The marketing gurus have only recently completed their lovingly assembled profile of the millennial generation, and their work is a true wonder to behold: a trail of mangled slang, twitching meme-gifs, and fast food brands masquerading as witty, clinically depressed twenty-somethings. But now a new generation—61 million strong—is marching to maturity, wreathed in Juul vapor and wielding billions of dollars in purchasing power.
The brands, naturally, want to know about them. What are these creatures like? What are their hopes, their dreams? Do they value fresh ingredients? What is their attitude, in aggregate, toward shopping at the mall? And what might that imply for Nabisco’s bottom line?
The ethnographic entrepreneurs who cut their teeth on the millennials are rapidly expanding into the Generation Z racket. None of them could reasonably aspire to the glory of a William Strauss or Neil Howe—the pop-historians who coined the term “millennial”—but that is not for want of trying. They are throwing out catch phrases and neologisms, seeing what will stick. Out of case studies, stats, and raw intuition, they are conjuring a character—the representative Z—who will haunt public discourse well into the next decade. And they are, inevitably, going to get it very wrong.
Though “Generation Z,” as a moniker, has gained a toehold in the public consciousness, this fledgling cohort, whose birth-range most experts place between 1995 and 2005, is so green that its very name is still up for grabs. Jean Twenge, a tirelessly meme-generating psychologist and brand consultant, went with “iGen” in her book of the same name. Futurecast, a subsidiary of a major ad agency and the force behind a couple of millennial marketing guides, has settled on “Pivotals” (because “they are pivoting away from common millennial behaviors and attitudes”). David Stillman, one of the field’s biggest names, and Jonah Stillman, his college-aged son, offer “weconomists” in their book Gen Z at Work, in reference to the younger generation’s supposed affinity for the sharing economy. Also in the running: Digital Natives, the Homeland Generation, the Meme Generation, the Throwback Generation, post-millennials, Plurals, Founders, and “Philanthroteens.”
But if Gen Z’s name is in flux, a narrative has already started to emerge about what makes this generation tick. Experts tend to subvert the expected narrative of Zs as “millennials on steroids”: screen-poisoned shut-ins reared on benzos and niche porn, readying the kill shot on Olive Garden, monogamy, and the traditional nine-to-five. By their lights, a generation that grew up on reboots and revivals has itself, somehow, become one: a kind of woke Silent Generation. (...)
Much is made of the fact that, unlike millennials, these Zs have never known a world without the internet. Lifelong immersion in a “phigital” environment (the Stillmans’ portmanteau), in which “the real world and the virtual world naturally overlap,” has wrecked their attention spans—down to an average of eight seconds from the millennials’ comparatively ample twelve, according to Fromm and Read. The Stillmans address this generational twitchiness from a workplace perspective, suggesting that employers dice their training into dozens of short, easy-to-digest tutorials, each instantly followed by hands-on practice. To the marketing crowd, Fromm and Read suggest exploiting this deficiency with “direct, quick, and simple” ads—“snackable” content memorable enough to make an impact before the eight-second window closes.
A slideshow currently making the rounds at conferences and corporate headquarters breaks Generation Z down further. Called “Reign Makers,” it is the product of Bustle Digital Group, which, in addition to its slate of lifestyle sites, hosts a robust thought leadership division—“a consultancy within a consultancy,” as Jessica Tarlov, head of research at BDG, describes it. Tarlov’s division had noticed that, more and more, their presentations on millennials were being interrupted by questions about Gen Z. “Reign Makers” represents the stolid if nonsensical effort of BDG marketers to draw a bright line between the two.
The presentation sections Zs into four types—The Gypsy Kings and Queens (“eclectic and entrepreneurial risk-takers”), The Free Radicals (“independent, alternative thinkers”), The Challengers (“strong, steadfast, educated doers”), and The American Dreamers (“optimistic team players”)—and explains the best ways to market to each one. (...)
I was talking to Lavigne-Delville at the Bowery Hotel in New York, shortly before six Zs were set to arrive for an informal focus group. It was a Wednesday night in January, midway through a ruthlessly cold week, but Lavigne-Delville looked strikingly unmiserable, her perma-smile never wavering. A self-described proud Xer who could pass for old millennial, Lavigne-Delville got her start over a decade ago, deciphering her own generation for Creative Artists Agency. She prospered through the millennial boom (the late aughts: a terrible time to be a millennial, an excellent time to be a millennial-expert) and is now among those leading the way on Gen Z.
Tonight’s batch of Zs—all women or non-binary people—had been curated by Abby Spector, Lavigne-Delville’s laid-back millennial-aged research manager. They were there to provide insights for the next issue of Humanly, Culture Co-Op’s calling card, a more or less yearly distillation of the company’s research. The last installment highlighted trends like “rogue vogue” (the embrace, among Zs, of the trashy or obscene, as a punkish rebuke to Instagram’s lifestyle cult) and “nouveau beat” (a resurgence of Kerouac-style counterculturalism, but expressed via podcasts and DIY urban farming initiatives).
“You guys are literally the guinea pig group,” said Lavigne-Delville, once the Zs had settled in around a low glass table cluttered with candles, free pizza, and three strategically positioned iPhones (Melissa’s, Abby’s, and my own, all set to recording mode). The Zs checked texts, sipped meager flutes of rosé, discreetly wiped pizza grease on their coats and pants. Most of them had come here from the fringes of the culture class: prestige-scented drudgework at design studios, museums, experimental theater clubs.
Lavigne-Delville wanted to know what had caught the group’s attention lately. “It could be a person, it could be an advertising campaign, it could be a movement,” she said. Her only request was that, at least at first, they “veer clear of politics” (as Lavigne-Delville told me, once things land on a political subject “good luck getting off of it”). In response, a 21-year-old in track pants and an oversized thrifted sweater asked if anyone in the group had seen the Netflix show You, which led to a lengthy back-and-forth about internet privacy, creepy men, and the politics of hotness.
The brands, naturally, want to know about them. What are these creatures like? What are their hopes, their dreams? Do they value fresh ingredients? What is their attitude, in aggregate, toward shopping at the mall? And what might that imply for Nabisco’s bottom line?
The ethnographic entrepreneurs who cut their teeth on the millennials are rapidly expanding into the Generation Z racket. None of them could reasonably aspire to the glory of a William Strauss or Neil Howe—the pop-historians who coined the term “millennial”—but that is not for want of trying. They are throwing out catch phrases and neologisms, seeing what will stick. Out of case studies, stats, and raw intuition, they are conjuring a character—the representative Z—who will haunt public discourse well into the next decade. And they are, inevitably, going to get it very wrong.
Though “Generation Z,” as a moniker, has gained a toehold in the public consciousness, this fledgling cohort, whose birth-range most experts place between 1995 and 2005, is so green that its very name is still up for grabs. Jean Twenge, a tirelessly meme-generating psychologist and brand consultant, went with “iGen” in her book of the same name. Futurecast, a subsidiary of a major ad agency and the force behind a couple of millennial marketing guides, has settled on “Pivotals” (because “they are pivoting away from common millennial behaviors and attitudes”). David Stillman, one of the field’s biggest names, and Jonah Stillman, his college-aged son, offer “weconomists” in their book Gen Z at Work, in reference to the younger generation’s supposed affinity for the sharing economy. Also in the running: Digital Natives, the Homeland Generation, the Meme Generation, the Throwback Generation, post-millennials, Plurals, Founders, and “Philanthroteens.”But if Gen Z’s name is in flux, a narrative has already started to emerge about what makes this generation tick. Experts tend to subvert the expected narrative of Zs as “millennials on steroids”: screen-poisoned shut-ins reared on benzos and niche porn, readying the kill shot on Olive Garden, monogamy, and the traditional nine-to-five. By their lights, a generation that grew up on reboots and revivals has itself, somehow, become one: a kind of woke Silent Generation. (...)
Much is made of the fact that, unlike millennials, these Zs have never known a world without the internet. Lifelong immersion in a “phigital” environment (the Stillmans’ portmanteau), in which “the real world and the virtual world naturally overlap,” has wrecked their attention spans—down to an average of eight seconds from the millennials’ comparatively ample twelve, according to Fromm and Read. The Stillmans address this generational twitchiness from a workplace perspective, suggesting that employers dice their training into dozens of short, easy-to-digest tutorials, each instantly followed by hands-on practice. To the marketing crowd, Fromm and Read suggest exploiting this deficiency with “direct, quick, and simple” ads—“snackable” content memorable enough to make an impact before the eight-second window closes.
A slideshow currently making the rounds at conferences and corporate headquarters breaks Generation Z down further. Called “Reign Makers,” it is the product of Bustle Digital Group, which, in addition to its slate of lifestyle sites, hosts a robust thought leadership division—“a consultancy within a consultancy,” as Jessica Tarlov, head of research at BDG, describes it. Tarlov’s division had noticed that, more and more, their presentations on millennials were being interrupted by questions about Gen Z. “Reign Makers” represents the stolid if nonsensical effort of BDG marketers to draw a bright line between the two.
The presentation sections Zs into four types—The Gypsy Kings and Queens (“eclectic and entrepreneurial risk-takers”), The Free Radicals (“independent, alternative thinkers”), The Challengers (“strong, steadfast, educated doers”), and The American Dreamers (“optimistic team players”)—and explains the best ways to market to each one. (...)
I was talking to Lavigne-Delville at the Bowery Hotel in New York, shortly before six Zs were set to arrive for an informal focus group. It was a Wednesday night in January, midway through a ruthlessly cold week, but Lavigne-Delville looked strikingly unmiserable, her perma-smile never wavering. A self-described proud Xer who could pass for old millennial, Lavigne-Delville got her start over a decade ago, deciphering her own generation for Creative Artists Agency. She prospered through the millennial boom (the late aughts: a terrible time to be a millennial, an excellent time to be a millennial-expert) and is now among those leading the way on Gen Z.
Tonight’s batch of Zs—all women or non-binary people—had been curated by Abby Spector, Lavigne-Delville’s laid-back millennial-aged research manager. They were there to provide insights for the next issue of Humanly, Culture Co-Op’s calling card, a more or less yearly distillation of the company’s research. The last installment highlighted trends like “rogue vogue” (the embrace, among Zs, of the trashy or obscene, as a punkish rebuke to Instagram’s lifestyle cult) and “nouveau beat” (a resurgence of Kerouac-style counterculturalism, but expressed via podcasts and DIY urban farming initiatives).
“You guys are literally the guinea pig group,” said Lavigne-Delville, once the Zs had settled in around a low glass table cluttered with candles, free pizza, and three strategically positioned iPhones (Melissa’s, Abby’s, and my own, all set to recording mode). The Zs checked texts, sipped meager flutes of rosé, discreetly wiped pizza grease on their coats and pants. Most of them had come here from the fringes of the culture class: prestige-scented drudgework at design studios, museums, experimental theater clubs.
Lavigne-Delville wanted to know what had caught the group’s attention lately. “It could be a person, it could be an advertising campaign, it could be a movement,” she said. Her only request was that, at least at first, they “veer clear of politics” (as Lavigne-Delville told me, once things land on a political subject “good luck getting off of it”). In response, a 21-year-old in track pants and an oversized thrifted sweater asked if anyone in the group had seen the Netflix show You, which led to a lengthy back-and-forth about internet privacy, creepy men, and the politics of hotness.
A white woman named Maddie then praised ZocDoc, specifically its utility in screening out white male physicians. The next person went with safe spaces. The person after that went with the new Ariana Grande album, occasioning a discussion of cultural appropriation. By the time the Zs were gathering their coats and providing Abby with their PayPal info (each was being paid $75 for their time) Lavigne-Delville had gotten them to open up on MAGA Kanye (“it’s not even a disappointment”), money (“we have no money”), and their future careers (one was mulling some combination of photography, marketing, fashion directing, performance art, and philanthropy).
The conversation culminated in a complex, impassioned discussion of gender as it relates to The Wing, the Women’s March, and #MeToo. “Why would we go forward in any sort of revolution without being able to revolutionize ourselves?” asked the track-panted Z, with real feeling. You could almost picture the question, tweaked and decontextualized, in an eight-second Instagram ad. Yoga pants, maybe, or online banking.
The conversation culminated in a complex, impassioned discussion of gender as it relates to The Wing, the Women’s March, and #MeToo. “Why would we go forward in any sort of revolution without being able to revolutionize ourselves?” asked the track-panted Z, with real feeling. You could almost picture the question, tweaked and decontextualized, in an eight-second Instagram ad. Yoga pants, maybe, or online banking.
by Daniel Kolitz, New Republic | Read more:
Image: Peter Strain
[ed. Barf. How to exploit and manipulate another generation. See also: Gen Z: In Their Own Words (NY Times).]
