Tag Archives: Gen-Z

Growing Up With the Internet as a Millennial vs Gen-Z

I recently listened to a podcast with Zoomers talking about their experience of growing up with the internet as they came of age. It made me realize how different things were for my generation, the Millennials. Your “coming of age” years are when you transition from childhood into adulthood, roughly from middle school through high school and college. Those years are enormously influential on your development, as the core experiences during that period influence the type of person you will ultimately become for the rest of your life. I came of age during the 1990s and early 2000s, whereas Gen-Z came of age in the 2010s and early 2020s. The year 2005 does not seem that long ago, but in many ways the world then is unrecognizable to the world young people face today—at least online.

Continue reading

From TRL to TikTok: Millennial Pop Culture vs. Gen-Z

Generation-Z is the first generation to grow up entirely online. For as long as Zoomers can remember, the internet has been ubiquitous and pervasive to daily life through smartphones. As a result, Gen-Z has no consensus culture—no TV shows, movies, or music they all consumed growing up. Everything had fractured into thousands of subcultures on the internet. Each Zoomer is an island. There may be another person who shares all your same niche cultural interests, but you are unlikely to ever randomly meet that person in person. You will only ever “meet” that person online. This fragmentation of culture is not necessarily good or bad. It just is. And it is different from every other generation that came before. 

Continue reading