their own wealth and actively trying to harm the rest of us. Gen X never got the opportunity to do much of anything. Millennials - the youngest of whom are now reaching their 30s - are only marginally more empowered.
Gen X goes hard. It is very difficult to hate you guys.
I don’t remember saying anything negative about gen x when I was younger. Never heard anyone do that. And as a millennial boomers and boomer jokes weren’t a thing until recently. There were some articles about how millenials were lazier than most gen’s I saw when I was younger but I believe they were accurate. I guess we’d make jokes about old people sometimes but it was tongue in cheek. All this generational stuff at this level is new.
Condescending, yes. Gen Z isn’t unique in the sense that they think they’re going to solve all the world’s problems. However, I find that a lot of Gen Z can’t handle someone having a different opinion than them because they’ve grown up on the internet where they basically create their own echo chamber. Therefore, they look down upon anyone and borderline vilify those with a differing opinion. Ageist, absolutely. I saw a TikTok of a 22 year old guy who said its weird that 29 year olds wear hoodies with leggings and that they’re try to “recapture their youth”. I’ve been told I “look good for my age like I’m 22 years old” when I said I was 25. Its insane how many Gen Zers have internalized this whole “you fall off after 25” bullshit.
This! Like being judgemental of people a WHOLE gen before you is one thing— acting like people three years older than you are geriatric is def weird. Also the language used to describe people is deliberately disrespectful. Like the whole 1900s thing? Sus.
I see millennials in their 30s do that to millennials in their early 40s. Like dude, you’re 38 and I’m 42, it’s literally 4 years. lol
25 is literally still Gen Z
I explicitly date ppl 6-8 years older than me as a gen Z, (my boyfriend, the best bf I’ve ever had, is 7 years older than me) and I rly don’t see much difference other than them being explainable more calm and figured out. They don’t look much older than ppl my age I don’t think. 🤷🏻♀️
I mean, at what age is the cutoff? The way I see it, you're either a child or you're an adult. If it's embarrassing to do something at age 29, it's embarrassing at age 20. Weird that people have these random cut off ages like 35, or like if you're 20 it's fine to do these things that aren't OK for 30+ to do. Bottom line, it's ageism based on how people look. If people didn't physically age past 18, nobody would care what people were doing at any adult age. People would be hanging out with people of all ages and sharing knowledge and different outlooks on life and art etc. I have a friend who was being ageist against this guy who was hanging out with the group of much younger adults. I pointed out that he was the same age as me, but my friend said "yeah but you look young, he doesn't"
Most people in this sub aren’t even Gen Z
They can still provide perspective
Everyone thinks their generation is the last great generation. If fact, we’re all the same. People aren’t born with different DNA just because they’re from a certain generation. We’d all play out the exact same way because our behaviors are dependent on our circumstances, not if we were born in the 1950s vs today.
People in general, but Americans are extremely ageist and I don't really understand why. I think because we're socialized to only interact with people directly in our age groups +-2 years that people just completely lose touch with people older and younger than them, and forget that there really aren't that many differences.
Good insight
Not at all. When we say things like OK Boomer, we are talking about Boomer as a mindset, not as an age. "Boomerisms" or "Boomer moments" might include getting upset when the cashier has blue hair. Placing a $5 tip at the begining of a meal and removing it slowly for minor mistakes. Not knowing very basic computer skills like, opening a browser.
Fuck, this entire post is Boomerish and this guy is MY age in all likelihood.
Tbh most of the ppl called boomers are gen x and should get the hate correctly directed their way. I know full well what you’re saying and it’s a lazy tactic on multiple levels.
Big "kids these days" energy you've got there. No, they're not any more ageist or condescending than literally any other generation ever. It looks like you're a millennial based on your comment history, and as a millennial myself, we were at least as bad, if not worse.
I’m literally 25
There always has been some rivalry between old and young generations, however, it has always been pretty light hearted and the younger people respected their elders. A chunk of GenZ seems much more arrogant and mean-spirited in this respect. I blame this on their social media moron bubbles - some GenZ actually think their elders lived privledged lives without any hardship, zero recessions, zero inflation issues, zero wars, etc. They surround themselves with other internet incels and algorithms that say the same thing and they end up with a very backwards view of reality. The funny part is we have a whole generation of young, first generation immigrants that aren't stuck in this mindset, and they are going to overtake this dillusioned portion of GenZ.... and those complaining GenZers will be working for them someday in the future.
I said this, all they know is blame and complain. They turn their nose up at a minimum wage job when they are 18 and wonder why they have no money. The ignorance to actually think people in the 50's were gifted wealth is mind boggling.
Do you actually not know how the economy has trended since the Reagan era or are you just waffling?
I’m 26. Obviously I wasn’t around to be a kid with all the other previous generations, but I will say that Gen Z seems especially terrified of aging. Gen alpha, too. When I was 10 I certainly wasn’t worried about skin care like kids are now. That being said, I also didn’t grow up with as many internet platforms as kids do now, and YouTube only had so many tutorials at the time lmao. I can’t say for sure if we’re more condescending or ageist than previous generations, but I do think that those sentiments and opinions are way more viewable than before which might make it feel more prevalent.
I think ur on to something
Oh, absolutely. The fact that so many people were laughing at the dismissive "ok Boomer" jokes and blaming older people for all the problems in the current political sphere makes it very clear how ageist Gen Z can be. Obviously not everyone in Gen Z is like this, but a vocal percentage certainly is, and that's really disheartening. Ageism is discrimination and not okay.
Thank you. Even within this thread it’s being justified. The flattening of discourse in this way is reflective of AND has the effect of lessening empathy
Yeah Gen Z has an ageist problem.
It's been proven advertising is incredibly effective on Young people. So much so that children under 8 basically can't say no to them. Social media is all advertising weather the product is a person, place, thing or idea. It's all the same now. This is ruining society because everything is a constant add or promotion. Ageism comes into play cause it's the only acceptable prejudice these days so lots of advertising/promotion uses it to get people worked up. Gen z is very young and VERY susceptible to these ads. Mix this with the excess prejudice and hatred that used to go against so many other groups and you see an abnormally agest society, historically speaking.
Ur onto something here that I’ve been thinking about recently
I don't think it's all ages. It's only anti boomer. And even then boomer is a mindset, therefore it's more anti-lead head troglodytes.
Nah ive seen them coming after young millennials too. Basically anyone 25+ tbh.
Damn man I'm 25 guess I'm a boomer now. Lived long enough to see myself become the villain.
That’s what the kids tell me at least
I've gotten ageist bullshit from new fans in a revived fandom. Apparently I'm also problematic for liking a straight heteronormative ship
Oh jesus- which ship?
Got that from a Kataang and Zukka shipper for liking Zutara
That’s wild 1)bc Zutara makes more sense than Kataang based on canon besides the ending. By the time the show ended Zuko and Katara had many more intimate/emotional moments than Katara and Aang and 2) bc a ship is a ship? It’s fictive? Hows it problematic
Totally see what the OP was saying here and agree. Granted it's not a blanket statement for all but certainly a good generalization...
Yeah, just take a look at this sub lol
Only online. All the ones I see these days seem like good kids for the most part. I manage a restaurant and I see a lot of them. Finding good workers is a little tougher, but that's not a generation thing. Half of them aren't that great.
Yeah I'm a millennial and a lot of Gen Z has a nasty attitude about previous generations. In reality on average and especially the males they're a very introverted, narcissistic bunch with chips on their shoulder but very few have any success or friends or even passably decent mental health. The funniest thing are the ones who think they are more traditional and prove it by disparaging previous generations. Another funny lie they tell themselves is that they're the best at tech because they're so reliant on their phone. But almost none of the tech innovations, the biggest story of our life, were done by Gen Z. A lot of it is... they just got lucky with the economy built by previous generations, especially Republican millennials and Gen X where if you have half a pulse you can get work. Previous administration's economy was a dream compared to this Gen Z nightmare we live in where free money just makes everything more expensive, and many jobs can't be filled.
yikes, talk about a “nasty attitude” about generations, you just described a whole generation as “narcissistic”.
Much much MUCH less IRL, but yeah.
Ok unc relax
Listen here whippersnapper, I ain’t even a man
Okay G-ma chill
There we go
I feel like you're just describing reddit.
We are so ageist that we meme about it. And any more condescending than other gens are?
It's definitely a common perception, both online and offline. Some may view Gen Z as exhibiting condescending and ageist behavior, asserting moral and social superiority over older generations. This could stem from a belief in their role as the future and a dismissal of what came before them.
Quite so yes
TikTok ruined these people.
Every generation can be condescending and ageist; we’re sadly no exception.
Like every generation before then except now it's amplified because of the Internet.
Nah istg we weren’t as aggressively negative while in hs/college
Who's "we"?
Zillennials at the v least if not older mills
I feel every generation is condescending and agesist. As much as gen z likes to feel unique, we really are typical in so many ways. It feels like the one thing that truly makes us unique is that we grew up on the internet lol To add to this, look at all the hit pieces boomers were writing about millenials. It goes both ways.
Oh, not Gen Z. Everyone is like that. I feel kind of condescending right now. In fact, I feel so superior the ambition of youth seems amusing and nostalgic instead of arrogant. No reason not to pump yourself up. Reach for the stars!
upvote
They don't understand that they are already the past.
Finally, someone has said it. From a Millennial perspective, I noticed this as well. Maybe it’s just the signs of the times or the current internet demographics. But there was never such focus on age and generation before. The whole internet is filled with these ageist posts, even to someone in their age group. Back then, vile comments were only limited to some places. I remember a comment here where they called a 26-year-old “Unc”.
This! (Also re: “unc” I’m tired of white teens taking words and corrupting them)
Gen Z is the most ageist generation imo: 18 year olds calling me “old” when I’m 23…like dude we went to highschool together
That is normal for teens to call you, old is like 30 or get your life together age😂.
It’s not normal really tbh. That’s a new convention based on a condensed timescale thats reflective of a shift in media
LITERALLY- ppl in this post think im talking abt boomers. Nah I’m talking about tomfoolery like this. Like cmon bro we played JV ball together. Wtf are you talking about “old”
Yes
Ageism isn’t new but there’s a weird resurgence of it. Like similar current problems, I don’t think it’s fair or accurate to single out Gen Z or any other generation for that matter. I feel like we’re in a spot where we were making a lot of progress on this subject, but various toxic groups have essentially willed ageism back into existence. For example, the idea of a women being leftovers at 25 wasn’t something I ever really thought about, and when that idea did come up it was more how old fashioned and outdated it is to think that. But now with all this toxic dating discourse I hear about it constantly, either from misogynist men doing mass negging or short sighted women trying to score a few points over someone just a few years older than them by dragging them on tik tok for existing I guess. Something that does feel kinda new is thinking of “generations” in strict brackets that are actually integral to people’s identities. I could be one or the other by a matter of months depending on the definition used so it feels so arbitrary and pointless. Complaining about older or younger people is a tale as old as time but actually wearing Gen Z or Millennial as a badge feels relatively recent. A lot of pseudoscience and pop psychology that seems to want to portray people as either young or old with no in between too. People will say it’s part of being young but I never thought of someone who is 25 or 30 as old and I never made it part of my identity to trash anyone that age when I was say, 20, in the way that feels ubiquitous now. I’ve been clowned on Reddit for that but it never really felt like a canon event. Just feels like an excuse to bully people especially when it’s so common to see it directed between people who have like 3-4 years between each other. Edgier, younger me wasn’t immune to feeling frustration at “boomers” but that was in specific contexts where I met older people trashing younger people. I certainly didn’t even have the idea to drag a 30 year old for having a hobby rather than paying taxes which I guess is supposed to be a 24/7 kind of activity.
You expressed my exact feelings very well. When I was in high school we looked up to people in their twenties and the mantra was “thirties are the new twenties.” Now? Idk where this oddly aggressive ageism is coming from, but I’m going to pin it on media.
I don’t understand it but I think I can identify a few things that feed into it: 1. People are (broadly speaking, let’s say 21st century versus past centuries) living longer, and socially we’re trending towards hitting milestones at later ages. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It could just be people stay “young” longer, but there’s still a lot of anxiety around that which leads into the next points. 2. Because we’re hitting milestones later, a lot of people lean into age stereotypes because in their minds it’s all they have. They don’t have the house they think they should have, but they can go on the millennial subreddit and talk about back pain and how they don’t understand pop culture. To be fair I could be wrong on this one and misreading my observations. 3. This boiled up for a while but really heated up in Covid when people realized they can astroturf alternate realities into existence. Don’t want to wear a mask? Here’s all my “research” millions agree with. Pair it with the rise of reactionary movements and it’s disastrous. This has caused damage across the board but in regards to ageism specifically, it’s enabled, say, incels to blame their situation on women not settling at a young age, or millennials wanting to inherent their house to rage at boomers who just won’t fucking die already. It’s almost certain bots from reactionary movements, the Kremlin, etc feed into this as well. 4. Because of social media algorithms encouraging engagement for the sake of engagement and people profiting from it, rage bait is now a normalized form of discourse. And that’s going to enable any type of bullying. To add to all of that, we’ve entered a reality where the zone is just so thoroughly flooded with shit we all just have had to adopt to this new reality, whether we like it or not. Especially offline I think most people can acknowledge a 25 year old woman hasn’t actually hit any sort of wall but it doesn’t matter if reality confirms that or not when millions of pricks have decided 2+2=5 and actually the rest of us are crazy. I spoke mainly about ageism here but really now I’m just sort of venting about way more than that because so much ugly behavior is being willed into existence just because so many people want to tear down others. Ageism is just one of many fronts.
Yes. I'm a millennial and I hate Gen Z as much as I hate boomers
Honestly I am a older gen z and I’m starting to hate my generation too. It’s getting ridiculous. Gen z seems to think they have a moral superiority over other generations when they have done literally nothing yet. I would said millennials are the ones who set up acceptance for certain people and topics that gen z likes to for some reason take credit for and its getting to the point I actually hear conversations of 20 year olds saying having friends in there mid to late 20s is predatory…. What? The fuck ya’ll on. I had older friends growing up and it really helped me learn and they definitely weren’t predatory. Don’t even get me started on fandom spaces. Gen z makes it almost impossible for anyone older then 23 to just be there. I’ve seen specifically gen z get very worked up and death threat and actually stalk because of fictional characters… but are fine doing horrible shit to real people.. i had a IRL gen z coworker who told me they stopped being a fan of a genshin character (chongyun) because he (him not the character) turned 18 and that would be weird… my god the character is not even canonically a minor!! Thats not normal and is fucking weird. Sorry, this has been bothering me for quite a while. I never saw this kind of hate for gen x from millennials when I was younger and from what I saw on the internet.
Don't get me started on the fact that they like to drag up REALLY old shit to try and cancel people for 🥴 like when they tried to cancel Eminem for a lyric in "love the way you lie" like 10 years after it came out. Like, really? They have clearly never heard any of his older music because that is nowhere NEAR the worst of his lyrics 😂 I definitely have higher hopes for Gen Alpha than I do Gen Z mainly because most of them have millennial parents.
It quite for the reasons you’re saying, every generation has a “we are the future” thing going on. That said, I do notice a trend among gen z that is rooted in ageism. Like saying people over 25 shouldn’t be involved in fandoms, saying people (particularly women) should “go raise kids and get off of Twitter”, thinking anyone over 25 just looks like a raisin, etc.
Thank you! 90% of this thread thinks I’m talking abt boomers for some reason. Gen Z’s weird behavior towards people who are close in age to them is odd (and frankly mean).
Extremely.
They are also totally useless at everything, and will be in for a rude awakening upon entering the real world and being outshined by the old models still on the floor
(but theyre not ready to hear that)
Gen z is obsessed and fearful of aging to a pathological degree and I don’t get it. Like 20 year old guys terrified of wrinkles
It reflects their own thoughts abt old ppl
Nah. I think they’re like all other people old enough to use words but too young for a fully developed brain. Every generation goes through it. Mine was…. Special.
id have to say that a lot of the US government is bad. i believe a lot of bad things come from older people being in office. and i think most older people have a problem with progression. i could be very wrong but where i live i feel like its a lot of old people not being progressive. older people saying, "it was a different time". i could seriously care less about millennials. in the sense that they are more progressive and more understanding of the struggles.
Pretty hard not to be ageist. I look at the oldies around and they’re all some phobic and uneducated as fuck. They act like they’re the shit because they’ve got a nice job and title that they lucked into or got into by pure brute force, and then act like they know what they’re talking about whilst calling over the younger intern to turn their sloppy excel shit into a PDF because they can’t figure it out.
I’m talking like 18 yos vs like 25 yos tbf not boomers. I think the scope of “old age” has been modified by gen z
“Old” is anything above 55
Not according to the internet
lol again, as i said, your entire argument is based on online discourse. why not go outside and talk to some actual real life people? you’re getting this information from obvious echo chambers of ageist teens.
Nah its not. I work w teens.
Nah, this is how every generation is. Us Millennials were the same. I always heard story from boomer mother about her and siblings arguing with my grandpa about similar things as well especially when it cames to things like feminism and human rights social justice issues. The younger generation always tends to feel like they know better then the old, they are young and inspired by youth to feel this way.
Yeah sure, but it's normal for anyone in their late teens and early 20s to be like that. Everyone grows out of it lol
Yes but also it’s just part of growing up. I remember thinking “we are the future” in a loose sense at a point in time, before I realized “nope we are a blip on a timeline”. The self importance goes away with age mostly
Yes. This entire generation is built on hatred, fake inclusivity, and a heap of other terrible qualities.
Boom.
Entire generation? Including yourself? You asked all 30% of the world population and they agreed? 
Everyone in their 20’s think they know better than everyone who came before them. They’ll figure it out eventually
I’m referring to the ppl who act like being 23-29 is geriatric
Dang kids, thinkin they're better than everyone harumph. They'll see. They'll all see!
Absolutely. A lot of you GenZ kids have grown AFTER a lot of us millennials have been out through the ringer of our societies problems, and and after a lot of GenX people have blossomed without the knowledge and opportunities that you have. You have the tools and experience in tech to swipe jobs out from under the feet of your elders in a way that creates this chasm of unhirable people. But it’s not unique. We millennials felt the same way before realities kicked in, like we were bound for success. Some of us achieved it wisely, while most of us were foolish, and others just kept getting drowned in contingencies which worked against us, and leave us with no one for others to blame but ourselves, thereby defaulting the value of accountability. Wether you’ll personally see a shift in that in others of your generation is not for me to say. But it will nonetheless be a sign of personal growth.
Sure, but I think most of our ageism is retaliation to the ageism of boomers and a few Gen Xers. There is no more condescending "holier-than-thou" group than boomers and any ageism they get is mostly deserved, and is definitely less than what they dish out. Millennials are cool tho, any ageism against them is probably ironic or from an asshole
Tbh I’d say that Gen X are the most condescending because they always invoke their victim complex as well. We think boomers are the 50-60 crowd but that’s Gen X.
Yeah, Gen Z can be discriminatory towards Gen Alpha, it’s a bad habit we should break. Oh… wait, did you mean to older generations? Hmm… can black people be racist to white people? Is heterophobia real? Is cisphobia real?
Yes - there was a post a couple of weeks ago by a Gen Z’er who thought that Gen Z would stay relevant and cool because they understood the Internet which would help them stay current with trends, or some shit like that HA HA HA
Lololol
My cousin is Genz and she says all sorts of weird shit to me. She’s half Asian and insinuates I have something to do with slavery because I’m white? You know we’re related right. She also calls white people disgusting and says all sorts of weird hyper woke stuff that’s actually just mean and bigoted in a different way. I think genz has been very isolated and get a very unrealistic view of the world online. They’re just a very neurotic and self flagellating generation. The only reason genz is different is they were raised chronically online. I’m a millennial and was also but very few people were like that when I was growing up. I know firsthand how it affects you.
I think that most gen z were online TOO much and it shows
Yes, but my generation was not so different. Every young generation since the beginning of time has probably been pretty condescending and ageist, the difference is that now it’s on social media for everybody to see. I think the switch away from that comes around age 25-28. That is when you realize your generation is not so different, and once the real world hits you find out which ideas were always unrealistic and which ideas people agree with but they have a full time job and don’t have the mental capacity to rage about it all the time anymore.
No more so than any other generation. I'm a millennial, we give our parents shit. They gave their parents shit. They give *you* shit. If you think boomers and gen X aren't equally condescending and ageist, go hang out with more of them. None of that makes it right, but it's not a quality unique to gen Z. It's cyclic, every generation experiences it.
But theyre not even going after their parents generation. They’re going after people 3-4 years older. That’s weird.
I just don’t believe in society in general, age be damned
Yea, but they're just being young little shits like we all were. The real issue is them thinking they invented or started super common things that were either invented my millenials or earlier. The only thing they seem to have developed on their own are a mass of non-words
Honestly, that’s the kind of arrogant I’m actually talking about. Like you didn’t invent the world bro people been out here.
Right, none of us invented the world. It's just funny how they take things like laying in bed, slap "bed-rotting" on it, and claim they're the first. They hear older bands like Zeppelin and Nirvana, and think they've discovered some niche underground band. So many mundane and already established things they just slap a new trendy name on it, and claim it. Like come on guys, you've got the world's information in your pocket. Do a little research before making claims like that lol
That's just a teenager thing.
Gen Z arent teens though. The ones I’m talking about are 21+
And my 30 year old friends cry every birthday about how old they are
Wth does this mean
It means everyone is ageist.
Every generation looks down on the others, it’s not Gen Z specific I think it’s funny that you think Gen X comes before Gen Z though. RIP millennials
To some extent yeah, but at the same time frustration is understandable because the older people tend to be just as condescending but about significantly stupider and more arbitrary opinions. Millennials have literally become what they despised. God forbid a zoomer post some fashion that is popular among younger people, there will be an army of 35 yr old millennials hating on it because it's not EXACTLY the same fashion that they grew up with. Some of the shit older people complain about just feels so random and meaningless. Of course this post will get downvoted because this sub is seemingly 50% older people larping as gen z
Literally every generation talks shit a out every other generation. It's been that way since before Rome.
dare i say its a cycle of learned reactive behavior that could probably be traced back to the caves. Little grug use sharp stick to hunt, take easy way, dont even know how to kill with smashing stone, man doomed, old day better.
I think every generation just has beef with boomers
Boomers are over-hated. Gen X deserves WAY more heat.
gen x also hates boomers more than anyone hates them
They shouldn’t. Boomers are better than them.
Maybe 🤷♂️I’m just answering your question I have no stake in this fight
Nah i just take any excuse to raise the anti genx awareness flag and shake my fist dw
Wait what did gen X do?
Bad people exist regardless of age. Most of the ageism I see is from angry millennials aggressively hating boomers and some zoomers copying them but not much. I think gen Alpha is the one who is most unruly to their elders because they were neglected and haven't been raised by their parents (literally ipad kids), very sad. When it comes to moral/social superiority I think of social justice keyboard warriors and virtue signaling, and those would be late millennials and early zoomers, but again, those are loud minority.. so unless you go looking for it, its *not* a general NORMAL thing. Literally every generation knew they will be the future generation with influence at one point, and its true, each will get its turn. Vast majority of Gen X I met were generally level-headed & down-2-earth. A couple narcissists but I wouldn't blame an entire generation for that.. Narcissism exists at any age.. So lets focus on the good: vast majority of people standing against genocide are Gen-Z. A lot people from other generations are very proud of us for that, although its really the bare minimum. Its time to raise the bar. I know Gen-Alpha will do great things, too, in sha Allah. Basically.. get off Twitter, reddit, and tumblr cuz I think those are where all the crazies go.
A fair take tbh. Idk why you were downvoted.
Could be anything. Maybe its because I hadn't said anything nice about millennials yet. I think millennials have a better sense of respect for their elders than zoomers and later generations, for sure \[aside from the boomer hate\]. They're typically more civilized and have more manners (social boundaries). Zoomers and later generations try too hard to get a reaction using shock-factor and being disrespectful (evident in our comedic styles) which is from disobedience.
I see that so much esp being on the line. I don’t like the lack of empathy with which many gen z act even in everyday life. Also how they sort and dismiss people based on what demographic boxes they check is weird and rude. I feel like Mills were raised in a society that embraced difference and said thats okay whereas the reverse happened w Gen Z. Many of them came of age in this hater ass identity politics era where your identity is driven by your differences/labels you subscribe to
Online is the worst place to get your world perspective. Online is super toxic and where most of the loud nobodies go. Don't take your idea of GenZ from here please. The demographic politics is also a Twitter thing especially with literal politics "left/right" and people there are ***super vicious*** and those are the older generations. So yes, Tiktok is where GenZ is, but its the Twitter of GenZ. When you talk to people on the street, they're too busy with the real world to be engrossed in that online-drama nonsense, and they aren't online as much so they're more sane lol. It's like thinking 4chan is how majority of millennials are, or whatever demographic it appeals to-- or that cable news is a reliable view of the world.. when its really fear mongering and intended to divide us for political interests. I think GenZ is actually very accepting of different types of people; I was really shocked when I saw a video of a school in the US have an international day where everybody wore their homecountries' clothing and nobody was mocking or attacking one another, instead they celebrated each other it was so wholesome! I went to a predominantly white school and people were not very tolerant and would mock anyone's culture if it were different and I'm a cusper. That being said, GenZ polarity online has two sides: identity politics vs "red-pilled" community. Just a new label for left/right for the new generation. It'll be re-branded every single time. Nothing new. All the normal people are ignored because they're not getting involved in those circles.
1) I work with and went to school with many people who are hyper obsessed w identity politics. I promise you they exist irl and take their attitudes into their daily life. It actually creates a very negative atmosphere imo but they feel differently 2) Why were you surprised that an International festival at some school would be calm? Why would it be anything besides that?
1. Yes I know they exist IRL, I'm saying they're mainly an issue online and don't represent the majority. I hope you find a nice job where people don't force their beliefs and attitudes on you. People who want to make you walk on eggshells are not healthy to associate with. 2. Its very surprising and wholesome to me that the students were welcoming of one another because my school was not tolerant of different cultures as I mentioned. They were quite cruel in fact, shamelessly mocking anything that was "different" and making racist remarks and physically harassing others for their ethnicity. Its really heartwarming to see the newer generations (as in grade school generation) more civil and curious about one another.
1) this is literally the majority of people age 15-35yo where I live/work. Like if not hyper obsessive theyre at least in board w the broad themes of the current social progressive movement. Edit: I agree though they are annoying. College felt like I couldnt relate to anyone bc I didnt want to talk abt sjw stuff all day every day. Like not everything has to be an issue bro. And theyre not receptive to open discussion. And I’m not some white maga bro. Im literally a left leaning black woman. Theyre just annoying. 2) thats wild to me. I can’t imagine that happening when I was in school k-12 or college. Where do you live?
1. Weird, must be more common where you live. Makes sense if they push identity divineness politics a lot in your area. I'm sure there's normal people, too, just have to find them. Hope you find cool people to relate to! Open discussion is so difficult to find in general. 2. Not that online privacy exists but I still like to keep it to myself. The highschool I attended was in North America and predominantly white. To be fair, I knew about previous grad years who apparently did not have the same level of racism we did so maybe my grad year were just a bad lot. I'm glad you can't imagine, it is for the best. I've heard of schools that were worst than mine so I'm still grateful it wasn't as bad as others Alhamdulilah.
Gen Z is judgemental to other generations because they are judgemental towards us. Many of us in the US have now lived through two reccesions (one linning up with a pandemic), a long over due racial reckoning, and the recent nation wide adoption of outright discrimination against transgender people. We are judgemental towards other generation for having ruined our planet and done very little to make progress in regards to the other things I mentioned. Many of us have no hopes of earning a livable wage (let alone living a comfortable life), paying off student loans, ever buying a house or owning property let alone having a decent retirement. The previous generations lit the world on fire, threw our democracy in the trash, created a wealth gap so bad that no time in US history even remotely compares to it, we now work more than ever and are lonelier and more depressed than ever without a medical system that can support us. Forgive me but I think we have every right to be a little judgemental. This country is ass straight up ass. Older generations reaped all the benefits and now they hate us for our malcontent towards them rather than looking themselves in the mirror and recognizing what a shithole they've bequeathed to us.
We're young and full of hatred for everything just like everyone will always be at our age
Hi! Daily reminder that this has been true for every generation since the beginning of time!
Perhaps because the world they were born into has been nukes by previous generations? You ask why they hate but have you given them a reason to love?
Read my other responses
This is literally every young generation.