As a Millennial, I’ve worn Gen Z’s jibes with a smile. But this goes too far

What feels a little different with the Gen Z/Millennial dynamic is when Gen X – who remain suspiciously unscathed in the generational spats – enter the equation.

By contrast to Gen Z, when I was in my early 20s, I can honestly say the number of times my friends and I sat around dissecting the way our Gen X counterparts danced, dressed and decorated their homes was a grand total of zero.

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Millennials’ beef has always been with Boomers (and vice versa, for that matter). This is a generational clash that, at least from an economic standpoint, seems understandable. When Millennials came of age, Baby Boomers were our parents, our bosses, the politicians who had all the power and all the investment properties. They told us we were snowflakes who couldn’t afford homes because we bought too much avocado toast, while we told them they had ruined, well, everything.

“Underneath the Millennials versus Boomers wars were some really big questions about how the economy and society works,” says Woodman. Because of this, Gen X and Millennials were essentially in cahoots in railing against the power of Boomers, and, as a result, Gen X were never on Millennials’ radars the way we now are for Gen Z.

As content creator Coco Mocoe said of Gen Z’s “obsession” with Millennials: “I almost feel like it would be a fair fight if Millennials were going after Gen Z, but it’s kind of just a one-sided beef.”

Obviously, social media has a lot to answer for in all of this. Not just in the way trends and hot takes circulate so rapidly, but also the nature of each generation’s place within digital spaces.

For a time, Millennials dominated social media usage. Where we were the first generation to have it, Gen Z are the first to grow up with it being a permanent fixture, and also the first to take ownership of the digital landscape from another.

Perhaps this is just a natural changing of the digital guards, and because it didn’t exist between previous generations, it feels odd. Or maybe it’s just time for Millennials to get off TikTok and stop trying to make fetch happen (if you know, you know). Now please excuse me while I have a little lie-down under my sage-green throw.

Emily McGrorey is a freelance writer and podcaster.