Mock, Mimic, Or Monetize
The 3 Reactions to Gen Z and Why They're All Predictable
Hi there,
People are losing their minds thinking and talking about Gen Z.
What do these kids want in life? What’s their preferred brand of churan? Why are they so stupid?
Born between 1997 and 2012, this generation is the subject of endless debate, scrutiny, and conversations the world over.
When you analyse closely, there are 3 dominant attitudes that people hold towards this generation.
Here are some news articles about Gen Z. More specifically, these are about how:
a) They prefer spending a lot more than before
b) They go on credit-fueled binges like fools
c) How they’re not “hard working” anymore and how they keep asking for more me-time
Oh, wait. These aren’t about Gen Z. They’re about millennials.
While these articles aren’t full of acidic vitriol, they’re sanitised versions of the conversations that happen in meeting rooms, restaurants, and the office staircase- the mecca of extreme, no holds barred corporate bitching.
The kind of things people say about Gen Z- lack of work ethic, spending like it’s the last day of their life, wanting to buy crap they can’t afford, having “different priorities”- have all been said before, but for millennials.
History rhymes. We’ve seen this movie before.
And this is the idea of intergenerational contempt —a constant in human history.
The next generation is always a little more weird, a little more stupid, a bit too lax, a lot less traditional. Gen X said this about millennials, and now millennials have picked up the baton and are fulfilling their duty towards the next gen by verbally blasting them into oblivion.
This is the ‘mock’ part of the equation.
It occurs not only because of different worldviews between the old and new gen (driven by the different social, economic, and technological environments they’ve grown up in), but it’s also probably fuelled by envy.
When you’re balding, have a giant pot belly and a non-existent sex life and you watch the new kid on the block roaming around with a girlfriend, wearing cool sneakers you could never dream of, and rocking earpods that you still aren’t comfortable using, it does provoke a certain sense of envy, a yearning for the same good times of the youth, and a bitter reminiscence of the life that’s been lost.
The funny fact is that the cool dude you saw is also going to go through the same process of receding hairlines and expanding waistlines very soon, so they don’t deserve any of the contempt just because they’re having their time in the sun.
This brings me to the 2nd dominant attitude towards Gen Z: mimicking the shit out of them.
Because they’re the ones latching on to and setting new trends, and because the young and sexy decide what’s “cool” in society, some people from the old gen also make attempts to copy them.
To stay in touch with the times, to retain the sense that they can “keep up”, that they aren’t old-ass uncles (which a single look at the mirror confirms without a shred of doubt).
Vibing with the young guns, using their silly slang, copying their habits is a good way to feel young once again, and to defy the rising tide of old age.
This is why, while a large section of the crowd finds safety in mockery, contempt, and ridicule, there are always those rare, passionate souls who find solace in copying the new and “adapting”.
It makes them feel good, and may even earn a smile or two per year from their Gen Z daughter who finds this charade slightly odd but cute at the same time (Okay, tbh, it seems quite pathetic, but they deserve points for trying).
And finally, we have the 3rd dominant attitude: monetize.
This is what marketers, advertisers, and the C-suite care about.
They may privately harbour either of the aforementioned attitudes, but publicly, they have a much bigger incentive: make sense of this weird new breed of kids so you can sell them crap they don’t need and make money hand over fist.
That’s why they care about Gen Z. And that’s why you see endless media reports, op-eds, and panel discussions on “Decoding the Gen Z Mindset” or building a brand that “Gen Z loves”.
They all want a deeper share of the kiddo's wallet, and they want to lock up these souls in their corporate money-making machinery for life.
None of these attitudes is new. They’ve always existed, and humans have always reacted in the same ways when a new generation, growing up in a different world, started doing things differently. The attempts at corporate capture of the new gen’s wallets might be just a few centuries old, but the rest of the patterns are as old as time.
Here’s the interesting thing, though.
I feel these attitudes all feed into each other and create a fascinating dynamic.
At the end of the day, the message is clear. There’s nothing new about Gen Z and attitudes towards them at a macro level.
Instead of simply falling into just one of these camps, it’d be better to harbor a different mindset: one of compassion and curiosity.
These forces won’t abate, but let those not be the only ways to look at the new generation.
Born and raised in a different world than previous ones, they’re bound to exhibit different behaviours and harbour different attitudes. We’ve already seen this trend play out in the West as people got richer over the decades.
What each new gen needs is a bit of understanding, because many of their behaviours are shaped by forces beyond their control.
Gen Z isn’t the first to be mocked, mimicked, and monetized — and they won’t be the last. But maybe we can be the first to respond with curiosity, not contempt.
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