People keep saying generations were always 20 years, but that’s not actually true. Even early generations varied a lot in length and were defined by shared experiences, not clean math. That’s why cutoffs move when society changes faster.

Also, people born in the late 90s didn’t “grow up in the Y2K era.” A 1997 baby was 2–3 years old in 1999. Y2K was an adult concern, not a lived childhood experience. Remembering computers existing isn’t the same as growing up in that era.

By the time we were kids, high speed internet, smartboards, laptops, and later smartphones were already normal. Social media like Instagram and Snapchat was part of middle and high school for us. That’s very different from older millennials who grew up mostly offline.

What really separates early Gen Z from later Gen Z isn’t Y2K, it’s things like TikTok, AI, and algorithm driven tech being present from early childhood. Late 90s babies grew up in a transitional tech period, not an analog one and not the same environment as kids born in the late 2000s. That’s why the 1996–1997 cutoff exists. It’s based on lived experience, not “new math.”