Welcome Generation Z to the disapproval of your elders

Now that the Millennials have started getting married, having babies, and buying houses they’re a lot less interesting. So, we can all stop calling them names and denigrating their work ethic and instead focus on the next generation of hard-to-understand slackers: Generation Z.

I love the human tendency of each generation to shake their heads in disappointment at the younger generation coming up behind them. It’s been going on for a LONG time — read this article from 1927 on the “Jazz Age” generation (now referred to as the “Greatest Generation”) and how disappointed their elders are in their behavior: Link.

In 1927 a clergyman addressing college students in Atlanta described modern girls as “hell cats with muddy minds.”

Generational conflict is the universal constant of human existence, and I never get tired of watching it play out. It’s been particularly amusing to watch Generation X (my generation) move from the same negative barbs leveled at the Millennials to the backbone of our economy. It’s not when you were born — it’s your life stage which determines your behavior. This idea that someone born between a certain set of years will have some kind of group consciousness has as much validity as horoscopes — fun for entertainment and selling books, but not much good for business planning or marketing. It’s a lazy way to think you’re “targeting” people.

What you really want to target is behavior. People buying houses in 1960 … 1980 … or 2000 … or 2020 have a lot more in common with each other than what may unify them from a date born. Mortgages are the great unifier.

All that being said, there is one interesting report called the Irregular Report which is a really neat way of getting people to express themselves within the context of their “generation” (but is really the context of “being a teenager”). Here’s their manifesto:

The Irregular Report is 100% created by our 10,000+ global community of girl and gender nonconforming Gen Zs in partnership with some seasoned adults. Teen Vogue meets Pew, our themed reports bring you quantitative data with qualitative content straight from Gen Z to you.

I always love a good marketing hook, and the idea of doing a generational report out of UGC is a *great* one!

Gen Zer and Irregular Labs cofounder Grey Jones described the Irregular Report as the only document “that portrays us accurately” and said that Gen Z is “the largest generation, and we are going to have a huge impact on this world and we don’t want to do it alone.”

Contributors to the report include activist and founder of #MeToo Tarana Burke, poet and author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Google X’s Ivy Ross and poet and author of @SoSadToday Melissa Broder as well as casting director and fair treatment of models in fashion advocate James Scully. The report also includes insights from over 1,200 girl and gender non-conforming Gen Zers such as U.S. Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, environmental activist Glacier Girl, musician Dounia Tazi and author Nicolaia Rips as well as artist Priyanka Paul, Elise by Olsen, actress and model Barbie Ferreira, @ArtHoeCollective curator Gabrielle Richardson, and trans youth activist and model Hunter Schafer.

You can buy the Irregular Report here: Link

#nosilos #social #marketing #generationz #millennials #generationx #damnthosepeskykids

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