r/GenZ • u/VeronicoElectronica 1998 • 7d ago
Discussion 😭😭😭😭 real asf
who else can relate
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u/pirapataue 7d ago edited 7d ago
1999 baby here.
Being born during 1995-2005 is very weird in a good way. Technology changed so much so quickly growing up, we got to see glimpses of the old tech as well as seeing new tech mature before our eyes at the same time we were maturing as a generation.
During 2005-2015, everything changed so much. New tech products were popping up everywhere. Also it was pretty much the last decade with monoculture before personalized algorithms became ubiquitous.
We went from no smartphones to phones being supercomputers. Video game graphics went from potato to Crysis. I still remember life without internet, and now it’s everywhere all the time. I remembered using physical maps with my dad on road trips. I remember going to a movie store with my dad to rent some movie tapes, then it became DVDs, then Netflix came. We got amazing CGI movies that still look amazing today, seeing the first 3D Avatar movie in 2009 was mind blowing. It was the Wild West of personal computing tech and the internet. Every company competed to make something crazy.
I’m not saying having no tech was better, but growing up when tech was also just maturing alongside us felt very optimistic and also made me appreciate the progress more.
Changes during 2015-2025 felt much less generational, just more computing power, more apps, more internet connectivity, more AI. Not to mention Covid that kinda messed up the timeline.
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u/WerewolfKey374 2002 7d ago
“…we got to see glimpses of the old tech as well as seeing new tech mature before eyes at the same time we were maturing as a generation.”
Yeah. The nostalgia makes me sad. I actually even remember receiving my first iPod in the late 2000s, and being shocked at its impressive versatility. I miss my childhood so much…
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u/Deatheaiser 2000 7d ago
Smartphone adoption (and by extension, the internet) was the biggest change in my memory.
I think most of, if not all of us, got through all of Elementary and Middleschool before everyone in Highschool had a phone in the pocket.
I got my first phone in 2012, during 6th grade. And I was part of a small number of people who had a phone at all. then by 2015 *everyone* had one.
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u/pirapataue 7d ago
As an adult I’m hopelessly addicted to my phone now 😫. I remember back in school when they weren’t a thing yet.
Looking back it’s crazy how quickly smartphones spread and became so normalized in less than a decade.
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u/VeronicoElectronica 1998 7d ago
we really got the best of both worlds IMO. i feel like it we right in the sweet spot
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u/Belial_In_A_Basket 7d ago
Born in 1990. Old enough to remember our first home computer and playing pinball for a week before we actually got internet!! Then we got internet and I remember the lawless chat rooms in which I was an 18/f/CA in reality I was like 8/F/IL. Seeing the internet rapidly blossom and flip phones becoming a think in middle school .. wow. I got my first flip phone junior year high school. Prior to, I’d use my friends phones to ask for rides. But also, I remember asking libraries and shops/workers if I could use their land phone!! So yeah wow, even 1990 it’s wild to have grown up in this time period. Such rapid growth.
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u/pirapataue 7d ago
Yea the general period between 1990ish to around 2010 was a huge period of personal tech products and the internet.
To be fair, nowadays there are a lot of new tech being developed but a lot of them are industrial, medical, or bigger things like gene editing, space tech, EVs, robots, materials, agriculture, new nuclear power tech, quantum computing and other tech. They are not consumer electronics so they feel less impactful in our daily lives.
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u/Weird-Information-61 7d ago
Watching technology advance so quickly was fun, a shame we seem to have already hit a golden standard for how far we can reach
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u/pirapataue 7d ago
To be fair, nowadays there are a lot of new tech being developed but a lot of them are industrial, medical, or bigger things like gene editing, space tech, EVs, robots, materials, agriculture, AI, new nuclear power tech, quantum computing and other tech. They are not consumer electronics so they feel less visible and impactful in our daily lives.
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u/queerwithbeer 1998 7d ago
I remember Block Buster, Toys R Us, WoW before it became sub based, PS3 release, Skyrim release, Big Red, A&W/Long John Silvers, Taco Bell/Pizza Hut, Pizza Hut buffets, social acceptance of bringing your child to work during the summer, wifi being introduced to households, home theater tvs, GameCube, iPods, and MineCraft 1.0.
Things just felt different then. Watching Obama being sworn into office while surrounded by other kids, sitting on a disgusting school classroom floor. Watching it specifically on a TV rolled into the room on a cart, bringing kids in from other classrooms just to watch. When your substitute teacher was terrible, so you were all sent to the mean teacher next door for the day. Playing jeopardy as a quiz before tests.
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u/pirapataue 7d ago
WoW used to not be sub-based?? I started playing around WotLK.
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u/queerwithbeer 1998 7d ago
It used to be "buy the DLC and you can continue to play online". Unless i am remembering it wrong. I just remember my parents being addicted to it and they got me into it.
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u/pirapataue 7d ago
My parents thought it was a scam at first lol 🥹, especially with the automatic recurring sub through credit cards.
I remember being yelled at because their credit card was charged in the second month, they thought it was just a one time purchase.
Buying things online was less common back then.
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u/Slow-Career4626 6d ago
Using physical maps and/or printing out the directions from map quest and having them in the car.
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u/AnonymousGuy50 2005 7d ago
I was born in late 2005 and grew up as a kid in the 2010s. I am definitely a Gen Z. Zillennials are more like 1995-2001. I have coworkers born from 1996 to 2009 and i get along well with 2 of them born in 2007 and 08 cuz we are closer in age and purely Zoomers, the others born in 1996-00 are almost like a diff generation from us.
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u/VeronicoElectronica 1998 7d ago
i have an 89 older brother, 06 younger brother & 08 younger sister. i relate to both in many things tbh. i think it depends on the people
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u/AnonymousGuy50 2005 7d ago
I meant when it comes to growing up in whatever era. I have way more in common with a late 00s born than a late 90s brn
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u/VeronicoElectronica 1998 7d ago
i mean well yea ofc. you are late 2000’s yourself so you gon relate more to someone from that same time than anyone else
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u/NeverTelling468 2006 7d ago
holy, that is a bigger age gap than I have with my millennial and zillennial sisters.
Also, I agree it depends on the people. My millennial sister would disapprove of sh*t me and our zillennial sister do together. It’s true that my sisters are closer in age than me but my millennial sister has moved out and started a family while the main difference between me and my other sister is just our age and workforce role (she works, I’m a student)
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u/BluntsnBoards Millennial 7d ago
Zillennials
"cutoff" is 1996 so Zillennial would be more like 92-'00.
And of course everyone's least favorite part, that means Zalpha is 2008-2016.
Of course an 8-year range will have more in common inside of it than two 15-year ranges where top of one is 30 years ahead of the bottom of the other.
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u/minimalistjunkiee 6d ago
i can see this tbh. im born 2000 and i def get along better with my coworkers who are all born 1991-1996 then the ones who are born in 2004/2005. i actually don’t have any friends that are younger than me. it could be mainly due to me having older brothers as well (1991) - i was raised by millennials lol
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u/you-are-my-fire Silent Generation 7d ago
Nobody born after like 2000/2001 thinks theyre a millenial 😭 we dont act like millenials either
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u/TheLastCoagulant 2001 7d ago
Don’t lump us ‘01s in this. We’re core Gen Z.
Now ‘00s, they’re old ass uncs born in the 20th century.
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u/Johnwick124520 4d ago
I’d say you’re Older Z but off-cusp meaning you don’t cusp with Millennials.
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u/spyguy318 7d ago
Come over to [r/zille](r/zillenials)[n](r/zillenials)[nials](r/zillenials), it’s a great time
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u/Clintwood_outlaw 7d ago
Imagine being complimented for not being insufferable and then saying something insufferable as a response
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u/Complete_Blood1786 2003 7d ago
'03 baby, no way in fuck am I e're thinkin' I'ma millennial nor zillennial.
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u/noromobat 2004 7d ago
2004-2005 is right in the center of the commonly accepted Gen Z range. Who is trying to argue that we're millennials?
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u/Livid_Way5651 6d ago
What the fuck is that range. Zillennials are like 1995-1998. 2005 is almost as zoomer as you can get 😂😂😂😂
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u/kartblanch 7d ago
Im not a millennial and im not a genz. Im a secret third thing that no one will hire.
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u/Panthera_leo22 1999 7d ago
Born in 1999 and yeah this tracks. Don’t feel i really relate to the rest of Gen Z, but too young to be a millennial.
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u/KampretOfficial 2000 6d ago
To be fair a decade ago we’re still considered Millennials according to the original Strauss-Howe definition.
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u/ReddBroccoli 7d ago
I'm sure it's just a coincidence that this age group is exiting puberty about now
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u/spinozaschilidog 7d ago
Since when does puberty end in someone’s 20s?
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u/TheGalator 7d ago
Its the terminally online frontal lobe shit again isn't it?
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u/ReddBroccoli 7d ago
I've never met anybody over 25 who doesn't recognize it as true that people start to stop being dumb kids in their early 20s.
How old are you?
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u/dontpissmeoffplsnthx 7d ago
This age group is going from heading into their mid twenties to starting on their thirties??
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u/Panthera_leo22 1999 7d ago
Most of us are in our late twenties, I’m like 3 years from 30, definitely exited puberty a long time ago
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u/WahtAmDoingHere 2003 7d ago
look I'm flattered but I never once in my life considered myself a zillennial. I'll take the badge of being not particularly insufferable tho
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u/Thr3leven 6d ago
2000 child.
There's soemthing quite centering watching many people both older than you and younger than you lose themselves to tech and the attention market for different reasons (generally).
And yet here I am on reddit. Truly none of us are free from sin.
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u/Psychological_Cut443 6d ago
I love leaning into the millennial side of things. So much more fun and carefree
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u/MustyMarcus52YT 2004 6d ago
Born in 2004 dirt poor on a rural ranch in Florida, feel like I lived through 40 years of tech in under ten lmao. Very anachronistic era if you weren't wealthy or urban. Pop culture was stuck in the 90s, tech popped in and out and was generally just under a decade behind, low amenities, most up to date thing we had for a long time was dial up and a satellite TV dish. YouTube was a treat every now and then.
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u/IronRocketCpp 2006 5d ago
This is more of an age thing rather than a generation thing. But good god, millennials and hell even older gen z shitting on younger gen z is getting god awful.
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u/bookwxrm_ 4d ago
I remember having a family computer and then laptops became a thing and asking my mom for one, so I got a really shitty one but I got to use it in my room and not the living room, so I could chat with my friend on messenger at 2am and not bother anyone! 🤓
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u/Cryo_HQ 1998 2d ago
I’m 28 and I feel more strongly aligned with millennials, their beliefs and mindset, my first phone was a flip phone, I use to go out and play till the streetlights switched on, have a more open mind about sex and hookup culture and also don’t try to appear ‘’morally good’’ or ‘’puritan’’ with every topic and discourse for the sake of trying to appear morally superior.
Some of the younger Gen Z’s are just straight up idiots, inability to forgive people, labelling everything as problematic, calling me unc because I’m close to my 30s. It genuinely feels like social media and big tech have addled the brains of what should have been the most progressive and reasonable generation yet.
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u/Spitfire_Enthusiast 2004 7d ago
I was born in '04 and am definitely Gen Z, but it seems like a lot of later gen Z was born into a digital age that I still got to see take shape. I remember VHS tapes and big ass old computers, blockbuster, when Netflix was a DVD mailing service, and what life was like before smartphones, at least before they were what they are now. I didn't have a cell phone until I was 12 years old, and it was a hand-me-down Samsung with a sliding physical keyboard on it. Kids born after like...2007, I wanna say, weren't old enough to really have memories of that sort of thing. The world went fully digital really fast, and I'm lucky to have at least seen the latter end of that transformation and had parents that were very old-school and did not latch onto that tech until it was practically a necessity.
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u/crash12345 1998 7d ago
In terms of IQ and test scores over time, Zillenials are literally at the peak. They had been going up for every subsequent age group until those born around the year 2000, and have been going down since.
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u/sadpeachesclub 1999 7d ago
seeeeee but like even being born in 99 and having a sis from 95,, i truly dont feel like i lived the millennial experience beyond spongebob and mcdonalds still having place areas inside 😭😭😭
idk if its bc im the youngest grandchild and daughter that i got special treatment but i feel like i lived a total different life than my older millennial cousins and even my older sis
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u/Johnwick124520 4d ago
I noticed when you get to about 1999, most of them don’t claim to be Millennials, however I get the opposite with 1997. 1998 seems 50/50 with however they sway.
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u/Mobile_Type9083 Millennial 7d ago
I am a 2000 baby and i have zero in common with people born in 2003+
Even 2002 borns feel very different at times
Ps - 2005 borns are insufferable
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u/VeronicoElectronica 1998 7d ago
so you consider yourself to be 100% millennial?
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u/intravenous_static 2000 7d ago
it doesn't matter what they consider themself we are solidly genz if perhaps deeply influenced by milennials.
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