NOTHING BUT A “Z” THING (BABY) - Dixie Kachiros
There’s been a lot of generational finger pointing going on during the coronavirus pandemic — further dividing millennials and baby boomers. Baby boomers are calling out the youth for traveling and going on spring break. Meanwhile, millennials are frustrated they can’t get their boomer parents to stay inside. Each generation thinks the other generation isn’t taking the pandemic seriously enough.
According to an article in Business Insider this morning, a case in point is to look no further than the youth who are taking advantage of cheap airline tickets to book travels. They’ve also been crowding beaches and partying on booze cruises while on spring break. “We’re not worried about it — we’ve been drinking Coronas all day, bro,” a spring breaker who visited South Padre, Texas, told local station KRGV-TV. Millennials have also gotten flak for flippantly approaching the pandemic with memes. Taking off on Reddit and infiltrating social media, “boomer remover” has become a coronavirus catchphrase among younger generations. But the problem is that the media is not distinguishing Millennials vs. Gen Z properly.
Baby boomers aren’t throwing their disdain in quite the right direction: While both millennials and Gen Z have been seen using #BoomerRemover and booking cheap travel, it’s Gen Z, not millennials, who are out partying and ignoring coronavirus warnings on spring break.
In fact, Millennials are scared straight. I was just reading in Forbes, that a recent study — as in one week ago — on the impact of Coronavirus on purchase decisions and behavior found that while overall all generations are worried about Coronavirus, Millennials are changing their shopping behavior more than any other generation and are earning the title the ‘worry generation.’
In fact, according to millennials, they’re already heeding coronavirus warnings. It’s Gen Z you should be reprimanding, they say.
“Millennials are not partying,” tweeted National Review reporter Mairead McArdle. “We and our anxiety issues are holed up working from home, watching Hulu, and yelling at our parents not to go outside. It’s Gen Z you want.”
So while not a Millennial myself, in their defense, we need to get our generational segments straight. Millennials turn 24 to 39 in 2020. The oldest of Gen Z turns 23. That means millennials have graduated college — it appears to be Gen Z who are the ones living it up on spring break.
P.S. This post was inspired in part by Dre and Snoop…
