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Recounting a maxim a friend and I came up with on the subway home:
Whatever you could call "Gen Z" is cleaved in two: were you first online on forums or were you first online on social media? If you are the former, you are something else, not quite millennial, attuned to it, but somewhere in between - a category not worth considering? If you were first online on social media? Call it a "generation" (though we should resist generational characterization in general!)
Sep 20, 2024
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Seriously tho, for those born in '96... are we millenials or gen z?
asking for a friend.
Feb 13, 2025
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this is all super off the cuff but i think the "rise" of snark is also possibly partially due to:
-covid isolation depriving all of us of a normal level of gossip-producing social interaction and opportunities for petty gossip, so some people sought it out on the internet, see also the rise of podcasts like normal gossip
-as the digital panopticon has increased (eg., tiktoks people make of strangers?? in public??), our own reflexive self-critique and awareness has increased. being in online forums where people have some level of anonymity allows them to feel a level of escape from this and succumb to the behaviors that they now fear doing in public spaces. AND we cant ever really escape the judgments of the panopticon (plenty of which are aesthetic or normative judgments rather than moral ones) so people in these anonymous spaces still turn to the same judgments
-last thought is even more underbaked than the others but i think there's something to the younger generations being the first ones who grew up with influencers as part of the culture since adolescence
May 9, 2024
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irony and a lack of sincerity seems to be a big part of how a lot of gen z seems to operate. you have to be nonchalant, you can't be too excited about something because that's cringe, but when someone makes an account being cringe ironically that's funny, and this commitment to the bit is very important- this leads us to meta-irony. and I can't hate much, I've been known to laugh at these things too
the cynicism is, at least in the perspective of an american zoomer, due to the state of things in the country/planet. at my high school, we were encouraged to go to college in STEM fields because that's more financially stable but now people with those degrees can't find employment, and that's happening with every degree. entry level jobs are requiring experience- like buddy, you are the experience. and when you're working minimum wage after college outside of your field with student loan debt, you're watching the housing crisis and knowing you'll be a renter forever. and you're also watching the climate crisis and trying to enjoy the planet before you're swept up by a tornado or get dust pneumonia or get hit by a hurricane. and you're watching our current administration take us into authoritarianism and some people are even happy that they have a dictator now. scary and uncertain times lead to the level of cynicism that we have finally reached and I worry for the generations following ours, especially seeing how the alt-right has been exploiting the growing cynicism in our generation
Mar 21, 2025
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so much to talk about, the sunglasses, the scarf, the fresh baguette and coffee, the always lovely cafe setting. I think this is the most swag ever captured on camera I aspire to be at this level
Feb 11, 2024
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alright hear me out: carbonation and coffee with a squeeze of orange shouldn’t work, but it does. Been making them daily and i feel a lot better in the morning each time i do
Mar 7, 2024
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the greatest love song of the 21st century??? wait…. They don’t love you like I love you
Feb 25, 2024