I mean, the other thing is: I promise only some of Gen-Z hate it. They are, of course, the ones who complain at us! But they’re . . . not all of Gen-Z.
Because trust me I know a LOT of Gen-Z kids who find it a huge fucking relief. I mean it’s also scary, and I think that’s a lot of why the ones who do hate it hate it, because what we’re basically telling them is a terrifying truth:
- The older X (and yes, Xers reading me, I had to tell you this, but it is indeed some of your generation at this point, purely by numbers, sorry, that’s how it works) and Boomers who are acting like they have it figured are also lying and no, you really never will Have It All Figured Out. And the people in charge of you right now don’t have it figured out (or at least, aren’t guaranteed to have it figured out.)
- You’re gonna be us in a few years and you’re gonna feel EXACTLY the same as you do now!
For some people, they fucking hate this truth. They hate the idea that they will never feel more secure than they do now (or that we think that if they do, they’re as deluded as the people we think are assholes now), etc.
But quite a LOT of young people are like OH THANK GOD I THOUGHT I WAS DOING SOMETHING WRONG? And like no, honey: it’s always like this.
You do get a slightly better idea of what’s going on. You start gaining skills and experience. And in some ways you don’t even NOTICE when you’ve levelled up. I was talking to a coworker the other day about how I’m frustrated by some of the disorder in our workspace in the current crisis, but at the same time I’m kinda like . . . well one of my CoOp jobs when I was 20 was “hey I know we brought you here to work under supervision on a photography and document organizing project but actually we’ve just received notification we’re on floodwatch so you have to help us pack up the museum in the next couple weeks and by the way this collection is curated and cared for by us but all the pieces are owned by the families and lineages of the community and some of them are hundreds of years old and all are priceless and you have to lead this and be in charge of our volunteers bc everyone else is still overwhelmed with what they’re trying to do” . . . .
. . . and that didn’t kill me! And the skills and experience of the situation meant that I’m like welp at least I’m not doing THAT right now . . .
But you won’t recognize that as “suddenly being more competent/aware/secure”, a lot of the time, it’ll just be part of your experience and you won’t realize necessarily that suddenly you’re doing things that would have totally OVERWHELMED YOU ten years ago?
And that will be your entire life.
And anyone who tells you differently is literally a fucking liar.
And what’s even more is it’s never been different: talking with not just Boomers but Silent-Gen and Greatest-Gen people I love, this is literally what humanity has always been like, what life and aging and growing up and becoming “an adult” has always been like but before now we spent an awful lot of time fibbing about it because it was scary. Or because it would make us look bad. Or because there would genuinely be consequences to not looking like you had it all figured out.
Like no: your gramma or great gramma probably wasn’t actually “ready” to move into her own house and run it as an adult and Handle Everything when she was 20 and just married and pregnant and suddenly A Grown Up. She faked it a lot. Even if she was settled on some things I promise there was other shit she was like AHHHH!!!! AHHHHH!!! and calling HER mom to ask for help (or sometimes royally fucking up) and panicking all over the place.
Same with your granddad and great granddad.
The biggest change with millennials was, in fact, that a critical mass of us went “fuck it I don’t CARE I’m Talking About This”, and we did it in communication ways (the internet, social media) that are largely public rather than private and we refuse to be ashamed of it.
And I for one honestly think that’s pretty sexy of us because the faking is bullshit and moreover the bullshit leads us to do stupid shit because we can’t admit we don’t know what we’re doing. And the stuff we DO know how to do . . . we do.
And sure there are SOME kids who find this obnoxious, because let’s face it there are always some kids who find some of what people older than them are doing obnoxious because that’s part of being their age. And there are some who find it obnoxious because it’s scary. And so on. And those are the ones who complain at us about it.
But trust me when I say there are actually a LOT of them that are like “oh, oh god, okay, you know what if my older friend/my cool relative/my mom (yes, even parents are millennials now, ph34r us) feels like that but also manages to be, you know, an adult, maybe I can do that.”
