# Generation Z

## Concept

I'll explain generations to you before you get washed.
Gen Z because I just watched a video against Gen Z and that annoyed me.

## Ya'll delulu.

Generations as a big topic are just bullshit. No ragebait. They put you and me and everyone in a different box.

The first cap test is : does it work outside your US bubble?

Well, it doesn't. In France, nobody asks what generation you are. We tell each other our age. Look at that, age gives... the age but with some basic maths it also gives a year of birth. So you get age and generation with a precision of 1 year. No need to do micro-generations. But it gives something else, a boomer is perhaps generationally a boomer, but they are also an old person. On average wealthier. So they are your customers, your boss. Not the best way to experience differences. But it also does not really work because in France, because "boomers" is the generation that fought for vacations, welfare, work regulations. So there is a shared feeling that life ain't about just working hard. And the crisis we got. The 80's and 90's was a disaster, we got to 11% unemployment. So I was born in that bullshit, I have never, ever had any loyalty for a company. Or for a customer, the mouth breather. I go by. I cope with the bullshit. I still do. Too old for this shit, fr. But yeah, just in this regard, it's common for retired people to say that the unemployment is too high, or that people should be able to offer a house. I mean it's weird not to think that way.

You go to Japan. We have imperial era. Yeah there is a bit of "he is Showah", that means like old. But the era was like 58 years long. And in regard to isolation, solitude, being trapped in a job, Japan was unfortunately, I believe, "ahead". There is only one specific case, the "Yutori generation". Also called "the π = 3 generation" (円周率は3世代) because they had a reformed education simplifying maths especially. Allegedly. The real goal was to educate a generation that can think, not cramming answers. And no, they did not really learn π = 3. It "failed". Everyone mock them. I worked with them, they are super cool, they think. The system rejected them, that's all. You could say : see, generation. But it is perception of generation, prejudice of generation. An inability to be together. But overall, Japanese society is much less family centered than we'd think.

Because the more we are together, the more we catch from each other. There should be much less divide, if the generational divide was not institutional. So, sure, to me Tik Tok is unbearable, I feel physically ill. And maybe that's your treasure. And that's cool. You'll lose it some day. I lost my pinballs. We got a lot of common. Sometimes it feels like generations are different species in the discussions.

That's the number two. Not shit, test. So are generations brainrot?
And to me, clearly, it is because I had no idea about generations, your generations before "modern" Internet where algorithms start stamping that in my brain. And now I am like "oh a Gen Z", while I have no native concept for that, I don't even agree with that. I don't even care about that because I get along with young people, and everyone for the matter. I still do, I did one decade ago, two decades ago.

We should not be defined, but if anything, cost of living, opportunities, human relationships, the tech we are born with, and also the family we grew up in, so many things influenced us. But ultimately, the end game is happiness. And I think that times are hard for too many people. There are periods like that.

# And countries

Because I am not saying that generations are bullshit in your specific case. I don't know that.

What I notice is that:

- In France, tuition is almost free, meaning paid by taxes, meaning active generations. In fact people with low income can get money from the State in addition. The problem then becomes getting a job, it is not without hurdles.
- In Japan, there is a strong expectations that parents will pay. It is a family project, you start saving well before you have kids, most people are debt-free. Children will pay the daily with one small job. The price is that having kids is very expensive, the previous generation has to think in terms of : how many kids can I afford.
- In the US, the people who have the best shot at challenging the rising prices is not the generation going to University and paying. It is obvious who pays: the students. Whatever it costs. Kids start life broke.

So, I don't know much about the US, my English is just a collection of looted words. But the generation gap tends to fall more on the new generation for many important metrics.

"My house, my rules", has an equivalent in French ("tu es chez moi") but it sounds like sociopath talk. My parents talked like that, because of course. Overall, a house may be paid for by one generation, but it is shared by the family and, ultimately inherited by the next generation. Who pays what is clear, it is not equality. But it is also understood that the situations are not equal : there should be respect for being provided, but providing a house is a parental duty enshrined in the law in France. You can't kick a kid that has no living in France, that's illegal.

And ok, disclaimer, I don't know everything, I am not comparing as if elsewhere was a paradise. But I kind of get why generations would be such a topic in the States. And Gen Z kind of forces the debate: what happens if the new generation can't afford to leave?

In Japan "life stage" is more a way to talk about things than generations. But it is not entirely dissimilar when someone can say : What life stages? I was set to fail stage 1.

That's a reasonable discussion: how much should education cost? Who pays for it? How do we do to smooth out differences?

## Wait, stop

I am not denying that the Gen Z are facing extraordinary challenges.
AI, job market, housing, so many other things. And everyone feels it, but timing is of the essence: you got time before or you didn't. But it's not like every boomer is rich either.

What I am saying is that the short-hand for the combination of a situation, age, challenges is not working well. You can see the so-called Millennials:

- I don't see that link in age, tech, circumstances between someone born in 1980 and someone born in 1996. I just don't. 16 years apart, different job market, different opportunities. And even right now, one is young and one is old(er).
- Generations hide individuality. I am sympathetic to everyone. I will train and help anyone at work, and try to understand our shared humanity the same. I think that AI is crushing new generation. It's not OK. We want young people happy, goddammit!
- See the Millennials. The lazy, the wild kid. Well... And now, almost the opposite.

So I dispute this idea that we are defined as antagonist, incompatible generations. It feels too convenient. I mean, one generation will say "we had world war II". And it's true it sucks. Unless we start to be assholes: "what in the army you had free food and housing?". That's absurd. We stopped world wars, that's not a reason to start something new every few years, no? The goal was never to have suffering supremacy. Everyone needs to make a living.

Anyway, we should be...

## All united

I am not pessimistic in the sense that I would think that things have no solution. But I doubt about our collective ability to solve it. The first step would be understanding.

I can see it that young people work more and more menial jobs, or stay in debt for decades. Training is more and more shallow. The ceiling is high in many jobs where the demographic pyramid looks like a square filled with people age 40 to 60.

Older people really struggle. There was this social contract : you work and when you get old, you had earned enough network, sympathy and know-how to stay afloat. Because let's be honest, you don't have the same energy. Companies or people can't just squeeze people at peak. And the peak gets shorter, because tech moves fast. You know specialist of techs that barely exist anymore. I think that makes them often trying and failing at looking smart.

At my age I don't feel good about that. I don't have a generation identity. It feels that we'll all get equality only if AI wipes us out. That's not cool.

I think we have to stick together more, think less about generations and become more of people in a shared destiny.

I can see that some younger people are open to physical objects, or Korea, China. I think it is excellent. Older people are trying. They came to Facebook... they tried! We need connections, models, aspirations, and touch the grass more perhaps.

This generation war, it makes me think of GTA San Andreas, when the NPC from rival gangs fight each other.

As for me, I can only try to talk the talk, different languages, different slangs. No fluency, but some words as step toward others. I can afford to look stupid.