Boomers 1946-1964, 57-75 yrs. (71.6 million)
X 1965-1980, 41-56 yrs. (65.2 million)
Y (Millennials) 1981-1996, 25-40 yrs. (72.1 million)
Y1 25-29 (31 million)
Y2 29-39 (42 million)
Z 1997-2012, 9-24 yrs. (68 million)
A 2012-2025, (48 million)
We all probably remember our school years, especially high school. Anyone of my vintage was shaped by the upheavals of the late sixties, the anti-war movement, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F Kennedy, the subsequent riots, leftist radicalism, and after that, Nixon, Watergate and so on. Back then, the cold war was in full swing, tension with Russia were at a maximum peak, and we were not entirely sure who would win or if we’d all die in a rain of nuclear warheads. All public buildings had prominently marked fallout shelter signage and we were schooled in do’s and don’ts of survival during a nuclear aftermath. The Viet Nam war was still raging until our ambiguous defeat and exit in 1975. Even then, we were spared some of the horrific experiences that our father’s and grandfather’s generations went through in two world wars and a Korean conflict. Nevertheless, these are the things that shaped us and made us grown up and aware, even in our teen years. Several time a year, I write about generational focus. Now is one of those times. Every generation has an event that defines their demographic age group. This week, I felt impressed that this week or month may have an indelible effect on Gen Z.
Just last month and before, we would have sworn that Covid would be the defining force that shaped Gen Z and certainly it’s been huge, but it may not be the end all and be all for them. First, Covid affected everyone. We were all in this together but not in a good way. On the other hand, Covid has certainly set the stage for what does hit the hardest. Gen Z has been cogent enough to see Covid from beginning to the end of the valid but also the worst lies and hysterics that are presently being revealed. I propose that they’ve been taking notes and yet have been too young to participate in the discussion. They’ve watched in silence as the lies have been thrown at them. Their potential for lack of trust in government may be far more profound than the passivity of the Millennials and much more than we can gage right now.
Enter the month of March, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and most critically, the prospect of WWIII and thermonuclear war; this will shape them like nothing else just like my generation grew up with fear of instant annihilation. Ironically, similar threats shaped the lives of their great grandparents and grandparents, skipping over the next two generations that lived in the relative safety of a de-escalated nuclear threat that is no more. While every generation has had their hardships, not everyone faced the prospect of a nuclear winter that would wipe away their civilization as we’ve known it forever.
Where Covid and nuclear threats coincide is when a formative generation is forced to understand how we got to this point and make up their mind where they must stake out their own future. As they gradually watch the Covid tyranny lies being uncovered, even as their older peers casually move on to the next deception as either deceivers or victims; perhaps they’ll also understand that the leaders and tyrants that tainted the pool of their childhood and ruined some of the best years of their youth, also have a hand in the threat of annihilating their very existence via an incompetent and corrupted world view.
It’s a forced and popularized assumption that all that young people want now is immersive gaming, sex changes, world socialism, and no responsibility. The same people that push that image are the same ones that physically imprisoned them for two years over Covid and voted in a crippled economy, energy dependance, and feckless foreign policy. Sure, they have also been (attempted) brainwashed to accept climate fanaticism, universal white and male guilt, full denial of biological genders, and acceptance of lawlessness as a twisted version of ‘justice’, and on these things, they will have to choose. Some among them will have to do the math and report back to their own peers.
I predict that Gen Z will not take what is given them lying down as passive recipients. In many ways, they have a deck stacked against them, particularly in what they’re being force fed culturally, but it’s the dollars and cents matters and more so their very survival at stake that will give them a filter of realism often missed by their older Millennial peers. They will receive their torch to carry at a younger age. May they choose wisely.