#genzennial

[loz37]

Well this has happened.

[thingsidonethunked]

You know what fills me with absolute despair?

The fact that, to get a job, I need to already have experience and skills for it.

Which sounds reasonable

Until you realise that EVERYWHERE is asking you to already have the skills but NOWHERE is prepared to teach you them.

[undeniablemistake]

Gen z really grew up with a movie about a hot bee and now they are judged for simping on anonymous and Willy Wonka

[eldritchhorrorsandspiraldoo-blog]

I just realized that I would make the perfect rogue.

No, hear me out. By today's standards I'm basically nonexistant.

Nonbinary, asexual, and a genzennial.

No one knows what to call me (thanks waffling on pronouns)

No one knows my sexual preferences ('you mean you're straight but don't the sex?' 'How can I be straight if I'm nb?' 'Bi?' 'What if I like nothing and no one?' 'Aro?' 'Ehhh... mostly?')

And no one is sure if they treat me like a millennial or a gen z. (Do I want to blame gen x and boomers for my shitty time in life? Do I want to cow the patriarchy? Do I want to start up my own business involving lemons? Who knows)

[vacuously-true]

The Wikipedia article for millennials notes different authors and organizations as using a variety of years between 1995 and 2004 as the end of the generation. I was born pretty near the middle of that range so by plenty of definitions, I am a millennial, and by plenty of definitions, I'm not. Regardless of the years, I fit traits of both the millennials and generation z, both good and bad. The most exhausting thing though, is people telling me I'm definitely in one group, and me saying okay and turning around and someone else telling me I'm definitely in the other group.

And I know that's the experience of a lot of people born in that range. So if you're like me, and you have experienced confusion at people complaining about millennials not having jobs or living with their parents when you were in high school or college but thought you were a millennial, or experienced confusion at people talking about gen z as a bunch of aspirational kids when you were already an adult and maybe not even a teenager anymore but thought you were gen z, I've got a proposition.

We call ourselves genzennials.

And we don't define ourselves by birth year or stage of life or any experience other than the experience of the people on the edge of a generational shift, being asked or even forced to choose between identifying with cohorts on average much more and much less mature than themselves. We won't choose. Because

We can't

We shouldn't have to

The line is fuzzy

And made up anyway

It's better that we own that we are both

And also neither

We're the bridge, the glue between the millennials and gen z

In all of the worst ways

And in all of the best.

So. Genzennials?

The loosely defined intergenerational and extragenerational champions of nuance and compromise? Who's with me?

[vacuously-true]

Having grown up basically on the internet, my dialect is kinda Central-Illinoisan, kinda broadly Midwestern, kinda broadly American, even kinda broadly international English. So this quiz to figure out where you're from based on how you talk... Basically has no idea what to do with me.

I took these four tests within the same twenty minutes. It gave me a slightly different set of questions each time and if there were multiple answers I could have truthfully selected I chose randomly each time. It tried. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This is the average of those four maps, adjusted back to the original color gradient for consistency.

[genzennialfriends]

Phoebe Buffay

The longer you know her, the crazier the lore gets:

She speaks fluent French and everyone finds out when she’s randomly approached by tourists.

Identical twin sister? Oh yeah, she works as a waitress over in the next borough.

Didn’t you know she was homeless as a teenager and that’s why she knows how to use a switchblade? (Sorry about that mugging, Ross.)

She’s a registered massage therapist, a strict vegan, and lives with her grandmother in a rent controlled apartment. Loves plants. Lived with Monica until they realized they couldn’t live together due to their vastly different cooking and cleaning philosophies. Her close friendship with Ross is baffling until you realize that they like to get high together on the weekends and that she is subconsciously trying to make up for mugging him all those years ago. (Again, sorry!)

[genzennialfriends]

Ross Geller

The elder child (and only son) of a tiger mom, he did good - sort of. He’s got a phd, so he’s not that kind of doctor, but it’s pretty close! He’s a post-doc researcher making an ok living, had some articles published, got married at the right age, and everything was going great… until his wife came out.

Now he’s crashing on his old college roommate’s couch and lamenting about how he has to start a new Netflix profile because his ex kicked him off hers. He smokes weed with Phoebe on the weekends.