Being born in 2001

 

(I wrote this yesterday and I wasn’t planning to post it, but Lynn encouraged me to so I will after all!) 

Actually I just want to complain today if that’s okay?

I have no insecurity about my age. I am the age that I am and there is nothing wrong with being any age, in fact I will only ever get to be every age once, so I treasure it.

However, I have a sense of confusion about it to be honest? Or dysphoria? Something like that.

When I was a kid, when we learned about generations for the first time in school, we were taught that we were millennials. I guess at that time, the next generation after millennial hadn’t been decided yet, and after all being born right around the change of the millennium makes sense for a millennial, right?

Well over time the age cutoff for millennial has been pushed back and back and back, first it was “actually if you’re born after 2000 you can’t possibly be a millennial”, then it was 1998 then 1996 then… whatever. Eventually I was told actually I’m a Zoomer (this was in my teens already, when Zoomers started getting made fun of and millennials were trying desperately to distance themselves from the tide pod eating generation). Whatever, I do not care, after all generational names are arbitrary and it’s more about how you grew up, right?

Well I grew up poor… so I also didn’t get the experience a 2000’s kid is supposed to have had according to the internet. We had a landline and no cellphones, we had dialup on a family computer, we had VHS’s. We couldn’t afford cable TV a lot of the time, so I was often not watching the shows everyone else was.

But at the same time, a lot of the things I did have were quite time-locked.

But when I’m asked by people around my age about things they fondly remember… I often don’t share those memories because I didn’t experience them. And when I share my fond memories, they respond similarly. 

It makes me feel like an imposter on both ends, I’m both too young to be a millennial but too old to be a Zoomer. But even self proclaimed “zillennials” claim often the cutoff to be included is 1999. Then where the heck do I belong??

 I feel the fact that I don’t feel a sense of belonging with the GenZ mind to be enough evidence that something is off. It makes me feel crazy sometimes. 

I really feel very annoyed by the sentiments and mindset that many GenZ embody. I feel very put off by marketing targeted to GenZ. I feel very out of synch with the style and fashions and makeup and standards of dress and politeness that GenZ accept. (Why is it okay to show up to WORK at your JOB in pajamas with unbrushed hair??). I feel generally very alien to the group that I’m constantly pushed into, so it’s lonely to me. 

At the end of the day, generation is very arbitrary and none of these philosophical matters actually mean anything or have any impact, but it’s rather the day-to-day that really bothers me. Feeling unable to connect with people my age because I can’t relate to them, because I don’t enjoy many of the same things, because I just feel too old even though they’re near the same age. Their troubles often feel arbitrary or self imposed. 

Not to mention the prevalence of social media as the main form of communication and information for GenZ which I just… fully don’t participate in. “Have you seen the recent TikTok drama?” “You know that one meme?” No… 

Maybe this is all self imposed and just an autistic thing rather than anything to do with when I was born but, it really feels like a factor to me idk.