Is Gen Z Cleaning up the Mess?
This is part of a series on Gen Z
Much has been written on the clash between millennials and their boomer parents. Boomers blame millennials for ruining things, millennials blame boomers. Millennials have coined a pejorative dismissal of boomer opinion. Boomers have shot back. Make that two. This is harmless banter, but it manifests in real conflict.
This is untenable. Scapegoating societal ills with blanket generalizations merely exacerbate said ills. Millennials should take an introspective look. Millennials have inadvertently had a significant impact themselves, and they have not improved on what boomers handed down to them. Millennials have adopted the worst aspects of boomers, while introducing worse aspects still.
Gen Z has inherited problems from both millennials and boomers.
Neoliberalism
Boomers rally against socialism, but ultimately benefit from big government. Gen Z and millennials are more pro-free trade than baby boomers, but boomers are more pro-small government. Because of the boomer squeeze of medicare, Millennials don’t have the luxury of paid healthcare in retirement and aren’t guaranteed a retirement at all.
Millennials are both pro-free trade, and pro-big government. Gen Z is taking after them in this regard. Unfortunately, the pandemic has exposed the downside to both, as the virus made its way around the neoliberal world, prompting governments to enact heavy handed authoritarian restrictions. Small businesses have been crushed, but big corporations have become bigger. Neoliberalism, taken to its most dystopian end.
Gen Z will solve these problems with entrepreneurship.
Sex in the City
Millennials can be boiled down to two obsessions: sexuality and urban environments. Both are related to neoliberalism.
Gen Z has grown up in a society obsessed with sex, sexuality, and with access and exposure to pornography since a young age, thanks to millennials and boomers. Boomers had the sexual revolution thanks to a liberal sexual market, “free love.” The 70s saw the mainstreaming of pornography Playboy, no-fault divorce, the pill, and obviously the shift in attitude. The Vietnam War removed a significant proportion of US males from the dating market, leaving the remaining males a surplus of women. Millennials had no such favorable marketplace, contending with a surplus of males. Millennial males entered adulthood under boomer counsel, performing 1960s courtship behaviors. Millennial women were inundated with attention, both positive and negative. They responded with fourth wave feminism, resulting in strict Title IX additions, #MeToo, and intersectionality.
Gen Z females are entering a similarly flooded marketplace, with the added burden of millennial as well as Gen Z males. Gen Z males get the short end of the stick here, though both males and females are having less sex, in lieu of porn and masturbation.
Millennials invented Tinder, which gave rise to dating apps, which Gen Z have a love/hate relationship with. Dating apps were initially quite useful for everyone, but changed their business models and with it, skewed the dating scene in favor of women. Millennial and Gen Z women have not benefitted from the dating market being in their favor.
The millennials’ uncomfortable relationship with sex has resulted in a lack of marriage, and a decline in families with children. Gen Z has seen a decline in teenage pregnancy, and it is left to be seen if they will have more kids than millennials. The resulting population decline will affect Gen Z.
Gen Z is abstemious, suggesting sex education influenced by evangelicalism has succeeded. Will it translate into younger marriages? Gen Z wants to get married, but after seeing the destruction no-fault divorce wreaked on boomers and Gen X, don’t want the government to get involved.
Millennials, until 2020, preferred cities for their density and proximity to employment and other agemates. Urban living has defined millennial culture. Urban dwelling, especially on the coasts, has contributed to the startup boom. On the other hand, millennial urban residence has contributed to gentrification and a dilution of various city culture. Gentrification has caused housing prices to skyrocket, which has discouraged millennials from starting families.
The pandemic may chase millennials to the suburbs, but Gen Z aims far beyond that. Gen Z has embraced escapism in various forms — i.e. video games — but as a rebukement of millenial urbanism, and especially boomer suburbanism, Gen Z dreams of isolation.
____________-Washing
How do boomers win over millennials?
Easy! Virtue signaling! Woke-washing, greenwashing, pinkwashing etc.
Millennials cozy up to brands. When millennials were in middle and high school, brand names were all the rage. Emblazoning t-shirts, jeans, and shoes with the hottest brands was how they showed your fashion sense. Now that they’re adults, millennials may be willing to pay more for their preferred brands. It’s why they rally against Wall Street but elect the president that bailed out banks, or oppose police brutality and elect a president that contributed to the incarceration epidemic. Millennials care not for genuine commitment, but for moral superiority.
Gen Z risks repeating Gen Y’s mistake. However, Gen Z doesn’t want to be defined by any brand other than their own. They want to celebrate their own independence, and they use social media to find communities where they feel they belong. Gen Z has shown to have a far keener nose for ersatz than millennials, and is not afraid to put pressure on companies to be honest. Gen Z’s individualism does not permit association with brands that are poor reflections on their selves, so brands must be fully genuine and committed to the greater good.
Rebelling against Parents
Millennials took after their boomer (hippie) parents in their rebelliousness. Unfortunately, this has meant they’ve been swept up into radical movements that have not accomplished anything, in the name of resisting boomers. Boomers had a rebellious streak themselves back in the 60s of course, so there’s a bit of irony there. Corporations have since learned how to coop such movements, hence the _________-washing discussed above.
By contrast Gen Z is very family oriented. They have a better relationship with their parents, who may either be boomers or Gen-X, and their resistance movements are less against their parents than against entrenched institutions they view as detrimental.
Secularism
Millennials resisting their parents also resulted in estrangement from religion. Gen Z has bifurcated. There are twice as many atheists among Gen Z as millennials. Yet there are also more churchgoing Gen Z than millennials. Millennials have not shown that rejection of religion leads to more productive belief systems. Gen Z seems to be finding solace in astrology. As millennials age, they will likely return to church to find company, especially after these shutdowns. Religion will change, and that’s good.
Academia
One thing millennials have done Gen Z is grateful for is the student loan crisis. Millennials have shown Gen Z degrees don’t make you smart, and degrees do not necessarily have a good ROI. Gen Z may skip college altogether.
