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It goes without saying that each generation’s coming-of-age experiences will differ from the one before them…but how different can they truly be?
Introducing The Millennial – Ashley Tea
Ashley Tea, a 32-year-old millennial and content maker, recently became viral on TikTok after asking this question for Gen Z and millennials. Ashley truly asked Gen Z what they liked to do for pleasure, and the responses have been quite insightful.
In the video, Ashley says, “I genuinely think millennials got to have a way better time than Gen Z does.”
She continues, “I got to be an emo kid in 2005 as a Millennial. … I got to go clubbing when clubbing was the club. … I was 21 years old when Indie Sleaze was going on, and I was very Indie Sleaze, and it was a very good time.”
Who is really having a good time?
It goes without saying that every generation’s coming-of-age experiences will be different from the generation before them…but just how different can they really be?
In the video, Ashley says, “I genuinely think millennials got to have a way better time than Gen Z does.”
She continues, “I got to be an emo kid in 2005. … I got to go clubbing when clubbing was the club. … I was 21 years old when Indie Sleaze was going on, and I was very Indie Sleaze, and it was a very good time.”
“You could go to the club during the pandemic? That sucks. Literally, like, my sympathies go out to you. But I have a question for the youth, like a genuine question.” Ashley the Millennial says.
“What do you do for fun?” Ashley asks in the video. “What do do; where do you go? Like, it’s a Friday night, a Saturday night. Do you go out? Do you go to a club, or do you go to shows, is it, like, only raves now?”
“And everything is so expensive,” the Millennial continues, “I used to go to bars and restaurants because it was affordable. I worked in a restaurant, and I hung out in restaurants and bars and drank like crazy.”
“What do you guys do? What do you do for fun??” Ashley concludes.
In response, thousands of Gen Zers shared how they spend their time, and the results present a completely different picture than Ashley describes. Some claimed they don’t having any fun:
Others cited the rising cost of living as the reason they don’t go out as much:
Loneliness
As grim as some of these statements may appear, they make a lot of sense. According to a US Surgeon General guideline, around half of all adults in the United States feel lonely, with young adults reporting the highest percentages.
It also found that time spent in person with friends among young people aged 15 to 24 has decreased by 70% over the last two decades. If the comments on Ashley’s video do not serve as real-life verification of this data, I don’t know what would.
Ashley explained that she was motivated to ask Gen Z what they enjoy doing for pleasure after passing through her city’s ancient nightlife district with her husband.
“[It] used to house many clubbing venues—all but one of which have closed their doors in the last five years or so. It dawned on us that the nightclubs we used to frequent ‘just because’ were now exclusively for paid events with specific DJs, which made us question what Gen Z did on a typical Friday/Saturday night.
Given that COVID lockdowns occurred for teenagers at such a critical moment, we thought their experiences would be vastly different from ours, so I decided to ask TikTok.
MySpace or TikTok?
Ashley spent a lot of her time growing up as a millennial in pubs and clubs. “As an adolescent in the late 2000s, I was a melancholy, emo/scene, Myspace, and subsequently Tumblr party animal who listened to Skins UK and music about partying/binge drinking.
Not everyone has the same experience, of course — I knew many people my age who did not participate — but it was quite widespread, and it was certainly my personal experience. We teased our mullet hair, put on eyeliner and Converse, and went out to drink, first in parks late at night, and later, once we were old enough, in downtown nightclubs.”
When questioned about how Gen Z reacted to her film, Ashley mentioned two things that startled her: Gen Z’s attitude regarding drinking and the amount of surveillance they face when out in public.
A happy ending!
Despite this, Ashley said that she remains optimistic about Generation Z. “I’m delighted that Gen Z appears to be taking their mental health more seriously, and it’s great to hear that creative hobbies are popular right now… I must also acknowledge that there were a large number of respondents from Generation Z who stated that their preferred kinds of entertainment were house parties or kickbacks.
It’s not that they’re all sitting alone in their rooms, broke, crocheting, and crying; they just don’t spend their Friday and Saturday nights saving money to spend on alcohol. They’re still having fun, but it’s different. They have a lot of perseverance and ingenuity, even if they may not realize it.
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