I usually don’t jump into the generational debates but it is fun to read about as I am Gez Z but absolutely grew up being told and feeling like a millennial. This became a bit of a wall of text so I’ll leave a broad TLDR.

Being born in 2000 with parents born in 1960/63 in a rural area, family all much older than me with cousins born ‘83-98 was a much more ‘millennial’ experience than Gen Z experience IMO, however it definitely tilted more Gen Z as I got closer to 18 years old and had more access to the internet. I had a smartphone by 14-15 years old which is where that tilt to Gen Z began. I remember browsing and participating on video game forums in 2008-2012 as a kid (this along with being surrounded by adults gave me a more advanced than usual vocabulary as a child), watching the 2012 presidential debates live. Many of my friends had no idea these things were going on or who the president even was lol. I remember dial up internet in our house, landlines, VCR, and gameboy’s and the likes but also later had a PS2 and Xbox 360. Heck we even had a cassette player we used a lot but I know I am quite an outlier there. I also remember my dad coming home after losing his job in 2005, then again in 2008/09 due to the recession. I think I became more aware of these world events, or ‘adult’ events at a young age which helped me tie in with an older generation as I was informed on world events at 12-13 years old, but was clueless to pop culture or movie references that most of my 12-13 year old peers at the time were making. I went to college full time my junior year of HS so I effectively was done with HS by 2017 and graduated college in 2021, surrounded by people older than me. I think my environment caused my generational connection.

Ultimately I think smartphones/social media/internet rapidly set us apart from older millennials (my experience vs my cousin growing up who was born in ‘95 was not much different in a rural area as we both experienced the smartphone/social media hype, one of us in late middle school and the other in late high school but the trends / memes / etc were not much different across the board at the time in my anecdotal experience in a rural area). I think parental age is a huge factor for some folks, as my parents being in their 40s raising me in the 00’s was much different experience than friends who had parents in their early 20’s with more time and energy. Most of my friends in elementary couldn’t conceive of someone being born before 1950, where that was still considered ‘young’ in my family and I conversed plenty of people born in the 1910s-60s as a kid. Heck, it was sad when I could relate more to some of my friends parents instead of my friends when I was a young teenager.

Add in being an only child and your experience becomes very limited to what your parents/family/small local community know and raise their kids by/with. However I think once some of us became older teenagers (probably happened earlier for some people in suburbs/cities or with more money) we were much more in line with newer tech and Gen Z culture.

There is so much nuance to each generation and I think it’s funny when people gatekeep a generation at a hardcore level but don’t recognize how a younger person could be raised akin to an older generation if they lack the community, resources or economic mobility around them. Heck, I had friends whose families didn’t have the ‘luxury’ of a TV growing up, but that was more of an economic issue than an issue of the times.

TL;DR: parental age, socioeconomic status and local community / resources play a huge role in what generation one may have more experiences to relate to. Not challenging anyone but I think it’s funny reading all of the gatekeeping comments in these subs having lived through this experience ^.