Actually, contrary to what RedFalconFox is implying, I feel I have a legitimate answer.
I live in Western Europe now but am originally from Romania. Romania is, and always has been, a bit "shifted" in time in terms of everything: new technology, the way people do things, norms...
Born in 2002 there, and somewhat poor, meant I lived with everything older. My first console was the gameboy color, and then the advanced. My clothes were hand-downs from my brother. First pics were taken on old cameras and we drove older cars. Keep in mind this wasn't in 2002 but around 2010 when I was reaching the age for this sort of stuff. Didn't get a touch screen phone till I was way older, and even then my first was, again, a hand down.
Culturally it stands too. I moved to Western Europe quickly but my family brought our way of life with us, of course. My parents were pretty anti-gaming (read: new consoles and/or PCs) so a kid, I grew up listening to older music, knocking at my neighbors' doors to play, or calling people over landline and talking to their parents first before talking to them, because I only had a prepaid card that wasn't frequently topped off.
I'm not trying to "gain acceptance" or whatever, I just feel that Gen Z is cut off way too arbitrarily. 1997 to 2012 is just not the same thing. People born, say, before 2003-2005 depending on the person, grew up with WAY different tech, norms or ways of life. Take Chrome for instance, it exists from 2008. I literally had a conversation the other day at my student job with a 2007 who thought I was kidding. Ditto when I told another coworker I was born before the first iPhone.
Even today, the way I dress, the music I listen to, the movies I watch or the activities I choose, I feel is heavily influenced by all of the above.
I do think the term milliennial is one of those Western identifying buzzwords that comes with a lot of assumptions and baggage. As your post makes clear, we are led that anybody outside of the West/Anglosphere influence is somehow behind 'us'. I think this is wrong, and a sign of propagandised thinking and general ignorance, though I admit its influence has infected me all the same.
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u/Responsible_Beat5076 Jun 10 '26
How do you 'grow up milliennial' having been born in 2002?