Generational differences are evident to anyone who’s ever had to sit through a family dinner with their grandmother and the 13-year-old cousin having a discussion. Needless to say, their opinions can differ quite a bit.
But it doesn’t have to be a huge gap year-wise for them to be different; even generations that go one after the other can result in people with contrasting views.
32-year-old content creator Ashley Tea went viral on TikTok after comparing millennials and Gen Z, specifically in regards to having fun. A representative of the millennial generation herself, she briefly described how she would spend time as a youth, adding that she was genuinely curious about what representatives of the generation following hers liked to do in their free time. Scroll down to find the video and Gen Z's answers below.
In order to understand generational differences better, Bored Panda has gotten in touch with the Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies and Professor of Leadership and Management at Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics at University of Guelph, Sean Lyons, who was kind enough to answer a few of our questions. You will find his thoughts in the text below.
No two generations face exactly the same living conditions
Image credits: Karolina Grabowska (not the actual image)
This millennial woman was curious to learn what her Gen Z counterparts do for fun
Image credits: ashleyteacozy
"I genuinely think that millennials got to have a way better time than Gen Z does. I got to be an emo kid in 2005. It was as good as you think it was. It was fun. It was great. It was trashy. I had the best time."
Image credits: ashleyteacozy
"I got to go clubbing when clubbing was the club. Like, it was so much fun. We got blackout to top 40s which were raunchy, and R&B, and just had a great messy time. I was 20 years old, 21 years old when indie sleaze was going on, and I was very indie sleaze, and it was a very good time."
Image credits: ashleyteacozy
"You guys turned legal drinking age, you could go to the club during the pandemic? That sucks. Literally, my sympathies go out to you but I have a question for the youth, like a genuine question."
Image credits: ashleyteacozy
"What do you do for fun? Like, what do you do? Where do you go? It's a Friday night or Saturday night, do you go out? Do you go to a club or do you just go to shows? Is it like only raves?"
Image credits: ashleyteacozy
"Now everything is so expensive. I used to go to bars or restaurants because it was affordable. I worked in a restaurant and I hung out in restaurants and bars and drank like crazy. Do you guys do that? What do you do for fun? It mystifies me."
Image credits: ashleyteacozy
Ashley’s video was viewed more than 720 thousand times on TikTok
Gen Z is the first generation to move into adulthood with the opportunity of interacting almost exclusively via technology
“Although we're still examining the emergence of Gen Z into their 20s, they do seem to be different than millennials at the same age,” Sean Lyons, Professor of Leadership and Management at Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics at University of Guelph, told Bored Panda in a recent interview. “The emergence of social media as a major life influence and the impacts of the pandemic seem to have created some different social interaction patterns in Gen Z compared to millennials.”
The expert continued to point out that Gen Z is the first generation to move into adulthood with the option of doing almost all of their interaction through their phones and laptops; that includes connecting with friends and family, shopping, dining, entertainment, and even learning and working.
“Anecdotally, I am witnessing a bit of a shift with the youngest members of this cohort [leaning] toward more desire for face-to-face activity, but I haven't seen any clear evidence yet to support that as a trend,” Lyons added.
In one of her videos, TikToker Ashley pointed out that her generation didn’t have the same technology Gen Z—the first generation of the so-called Digital Natives—has nowadays, thus supporting Lyons’s point.
Image credits: Karolina Grabowska (not the actual image)
The emergence of social media and the pandemic have likely been two of the main things affecting Gen Z the most
When discussing the differences between how the two generations have fun, Prof. Lyons pointed out that fun is probably the most subjective thing we could talk about. However, he believes that the move toward more technology-mediated interactions and the pandemic lockdown have contributed to the 'stay-at-home' casualness of Gen Z that millennials likely didn’t possess.
“These might be broader trends affecting all generations to some extent, but the impact of these factors will likely stick with Gen Z, who encountered them at an important time in their lives, as they were developing social relationships and personal identity,” he told Bored Panda.
Image credits: Gustavo Fring (not the actual image)
Even though all generations are going the same direction in time, they might have different viewpoints or values
Sean Lyons emphasized that generational differences are rooted in our sense of social identity; and although the actual differences between generational groups are relatively small, they are meaningful to us because they help us understand our place in history relative to people born at other times.
“Talking about generations helps us to make sense of societal change and share our hopes and fears with other people who are traveling through history on the same trajectory as us. This is helpful in making us feel that we're part of a collective experience as we go through our lifespan and encounter changes in the world around us,” he explained.
“However, because our experiences are different from those who are traveling through history in a different generational cohort, we have different key memories, viewpoints, cultural references, language and values that are anchored in our own experiences. This can be a point of conflict, but if we talk about it openly and without judgment, it can be a point of diversity as well.”
By sharing her point of view and asking others to share theirs, Ashley started an important conversation, allowing people to better understand the views and experiences of both millennials and Gen Z, representatives of which contributed to the discussion with their comments under her video.
Image credits: cottonbro studio (not the actual image)
In the comments under Ashley’s video, Gen Zers shared what it is that they do for fun
Some of the TikTokers’ answers suggested that the situation is pretty grim
Others reminisced over certain millennial experiences
Ashley summed up the responses in another TikTok video
Image credits: ashleyteacozy
"Alright, so the results are in. It turns out that Gen Z actually just simply does not have any fun. If you haven't seen that video, I asked Gen Z with all honesty, genuine curiosity, "What do you do for fun?" And the results have been really interesting. I am a millennial. I'm almost 33 years old. So the way that I spent my late teens and early 20s is just quite different than the way people are spending their teens and early 20s.
But I mean, obviously not for the same reason that, like, my parents' youth was different from my youth, you know, and my assumption at first was that Gen Z just had a way worse deal handed to them and that they weren't having any fun at all, which lots of people are like, "Hey, thanks for asking. I simply don't have fun." Okay, fair enough for Gen Z saying 'I don't have any fun' all across the board tends to be because of financial reasons. It's way more expensive to do pretty much anything now than it was before."
Image credits: ashleyteacozy
"And then also, surveillance reasons, you know. Young people saying that their parents can track their phones everywhere or that because phones are so in your face all the time, you're less likely to have sort of the trash era that I got to have because we didn't have video recording. Like, Lady Gaga and Beyonce made a song called Videophone because that was a novelty, that wasn't a thing that was there when growing up. For Gen Z that actually discussed what they do for fun, it's way more wholesome than things I did."
Image credits: ashleyteacozy
"There's a lot of mention of crochet and y'all are crocheting up a storm. And I think that is so cute. Bringing back kickbacks. We didn't hang out at people's houses, I think because clubs were cheap. It used to be girls getting free entry and we drink free before 11pm or something like that. It just made more sense to go to the club because we didn't have to clean up after ourselves. And it was really cheap. No one millennial can speak for every single millennial's experience, right. But what I will say is that the focus on binge drinking when I was in my teens and then into my early 20s was was heavy. Heavy binge drinking was encouraged and super, super glorified like 'shots, shots, shots, shots, shots'."
Image credits: ashleyteacozy
"It wasn't just Kesha brushing her teeth with a bottle of Jack, like, that's just what was in the media. That's what the top 40s were about. They were about drinking until you blacked out. Anyone remember, 'I got a hangover'. The lyrics are literally 'I can drink until I throw up'. And as you can imagine, this caused problems but it was fun. It was fun. Like, it was damaging and I'm probably going to die earlier, but it was genuinely fun. At least for me, going out on the weekends was what we did for fun."
Image credits: ashleyteacozy
"There wasn't a lot of variety. It's kind of cool to hear that Gen Z has more variety that doesn't just include drinking until you vomit. The replies are really interesting. It's really nice to hear just honest replies from people. It's cool to have conversations about this. And I know it kind of came across as 'back in my day' because, like, yes, that's more or less what I was saying. But I was actually curious and I feel like I've gotten some really cool perspective."