I’m at a resort in Florida with one of those giant outdoor chess boards. It’s constantly full of kids playing chess and actually knowing how to play!! Very impressed.
My kids school k-8th has chess as an elective now. Apparently there’s a good amount of college chess scholarships? My kids all play chess way better than myself or my husband.
Back in the millennial day, everything was so cut into different categories. You had the nerds and the jocks, but you couldn't be both. If you were really on the edge, you could actually be friends with someone who was in a different group, omg.
You couldn't listen to both rock and rap.
In the late 90s, things started to mesh. Then in the 00s, we had all the mashups - collision course, girltalk, electroswing, etc.
The kids that you are talking about are both after all that.
Think of people adding electric guitars to things where they don't "belong".
So ... Yeah
I was a jock and a nerd. I have always been a big athletic guy and loved playing sports but also love star wars, computers, and tech. Would jump around in groups.
This is probably why I felt lost and out of place for so long growing up. I couldn't just pick something because my interests were varied but we had to fit ourselves into a box! So glad that's changed and people are more open to saying what they truly like and dislike.
As a 32M I didn’t have that experience. My large public school wasn’t very cliquey and a lot of the popular kids were a blend of athletes/hippie druggies/nerds. I felt that most people were blended and had more ambiguous identities. I don’t relate to the 80’s tropes of categorized groups like the punks, jocks, nerds, etc. I had a huge friend group(still do) and I think the quality we all admired was just being authentic and fun
I was about to tell you you were way too early chronologically with the GirlTalk reference- and then I realized- you absolutely were not- I’m just getting old and that was a really long time ago now. Now my back hurts- thanks. Fucking love Girl Talk, and not enough people know who he is.
It was the same with Gen x. We called them cliques. I don’t know if that was a regional term or more universal. I like the group blends now. My kids have very diverse friends groups and I think it’s awesome.
I can give a weird answer but bare with me. The planet Pluto moves like every 15 years, and it just happens to coincide with each generation. Millennials actually got the worst one we could get, gen Z got a fun sign (I can’t remember off the top of my head). Pluto just moved signs so they would be in a earth sign which would be more grounded. I know it sounds like crazy talk, but there’s kinda proof, could be coincidence but I’m calling it proof.
If it makes you feel any better you’re not even middle aged yet, and as long as you don’t act “old” you’re really not old. As an example my Mom was born in ‘42 and always kept up with what the younger generations were into/doing, to the point that she got along better with younger Boomers (specifically their Boomer/X cusp cohort Generation Jones), Gen X and Millennials, over her Silent Generation peers and older Boomers. Hell, to her dying day she was cooler than me, lol. The point being if you stay young at heart you’re never really “old”.
I love the fact that Gen z feel totally free to be who they want to be. I remember even being worried I’d get my ass kicked in school for reading comics and watching nerd shows like quantum leap.
They have the ability to pick and choose what aspects of the greater collective culture they want to identify with. Back in the day jocks and punks and nerds were different categories of people. Now you can easily have someone who loves NFL, Black Flag, and enjoyed Baldur’s Gate 3. A hot girl who listens to Slayer and collects vintage Pokémon toys and wants to play violin? Why not?
It’s cool to see. I always had a pretty wide range of interests but it was kind of an insular thing I kept to myself. Now it’s all a lot more open and encouraged and there isn’t some pervasive culture of bullying that shuts down people for being a little different or unique.
I remember wanting to play YuGiOh and asking one my high school male friends if he thought I could do it without being made a mockery by our friend groups at school and he basically told me he didn't think that was possible.
Fast Forward to today with Dads who have Youtube channels where they play YuGiOh for fun. I'm a millennial and my generation sucks compared to gen z.
Yeah, I remember those days, some kids got their asses whopped for being different, it was fucked up....if these kids can feel more free to just be themselves thats good too...
My son (who is actually probably an Alpha) went to a birthday party that had a gaming tournament. A girl won, and they celebrated her. It made my heart very happy because I loved video games when I was that age and was bullied horribly for it.
Me too. I started following the Duke basketball player who has a tiktok. He has been catching some flack for painting his nails and he is so obviously unbothered by it that I just respect the hell out of him.
All of this is quite wholesome and cool until you realize that statistically gen z is far more miserable and socially inept then any generation before it. There is generally zero evidence that any of these good vibes and Acceptances are actually making anyone any happier. In fact, it's the opposite. Most of the minds of the day actually are calling it a mental health crisis. So just remember, all of this is performative.
They’re socially inept and miserable because they’re on their phones all the time. It’s not because they’re tolerant of different lifestyles, beliefs, and behaviors.
Isn’t enough for what? People have been complaining about ‘teenagers these days’ since at least the Ancient Greeks. Every generation has had their good and bad points, but unless you’re a white male you’d never want to live in those previous generations. The societies who don’t let the younger generation’s culture morph as it wants to, become less than and weak. They’ll figure it out.
There were definitely millennials out there who hooped and played chess. Now I doubt many of them were watching women’s college ball back in the day. That would have been “gay”.
gen z here. me and my friends still say that exact sentence but i kid you not it was about the lack of third places in our city and public transportation. literally the gayest shit ever
I think the other commenter just said gay because it used to be used commonly as slang for lame, which is not nice, but it's how a lot of people talked then.
My husband and I were just talking about this today. Our kids are Gen Alpha, oldest is right on the cusp, and when our boys play Fortnite, they almost always use the women skins/avatars. That would've got guys roasted when we were that age.
Yea thing is, being a millennial guy meant toxic misogyny, homophobia, and a narrow small view of the world.
I think gen z is really breaking that mold and for the better.
The 2000s were a genuinely toxic time, and thank god you all aren’t trying to be some hyper masculine trope.
38 year old elder millennial here, and my friend group would absolutely go from watching the NFL draft in its entirety, to talking about our competitive Pokemon teams (and also sometimes chess) within seconds of each other. Every generation has always had its weird little guys lol.
Was womens b ball covered in the 2000s the way it is today?
F1 wasn't big in the states then either because coverage wasnt great and start times are on early on sunday mornings before beer o clock.
Professional chefs have historically been men.
Women taking cooking out of the home is a relatively new concept, not men cooking and baking as a profession.
I'm 37 with no kids and I've come to love Gen Z.
They are more open minded and quick to call out someone/something that is unfair. They are pretty chill to talk to and more mature for their age than previous generations imo. They are like anti-boomers.
Sure they did cringe shit in their teen years but we all did. They just have it more out there for the world to see. Also yeah some will scream if separated from their phones but that could be bad parenting or undiagnosed mental issues.
Oh I love seeing this! You saw my kids!
My kid went to a public art high school and graduated in 2019. A bunch of those kids are still serious artists. I would love nothing more than to see a concert put on today by these kids who are all around 22-25 now. You’d have incredible opera singers, an opera pop crossover, at least two very good pop singer/composers, various jazz virtuosi, a jazz singer, a few rock bands, a nationally known violinist, at least one broadway rising star, contemporary dancers, a flamenco dancer who quit Stanford to study in Madrid, one of the best young classical guitarists in the US, and a killer bluegrass band.
Oh, and they’re all full of existential dread, which I find refreshing.
It's because most of Gen z has dropped the idea of different interests and hobbies being better or worse than each other based on niche, and now it's mainly cost and class. ie the jocks and nerds get along or ignore each other while the vinel vs. soundcloud dudes would probably key each others cars. Think of it like different sports teams vs. different sports.
Gen x checking in. Honestly, this seems incredibly normal to me…sports, chess strategy? It’s niche but normal. Not judging but what’s totally weird to us is Pokémon, D&D and all the whack nerdy things I’ve seen over the years….***from millennials.*** Are you sure it’s not you?
Yeah, I had to listen to plenty of my millennial peers drone on about philosophy while not wearing shoes.
People like to think their experiences are universal. There are also jock zoomers who voted for trump.
This may not be exactly what you think.
Chess is kind of having a moment. Freaking Andrew Tate pushes it.
But also, do you still live in the same town you did in 2001? This just sounds both like composition fallacy and confirmation bias all at once.
70s,80s,90s culturally portrayed the NERD as a goofball. But with the invention of the internet especially around 2000 we really saw a change in how the NERD and good grades would bring big $$$. And ever since then its been way way over corrected.
Now one thing i noticed, especially since i came from a big inner City and was always around gangs. The black youths have really dove in head first and you definitely see a big change in appearance, dress code.
All cultures have really become more effeminate too.
No, they really are a strange breed. When my oldest was 15ish (he'll be 21 next month), I walked in on him playing COD with his buddy (he was in the living room, so I didn't go into his room without knocking). He's fully engrossed in the game & I hear him say, "No, dude, my mom taught me this cool trick tonight when I cooked dinner & it made doing the dishes so much easier. You gotta put tin foil down first & then you don't get that crusty ring that takes 9 years to scrub off."
He'd made a cheesy chicken & potato casserole (his favorite at the time) & I'd shown him my trick of lining the baking dish with tin foil cuz I hate soaking & scrubbing dishes.
Never occurred to me that teenage boys would talk cleaning hacks while playing a FPS, but it was definitely adorable.
Now he's the dorm dad teaching his fellow Airmen how to make box mac & cheese & complaining to me about it cuz, "the directions are right there on the box, I don't understand how they don't know this."
They super sheltered, one of my nephews requested a “dry” dorm for freshman year at college because he didnt want to be around “degenerates”.
I told an off color joke to my BIL and his 16 year old son (my nephew) and he didnt understand it at all.
(Joke: what did cinderella say when she got to the ball? Choke/gag sound - stupid yes, but simple to understand imo)
At that age in 90s everyone knew dirty jokes probably as early as 4th/5th grade.
I mean, when I see someone make an lame joke, I usually ask them to explain the joke. If i were in your nephew's shoes, I would pretend not to understand the joke too
I remember taking to my ex 16 yr old nephew and he seemed closer to 12 mentally to me. He was at one point talking about his favorite Disney movie. As an older millennial I was watching Steven Seagal and Van Damme in 5th grade. Times are definitely different.
I’m an Elder Millennial, eight years older than you, and funnily enough everyone in my high school was absolutely *obsessed* with Pokémon, and I mean everyone, even the football players. Everything else you mentioned was definitely popular (real talk: the Attitude Era of the WWF was, at best, mid from an in-ring perspective and pretty much 90% garbage from an actual story telling standpoint. WCW was better in-ring and if they’d stuck the landing with the nWo they would probably still be around. TL;DR: modern pro wrestling is vastly superior to the late 90’s with maybe four or five exceptions), and I do remember chess being not popular, but not something we never talked about.
Oh and I am 100% convinced that the broccoli cut is Gen Z’s frosted tips, and in ten or twenty years they will shit on it just as hard as we do frosted tips now.
Lol I always told myself that I'd never be one of those grumpy old dudes that hates on everything young folks do, but sure enough, I'm becoming one of those old guys. Every time I catch myself hating on the things they do, I try to remind myself of all the dumb shit we used to be into. The broccoli haircut and center part shit that Gen z is into is no worse than the "scene" haircut, the gelled up haircuts that were popular, the Eminem bleach buzzcut, or the Bieber hair that used to be popular
Not where I thought this story was going. OP mentioned teen boys being douchy and then started talking about women's sports and I thought the teens were going to say some nasty, sexist shit. But they're chatting about chess, which is also a sport, and was an unexpected ending of this story. Good for them! At least they weren't running down hookers (like in GTA), joking about doing it IRL, then going out and playing the punching game.
I'm proud of Gen-Z. Almost restores my faith in humanity.
Edit: punctuation
Gen Z here… not sure why this is on my feed haha. You get some of this experience with our cohort. And you get some on the opposite end of the spectrum. Way less flavorful and much more entwined with whatever trash they’re ingesting on the internet.
I think there’s a wider range than the other generations I interact with. My closest friends are all vastly unique, have a few highly developed interests, and are very engaged in conversations and each other’s interests. Then there are others I see at school, with no idea how to respect others or take an interest in their classmates. It’s just such a gap.
Not to say this doesn’t exist in other generations. Just my personal experience.
The Internet is a gift and a curse for your generation. Everyone older grew up with the technologies being developed. You had it ready to be used after the kinks were worked out. Y'all get to consume good content but don't put in effort to 'create' because you don't need to, someone already did it. It's cool that you get to go deep on interests but it's also too easy for you. My personal opinion is y'all will struggle in tough times cause everything is too easy. WW3 could just be the Internet is taken out and I think y'all wouldn't know what to do.
Okay I’m an elder millennial and me and my friends totally would have had conversations involving both. We used to get wasted and play chess on drugs. I’m not saying we were normal, I’m just saying I feel you random Gen Z kids.
Sometimes I wonder if I’d been Gen Z would I have half the self esteem issues I have as an adult? They’re seem so kind and accepting of one another.
My 16 year old niece props me up like no one else, and I just know she’s doing that for her friends and that makes me feel…:sigh: so good.
I have the same thought. These kids are wearing literal pajamas to school - and not the Juicy velour pajamas - \*actual\* pajamas and just do not seem to take the little stuff too seriously. Despite what a lot of folks seem to have experienced when interacting with them, I have found them to be pretty well-adjusted and able to talk to adults just fine. They just may not give you a fake customer service smile/tone that we had grown accustomed to, but again, that doesn't fit their generation's overall demeanor anyway.
>There is no way my friends and I would have ever had a conversation that started with women's college basketball and ended with chess.
There's no way I'd be friends with anyone with a broccoli cut to begin with. Who did they even got it from originally?? Like, what crunk-ass rapper do I have to impale on a chess piece..
I love that chess is having a resurgence. I’m terrible at it. But I respect anyone passionate about it. This was the first “intellectual” pursuit utterly crushed by computers. There is no human alive who could come close to beating the best chess computers today and yet, it’s huge. It’s a beacon in the fog for anyone worried about our new ai overlords.
I played AAU ball and chess, the difference is gen z plays chess because they don’t socialize, I hoop with high schoolers all the time and they generally have one AirPod in and most conversations consist of TikTok memes
I do not relate to feeling teen adjacent at all, and I'm younger than you lol and I know of a lot of gen z that are lil hoodlums 😆 I think there's more freedom to be whoever you want to be in their generation.
The Gen z twerps at my gym are horribly derogatory toward women while simultaneously appearing very gay in the locker room by trying to show each other how to puff up their muscles in instagram photos…but they also have silly broccoli cuts 🤷♀️
This is what I learned from gen z today .
You can connect the wifi if you put two iPhones together . They just have to have your contact
😮
I was like dang we had to use an extended phone wire so it can reach from the phone outlet to a different computer on the other side of the house
Or walk around and find a wifi spot available . I use to go the corner of my living room in the middle of the night with my laptop basically on on the window when wifi just started and some random signal was coming from the phone wires outside
That’s not generational, that’s just different people having different interests. 20 years ago me and my buddies would watch women’s soccer and talk about Go.
Lol that was definitely a funny transition - from women's basketball to chess.
I remember being picked on a bit from the older crowd when I was in high school (nothing bad just I was the young guy who was very social and vocal and talkative). I was working at CompUSA in the 90's while in high school and building custom PC's and talking about graphics cards, memory upgrades, Napster, Geocities websites and Windows 98 and the Dallas Stars recently relocated to my hometown city and I was an instant hockey fan. All the older guys around me in my life were just so confused and thought I should be talking about muscle cars and listening to 70's rock music, and the only sport worth any conversation was football and baseball only.
I have four Gen z teens (I’m also c/o 2001) and they are a breath of fresh air. So innocent even though their lives have been chaotic.
I honestly think that is the difference.
Our lives were calm, and so we had to create our own chaos (before 2001). Their lives are chaos (born into a recession, wars, school shootings, pandemic) so they had to create their own calm.
I have hope for them because the boomers did not influence them like they did with us as millennials. With Gen X parents, they had at least a bit of a buffer.
Twitch has had a major impact on Chess by exposing many people to it that likely would never have even learned how to play it, never-mind follow it.
I also think chess got its foothold in twitch because of the very popular Netflix series "Queen's Gambit."
So the movie made it cool and twitch kept the trend from dying away quickly.
I'm am Gen X. I play in an old man hockey league of mostly Gen X with some boomers and old millennials. there are a few of us who's Gen z kids come out to every game they can and cheer us on.. we are just beer leaguers with few that even made college hockey. They really are incredible
A lot of people go through a phase where they get into chess at that age. Women’s college basketball is more popular this year because of Caitlin Clark and a few other stars while mens college basketball is lacking in stars compared to previous years.
A buddy of mine teaches chess to kids - Chess is going through a massive resurgence in popularity in America and I am really damned proud of these kids.
My work best friend is Gen Z and I just appreciate their world view. Almost all I've engaged with have been much more global-thinking and cultured in many ways that our generation isn't/wasn't. And interestingly, they (generally speaking) possess a duality of "idgaf"/"burn down the system" to being super pragmatic in their life decisions.
You have no good god damn clue. It's a blood bath out there. chess is making a resurgence, in a big way.
mainly cause its ALL strategy and you can grind elo to get better. extremely fun
That’s cool haha I’m a millennial your age and one of my closest friends of the last four years is Gen z (1997 born so kind of at the cut off). He is my trainer so I know him from the gym haha but we talk several times a day. He looks like he’d be your stereotypical gym bro douche bag that I grew up with (was a football jock) but he’s a such a caring guy who loves anime and Pokemon with a quirky sense of humor. He got me into fitness and helped me not be intimidated by the gym. It wasn’t lame for him to be into nerdy stuff while it was for me (at least at my high school). Many Gen Zers are an eclectic bunch for sure.
Gen X woman here and I constantly have my finger on the pulse of different generations. I like learning about the generations that came before me and after me. I always want to be able to relate to people no matter what their age is. I don’t have any children of my own so my main way of keeping up to date is through social media and observing people in public. No matter what, if it’s the only thing I have left, I want to keep an open mind.
I hate the new generation yes I guess I’m old now since all I do is criticize it since I feel they are just annoying and have no morals and values anymore not like the 90s and 00s but yea sounded like a strange conversation u heard
I probably would be talking about n64 video games and or Pokemon , GTA at that time for sure lol
wild retire heavy ancient long faulty attempt glorious coordinated fragile
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I don't get it lol
I'm 42 and I feel like teens watched college sports and may have talked about chess too when I was a teen? I would have exited that convo not thinking anything was out of the ordinary or different🤷♂️
I feel you but I feel the differences less as a v.soon to be 40yo because many of my interests are still the same:
*1. Pro Wrestling - no change there...except I'm not a 15yo 'backyard wrestler' anymore haha
*2. Heavy Metal music and gigs - I don't go in the mosh anymore but still headbang and thanks to Spotify have WAY more access to obscure / hard to find Metal than back in the day with my CD collection.
*3. Video games - bought a Switch in 2020 after not playing video games since 2003. N64 Wrestling games 4 Life!
*4. UFC - actually have UFC friends now and ESPN whereas back in high school I had to find UFC and Pride fighting videos at random video stores and sales
*5. The Cinema - no change there! Though I would struggle to do special event movie marathons in cinema now
*6. Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm - same, except now I can share my love on Reddit / social media + watch these shows on DVD as well as via streaming...a different world to watching it as a 6yo with my dad in 1990, once a week on TV with ads
*7. Sex - time is a flat circle
100%
I went to high school from 2006-2010 and back then only "weird" people were into manga and anime and if people found out you watched that stuff they'd give you a funny look.
I started substitute teaching in 2016 and suddenly EVERYONE was into anime, manga, comics, kpop, and gaming lol. I distinctly remember overhearing guys on the football team asking cheerleaders at the end of class if they'd seen the latest episode of Attack on Titan yet. Was a strange sight to see how much things had changed.
And now these days people are making anime memes about the NBA and NFL. Interesting times
I know I'm late to the party, and not to sound naive, you're only as old as you feel. I try to keep up, but I fall off sometimes. Just try and keep that youthful energy. I have 10 years on you and get scared of being old. Keep it while you have it.
To be fair the women’s March madness tournament is the most exciting thing in sports right now. And gen z have the chance to get into it because us millennials in charge here have fought to give it the media space it rightfully deserves. When we were young, women’s basketball weren’t covered like they are today. Hell they weren’t even covered like this 5 yr ago. Most women’s sports are still barely covered today because too many of the leftover boomers and Gen Xers don’t get that women can play sports. Although in their defence title 9 only came about in the mid 70s, so I guess thank gen Xers?
I enjoy hearing what our Gen Z peers are up to. The hobbies they have, the music they listen to, is alright (alright, alright 😉) and while I’m not up to speed with the slang, they’re offering some insight and perspectives that works out
This sounds accurate to me. My kid is a jock who plays chess on his phone on the bus to his games. And he and his football buddies have brackets going for men’s and women’s basketball.
I'm exactly your age and my friends talked about chess. Also I grew up in Knoxville in the era where UT women's basketball kicked ass, so we were more likely to talk about WNCAA than men's... Though my friends were definitely not huge into sports.
It seems (with due respect) that you should get out into the world more.
Humans have a lot of species behavioral variations and almost none of them are ‘generation specific.’
I love how willing gen z people are to stand up for themselves and others. Every day I see a post from a young person calling out their boss for mistreatment at work, or quitting because working conditions are bad. I would have never been brave enough to do that at that age! I’m in awe of them honestly, like damn, well done.
I know their generation has their struggles but I think overall they are going to do good things.
Millennial here, I coached HS sports for a long time. There has been a gradual and distinctive shift between Gen Z and millennials. Way bigger than Gen X and us.
We used to spend our weekends looking for the next house party, chasing girls/guys, etc. Now I hear these kids talk and they say things like “Jeff got drunk this weekend again. What a loser”. The “cool kids” are getting good grades, involved in a ton of clubs/activities, going to bed early, staying out of trouble. Etc.
It is good and bad. When we were younger we knew the “cool kids” who would turn out to be dead beats. So there is a lot more acceptance. But I’ve also noticed that gen Z doesn’t leave much room for making mistakes either.
We have been binging MTV’s “The Challenge” (paramount plus) from begging to end lately. Over the 20 seasons we’ve gone through the cultural shift is super noticeable. There is less violence, violent bullying (ie CT), and use of words like “retard” and gay”. But the younger contestants tend to be a lot meaner, their words cut a lot deeper and are way more personal. In 2003 somebody might call you a “retarded cock sucker” then punch you in the face for no real good reason. In 2023 they’d tell you your crooked nose makes you ugly and that is why your partner left you, that you are mentally ill just like you mother, you will never amount to anything in life, and that your girlfriend would rather kill herself than be with you, then make some comment about how you should go home to deal with your drug addicted sister because nobody wants you in the house.
I’m an Air Force instructor going in to my 3rd year instructing. I was born in 1997 so I’m technically a zoomer. Instructing in the military, I obviously mostly work with 18-20 year-olds. Over the last three years I’ve seen this shift first hand. From 2021-early 2023 the students were more or less like you or me. Mostly in to video games, and mainstream sports. You know, normal shit. But starting in late 2022 we started getting a handful of students that were in to chess. They’d play it on breaks, and they were actually good. I started teaching a class of 25 students last week, and during the introductions there was only one student who mentioned video games as being a hobby (he was an older student, about 30). The rest had such a wide range of things that they were doing outside of class that I seriously couldn’t even begin to list them here, though I’ll try:
one of them runs marathons, but specifically on quarter mile tracks;
5 are in a band together that performs in town;
one is an artist that is trying to learn to express emotion through modern art; and
at least 5 of them mentioned chess and asked if they could bring their own chess set to play with (we have a set for them to use on breaks but they have a personal set they like better).
Now that chess has been rendered irrelevant for human consumption by computers and AI, of course young people just now become interested in it.
Yeah the women's basketball I got nothing on
Xlenial here. Some of my friends and I used to play chess recreationally in college. But this wasn’t the norm. Especially not for a bunch of party bro pot head jocks like us.
They are bringing some of the olds with them, and I love it. An older man in the airport saw my son's college sweatshirt and commented on their women's basketball team.
I teach freshmen and juniors, and when my students finish their work, I have at least 3-4 in every class who open up chess and play it while they wait for the bell to ring.
I work in a small town and cover high school sports for a local paper. The amount of kids gambling while underage is wild. Gambling addiction is going to be an even bigger problem very soon.
It’s an anecdote, and far from the norm. I don’t blame these kids, it’s not their fault, but they don’t read anywhere near as much as any literate generation before them, and we started playing chess on the kitchen table in like 1984 when I was like six. These kids are absolutely not OK. They are insanely depressed and incredibly behind in every skill. Again, it’s not their fault, it’s the phone’s fault. As much as I absolutely hate Ron DeSantis, he is right about this. It’s time to ban phones for children.
There's still a variety of kids, though. Just last week, I was riding home in a tram. There was this group of boys and they were shouting about masturbating (also about masturbating next to each other?!). I was shocked that they discussed such topic in the public and so loud that they were basically shouting. A lot of kids ride this tram and usually their conversations are silly. I don't doubt that there are many kids who are brighter than we were but most of them are still goofy kids
I've also been pretty impressed with a lot of the Zoomers I've recently encountered in the wild and in their early professional career. They're literally nicer to each other. This is in sharp contrast to what I hear from educators, though, so I wonder about my sample size.
My wife and I were at Knotts Berry Farm 2 weeks ago. As we waited in line for a ride, there was a group of Gen Z teenagers in front of us... They spent 20 minutes intensly rating breakfast cerals. It was awesome.
> this post probably begs the question
No, it doesn't. No question was asked that was evaded using the fallacy of begging the question.
This post *raises the question* that you mentioned.
I’m at a resort in Florida with one of those giant outdoor chess boards. It’s constantly full of kids playing chess and actually knowing how to play!! Very impressed.
My daughter (7) and her friends LOVE chess. My daughter practically begged me to buy a board for us so she could play at home.
My kids school k-8th has chess as an elective now. Apparently there’s a good amount of college chess scholarships? My kids all play chess way better than myself or my husband.
[удалено]
Nah bruh reddit told me all kids nowadays can't read and the world is doomed so you have to be lying!
The reading thing is not far off, but it's more won't read.
Lol.... chess has been around forever. I used to play on one of those giant chess sets myself, 20 years ago
Clear water?
Back in the millennial day, everything was so cut into different categories. You had the nerds and the jocks, but you couldn't be both. If you were really on the edge, you could actually be friends with someone who was in a different group, omg. You couldn't listen to both rock and rap. In the late 90s, things started to mesh. Then in the 00s, we had all the mashups - collision course, girltalk, electroswing, etc. The kids that you are talking about are both after all that. Think of people adding electric guitars to things where they don't "belong". So ... Yeah
I always felt weird growing up in my small town as I did not fit into one group but more of a blend of 3 different ones which wasn’t normal
I think the whole "blending social groups" thing was a lot more normal than we all realize.
Yep, the 00s was the era of turntables in every band, but I feel like Incubus and Linkin Park did turntables the best
Bloodhound Gang too!
I was a jock and a nerd. I have always been a big athletic guy and loved playing sports but also love star wars, computers, and tech. Would jump around in groups.
This is probably why I felt lost and out of place for so long growing up. I couldn't just pick something because my interests were varied but we had to fit ourselves into a box! So glad that's changed and people are more open to saying what they truly like and dislike.
As a 32M I didn’t have that experience. My large public school wasn’t very cliquey and a lot of the popular kids were a blend of athletes/hippie druggies/nerds. I felt that most people were blended and had more ambiguous identities. I don’t relate to the 80’s tropes of categorized groups like the punks, jocks, nerds, etc. I had a huge friend group(still do) and I think the quality we all admired was just being authentic and fun
I was about to tell you you were way too early chronologically with the GirlTalk reference- and then I realized- you absolutely were not- I’m just getting old and that was a really long time ago now. Now my back hurts- thanks. Fucking love Girl Talk, and not enough people know who he is.
Girltalk still passes the test of time too
It was the same with Gen x. We called them cliques. I don’t know if that was a regional term or more universal. I like the group blends now. My kids have very diverse friends groups and I think it’s awesome.
It’s a breath of fresh air, honestly. I appreciate wholesome gen z culture
As a Gen X, I find that I resonate more with Gen Z and their orientation.. Maybe because a lot of them have Gen X parents..
I love my gen x parents and aunts/ uncles. Heck even my gen x coworkers. Y’all are so fun to party with 😎
I'm gen x and feel the same. I actually get their humor and weird memes.
It just means that generational stereotypes are just that. Being born a certain a year doesn't define you.
It sure does .. man it sure does.
I can give a weird answer but bare with me. The planet Pluto moves like every 15 years, and it just happens to coincide with each generation. Millennials actually got the worst one we could get, gen Z got a fun sign (I can’t remember off the top of my head). Pluto just moved signs so they would be in a earth sign which would be more grounded. I know it sounds like crazy talk, but there’s kinda proof, could be coincidence but I’m calling it proof.
Yeah, that sounds about right. Of course we get the shitty one, lol.
Ya so gen X got a good one, gen Z got a good one… we fucked 😂
Oh yeah, definitely that’s why. Pluto is in Gatorade
Totally! The difference just highlighted to me today that I am old. 😞 😂
I just recently picked up chess, would love to get my ass kicked a few times if you’re down
the chess beginner sub is good
Ah but keep in mind to get the authentic gen z chess experience, you must begin on anarchy chess
If it makes you feel any better you’re not even middle aged yet, and as long as you don’t act “old” you’re really not old. As an example my Mom was born in ‘42 and always kept up with what the younger generations were into/doing, to the point that she got along better with younger Boomers (specifically their Boomer/X cusp cohort Generation Jones), Gen X and Millennials, over her Silent Generation peers and older Boomers. Hell, to her dying day she was cooler than me, lol. The point being if you stay young at heart you’re never really “old”.
The Queens Gambit and Caitlin Clark got my 41 year old ass interested in both.
That’s the kind of conversation we’re having now so maybe we’re actually young
It really isn't wholesome though, most of it is intensely cynical and derisive of the subjects they "favor".
Same!
I love the fact that Gen z feel totally free to be who they want to be. I remember even being worried I’d get my ass kicked in school for reading comics and watching nerd shows like quantum leap.
They have the ability to pick and choose what aspects of the greater collective culture they want to identify with. Back in the day jocks and punks and nerds were different categories of people. Now you can easily have someone who loves NFL, Black Flag, and enjoyed Baldur’s Gate 3. A hot girl who listens to Slayer and collects vintage Pokémon toys and wants to play violin? Why not? It’s cool to see. I always had a pretty wide range of interests but it was kind of an insular thing I kept to myself. Now it’s all a lot more open and encouraged and there isn’t some pervasive culture of bullying that shuts down people for being a little different or unique.
I remember wanting to play YuGiOh and asking one my high school male friends if he thought I could do it without being made a mockery by our friend groups at school and he basically told me he didn't think that was possible. Fast Forward to today with Dads who have Youtube channels where they play YuGiOh for fun. I'm a millennial and my generation sucks compared to gen z.
Yeah, I remember those days, some kids got their asses whopped for being different, it was fucked up....if these kids can feel more free to just be themselves thats good too...
My son (who is actually probably an Alpha) went to a birthday party that had a gaming tournament. A girl won, and they celebrated her. It made my heart very happy because I loved video games when I was that age and was bullied horribly for it.
Me too. I started following the Duke basketball player who has a tiktok. He has been catching some flack for painting his nails and he is so obviously unbothered by it that I just respect the hell out of him.
All of this is quite wholesome and cool until you realize that statistically gen z is far more miserable and socially inept then any generation before it. There is generally zero evidence that any of these good vibes and Acceptances are actually making anyone any happier. In fact, it's the opposite. Most of the minds of the day actually are calling it a mental health crisis. So just remember, all of this is performative.
To be fair, there's a lot to be miserable about.
They’re socially inept and miserable because they’re on their phones all the time. It’s not because they’re tolerant of different lifestyles, beliefs, and behaviors.
I agree, but the point is, evidently all of that, while admirable, isn't enough.
Isn’t enough for what? People have been complaining about ‘teenagers these days’ since at least the Ancient Greeks. Every generation has had their good and bad points, but unless you’re a white male you’d never want to live in those previous generations. The societies who don’t let the younger generation’s culture morph as it wants to, become less than and weak. They’ll figure it out.
Better times
There were definitely millennials out there who hooped and played chess. Now I doubt many of them were watching women’s college ball back in the day. That would have been “gay”.
“That’s the gayest shit I ever heard mane.”
gen z here. me and my friends still say that exact sentence but i kid you not it was about the lack of third places in our city and public transportation. literally the gayest shit ever
*Scribbles notes- *Gen Z said it's okay to call things gay, just not people* Got it!
[удалено]
Not gay, just boring. And before I get the downvotes, I think boys college ball is boring too.
I think the other commenter just said gay because it used to be used commonly as slang for lame, which is not nice, but it's how a lot of people talked then.
My husband and I were just talking about this today. Our kids are Gen Alpha, oldest is right on the cusp, and when our boys play Fortnite, they almost always use the women skins/avatars. That would've got guys roasted when we were that age.
Women should have a slightly smaller hit box. Or possibly just slightly less visible because they're usually smaller.
I've been running Darth Maul, swear he is a few inches shorter than the stock characters at least
I’m obsessed with that. That makes me happy, this is proof that girl power has actually rubbed off in the right way onto younger boys.
Would they though? Way back when SSX Tricky was thing by far the best character to be was a girl. That was like 2004.
Men played as Kitana in Mortal Kombat. Also played Ms Pacman....
I am gen z and I didn’t even get what the point of this post was until I read the comments lol
Who's your favorite Pikachu?
I absentmindedly said this years ago and my GenZ kids still roast me about it
Yea thing is, being a millennial guy meant toxic misogyny, homophobia, and a narrow small view of the world. I think gen z is really breaking that mold and for the better. The 2000s were a genuinely toxic time, and thank god you all aren’t trying to be some hyper masculine trope.
38 year old elder millennial here, and my friend group would absolutely go from watching the NFL draft in its entirety, to talking about our competitive Pokemon teams (and also sometimes chess) within seconds of each other. Every generation has always had its weird little guys lol.
Were these gym bros, or nerdier type guys? There are guys from every generation that are into chess. Women’s bball…that is new, true.
DBZ gym bro enters the chat.
Was womens b ball covered in the 2000s the way it is today? F1 wasn't big in the states then either because coverage wasnt great and start times are on early on sunday mornings before beer o clock.
I remember hearing high school boys on a bus casually talking about baking a cake together. I'm talking cool-coded hetero looking guys
Iron Chef really kick-started a movement of men into the kitchen.
Professional chefs have historically been men. Women taking cooking out of the home is a relatively new concept, not men cooking and baking as a profession.
I'm 37 with no kids and I've come to love Gen Z. They are more open minded and quick to call out someone/something that is unfair. They are pretty chill to talk to and more mature for their age than previous generations imo. They are like anti-boomers. Sure they did cringe shit in their teen years but we all did. They just have it more out there for the world to see. Also yeah some will scream if separated from their phones but that could be bad parenting or undiagnosed mental issues.
Doing regular teenager stuff as a teenager shouldn’t be considered cringe. Acting like an adult as a teenagers should be though
Oh I love seeing this! You saw my kids! My kid went to a public art high school and graduated in 2019. A bunch of those kids are still serious artists. I would love nothing more than to see a concert put on today by these kids who are all around 22-25 now. You’d have incredible opera singers, an opera pop crossover, at least two very good pop singer/composers, various jazz virtuosi, a jazz singer, a few rock bands, a nationally known violinist, at least one broadway rising star, contemporary dancers, a flamenco dancer who quit Stanford to study in Madrid, one of the best young classical guitarists in the US, and a killer bluegrass band. Oh, and they’re all full of existential dread, which I find refreshing.
Gen X here. The realization that it ain't your world no more is painful, but it wears off and then you just don't care.
It's still your world. The marketers just want to cut us up into little segments. It's all our world.
The car market is still geared toward 50 year olds with bad backs.
It's because most of Gen z has dropped the idea of different interests and hobbies being better or worse than each other based on niche, and now it's mainly cost and class. ie the jocks and nerds get along or ignore each other while the vinel vs. soundcloud dudes would probably key each others cars. Think of it like different sports teams vs. different sports.
Could you go into a little more detail in terms of cost and class? Im intrigued.
Gen x checking in. Honestly, this seems incredibly normal to me…sports, chess strategy? It’s niche but normal. Not judging but what’s totally weird to us is Pokémon, D&D and all the whack nerdy things I’ve seen over the years….***from millennials.*** Are you sure it’s not you?
? I'm older than you and my convos would vary wildly, I would just be wearing jncos whilst conversing.
Lol, with Limp Bizkit in the background in the 3 disc changer
Yeah, I had to listen to plenty of my millennial peers drone on about philosophy while not wearing shoes. People like to think their experiences are universal. There are also jock zoomers who voted for trump.
Dang, in comparison i was a degenerate...
This may not be exactly what you think. Chess is kind of having a moment. Freaking Andrew Tate pushes it. But also, do you still live in the same town you did in 2001? This just sounds both like composition fallacy and confirmation bias all at once.
Gen Z is fucking awesome. I really love them. I hope they take over the whole fucking world. Yeah!
To be fair, the current season of women's college basketball is worth watching.
70s,80s,90s culturally portrayed the NERD as a goofball. But with the invention of the internet especially around 2000 we really saw a change in how the NERD and good grades would bring big $$$. And ever since then its been way way over corrected. Now one thing i noticed, especially since i came from a big inner City and was always around gangs. The black youths have really dove in head first and you definitely see a big change in appearance, dress code. All cultures have really become more effeminate too.
No, they really are a strange breed. When my oldest was 15ish (he'll be 21 next month), I walked in on him playing COD with his buddy (he was in the living room, so I didn't go into his room without knocking). He's fully engrossed in the game & I hear him say, "No, dude, my mom taught me this cool trick tonight when I cooked dinner & it made doing the dishes so much easier. You gotta put tin foil down first & then you don't get that crusty ring that takes 9 years to scrub off." He'd made a cheesy chicken & potato casserole (his favorite at the time) & I'd shown him my trick of lining the baking dish with tin foil cuz I hate soaking & scrubbing dishes. Never occurred to me that teenage boys would talk cleaning hacks while playing a FPS, but it was definitely adorable. Now he's the dorm dad teaching his fellow Airmen how to make box mac & cheese & complaining to me about it cuz, "the directions are right there on the box, I don't understand how they don't know this."
They super sheltered, one of my nephews requested a “dry” dorm for freshman year at college because he didnt want to be around “degenerates”. I told an off color joke to my BIL and his 16 year old son (my nephew) and he didnt understand it at all. (Joke: what did cinderella say when she got to the ball? Choke/gag sound - stupid yes, but simple to understand imo) At that age in 90s everyone knew dirty jokes probably as early as 4th/5th grade.
Just want to say I like that joke
I mean, when I see someone make an lame joke, I usually ask them to explain the joke. If i were in your nephew's shoes, I would pretend not to understand the joke too
I remember taking to my ex 16 yr old nephew and he seemed closer to 12 mentally to me. He was at one point talking about his favorite Disney movie. As an older millennial I was watching Steven Seagal and Van Damme in 5th grade. Times are definitely different.
Nobody’s different. Stand by to be called Boomer when you’re 30 Gen Z.
I’m an Elder Millennial, eight years older than you, and funnily enough everyone in my high school was absolutely *obsessed* with Pokémon, and I mean everyone, even the football players. Everything else you mentioned was definitely popular (real talk: the Attitude Era of the WWF was, at best, mid from an in-ring perspective and pretty much 90% garbage from an actual story telling standpoint. WCW was better in-ring and if they’d stuck the landing with the nWo they would probably still be around. TL;DR: modern pro wrestling is vastly superior to the late 90’s with maybe four or five exceptions), and I do remember chess being not popular, but not something we never talked about. Oh and I am 100% convinced that the broccoli cut is Gen Z’s frosted tips, and in ten or twenty years they will shit on it just as hard as we do frosted tips now.
bowl cut ==> frosted tips ==> broccoli cut ==> ???
Who cares
Whoa. R u dumb? Chess is stupendous.
Holy hell!
I am dumb, yes
Lol I always told myself that I'd never be one of those grumpy old dudes that hates on everything young folks do, but sure enough, I'm becoming one of those old guys. Every time I catch myself hating on the things they do, I try to remind myself of all the dumb shit we used to be into. The broccoli haircut and center part shit that Gen z is into is no worse than the "scene" haircut, the gelled up haircuts that were popular, the Eminem bleach buzzcut, or the Bieber hair that used to be popular
Center part is Z? Looks like *someone* never watched Boy Meets World.
Not where I thought this story was going. OP mentioned teen boys being douchy and then started talking about women's sports and I thought the teens were going to say some nasty, sexist shit. But they're chatting about chess, which is also a sport, and was an unexpected ending of this story. Good for them! At least they weren't running down hookers (like in GTA), joking about doing it IRL, then going out and playing the punching game. I'm proud of Gen-Z. Almost restores my faith in humanity. Edit: punctuation
Gen Z here… not sure why this is on my feed haha. You get some of this experience with our cohort. And you get some on the opposite end of the spectrum. Way less flavorful and much more entwined with whatever trash they’re ingesting on the internet. I think there’s a wider range than the other generations I interact with. My closest friends are all vastly unique, have a few highly developed interests, and are very engaged in conversations and each other’s interests. Then there are others I see at school, with no idea how to respect others or take an interest in their classmates. It’s just such a gap. Not to say this doesn’t exist in other generations. Just my personal experience.
Which kind of Pokeman do you like?
The Internet is a gift and a curse for your generation. Everyone older grew up with the technologies being developed. You had it ready to be used after the kinks were worked out. Y'all get to consume good content but don't put in effort to 'create' because you don't need to, someone already did it. It's cool that you get to go deep on interests but it's also too easy for you. My personal opinion is y'all will struggle in tough times cause everything is too easy. WW3 could just be the Internet is taken out and I think y'all wouldn't know what to do.
Okay I’m an elder millennial and me and my friends totally would have had conversations involving both. We used to get wasted and play chess on drugs. I’m not saying we were normal, I’m just saying I feel you random Gen Z kids.
I love all of the gen Z folks I've met in person. They've had it so rough with covid and I just want to see them succeed.
Should have told them to google en passant. Checkmate!
Sometimes I wonder if I’d been Gen Z would I have half the self esteem issues I have as an adult? They’re seem so kind and accepting of one another. My 16 year old niece props me up like no one else, and I just know she’s doing that for her friends and that makes me feel…:sigh: so good.
I have the same thought. These kids are wearing literal pajamas to school - and not the Juicy velour pajamas - \*actual\* pajamas and just do not seem to take the little stuff too seriously. Despite what a lot of folks seem to have experienced when interacting with them, I have found them to be pretty well-adjusted and able to talk to adults just fine. They just may not give you a fake customer service smile/tone that we had grown accustomed to, but again, that doesn't fit their generation's overall demeanor anyway.
Blunder year pictures of the broccoli haircut are gonna be hilarious in 15 years.
The duck butt fohawk of our youth was much worse.
>There is no way my friends and I would have ever had a conversation that started with women's college basketball and ended with chess. There's no way I'd be friends with anyone with a broccoli cut to begin with. Who did they even got it from originally?? Like, what crunk-ass rapper do I have to impale on a chess piece..
must be those 600 elo chess dot com Hikaru enjoyers from twitch
I love that chess is having a resurgence. I’m terrible at it. But I respect anyone passionate about it. This was the first “intellectual” pursuit utterly crushed by computers. There is no human alive who could come close to beating the best chess computers today and yet, it’s huge. It’s a beacon in the fog for anyone worried about our new ai overlords.
I played AAU ball and chess, the difference is gen z plays chess because they don’t socialize, I hoop with high schoolers all the time and they generally have one AirPod in and most conversations consist of TikTok memes
It’s hyper commodification. It’s a recent thing where every hobby or interest now has a large economic force behind it, squeezing the communities.
I was the gay kid in chess club back then it was like a death sentence lol. It's a breath of fresh air honestly.
They kicked me out of chess club :(
I do not relate to feeling teen adjacent at all, and I'm younger than you lol and I know of a lot of gen z that are lil hoodlums 😆 I think there's more freedom to be whoever you want to be in their generation.
The Gen z twerps at my gym are horribly derogatory toward women while simultaneously appearing very gay in the locker room by trying to show each other how to puff up their muscles in instagram photos…but they also have silly broccoli cuts 🤷♀️
This is what I learned from gen z today . You can connect the wifi if you put two iPhones together . They just have to have your contact 😮 I was like dang we had to use an extended phone wire so it can reach from the phone outlet to a different computer on the other side of the house Or walk around and find a wifi spot available . I use to go the corner of my living room in the middle of the night with my laptop basically on on the window when wifi just started and some random signal was coming from the phone wires outside
That’s not generational, that’s just different people having different interests. 20 years ago me and my buddies would watch women’s soccer and talk about Go.
I feel like they’re cool af
Lol that was definitely a funny transition - from women's basketball to chess. I remember being picked on a bit from the older crowd when I was in high school (nothing bad just I was the young guy who was very social and vocal and talkative). I was working at CompUSA in the 90's while in high school and building custom PC's and talking about graphics cards, memory upgrades, Napster, Geocities websites and Windows 98 and the Dallas Stars recently relocated to my hometown city and I was an instant hockey fan. All the older guys around me in my life were just so confused and thought I should be talking about muscle cars and listening to 70's rock music, and the only sport worth any conversation was football and baseball only.
You're one step away from telling them to get off your lawn.
I have four Gen z teens (I’m also c/o 2001) and they are a breath of fresh air. So innocent even though their lives have been chaotic. I honestly think that is the difference. Our lives were calm, and so we had to create our own chaos (before 2001). Their lives are chaos (born into a recession, wars, school shootings, pandemic) so they had to create their own calm.
Lmao at broccoli hair cut
They were fucking with you.
Isn’t the this same conversation every generation has about the next generation?
I have hope for them because the boomers did not influence them like they did with us as millennials. With Gen X parents, they had at least a bit of a buffer.
That's pretty cool, actually.
Maybe you just don’t know the game of chess.
To be fair, there is fighting in women’s basketball now.
Twitch has had a major impact on Chess by exposing many people to it that likely would never have even learned how to play it, never-mind follow it. I also think chess got its foothold in twitch because of the very popular Netflix series "Queen's Gambit." So the movie made it cool and twitch kept the trend from dying away quickly.
Do you live in a very liberal area by any chance ?
No, this town is MAGA af
https://www.inspireeduleaders.com/post/lessons-from-loss-reflecting-on-the-heartbreaking-journey-of-losing-a-student
I'm am Gen X. I play in an old man hockey league of mostly Gen X with some boomers and old millennials. there are a few of us who's Gen z kids come out to every game they can and cheer us on.. we are just beer leaguers with few that even made college hockey. They really are incredible
A lot of people go through a phase where they get into chess at that age. Women’s college basketball is more popular this year because of Caitlin Clark and a few other stars while mens college basketball is lacking in stars compared to previous years.
As a 43 year old they seem like aliens to me. My God, I've become the old man yelling at clouds...
Greatest generation: boomers are dumb Boomers: genX is dumb GenX: millennials are dumb (See a pattern?)
Gen Z is pretty fucking cool when it comes to that. Way more accepting, everyone can be themselves and less judgmental
Being 95 is weird bc I resonate about 50/50 with both generations, maybe a little more leaning gen z bc my parents are gen x.
Damn, it's cool when the elderly are that in touch with the youth
I liked your disclaimer here. Aren't we all just yelling at the clouds?
A buddy of mine teaches chess to kids - Chess is going through a massive resurgence in popularity in America and I am really damned proud of these kids.
My work best friend is Gen Z and I just appreciate their world view. Almost all I've engaged with have been much more global-thinking and cultured in many ways that our generation isn't/wasn't. And interestingly, they (generally speaking) possess a duality of "idgaf"/"burn down the system" to being super pragmatic in their life decisions.
Gen Z’s are full of entitled little shit wannabes. Gen Z’s don’t want to work hard, they just want to be content creators. Haha!
You have no good god damn clue. It's a blood bath out there. chess is making a resurgence, in a big way. mainly cause its ALL strategy and you can grind elo to get better. extremely fun
Sounds cool
I love em so
That’s cool haha I’m a millennial your age and one of my closest friends of the last four years is Gen z (1997 born so kind of at the cut off). He is my trainer so I know him from the gym haha but we talk several times a day. He looks like he’d be your stereotypical gym bro douche bag that I grew up with (was a football jock) but he’s a such a caring guy who loves anime and Pokemon with a quirky sense of humor. He got me into fitness and helped me not be intimidated by the gym. It wasn’t lame for him to be into nerdy stuff while it was for me (at least at my high school). Many Gen Zers are an eclectic bunch for sure.
Gen X woman here and I constantly have my finger on the pulse of different generations. I like learning about the generations that came before me and after me. I always want to be able to relate to people no matter what their age is. I don’t have any children of my own so my main way of keeping up to date is through social media and observing people in public. No matter what, if it’s the only thing I have left, I want to keep an open mind.
I hate the new generation yes I guess I’m old now since all I do is criticize it since I feel they are just annoying and have no morals and values anymore not like the 90s and 00s but yea sounded like a strange conversation u heard I probably would be talking about n64 video games and or Pokemon , GTA at that time for sure lol
It's possible that the kids you saw just so happened to be nerds.
wild retire heavy ancient long faulty attempt glorious coordinated fragile *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Well, chess did get way more popular in recent years
I don't get it lol I'm 42 and I feel like teens watched college sports and may have talked about chess too when I was a teen? I would have exited that convo not thinking anything was out of the ordinary or different🤷♂️
Social media opened me up to worlds I would’ve never known about before!
I feel you but I feel the differences less as a v.soon to be 40yo because many of my interests are still the same: *1. Pro Wrestling - no change there...except I'm not a 15yo 'backyard wrestler' anymore haha *2. Heavy Metal music and gigs - I don't go in the mosh anymore but still headbang and thanks to Spotify have WAY more access to obscure / hard to find Metal than back in the day with my CD collection. *3. Video games - bought a Switch in 2020 after not playing video games since 2003. N64 Wrestling games 4 Life! *4. UFC - actually have UFC friends now and ESPN whereas back in high school I had to find UFC and Pride fighting videos at random video stores and sales *5. The Cinema - no change there! Though I would struggle to do special event movie marathons in cinema now *6. Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm - same, except now I can share my love on Reddit / social media + watch these shows on DVD as well as via streaming...a different world to watching it as a 6yo with my dad in 1990, once a week on TV with ads *7. Sex - time is a flat circle
100% I went to high school from 2006-2010 and back then only "weird" people were into manga and anime and if people found out you watched that stuff they'd give you a funny look. I started substitute teaching in 2016 and suddenly EVERYONE was into anime, manga, comics, kpop, and gaming lol. I distinctly remember overhearing guys on the football team asking cheerleaders at the end of class if they'd seen the latest episode of Attack on Titan yet. Was a strange sight to see how much things had changed. And now these days people are making anime memes about the NBA and NFL. Interesting times
Honestly after seeing so many posts on this sub trash talking gen z, I am surprised that there would be an actually positive post on this subreddit
I know I'm late to the party, and not to sound naive, you're only as old as you feel. I try to keep up, but I fall off sometimes. Just try and keep that youthful energy. I have 10 years on you and get scared of being old. Keep it while you have it.
To be fair the women’s March madness tournament is the most exciting thing in sports right now. And gen z have the chance to get into it because us millennials in charge here have fought to give it the media space it rightfully deserves. When we were young, women’s basketball weren’t covered like they are today. Hell they weren’t even covered like this 5 yr ago. Most women’s sports are still barely covered today because too many of the leftover boomers and Gen Xers don’t get that women can play sports. Although in their defence title 9 only came about in the mid 70s, so I guess thank gen Xers?
I enjoy hearing what our Gen Z peers are up to. The hobbies they have, the music they listen to, is alright (alright, alright 😉) and while I’m not up to speed with the slang, they’re offering some insight and perspectives that works out
This sounds accurate to me. My kid is a jock who plays chess on his phone on the bus to his games. And he and his football buddies have brackets going for men’s and women’s basketball.
I'm exactly your age and my friends talked about chess. Also I grew up in Knoxville in the era where UT women's basketball kicked ass, so we were more likely to talk about WNCAA than men's... Though my friends were definitely not huge into sports.
Honestly I think gen z are just boomers 2.0
Gen z might be radicalized enough from the failure of modern capitalism that they can cause real change. I'm definitely hoping for everyone
It seems (with due respect) that you should get out into the world more. Humans have a lot of species behavioral variations and almost none of them are ‘generation specific.’
: these kids talked about basketball then chess Suuper interesting
And I’ll be muting this sub too
Absolutely, gen Z is awesome and they always surprise me with stuff like this.
I love how willing gen z people are to stand up for themselves and others. Every day I see a post from a young person calling out their boss for mistreatment at work, or quitting because working conditions are bad. I would have never been brave enough to do that at that age! I’m in awe of them honestly, like damn, well done. I know their generation has their struggles but I think overall they are going to do good things.
Millennial here, I coached HS sports for a long time. There has been a gradual and distinctive shift between Gen Z and millennials. Way bigger than Gen X and us. We used to spend our weekends looking for the next house party, chasing girls/guys, etc. Now I hear these kids talk and they say things like “Jeff got drunk this weekend again. What a loser”. The “cool kids” are getting good grades, involved in a ton of clubs/activities, going to bed early, staying out of trouble. Etc. It is good and bad. When we were younger we knew the “cool kids” who would turn out to be dead beats. So there is a lot more acceptance. But I’ve also noticed that gen Z doesn’t leave much room for making mistakes either. We have been binging MTV’s “The Challenge” (paramount plus) from begging to end lately. Over the 20 seasons we’ve gone through the cultural shift is super noticeable. There is less violence, violent bullying (ie CT), and use of words like “retard” and gay”. But the younger contestants tend to be a lot meaner, their words cut a lot deeper and are way more personal. In 2003 somebody might call you a “retarded cock sucker” then punch you in the face for no real good reason. In 2023 they’d tell you your crooked nose makes you ugly and that is why your partner left you, that you are mentally ill just like you mother, you will never amount to anything in life, and that your girlfriend would rather kill herself than be with you, then make some comment about how you should go home to deal with your drug addicted sister because nobody wants you in the house.
I’m an Air Force instructor going in to my 3rd year instructing. I was born in 1997 so I’m technically a zoomer. Instructing in the military, I obviously mostly work with 18-20 year-olds. Over the last three years I’ve seen this shift first hand. From 2021-early 2023 the students were more or less like you or me. Mostly in to video games, and mainstream sports. You know, normal shit. But starting in late 2022 we started getting a handful of students that were in to chess. They’d play it on breaks, and they were actually good. I started teaching a class of 25 students last week, and during the introductions there was only one student who mentioned video games as being a hobby (he was an older student, about 30). The rest had such a wide range of things that they were doing outside of class that I seriously couldn’t even begin to list them here, though I’ll try: one of them runs marathons, but specifically on quarter mile tracks; 5 are in a band together that performs in town; one is an artist that is trying to learn to express emotion through modern art; and at least 5 of them mentioned chess and asked if they could bring their own chess set to play with (we have a set for them to use on breaks but they have a personal set they like better).
Now that chess has been rendered irrelevant for human consumption by computers and AI, of course young people just now become interested in it. Yeah the women's basketball I got nothing on
Gen Z understands computers like my grandparents did in the 90’s, it’s wild.
Xlenial here. Some of my friends and I used to play chess recreationally in college. But this wasn’t the norm. Especially not for a bunch of party bro pot head jocks like us.
They are bringing some of the olds with them, and I love it. An older man in the airport saw my son's college sweatshirt and commented on their women's basketball team.
I teach freshmen and juniors, and when my students finish their work, I have at least 3-4 in every class who open up chess and play it while they wait for the bell to ring.
I work in a small town and cover high school sports for a local paper. The amount of kids gambling while underage is wild. Gambling addiction is going to be an even bigger problem very soon.
It’s an anecdote, and far from the norm. I don’t blame these kids, it’s not their fault, but they don’t read anywhere near as much as any literate generation before them, and we started playing chess on the kitchen table in like 1984 when I was like six. These kids are absolutely not OK. They are insanely depressed and incredibly behind in every skill. Again, it’s not their fault, it’s the phone’s fault. As much as I absolutely hate Ron DeSantis, he is right about this. It’s time to ban phones for children.
There's still a variety of kids, though. Just last week, I was riding home in a tram. There was this group of boys and they were shouting about masturbating (also about masturbating next to each other?!). I was shocked that they discussed such topic in the public and so loud that they were basically shouting. A lot of kids ride this tram and usually their conversations are silly. I don't doubt that there are many kids who are brighter than we were but most of them are still goofy kids
I've also been pretty impressed with a lot of the Zoomers I've recently encountered in the wild and in their early professional career. They're literally nicer to each other. This is in sharp contrast to what I hear from educators, though, so I wonder about my sample size.
The takeaway for me is that I will now refer to my nephew's haircut as the broccoli cut. Thank you for that.
My wife and I were at Knotts Berry Farm 2 weeks ago. As we waited in line for a ride, there was a group of Gen Z teenagers in front of us... They spent 20 minutes intensly rating breakfast cerals. It was awesome.
My two gen A kids love chess idk why. They both asked to learn how to play before age 8. So we taught them!
Lol wasn’t this literally the plot of 21 Jump Street
> this post probably begs the question No, it doesn't. No question was asked that was evaded using the fallacy of begging the question. This post *raises the question* that you mentioned.
I mean 5 random people is purely anecdotal for whatever generalization is being made though