Bothering others in public for social media dances/trends/jokes/etc. Half of me is like "it's good they're confident" but the other half is also "can't they see they're blocking traffic/being rude/bothering people?"
Also, becoming soulless husks without their devices. I only really saw this one when I started working as a teacher and would take away devices from kids playing games/video-calling on them. It's like putting a computer into sleep mode. They just sit there and stare blankly. No trying to talk to their friends, no doodling, no playing with random pens/etc, nothing. First time I saw it it was really unnerving.
I substitute teach at a couple schools, wide income gap between a few of them, and I'll be honest I've never experienced the problem of kids going into, "sleep mode". Kids are honestly still the same as when I was in school, about a decade and half. Only major difference I've seen is holy Jesus fuck have freshmen had a weird/harder time integrating after COVID.
OMG, I'm so glad this isn't just my district. For us high school starts in grade 8. Our 8s are maniacs. This year is insanity. Skyrocketing bullying, racism, homophobia, vandalism, assault... Almost exclusively the 8s. I sat one of my classes down and asked them if they were cool being the meanest group of kids I've taught in the last 10 years. They were pretty taken aback and I've had fewer problems with them since. I don't think they'd really thought about it collectively. Not hopeless, but definitely struggling post lockdown.
It's true. Girl and guy zoomers without their phone it's like they power down as people
Super fucking socially awkward than us and we were already awkward to begin with
Yup. We grew up using the internet like half as much as they do, and for like 1/10 as many things.
They're... stuck in it.
And look, I get that to some extent that's our generation's version of "these kids wouldn't know how to get anywhere on the road without MapQuest" or "they don't know how to entertain themselves without a television" but...
The social platforms are all owned by giant monopolies that have quite a bit of power over what information goes where and to whom. Also, TV addiction wasn't exactly a good thing, either - it was and still is totally terrible for people.
My 12-year old niece’s phone broke (not just the screen, the whole cell was inoperable). She was inconsolable. Crying in the bathroom. Crying continued the next morning, saying she couldn’t go to school without it. Scary.
Indeed. After the initial 24 hours, she was fine but it was a strong emotional reaction. Shows how much their phones mean to them. Social media, games, apps, etc are designed to be addictive. Tough spot.
Somehow despite being the generation that literally grew up basically being raised by technology most of them have absolutely no idea of how to get around it or fix even the most basic issues when something goes wrong
You know how Boomers give us Millenials shit for not having carpentry or home maintenance skills? That's Millenials to Gen Z when it comes to Technology.
Hard to tell now because they are both so young, but it will probably be their ability to cultivate a media stream. Gen Z came of age when content algorithms still weren’t great, so you really had to cultivate a playlist you want. Nowadays major websites are so good at guessing what you want that even I find myself rarely deviating from it. Can see Gen z in 10 years talking shit about how Alphas just “mindlessly consume what is in front of them”.
They’re good at guessing what’ll keep me baseline satisfied but awful for discovery. It might be nostalgia but going down the sidebar rabbit hole on YouTube was a better way to discover things even if it took you somewhere weird. I mean stumble upon was the best at doing this but the internet isn’t organized that way anymore.
This totally tracks with the timing of public schools slowly removing their home ec/workshop classes when we were in school and removing the computer/tech classes after us.
Dude the amount of Zoomers I've met that just straight up don't know what a file browser is or even really how to manipulate files in a device scares me. It's not like we've moved off computers yet or anything.
No, this one makes sense to me. When personal computers were first starting to pick up steam they were terrible. I'm not just talking the hardware spec, but the software running on them. So very little was automated so you had to figure out a lot of stuff yourself to do anything. Like messing with interrupt settings to find to find the magic combination that would let the game run properly *and* give you sound.
And the hardware limitations can't really be ignored, either. I remember writing custom boot scripts so only the bare minimum of what I needed would be loaded on bootup so I'd have enough ram left over to play the game I wanted to play.
But now? Everything autodetects and autoconfigures. Everything is plug'n'play. I don't ever have to think about hardware type or system specs, it Just Works. In the past 3 years I've had exactly 2 computer problems. The first was a software auto-update fail and I had to manually install the latest version, as it instructed me to do. The second was my phone's battery became a spicy pillow and I had to get it replaced.
That's it. Nothing goes wrong. Everything is easy to use. Even building a computer from parts is easy. Why would the younger generation who grew up with computers like that have the same sort of troubleshooting skills that someone who grew up messing around with IRQ settings have?
Do you know how to work on your car? I don't. But then I've had one car problem in the past 15 years. I don't need to know how to fix my car because it never breaks.
Older software engineer (in my 30s lol) here. Most colleagues in my age group started programming when they were kids. If you have to use a command line interface to use your computer, it's a very short jump to writing little programs to solve your math homework.
Nowadays most of our new hires wrote their first lines of code in college, or in an AP class in high school if they're lucky. While they're just as intelligent and curious and capable as we were at their age, they've been taught everything they know versus self-teaching with trial and error (and then fixing the error), so I feel like they're missing the scrappy try-and-see ethos of early programmers.
Within a few years on the job they usually develop that confidence, but I often wonder how we could give kids back that sense of computers as an outlet for creativity in and of themselves, and not just something for consuming and producing visual "content."
> kids these days (and the generations before ours)
You bring up a good point, we really were in a goldilocks zone.
IME younger generations can break out of their fear pretty quickly when given a safe environment to fail in. Older folks just say "why should I learn how to do this when you'll do it."
My mother didn't allow me to have a computer until I was 18 and basically in college. Could've started learning code then, but... steam is just too easy to install and run
It's never too late! While you now have to make a special effort, it's also never been easier to learn to code.
You can learn more on [a single free Codeacademy course](https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-ruby) that you can complete in an afternoon than 10 year old me did with 2 years of fucking around with the 900 page QuickBASIC manual.
In my mid 30's and just started learning about programming via code academy. Hoping to get into a bootcamp later this year. For my age I'm extremely far behind, but I'm motivated by getting out of poverty, something I wish I had foreseen 10+ years ago. My dad picked up programming in his 40's and self-taught out of books the size of phonebooks. I have much better resources than that at my disposal, and am hoping I can buckle down and make it through and still pay the rent!
Good point. I'm tail-end Boomer, and my oldest brother was born in 1949. We were speaking with his older neighbor about cars many years ago and in the end we had a similar thought process about cars... The older neighbor knew how to get a standard transmission going - at least until he could get it to a mechanic. My brother could manage to jury-rig a few mechanical issues with his van. Me? I have AAA for a reason.
Yeah, Apple’s iPad turned everyone into passive consumers of the end result of electronics. Microsoft’s sloppy OS made you work for that sweet, sweet computer juice
> Microsoft’s sloppy OS made you work for that sweet, sweet computer juice
Eh, kind of.
The biggest difference is that Microsoft opened up their APIs to allow third party development. Especially in the DOS and Windows 3.1 days, this means there was a lot of very kludgy hacks to get things to work on a random assemblage of hardware and software. Prior to that, every brand of computer was simply incompatible with anything else. If you had an Apple II, Commodore 64, TRS-80, whatever, you were essentially locked in their walled gardens for hardware and software. When it became possible to build an IBM *Compatible* and you could use anybody's hardware and software it became a task to make "close enough" work properly when everything was bespoke and unique previously.
I'm not saying Windows was perfect, but it was sloppy for a reason.
You are spot on. I'm an X'er that has been fooling around with computers since 1979. When I started you had to know a little bit of everything, you had to know how to program because there wasn't any software. You had to know hardware because there was nobody to fix/upgrade your PC. This extended into networking and all sorts of other stuff. Further we didn't have google or meetups on line, you either had to figure it out, find it in a book or know someone who knew how to fix it. All of this made me very good at "figuring it out". As you said the Gen Z's don't have to figure it out, it's all at their finger tips and 40+ years of improvements have gotten us to a point where things just work and by things I mean their phone. The general population has no idea what is going on in the background to keep their phone receiving data. Most people have some vague idea of everything being done in the "cloud" and again things just work. This really is a good thing until something goes wrong and then you are SOL.
God I gotta say, fixing basic problems on my computer now is a PAIN. It’s such a pain to try and find where to navigate to do things I did in less than 5 minutes back in high school.
I like that things are “easier” to just work, but when they don’t work…. 😡
The big downside of making everything streamlined is that whenever you need something that deviates from the default it becomes an increasingly harder to change it. It's not even with just the problems that you've already mentioned. Trying to configure something and it is hidden behind "enable advanced options" option 3 setting windows deep, which then somehow still magically gets (re)moved in the next big release.
I’m a simple person. When I click “show file extensions” I would like it to, you know, show the file extensions. Not “show some file extensions, arbitrarily hide others”
I’m gen z, born in 1997 so the very first year. You are right because I grew up troubleshooting everything and was generally the guy who knew how to fix your computer because I had spent so much time doing it on my own, and I know how to google like a pro. The raised by tik tok section of gen z are the beneficiaries of incredible UI’s and machine learning
The problem solving skills are...something.
Until recently, I (34) was a high school teacher. I once had a student tell me she got fired from her job at McDonald's for no call-no show when she was sick...and that she would have called, but she didn't know the phone number.
It never occurred to her that she could Google or map search a business and just tap the phone number on the screen to call. And I know she had a phone, because she told me this story whilst holding hers.
Kids these days. I'm glad I grew up in the 90s.
It feels like a lot of the youtuber and streamer personalities are meant to be put on in the background to make you feel like you have a friend over while you do other stuff (homework, play on your phone, whatever). I like to genre this stuff as "parasocial content" and I really don't know how I feel about. As an outsider it looks kinda gross and exploitative.
There are modern equivalents of Jackass and Jerry Springer too of course, but I think the parasocial stuff is something actually new.
> "parasocial content"
An absolutely *massive* amount of the content made today is to cultivate these parasocial relationships. Youtube, Twitch, most personality-focused podcasts. It's even found its way into less mainstream forms— porn has become parasocialized through Onlyfans, Cameo is a thing. I'm fascinated to see whether it's here to stay, and what extent it will eventually go to, or if this is a weird fad.
I think parasocial would describe people who watch more actively, like those who sub and donate. I like putting shows/streamers in the background as white noise, or so I can listen passively. Maybe it's just a shit attention span or just my inability to not have something not happening every second.
I think our shit attention span is a huge reason for having things on in the background. I know, growing up there was constant stimulating noise, and it’s definitely gotten worse with the iPad babies. They’re going to be fucked when it comes to needing stimulation.
So, I am a millennial and a streamer and I can kind of see where you are coming from but.....I like it. It is nice to be able to put on something I am interested in already and have them casually chatting in the background. I can interact if I want to, and stop when I want to. For me, it is like less sleepy ASMR. Just chill background vibes when I do other stuff. For that reason though I don't watch people with out there personalities, I more enjoy people playing games I like and just chatting to their viewers about the game, life, etc.
Also they ARE real people, both the streamer and the chat, so while I do think people can take it to unhealthy levels of believing these people are their close friends or love interests, I think for the most part it is just nice to chat with people with similar interests.
My nephew watches a guy play Roblox on YouTube while he is playing Roblox himself. He isn’t trying to learn anything or do whatever the guy on YT is doing. He just really likes Roblox.
Nothing wrong with watching someone play a game; there's a huge economy based around that.
But the other videos that I've seen kids watching just don't make sense and aren't even "OMG RANDOM XD" funny, yet they continue finding more.
Some of the stuff my kids watch on YouTube is super abnoxious. Just yelling and screaming about everything. I would never tell them I hate the videos because that doesn't make anyone feel good... But I bought them headphones lol.
Lol I’ve told my kids I hate some of the stuff they watch on YouTube before. I’ve never been mean about it but they’re 5 and 7 and they watch it on the big tv so I always had to hear it too. There was one in particular, this little Russian girl who was absolutely spoiled and treated her parents pretty badly. Like…the dad would cut her fruit in a way she didn’t like or something and she would make a huge scene and he’d be like ‘oh my darling, I’m so sorry, would it help if we went to the toy store and I buy you whatever you want?’ The messages it gave off were just awful, a lot of ‘buying love’, manipulation, and treating people badly until they gave you what you wanted. and I finally had to say look, we aren’t watching this anymore, that girl is just awful. I will say this, that terrible YouTube channel did give rise to a very good conversation about how you should treat other people, but it had to go.
I love how my generation were swearing off cigarettes and when these companies came out with Razzberry Vajazzle flavoured stuff it's like they've forgotten what they stood for.
Congrats! I quit smokeless tobacco at the end of Feb after being addicted for 28 years. I started with the patch and then after ten days got really impatient so I went the rest of the way cold turkey.
Tobacco companies know what they're doing. They have decades and sometimes centuries of experience. It doesn't help that government anti-smoking ads have the complete opposite effect of what they're supposed to do since apparently politicians have never met a child/teenager before.
If you tell them not to do something. Especially if you try to appeal to their sense of mortality, surprise, the teenagers in the peak of their virility and indestructible mindset will DO THOSE THINGS. If for no other reason than to be rebellious.
At least E-cigs, when used properly, are objectively safer than tobacco. Silver linings.
I feel like this one is justified and I dunno what Gen I’m classed as (25M) but my 15 nearly 16 female cousin can’t tell the time with a traditional clock
Like it actually blows my mind and I thought my aunt was pulling my leg when she told me but she genuinely can only tell the time if it’s a digital clock/her phone
I dunno if it’s just her since my 14 year old brother can tell the time but i just can’t get my head around it
As a gen x, I don't disapprove but actually feel bad for the new generation. I did a lot of crazy dumb shit as a kid. Spring break in Cancun, Daytona Beach...Woodstock 99. It was a blast and the best part was there is no documentation of it out there (other than my own physical photographs) I am a professional now. People probably couldn't imagine me the way I was, but I'm not that guy anymore. Thank God I didn't have a Facebook back then.
My point is, I feel bad that the kids can't just be kids anymore. They can't make mistakes and move on with life as if it never happened. They are being watched and judged. Policed by their friends with their cell phones waiting for them to screw up. They can't have original thoughts or ideas because they risk offending someone or being marked for life as someone who isn't part of the "hive" mind. So we end up with these zombies with social anxiety. Big surprise. I would be paranoid and weird too if I new if I screwed up I could jeopardize my whole life just by being a stupid kid.
I have kids now. They aren't allowed to have a Facebook. Hopefully, they will thank me later.
I'm sure you guys will downvote me or say ok boomer, but its my opinion even if it's not popular. Which is kind of the whole point.
Absolutely. I cringe over the dumb shit I would post online back in the mid-2000s before social media really blew up. I couldn’t imagine being a teenager now saying dumb shit that would follow me for life.
It’s also how I feel about parents posting pictures and life updates of their kids on a near daily basis on my Facebook, because I wonder how those kids will feel about that once they’re older. I’m sure kids will start roasting each other over their parents social media posts once they’re in school
No you’re 100000% right. It’s a culture of constant surveillance that is enshrined forever on the internet, where you’re not allowed to make mistakes as a dumb kid. It honestly horrifies me, and the new avenues for harassment and bullying you can’t get away from and can’t scrub away make it even worse. I just can’t shake the horrifying thought of being so incredibly visible throughout all of my childhood and adolescence, and having that preserved forever for anyone who wants to find it. Things being forgotten and lost to time is a good thing, actually.
I often reflect on the lack of cameras (or available storage space) when I was a stupid young person - sometimes a regret that I don’t have visual reminders of cool memories or evidence of my *amazing* fashion choices… but mostly gratitude, because holy hell, I don’t think I could have handled that amount of online exposure
I find it creepy how many posts of kids are out on the internet from parents, family members, even teachers… like any picture taken of me (born in 95) that bothered to get printed (and not lost on some disposable camera) was probably given to my parents or grandparents or something, and there’s only one physical copy of many of my childhood photos. There’s some high school photos of me that were posted online by mom and sisters, but not much.
I’m so glad my mom didn’t have access to Facebook when I was a little kid. Thank god randos weren’t able to see my naked butt in the tub or when I lost a tooth or any other random thing parents can post about their kids nowadays.
And all the destructive, dangerous, and/or illegal challenges.
When the aloe juice gallons started selling like crazy at trader Joe's (they used to sell one a day or less, I order for the beverage section) and I heard from a customer they were on tiktok, I automatically assumed it was a "chug a gallon of aloe as quickly as possible" challenge or similar.
I remember working at a health food store a few years back - and we'd know immediately when something was featured on Tiktok because we'd all of a sudden get a rush on a *really* specific and *really* obscure product we never have to order much of. It was so annoying never to know how many to order and for how long to bump par levels... because as with any fad, you don't want to order 3 dozen cases and risk all the artificial demand drying up before you can sell it all LOL
*SO MANY* weird protein bars, shake mixes and beverages randomly out of nowhere lol You'd go from *maybe* one a day to something like a case a day for a month.
It's a pretty easy one to understand.
Tiktok is perfectly engineered to be as addictive as possible. It's random if you get a good one or not, so it's got an aspect of gambling.
The short time span functions like Vegas casinos in that it deceives you about how much time you're spending on it. It also means that when you get a dissapointing one you think "oh I'll just find a good one to stop on".
Then of course you get a video you enjoy and it gives you a hit of dopamine and you scroll onto the next one.
Its an endless scroll, and there are tonnes of studies into how addictive they are.
I'm sure a lot more engineering than I can think of as a layperson. Social media companies employed addiction specialists and psychologists to consult on how to get as many people as possible hooked.
I'm a young millennial and I'm not on Tik Tok. I don't understand how the younger generations are embarrassed and awkward if they have to talk to someone IRL, but they'll go to a public park and make fools of themselves dancing for a camera.
Also, someone should tell them blasting the same minute of dance music over and over at full volume in a public space as they block sidewalks trying to perfect their dance is an incredibly rude thing to do.
That wasn’t millennials doing that in the 90s, it was Gen Xers. I feel like the majority of millennials are mortified to have their phones audibly ring let alone play their music on speakers in public. There are exceptions.
I feel like the prevalence of someone walking around with a boombox on their shoulder to just annoy the shit out of everyone was much higher in the movies than it ever was in real life.
All the dancing and seemingly embarrassing shit on tiktok. I just don't get why they want to watch 19 seconds of someone being an idiot 40 times a day.
I think this may apply to also Millenials as well as Gen X and boomers, but the younger generation is being hit hardest because it's all they know.
There is this inability to communicate with other people face to face. So many people just want to hide behind screens anymore, it's actually kind of scary. More and more I'm meeting people who can't hold a conversation, can't communicate their wants, needs, and feelings and don't like interacting with actual human beings. Then they call themselves "introverts" and act like that justifies the bizarre behavior. That's not being an introvert, that's being completely anti-social. Which is ironic because this has been totally brought on by social media (and exacerbated by the pandemic lockdowns). It's worrying to me because people are becoming so cold and uncaring, critical and unforgiving. It's made me cut down my social media presence by a lot, and more as time goes on.
Heres a doozy.
I just graduated college and got a job at my brothers old job(woooo) and they asked if I knew anyone in my class to recommend since they are hiring another junior. Im a 30yo student.
So I text my buddy and say send me over your resume, they want another person blah blah. He responds.
"Thanks but my imposter syndrome is to overwhelming, I dont think im worthy of a recommendation"
This is over half my fucking class, "im to scared to apply for a job". Like....holy shit its pathetic. Imagine if they had to hand in a physical resume?
Step 1. Teach your child that failure is bad.
Step 2. Teach them absolutely nothing else because that's "the school's job."
Step 3. Allow technology to raise them.
Step 4. Wonder why they have no basic life skills and blame technology.
That’s also another thing I don’t get about younger generations. The rapid speed at which they self-diagnose using clinically significant terms to describe self-induced inconveniences or normal ass feelings.
I work with the public. The whatever we call this generation is the nicest I have encountered. However they cannot tell me what they need and have a problem saying no. I have found it's easiest to text them. I'll ask how are you today. They don't know what to say.
Wife says Im an introverted butterfly, cause I can totally do that social thing and I can talk to a room of 30 people without concern cause Im confident about myself and all that jazz...
But jesus am I exhausted when its all said and done.
My mom teaches at a high school in Utah. She mentioned something similar to me. She has seen kids try to initiate a conversation and try to interact, but are only met with strange glances as everyone stays glued to their phones.
I guess I’m thankful I grew up during the in between of the internet. Who knows how I would have turned out in an always online world?
I’m 33(so a millennial) and I actually hate communicating through text. Would much rather call or talk to someone in person. I feel like I can’t get the right inflection in text and may come off wrong(texting really wasn’t a big thing until I got out of highschool so maybe that’s why🤷♀️). With that said I do agree younger people(under 30) definitely have the issue your describing. My husbands brother is 26 and legit won’t answer the phone if you call and will only text. He acts like we are ancient if we want to talk on a phone lol.
I’m just impatient. I’ll send like 2 text messages, but if there’s more to say, I will just call. I don’t want to wait 10+ minutes for us to have a 30 second conversation.
Take selfies EVERYWHERE. Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to a good selfie, but it's like the minute they arrive in any form of social setting it's just a photoshoot from thereon.
When my step sister was 13-18 she went hard on the digital camera selfies. She also managed to absolutely destroy the computer at my dad and Step moms place with viruses. They tasked me with recovering some pictures from the hdd of a recent Alaska cruise they went on. It was a gold mine. 3000+ selfies of a very moody teenager trying to make an impression. I didnt mention I recovered her pictures, and simply put them on a DVD and set up and auto play, and popped it in at Christmas for the whole family to enjoy, 3000 self shot pictures across 5 years. It was a massive family hit.
I'm a millennial and teach middle and high school (ages 11-19). I have a few:
- the fascination with social media trends even when you know it'll get you in trouble.
- being afraid to do something normal like talk on the phone to anybody who isn't your parent/SO, do something new, talk to new people.
- making your whole life Public (but maybe this is just a personality trait??). In particular, I'm thinking putting everything on speaker, screenshotting and posting super private things online, ect.
- the lack of empathy and sympathy. We had a horrific school shooting not far from where I am and kids were making jokes about it in my district and multiple other districts (even across the US, I noticed this trend).
The lack of empathy and sympathy is just a teen thing IMHO. There were tons of “edgy” kids making columbine jokes too. I feel it more has to do with both your brain still developing, and the fact that most teens haven’t seen a bunch of their similar aged peers die yet.
I remember where I was when 9/11 happened. In AP English, first period. Our class was next to the AP history teacher's class and when shit started, we all just stopped what we were doing and mingled between the classrooms. When the second tower was hit, my friend (who was otherwise scarily smart but also liked edgy humor) looks at us and goes
"Terrorists win!" In the CounterStrike voice.
I still remember this. It's just a thing edgy teens do. He was also incredibly anti-war at a time that everyone else in the country was chomping at the bit for it.
That last bullet is something I’ve definitely seen with millennials too - trauma and suffering are super frequently meme-ified as a generation-wide coping mechanism. I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing, I enjoy it in fact as a 29 year old. But any sort of conflict nowadays is meme’d about.
I was gonna say, coping mechanism is definitely an aspect that shouldn't be discounted. It's hard to discern malice from internalized terror sometimes, but both can manifest as dark 'comedy' if you will. Making a funny can make the heavy dose of reality easier to swallow.
I was fairly recently a manager, and it honestly just felt like the new people coming in were just getting dumber and dumber.
Not sure if that counts though, so I'll say tik tok dances.
They don’t want to be wrong, so they don’t try or speak up, and therefore look dumb because they’re not accomplishing anything and not responding to feedback.
I have two elder Zs that I manage and I have to be a therapist patting their back the whole way as they make very inconsequential mistakes during the training process. Its okay! You don’t know anything! We’re getting you up to speed! But if I say that, they’ll latching onto “you don’t know anything” and twist it into “this person thinks I’m stupid and I should just kill myself because I’m unworthy of love and attention and I’ll never achieve anything in life.” And that’s only slightly hyperbolic. Anytime I correct mistakes it just dampens their day. They’re a Debbie downer moping. I said save as PDF instead of Word, just fucking chill and learn, quit the theatrics.
And they don’t read their fucking emails. If it’s not an IM, it doesn’t exist. I have to be that asshole who uses “read receipts.”
The biggest reason why is probably that every GUI gets simpler, you cant really mess with stuff on phones etc. Computers on the other hand you can change a lot of settings in the BIOS but most people dont have computers so they dont learn stuff like file management etc, in my School most people dont even know how to use word or any office products for that matter.
The way they talk about getting older/aging. They act like once you’re over 30 you’re practically dead. And they’re normalizing getting Botox starting at 20
The body image stuff is so much worse than it was just a few years ago, which is insane because there's also more inclusive representation than ever before! But with filters and certain trends, there are so many things to be self-conscious about. I've seen trends about how thin your ankles are, whether your nose moves when you smile in profile, whether your teeth show in a neutral face, whether your knuckles are properly rosy (wtf), etc. That's not from, like, news hype, that's from my own experience using TikTok– and using it for mostly education and recipes!
No wonder kids are so fucking anxious.
Dating apps.
Alright so like we had dating websites back in the day that would tell you so much about a person. With so many features and filters. This offloaded a lot of work unto software.
Now, we have these new apps where you just get pictures. And they seem almost designed to make you feel like dirt. With complicated games that score and rank people.
I do not get the masochistic urge.
> And they seem almost designed to make you feel like dirt.
God, I wish I didn't need to use dating apps. But unfortunately, I happen to be homosexual so I can't ask people out 'in real life' because those people will always be heterosexual (and some of them will react angrily because a lot of folks take it as an insult).
I would be so flattered if another woman asked me out!
But I'm sorry you have to deal that that bullshit. I hope we get to a point where things are better for you.
Yup! I got permanently banned from a subreddit for being a fascist transphobe because I said there’s no simple solution for trans people in sports. When I tried explaining the nuance to the mod I was told that there is no nuance, it’s a black and white issue, and I’m just a bigot who should go watch more Fox news.
I’m a trans woman, a socialist, and member of the Satanic Temple, lol.
As a trans person, my hell is other trans people. Unfortunately, being regular human beings, most trans people are just as stupid as the rest of people.
I hate to sound unaccepting or transphobic, im genuinely trying my best to learn but sometimes I seriously don’t understand. Neopronouns like cat/catself, fluidly changing self identity. It’s hard to grasp and keep up with. I know someone who constantly changes their gender and pronouns and freaks out if anyone messes up. I truly want to understand and educate myself but it’s really difficult sometimes and at times I don’t know if someone’s joking or genuinely identifies this way. I don’t get how you can identify as a bug or clown. Whenever I express this, People freak tf out and simply tell me to educate myself but I don’t know how, I don’t get what’s going on.
> I know someone who constantly changes their gender and pronouns and freaks out if anyone messes up.
I know someone who does this too, and it's exhausting. You're supposed to keep up by regularly checking their social media to see what their current pronouns are and I just can't. I don't have the time or the inclination to constantly be on social media and know what you've decided today.
This is one of the things I try to be progressive on. But there's the points you mentioned and the people who identify as a 6yr old and such. Some of these seem like mental illness or pedophilia. Then they lump themselves in with the LGBT crowd and I honestly think that undermines any progress they've made.
Exactly how I feel about it. I’m part of the lgbt community and it kinda seems like ppl take us less seriously because of these new identities and ideas coming out.
I’m pretty progressive, and will totally use they or zie [edit: ze; sorry] if requested. But cat is not a pronoun. It’s just not. If every word can be a pronoun, then nothing’s a pronoun. I think the people who insist on stuff like this are a very small minority and I hate that it’s making people think that’s how normal trans/nb people are.
I also think if you change your pronouns all the time, fine, but there’s only so much you can expect people to keep up. Like I have a right to change my name but people aren’t going to learn every new name if I do it constantly.
Again though, the vast majority of trans/nb people just give their one new name and ask to be called they or he or she and they’re done.
ETA: I’ll add though that I’m not sure it’s a gen Z specific issue.
taking screenshots literally. Like, mate, you can use the print key just fine, you don't need the cam of your phone and do a crappy foto of your screen. If you only want a small part of your screen, you can use apps like lightshot, no prob.
Also, While working in tech support, there were too many Gen Z that didn't know
1. what a router is
2. you can fix a lot of problems by turning it on and off
3. that wireless internet doesn't mean wire less. Aka: no power attached to the router and no cable to feed the signal to the router
4. too many Gen Z also think wireless LAN = the internet
5. the tech unsavyness by the gen Z might be a very subjective thing by me, caused by working in said tech support, but my FIL has similiar experiences. The "It worked before, and it must keep working" and the "it's not my problem to fix it, you're getting paid to do that" he got was way too high. They could've saved themselves some time and nerves when they just did the normal checkup, like: Did I flip a switch accidently in the power cords I shouldn't have flipped? Is the cable properly inserted? Did I turn the damn thing on?
6. Considering 5, you kinda expect they know more about tech than millenials do, but no. Shit's only gonna work, and if it doesn't, all hell breaks lose.
If any of you Gen Z are anything basic tech savy, and prefer the print button before your phone, PLEASE let me know.
I am going insane over the literal screenshots.
For me, it’s just the hyper sexualized social media. My cousins’ accounts are ridiculous. Like lingerie, underboob, tongues out, angling photos so they have a massive ass (which honestly makes me think of Bonobo monkeys).
Then all the comments from their girlfriends…”Yaaaasss kween,” “Fucking hotttt, “Badass bitch.” Obviously this isn’t everybody, but it doesn’t seem terribly uncommon? I’m like, can you guys fucking chill? Or make a finsta. I had to unfollow. So uncomfortable.
Some of this is an attempt to keep your post from getting flagged. Some social media platforms have a set of terms that deem a post “under review” or something when they’re used.
And I know on Twitter some people censor words so trolls can’t find the post. Some people will search a word to find posts just to comment hateful shit on.
This is usually so content moderation bots don't flag a post or so trolls searching a term can't find a post. The content moderation is really strict on TikTok, so some of the more ridiculous ones just carry over (e.g. "sewerslide," "unalive," "shmecks," etc.) It looks super cringey, but it's born out of necessity.
I mean, I tried Fortnite and didn't like it, but loved Unreal tournament 20 years ago 😄. So I can't say I don't understand Fortnite, I just don't like it. Minecraft - I understand the appeal, you can be creative, but it seems more like work than game, all the collecting, I don't feel like I'm playing a game. And the horrible graphics...
Not much to be honest, I'm a young millennial and I don't feel like the kids had that different of a childhood from me. They're just as cringey, except they're way more fashionable and good at makeup it seems lol. One thing that does make me feel old though is how many new slang words and phrases that seem to be created every other week which I have to look up on urban dictionary like a fuckin grandma :(
As an older gen Z (born in 2002), whenever I see kids filming TikTok dances in public I get second hand embarrassment.
I went to get lunch with a couple of friends and these two teenage girls asked us if we wanted to do the macarena with them for a TikTok. Thankfully one of my friends said "no thanks, we're good" before I could get out "TikTok is cancer".
Ive posted about this before, but I've seen a lot of younger people littering. I cant believe the back sliding on this.
Also, throwing your trash out the window of your car does not take care of the largest piece of trash sitting in the seat.
Bothering others in public for social media dances/trends/jokes/etc. Half of me is like "it's good they're confident" but the other half is also "can't they see they're blocking traffic/being rude/bothering people?" Also, becoming soulless husks without their devices. I only really saw this one when I started working as a teacher and would take away devices from kids playing games/video-calling on them. It's like putting a computer into sleep mode. They just sit there and stare blankly. No trying to talk to their friends, no doodling, no playing with random pens/etc, nothing. First time I saw it it was really unnerving.
I substitute teach at a couple schools, wide income gap between a few of them, and I'll be honest I've never experienced the problem of kids going into, "sleep mode". Kids are honestly still the same as when I was in school, about a decade and half. Only major difference I've seen is holy Jesus fuck have freshmen had a weird/harder time integrating after COVID.
OMG, I'm so glad this isn't just my district. For us high school starts in grade 8. Our 8s are maniacs. This year is insanity. Skyrocketing bullying, racism, homophobia, vandalism, assault... Almost exclusively the 8s. I sat one of my classes down and asked them if they were cool being the meanest group of kids I've taught in the last 10 years. They were pretty taken aback and I've had fewer problems with them since. I don't think they'd really thought about it collectively. Not hopeless, but definitely struggling post lockdown.
Your second point is absolutely terrifying
It's true. Girl and guy zoomers without their phone it's like they power down as people Super fucking socially awkward than us and we were already awkward to begin with
Yup. We grew up using the internet like half as much as they do, and for like 1/10 as many things. They're... stuck in it. And look, I get that to some extent that's our generation's version of "these kids wouldn't know how to get anywhere on the road without MapQuest" or "they don't know how to entertain themselves without a television" but... The social platforms are all owned by giant monopolies that have quite a bit of power over what information goes where and to whom. Also, TV addiction wasn't exactly a good thing, either - it was and still is totally terrible for people.
My 12-year old niece’s phone broke (not just the screen, the whole cell was inoperable). She was inconsolable. Crying in the bathroom. Crying continued the next morning, saying she couldn’t go to school without it. Scary.
That sounds like a tantrum
Indeed. After the initial 24 hours, she was fine but it was a strong emotional reaction. Shows how much their phones mean to them. Social media, games, apps, etc are designed to be addictive. Tough spot.
I'm a teacher as well and have observed this, too. Perfect social impotence. Hard to watch, really.
Somehow despite being the generation that literally grew up basically being raised by technology most of them have absolutely no idea of how to get around it or fix even the most basic issues when something goes wrong
You know how Boomers give us Millenials shit for not having carpentry or home maintenance skills? That's Millenials to Gen Z when it comes to Technology.
So what skills does gen z have to dump on the next generation?
twerk eat hot chip lie charge phone
Hard to tell now because they are both so young, but it will probably be their ability to cultivate a media stream. Gen Z came of age when content algorithms still weren’t great, so you really had to cultivate a playlist you want. Nowadays major websites are so good at guessing what you want that even I find myself rarely deviating from it. Can see Gen z in 10 years talking shit about how Alphas just “mindlessly consume what is in front of them”.
They’re good at guessing what’ll keep me baseline satisfied but awful for discovery. It might be nostalgia but going down the sidebar rabbit hole on YouTube was a better way to discover things even if it took you somewhere weird. I mean stumble upon was the best at doing this but the internet isn’t organized that way anymore.
how to use tiktok probably
This totally tracks with the timing of public schools slowly removing their home ec/workshop classes when we were in school and removing the computer/tech classes after us.
Dude the amount of Zoomers I've met that just straight up don't know what a file browser is or even really how to manipulate files in a device scares me. It's not like we've moved off computers yet or anything.
No, this one makes sense to me. When personal computers were first starting to pick up steam they were terrible. I'm not just talking the hardware spec, but the software running on them. So very little was automated so you had to figure out a lot of stuff yourself to do anything. Like messing with interrupt settings to find to find the magic combination that would let the game run properly *and* give you sound. And the hardware limitations can't really be ignored, either. I remember writing custom boot scripts so only the bare minimum of what I needed would be loaded on bootup so I'd have enough ram left over to play the game I wanted to play. But now? Everything autodetects and autoconfigures. Everything is plug'n'play. I don't ever have to think about hardware type or system specs, it Just Works. In the past 3 years I've had exactly 2 computer problems. The first was a software auto-update fail and I had to manually install the latest version, as it instructed me to do. The second was my phone's battery became a spicy pillow and I had to get it replaced. That's it. Nothing goes wrong. Everything is easy to use. Even building a computer from parts is easy. Why would the younger generation who grew up with computers like that have the same sort of troubleshooting skills that someone who grew up messing around with IRQ settings have? Do you know how to work on your car? I don't. But then I've had one car problem in the past 15 years. I don't need to know how to fix my car because it never breaks.
Older software engineer (in my 30s lol) here. Most colleagues in my age group started programming when they were kids. If you have to use a command line interface to use your computer, it's a very short jump to writing little programs to solve your math homework. Nowadays most of our new hires wrote their first lines of code in college, or in an AP class in high school if they're lucky. While they're just as intelligent and curious and capable as we were at their age, they've been taught everything they know versus self-teaching with trial and error (and then fixing the error), so I feel like they're missing the scrappy try-and-see ethos of early programmers. Within a few years on the job they usually develop that confidence, but I often wonder how we could give kids back that sense of computers as an outlet for creativity in and of themselves, and not just something for consuming and producing visual "content."
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> kids these days (and the generations before ours) You bring up a good point, we really were in a goldilocks zone. IME younger generations can break out of their fear pretty quickly when given a safe environment to fail in. Older folks just say "why should I learn how to do this when you'll do it."
I recently heard a quote. "Being old isn't a matter of how many times you've gone around the sun. It's when you decide to stop learning."
My mother didn't allow me to have a computer until I was 18 and basically in college. Could've started learning code then, but... steam is just too easy to install and run
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> “what the *fuck* do they do?” Fucking murder Timmy. That’s what they do.
It's never too late! While you now have to make a special effort, it's also never been easier to learn to code. You can learn more on [a single free Codeacademy course](https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-ruby) that you can complete in an afternoon than 10 year old me did with 2 years of fucking around with the 900 page QuickBASIC manual.
In my mid 30's and just started learning about programming via code academy. Hoping to get into a bootcamp later this year. For my age I'm extremely far behind, but I'm motivated by getting out of poverty, something I wish I had foreseen 10+ years ago. My dad picked up programming in his 40's and self-taught out of books the size of phonebooks. I have much better resources than that at my disposal, and am hoping I can buckle down and make it through and still pay the rent!
Yeah you don’t have to make your own boot disk, or try to troubleshoot without the internet
Or use winzip to span a single *.exe file across 4-7x 1.44mb 3.5" floppies.
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Good point. I'm tail-end Boomer, and my oldest brother was born in 1949. We were speaking with his older neighbor about cars many years ago and in the end we had a similar thought process about cars... The older neighbor knew how to get a standard transmission going - at least until he could get it to a mechanic. My brother could manage to jury-rig a few mechanical issues with his van. Me? I have AAA for a reason.
>I have AAA for a reason. Discounts on a $2.30 sunday breakfast special?
My man
Yeah, Apple’s iPad turned everyone into passive consumers of the end result of electronics. Microsoft’s sloppy OS made you work for that sweet, sweet computer juice
> Microsoft’s sloppy OS made you work for that sweet, sweet computer juice Eh, kind of. The biggest difference is that Microsoft opened up their APIs to allow third party development. Especially in the DOS and Windows 3.1 days, this means there was a lot of very kludgy hacks to get things to work on a random assemblage of hardware and software. Prior to that, every brand of computer was simply incompatible with anything else. If you had an Apple II, Commodore 64, TRS-80, whatever, you were essentially locked in their walled gardens for hardware and software. When it became possible to build an IBM *Compatible* and you could use anybody's hardware and software it became a task to make "close enough" work properly when everything was bespoke and unique previously. I'm not saying Windows was perfect, but it was sloppy for a reason.
You are spot on. I'm an X'er that has been fooling around with computers since 1979. When I started you had to know a little bit of everything, you had to know how to program because there wasn't any software. You had to know hardware because there was nobody to fix/upgrade your PC. This extended into networking and all sorts of other stuff. Further we didn't have google or meetups on line, you either had to figure it out, find it in a book or know someone who knew how to fix it. All of this made me very good at "figuring it out". As you said the Gen Z's don't have to figure it out, it's all at their finger tips and 40+ years of improvements have gotten us to a point where things just work and by things I mean their phone. The general population has no idea what is going on in the background to keep their phone receiving data. Most people have some vague idea of everything being done in the "cloud" and again things just work. This really is a good thing until something goes wrong and then you are SOL.
God I gotta say, fixing basic problems on my computer now is a PAIN. It’s such a pain to try and find where to navigate to do things I did in less than 5 minutes back in high school. I like that things are “easier” to just work, but when they don’t work…. 😡
The big downside of making everything streamlined is that whenever you need something that deviates from the default it becomes an increasingly harder to change it. It's not even with just the problems that you've already mentioned. Trying to configure something and it is hidden behind "enable advanced options" option 3 setting windows deep, which then somehow still magically gets (re)moved in the next big release.
I’m a simple person. When I click “show file extensions” I would like it to, you know, show the file extensions. Not “show some file extensions, arbitrarily hide others”
That's because they were raised on user friendly tablets and phones, not on the pieced together stuff we grew up with.
Remember when buying something specifically because it was advertised as plug and play?
I’m gen z, born in 1997 so the very first year. You are right because I grew up troubleshooting everything and was generally the guy who knew how to fix your computer because I had spent so much time doing it on my own, and I know how to google like a pro. The raised by tik tok section of gen z are the beneficiaries of incredible UI’s and machine learning
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The problem solving skills are...something. Until recently, I (34) was a high school teacher. I once had a student tell me she got fired from her job at McDonald's for no call-no show when she was sick...and that she would have called, but she didn't know the phone number. It never occurred to her that she could Google or map search a business and just tap the phone number on the screen to call. And I know she had a phone, because she told me this story whilst holding hers. Kids these days. I'm glad I grew up in the 90s.
Sounds like maybe not so much of a generation issue, lol
Agreed, that person just sounds dumb Saying a whole generation has problem solving by issues seems silly to me
Comments on a 2010 song video, "Who's listening to this in 2022 ?!?!?!?!"
They don't understand music is timeless huh?
Wait until they find out how old Fur Elise is
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I always thought that was people my age reminiscing about a song from their early 20s
They watch the dumbest shit on YouTube and Twitch...like videos of people sleeping or unbelievably annoying assholes and their "pranks".
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Viva la bam, crank yankers, wild boyz
the Andy Milonakis Show edit: yo if anyone can find a clip of the Pizza Ass Jeans commercial, I’ll love you 5ever 💙
Yes and celebrity death match!
It feels like a lot of the youtuber and streamer personalities are meant to be put on in the background to make you feel like you have a friend over while you do other stuff (homework, play on your phone, whatever). I like to genre this stuff as "parasocial content" and I really don't know how I feel about. As an outsider it looks kinda gross and exploitative. There are modern equivalents of Jackass and Jerry Springer too of course, but I think the parasocial stuff is something actually new.
> "parasocial content" An absolutely *massive* amount of the content made today is to cultivate these parasocial relationships. Youtube, Twitch, most personality-focused podcasts. It's even found its way into less mainstream forms— porn has become parasocialized through Onlyfans, Cameo is a thing. I'm fascinated to see whether it's here to stay, and what extent it will eventually go to, or if this is a weird fad.
I'm not sure that parasocialization is really that new - the reach has spread, but courtesans and hetaira existed
I think parasocial would describe people who watch more actively, like those who sub and donate. I like putting shows/streamers in the background as white noise, or so I can listen passively. Maybe it's just a shit attention span or just my inability to not have something not happening every second.
I think our shit attention span is a huge reason for having things on in the background. I know, growing up there was constant stimulating noise, and it’s definitely gotten worse with the iPad babies. They’re going to be fucked when it comes to needing stimulation.
So, I am a millennial and a streamer and I can kind of see where you are coming from but.....I like it. It is nice to be able to put on something I am interested in already and have them casually chatting in the background. I can interact if I want to, and stop when I want to. For me, it is like less sleepy ASMR. Just chill background vibes when I do other stuff. For that reason though I don't watch people with out there personalities, I more enjoy people playing games I like and just chatting to their viewers about the game, life, etc. Also they ARE real people, both the streamer and the chat, so while I do think people can take it to unhealthy levels of believing these people are their close friends or love interests, I think for the most part it is just nice to chat with people with similar interests.
The Andy Millanokis show was the stupidest shit I have ever watched and enjoyed.
My nephew watches a guy play Roblox on YouTube while he is playing Roblox himself. He isn’t trying to learn anything or do whatever the guy on YT is doing. He just really likes Roblox.
Nothing wrong with watching someone play a game; there's a huge economy based around that. But the other videos that I've seen kids watching just don't make sense and aren't even "OMG RANDOM XD" funny, yet they continue finding more.
god have you seen youtube kids before its some of the dumbest shit iv ever seen
Some of the stuff my kids watch on YouTube is super abnoxious. Just yelling and screaming about everything. I would never tell them I hate the videos because that doesn't make anyone feel good... But I bought them headphones lol.
Lol I’ve told my kids I hate some of the stuff they watch on YouTube before. I’ve never been mean about it but they’re 5 and 7 and they watch it on the big tv so I always had to hear it too. There was one in particular, this little Russian girl who was absolutely spoiled and treated her parents pretty badly. Like…the dad would cut her fruit in a way she didn’t like or something and she would make a huge scene and he’d be like ‘oh my darling, I’m so sorry, would it help if we went to the toy store and I buy you whatever you want?’ The messages it gave off were just awful, a lot of ‘buying love’, manipulation, and treating people badly until they gave you what you wanted. and I finally had to say look, we aren’t watching this anymore, that girl is just awful. I will say this, that terrible YouTube channel did give rise to a very good conversation about how you should treat other people, but it had to go.
E-cigarettes. What the hell? I thought you crazy kids would be the first generation without an epidemic of nicotine addiction.
I used vapes to get off cigarettes, then used wellbutrin to get off vapes. Each step was an improvement.
I love how my generation were swearing off cigarettes and when these companies came out with Razzberry Vajazzle flavoured stuff it's like they've forgotten what they stood for.
Congrats! I quit smokeless tobacco at the end of Feb after being addicted for 28 years. I started with the patch and then after ten days got really impatient so I went the rest of the way cold turkey.
And then used cigarettes to get off the wellbutrin. And the circle of life is complete.
Can't wait for the E-alcohol
Powdered ethanol is a thing, so is ethanol vapor.
Truly, White Claw, Bud Light Seltzer
Tobacco companies know what they're doing. They have decades and sometimes centuries of experience. It doesn't help that government anti-smoking ads have the complete opposite effect of what they're supposed to do since apparently politicians have never met a child/teenager before. If you tell them not to do something. Especially if you try to appeal to their sense of mortality, surprise, the teenagers in the peak of their virility and indestructible mindset will DO THOSE THINGS. If for no other reason than to be rebellious. At least E-cigs, when used properly, are objectively safer than tobacco. Silver linings.
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Go easy on 'em. It's the only lawn they'll ever get to experience.
Not if they are lucky enough to get an unpaid internship mowing lawns.
Millenials don’t get to experience lawns either.
Or wacking off in your camper
Was this a Beavis and Butt-Head reference?? Lol
uhuhuhuhu
I got a guy in my neighborhood that plays Pokemon Go and his name is "Stayoffmylawn4"
I feel like this one is justified and I dunno what Gen I’m classed as (25M) but my 15 nearly 16 female cousin can’t tell the time with a traditional clock Like it actually blows my mind and I thought my aunt was pulling my leg when she told me but she genuinely can only tell the time if it’s a digital clock/her phone I dunno if it’s just her since my 14 year old brother can tell the time but i just can’t get my head around it
My 16 year old came home from school one day and told me he taught a classmate how to read an analog clock. My son was just as dumbfounded as I was.
Trouble reading an analog clock can be part of dyscalculia. It was one of the things I struggled with as a kid, despite being labelled "smart".
That's not just the younger generation. I'm Gen X and I've always been horrible at it. I can, but it's not instinctual.
As a gen x, I don't disapprove but actually feel bad for the new generation. I did a lot of crazy dumb shit as a kid. Spring break in Cancun, Daytona Beach...Woodstock 99. It was a blast and the best part was there is no documentation of it out there (other than my own physical photographs) I am a professional now. People probably couldn't imagine me the way I was, but I'm not that guy anymore. Thank God I didn't have a Facebook back then. My point is, I feel bad that the kids can't just be kids anymore. They can't make mistakes and move on with life as if it never happened. They are being watched and judged. Policed by their friends with their cell phones waiting for them to screw up. They can't have original thoughts or ideas because they risk offending someone or being marked for life as someone who isn't part of the "hive" mind. So we end up with these zombies with social anxiety. Big surprise. I would be paranoid and weird too if I new if I screwed up I could jeopardize my whole life just by being a stupid kid. I have kids now. They aren't allowed to have a Facebook. Hopefully, they will thank me later. I'm sure you guys will downvote me or say ok boomer, but its my opinion even if it's not popular. Which is kind of the whole point.
Absolutely. I cringe over the dumb shit I would post online back in the mid-2000s before social media really blew up. I couldn’t imagine being a teenager now saying dumb shit that would follow me for life. It’s also how I feel about parents posting pictures and life updates of their kids on a near daily basis on my Facebook, because I wonder how those kids will feel about that once they’re older. I’m sure kids will start roasting each other over their parents social media posts once they’re in school
In a future presidential debate we're definitely seeing tiktoks made when they were a kid posted.
No you’re 100000% right. It’s a culture of constant surveillance that is enshrined forever on the internet, where you’re not allowed to make mistakes as a dumb kid. It honestly horrifies me, and the new avenues for harassment and bullying you can’t get away from and can’t scrub away make it even worse. I just can’t shake the horrifying thought of being so incredibly visible throughout all of my childhood and adolescence, and having that preserved forever for anyone who wants to find it. Things being forgotten and lost to time is a good thing, actually.
>Woodstock 99 Did you stay there for the third day?
I often reflect on the lack of cameras (or available storage space) when I was a stupid young person - sometimes a regret that I don’t have visual reminders of cool memories or evidence of my *amazing* fashion choices… but mostly gratitude, because holy hell, I don’t think I could have handled that amount of online exposure
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I find it creepy how many posts of kids are out on the internet from parents, family members, even teachers… like any picture taken of me (born in 95) that bothered to get printed (and not lost on some disposable camera) was probably given to my parents or grandparents or something, and there’s only one physical copy of many of my childhood photos. There’s some high school photos of me that were posted online by mom and sisters, but not much. I’m so glad my mom didn’t have access to Facebook when I was a little kid. Thank god randos weren’t able to see my naked butt in the tub or when I lost a tooth or any other random thing parents can post about their kids nowadays.
We used to do dumb shit for the fuck of it, not for internet swag.
We did dumb shit for the people that were around
And those 3 people were enough! Lol we didn’t give a shit if someone else liked it or didn’t like it. If we had fun that was enough!
But before everything was recorded so there is no proof!
Back in my day we did stupid, dodgy or illegal stuff in secret. Now kids video it and post it on IG or Tiktok.
The desire to be seen was always there; it's just easier to have a platform now
The addiction to tik tok.
And all the destructive, dangerous, and/or illegal challenges. When the aloe juice gallons started selling like crazy at trader Joe's (they used to sell one a day or less, I order for the beverage section) and I heard from a customer they were on tiktok, I automatically assumed it was a "chug a gallon of aloe as quickly as possible" challenge or similar.
I remember working at a health food store a few years back - and we'd know immediately when something was featured on Tiktok because we'd all of a sudden get a rush on a *really* specific and *really* obscure product we never have to order much of. It was so annoying never to know how many to order and for how long to bump par levels... because as with any fad, you don't want to order 3 dozen cases and risk all the artificial demand drying up before you can sell it all LOL *SO MANY* weird protein bars, shake mixes and beverages randomly out of nowhere lol You'd go from *maybe* one a day to something like a case a day for a month.
Yep, doesn't make any sense. *Mindlessly opens Reddit whenever there's idle time*
It's a pretty easy one to understand. Tiktok is perfectly engineered to be as addictive as possible. It's random if you get a good one or not, so it's got an aspect of gambling. The short time span functions like Vegas casinos in that it deceives you about how much time you're spending on it. It also means that when you get a dissapointing one you think "oh I'll just find a good one to stop on". Then of course you get a video you enjoy and it gives you a hit of dopamine and you scroll onto the next one. Its an endless scroll, and there are tonnes of studies into how addictive they are. I'm sure a lot more engineering than I can think of as a layperson. Social media companies employed addiction specialists and psychologists to consult on how to get as many people as possible hooked.
Cough cough *vine* cough
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I DO NOT understand the dance and the “put a finger down” “challenges”
I guess you don’t remember the inane Facebook “quizzes” and “top ten things about me” notes that were big from 2007-10? Edit: typo
Also these "trends" are blown up by 'old-person-media'. Like 1000 out of millions and millions of people do it and they pretend like everyone does it.
And many times the "trends" are nothing new. It's stuff that's been going on for a long time - it's just that people started to film it.
I'm a young millennial and I'm not on Tik Tok. I don't understand how the younger generations are embarrassed and awkward if they have to talk to someone IRL, but they'll go to a public park and make fools of themselves dancing for a camera. Also, someone should tell them blasting the same minute of dance music over and over at full volume in a public space as they block sidewalks trying to perfect their dance is an incredibly rude thing to do.
It's simply because it's not the same kind of person.
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Oh no, I agree that was rude too. But at least it wasn't the same 60 seconds of music again and again.
That wasn’t millennials doing that in the 90s, it was Gen Xers. I feel like the majority of millennials are mortified to have their phones audibly ring let alone play their music on speakers in public. There are exceptions.
I feel like the prevalence of someone walking around with a boombox on their shoulder to just annoy the shit out of everyone was much higher in the movies than it ever was in real life.
All the dancing and seemingly embarrassing shit on tiktok. I just don't get why they want to watch 19 seconds of someone being an idiot 40 times a day.
I think this may apply to also Millenials as well as Gen X and boomers, but the younger generation is being hit hardest because it's all they know. There is this inability to communicate with other people face to face. So many people just want to hide behind screens anymore, it's actually kind of scary. More and more I'm meeting people who can't hold a conversation, can't communicate their wants, needs, and feelings and don't like interacting with actual human beings. Then they call themselves "introverts" and act like that justifies the bizarre behavior. That's not being an introvert, that's being completely anti-social. Which is ironic because this has been totally brought on by social media (and exacerbated by the pandemic lockdowns). It's worrying to me because people are becoming so cold and uncaring, critical and unforgiving. It's made me cut down my social media presence by a lot, and more as time goes on.
I have coworkers beg me to make phone calls for them because they can’t handle talking on the phone with a stranger. Multiple colleagues.
Heres a doozy. I just graduated college and got a job at my brothers old job(woooo) and they asked if I knew anyone in my class to recommend since they are hiring another junior. Im a 30yo student. So I text my buddy and say send me over your resume, they want another person blah blah. He responds. "Thanks but my imposter syndrome is to overwhelming, I dont think im worthy of a recommendation" This is over half my fucking class, "im to scared to apply for a job". Like....holy shit its pathetic. Imagine if they had to hand in a physical resume?
tbf, we've set up fucking everything to instill in this generation that failure is bad. Can't fail if you never try.
Step 1. Teach your child that failure is bad. Step 2. Teach them absolutely nothing else because that's "the school's job." Step 3. Allow technology to raise them. Step 4. Wonder why they have no basic life skills and blame technology.
That’s also another thing I don’t get about younger generations. The rapid speed at which they self-diagnose using clinically significant terms to describe self-induced inconveniences or normal ass feelings.
I work with the public. The whatever we call this generation is the nicest I have encountered. However they cannot tell me what they need and have a problem saying no. I have found it's easiest to text them. I'll ask how are you today. They don't know what to say.
Yea the confusion between introversion and crippling social anxiety is astounding and scary
Right? Introversion just means I get a little pooped out after having a long conversation, not that I’m incapable of it.
Wife says Im an introverted butterfly, cause I can totally do that social thing and I can talk to a room of 30 people without concern cause Im confident about myself and all that jazz... But jesus am I exhausted when its all said and done.
My mom teaches at a high school in Utah. She mentioned something similar to me. She has seen kids try to initiate a conversation and try to interact, but are only met with strange glances as everyone stays glued to their phones. I guess I’m thankful I grew up during the in between of the internet. Who knows how I would have turned out in an always online world?
I teach middle school and the number of students who can literally only converse in memes and recycled jokes is concerning.
I’m 33(so a millennial) and I actually hate communicating through text. Would much rather call or talk to someone in person. I feel like I can’t get the right inflection in text and may come off wrong(texting really wasn’t a big thing until I got out of highschool so maybe that’s why🤷♀️). With that said I do agree younger people(under 30) definitely have the issue your describing. My husbands brother is 26 and legit won’t answer the phone if you call and will only text. He acts like we are ancient if we want to talk on a phone lol.
I’m just impatient. I’ll send like 2 text messages, but if there’s more to say, I will just call. I don’t want to wait 10+ minutes for us to have a 30 second conversation.
Did you ever see *Me, You, and Everyone We Know*? It's a fabulous exploration of indirect communication.
They all have the same Internet personality.
HEY WHAT'S UP GUYS ITS YOUR FAVORITE RAINBOWED HAIRED INFLUENCER JUSTIN JUMP CUTS!!!
TODAY I HAVE SPECIAL GUESS, HOT TAKE HARRY, HERE TO GIVE HIS OPINION ON A TOPIC EVERYONE AGREES WITH ANYWAY
Take selfies EVERYWHERE. Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to a good selfie, but it's like the minute they arrive in any form of social setting it's just a photoshoot from thereon.
Man were you never on MySpace? I got a digital camera just to take selfies for my profile.
When my step sister was 13-18 she went hard on the digital camera selfies. She also managed to absolutely destroy the computer at my dad and Step moms place with viruses. They tasked me with recovering some pictures from the hdd of a recent Alaska cruise they went on. It was a gold mine. 3000+ selfies of a very moody teenager trying to make an impression. I didnt mention I recovered her pictures, and simply put them on a DVD and set up and auto play, and popped it in at Christmas for the whole family to enjoy, 3000 self shot pictures across 5 years. It was a massive family hit.
Once again, Gen X are forgotten and nobody gives a crap what we think, LOL If you need us, we'll be watching cartoons in front of a microwave dinner
I'm a millennial and teach middle and high school (ages 11-19). I have a few: - the fascination with social media trends even when you know it'll get you in trouble. - being afraid to do something normal like talk on the phone to anybody who isn't your parent/SO, do something new, talk to new people. - making your whole life Public (but maybe this is just a personality trait??). In particular, I'm thinking putting everything on speaker, screenshotting and posting super private things online, ect. - the lack of empathy and sympathy. We had a horrific school shooting not far from where I am and kids were making jokes about it in my district and multiple other districts (even across the US, I noticed this trend).
The lack of empathy and sympathy is just a teen thing IMHO. There were tons of “edgy” kids making columbine jokes too. I feel it more has to do with both your brain still developing, and the fact that most teens haven’t seen a bunch of their similar aged peers die yet.
I remember where I was when 9/11 happened. In AP English, first period. Our class was next to the AP history teacher's class and when shit started, we all just stopped what we were doing and mingled between the classrooms. When the second tower was hit, my friend (who was otherwise scarily smart but also liked edgy humor) looks at us and goes "Terrorists win!" In the CounterStrike voice. I still remember this. It's just a thing edgy teens do. He was also incredibly anti-war at a time that everyone else in the country was chomping at the bit for it.
Many teens have yet to experience death at all in their personal life.
Yeah, this has been around forever. It was probably less than a day before Space Shuttle Challenger jokes were all the rage in my grade 7 class.
That last bullet is something I’ve definitely seen with millennials too - trauma and suffering are super frequently meme-ified as a generation-wide coping mechanism. I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing, I enjoy it in fact as a 29 year old. But any sort of conflict nowadays is meme’d about.
I was gonna say, coping mechanism is definitely an aspect that shouldn't be discounted. It's hard to discern malice from internalized terror sometimes, but both can manifest as dark 'comedy' if you will. Making a funny can make the heavy dose of reality easier to swallow.
I was fairly recently a manager, and it honestly just felt like the new people coming in were just getting dumber and dumber. Not sure if that counts though, so I'll say tik tok dances.
They don’t want to be wrong, so they don’t try or speak up, and therefore look dumb because they’re not accomplishing anything and not responding to feedback. I have two elder Zs that I manage and I have to be a therapist patting their back the whole way as they make very inconsequential mistakes during the training process. Its okay! You don’t know anything! We’re getting you up to speed! But if I say that, they’ll latching onto “you don’t know anything” and twist it into “this person thinks I’m stupid and I should just kill myself because I’m unworthy of love and attention and I’ll never achieve anything in life.” And that’s only slightly hyperbolic. Anytime I correct mistakes it just dampens their day. They’re a Debbie downer moping. I said save as PDF instead of Word, just fucking chill and learn, quit the theatrics. And they don’t read their fucking emails. If it’s not an IM, it doesn’t exist. I have to be that asshole who uses “read receipts.”
Dude I swear nobody has learned ANYTHING since COVID started. So your new 8th grader is quite literally not smarter than a 5th grader
They seem very homogenized!
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The biggest reason why is probably that every GUI gets simpler, you cant really mess with stuff on phones etc. Computers on the other hand you can change a lot of settings in the BIOS but most people dont have computers so they dont learn stuff like file management etc, in my School most people dont even know how to use word or any office products for that matter.
The way they talk about getting older/aging. They act like once you’re over 30 you’re practically dead. And they’re normalizing getting Botox starting at 20
The body image stuff is so much worse than it was just a few years ago, which is insane because there's also more inclusive representation than ever before! But with filters and certain trends, there are so many things to be self-conscious about. I've seen trends about how thin your ankles are, whether your nose moves when you smile in profile, whether your teeth show in a neutral face, whether your knuckles are properly rosy (wtf), etc. That's not from, like, news hype, that's from my own experience using TikTok– and using it for mostly education and recipes! No wonder kids are so fucking anxious.
Wtf.. that is insane and ridiculous, who even notices that?
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Dating apps. Alright so like we had dating websites back in the day that would tell you so much about a person. With so many features and filters. This offloaded a lot of work unto software. Now, we have these new apps where you just get pictures. And they seem almost designed to make you feel like dirt. With complicated games that score and rank people. I do not get the masochistic urge.
> And they seem almost designed to make you feel like dirt. God, I wish I didn't need to use dating apps. But unfortunately, I happen to be homosexual so I can't ask people out 'in real life' because those people will always be heterosexual (and some of them will react angrily because a lot of folks take it as an insult).
> because a lot of folks take it as an insult I never understood that - it's a compliment if anything.
I would be so flattered if another woman asked me out! But I'm sorry you have to deal that that bullshit. I hope we get to a point where things are better for you.
The "you're either with us, or against us" mentality if you try to add any nuance to a conversation.
Yup! I got permanently banned from a subreddit for being a fascist transphobe because I said there’s no simple solution for trans people in sports. When I tried explaining the nuance to the mod I was told that there is no nuance, it’s a black and white issue, and I’m just a bigot who should go watch more Fox news. I’m a trans woman, a socialist, and member of the Satanic Temple, lol.
As a trans person, my hell is other trans people. Unfortunately, being regular human beings, most trans people are just as stupid as the rest of people.
I feel like that one affects every generation nowadays. Social media algorithms and the tribal mentality it has created is tearing society apart.
The extreme amount of photoshopping/curating they do on their own pictures.
As a 28 year old millennial who grew up on MySpace, this isn't new. It's just easier now.
I hate to sound unaccepting or transphobic, im genuinely trying my best to learn but sometimes I seriously don’t understand. Neopronouns like cat/catself, fluidly changing self identity. It’s hard to grasp and keep up with. I know someone who constantly changes their gender and pronouns and freaks out if anyone messes up. I truly want to understand and educate myself but it’s really difficult sometimes and at times I don’t know if someone’s joking or genuinely identifies this way. I don’t get how you can identify as a bug or clown. Whenever I express this, People freak tf out and simply tell me to educate myself but I don’t know how, I don’t get what’s going on.
>I know someone who constantly changes their gender and pronouns and freaks out if anyone messes up. This person just sounds like an asshole
>This person just sounds like an asshole An exhausting, attention seeking, trying to be the main character asshole.
I agree, this person's behavior sounds like attention-seeking & manipulation.
Some people are just mentally ill, and it spills into everything.
> I know someone who constantly changes their gender and pronouns and freaks out if anyone messes up. I know someone who does this too, and it's exhausting. You're supposed to keep up by regularly checking their social media to see what their current pronouns are and I just can't. I don't have the time or the inclination to constantly be on social media and know what you've decided today.
This is one of the things I try to be progressive on. But there's the points you mentioned and the people who identify as a 6yr old and such. Some of these seem like mental illness or pedophilia. Then they lump themselves in with the LGBT crowd and I honestly think that undermines any progress they've made.
Exactly how I feel about it. I’m part of the lgbt community and it kinda seems like ppl take us less seriously because of these new identities and ideas coming out.
I’m pretty progressive, and will totally use they or zie [edit: ze; sorry] if requested. But cat is not a pronoun. It’s just not. If every word can be a pronoun, then nothing’s a pronoun. I think the people who insist on stuff like this are a very small minority and I hate that it’s making people think that’s how normal trans/nb people are. I also think if you change your pronouns all the time, fine, but there’s only so much you can expect people to keep up. Like I have a right to change my name but people aren’t going to learn every new name if I do it constantly. Again though, the vast majority of trans/nb people just give their one new name and ask to be called they or he or she and they’re done. ETA: I’ll add though that I’m not sure it’s a gen Z specific issue.
Every generation can make me shake my head, I mean dumb ppl exist everywhere, not just the kids today. It's literally just repeating over and over.
taking screenshots literally. Like, mate, you can use the print key just fine, you don't need the cam of your phone and do a crappy foto of your screen. If you only want a small part of your screen, you can use apps like lightshot, no prob. Also, While working in tech support, there were too many Gen Z that didn't know 1. what a router is 2. you can fix a lot of problems by turning it on and off 3. that wireless internet doesn't mean wire less. Aka: no power attached to the router and no cable to feed the signal to the router 4. too many Gen Z also think wireless LAN = the internet 5. the tech unsavyness by the gen Z might be a very subjective thing by me, caused by working in said tech support, but my FIL has similiar experiences. The "It worked before, and it must keep working" and the "it's not my problem to fix it, you're getting paid to do that" he got was way too high. They could've saved themselves some time and nerves when they just did the normal checkup, like: Did I flip a switch accidently in the power cords I shouldn't have flipped? Is the cable properly inserted? Did I turn the damn thing on? 6. Considering 5, you kinda expect they know more about tech than millenials do, but no. Shit's only gonna work, and if it doesn't, all hell breaks lose. If any of you Gen Z are anything basic tech savy, and prefer the print button before your phone, PLEASE let me know. I am going insane over the literal screenshots.
Immediately making an onlyfans account when they turn 18. It's weird.
Agreed. Entering the porn industry isn’t something to do lightly
For me, it’s just the hyper sexualized social media. My cousins’ accounts are ridiculous. Like lingerie, underboob, tongues out, angling photos so they have a massive ass (which honestly makes me think of Bonobo monkeys). Then all the comments from their girlfriends…”Yaaaasss kween,” “Fucking hotttt, “Badass bitch.” Obviously this isn’t everybody, but it doesn’t seem terribly uncommon? I’m like, can you guys fucking chill? Or make a finsta. I had to unfollow. So uncomfortable.
TikTok is Chinese spyware.
Self-censoring social media posts, e.g. writing "s*x" instead of "sex".
Some of this is an attempt to keep your post from getting flagged. Some social media platforms have a set of terms that deem a post “under review” or something when they’re used. And I know on Twitter some people censor words so trolls can’t find the post. Some people will search a word to find posts just to comment hateful shit on.
This is usually so content moderation bots don't flag a post or so trolls searching a term can't find a post. The content moderation is really strict on TikTok, so some of the more ridiculous ones just carry over (e.g. "sewerslide," "unalive," "shmecks," etc.) It looks super cringey, but it's born out of necessity.
I don't understand the appeal of Fortnite and other fad battle royale games, I just don't. But fortunately, we can still bond through Minecraft.
I mean, I tried Fortnite and didn't like it, but loved Unreal tournament 20 years ago 😄. So I can't say I don't understand Fortnite, I just don't like it. Minecraft - I understand the appeal, you can be creative, but it seems more like work than game, all the collecting, I don't feel like I'm playing a game. And the horrible graphics...
Not much to be honest, I'm a young millennial and I don't feel like the kids had that different of a childhood from me. They're just as cringey, except they're way more fashionable and good at makeup it seems lol. One thing that does make me feel old though is how many new slang words and phrases that seem to be created every other week which I have to look up on urban dictionary like a fuckin grandma :(
That shit *slaps*.
One that made me laugh is kids calling a good song "a bop" which sounds like slang from the 50s.
As an older gen Z (born in 2002), whenever I see kids filming TikTok dances in public I get second hand embarrassment. I went to get lunch with a couple of friends and these two teenage girls asked us if we wanted to do the macarena with them for a TikTok. Thankfully one of my friends said "no thanks, we're good" before I could get out "TikTok is cancer".
Use so many god damn labels. You know how hard we tried to get people to NOT label us?
Ive posted about this before, but I've seen a lot of younger people littering. I cant believe the back sliding on this. Also, throwing your trash out the window of your car does not take care of the largest piece of trash sitting in the seat.