obsession with streamers. I literally cannot wrap my head around the appeal of watching another person that isn't an actual friend play a videogame.

I'm early Gen Z and the thing I kinda dislike is how shameless this generation is.

Anime is a good example. It used to be a niche thing for nerds that you were kinda ashamed of outside of Studio Ghibli, but now it's really mainstream. That's all well and good but then you have some people with hentai stickers on their school laptop. Instead of adopting anime as a medium, we adopted the worst forms of otakuism. Instead of mass adoption tempering the worst aspects, it appears to have emboldened them instead.

I also know some people who go around sfw anime cons and pay women to step on them in public. When I said this was kinda weird, I was the one in the friend group that got flack. Gen Z is more willing to embrace their weird habits but some stuff should be done at home or with private groups.

Honestly, younger people today seem pretty alright. One thing in particular is that is seems bullying in school seems way less tolerated than it was back in the day. I mean, I'm sure lots of bullying still goes on but back in the 90s it was not only pretty brutal and pervasive, but it was generally not seen as something that required intervention and it was "just part of growing up".

One thing I really don't get though - and maybe this is just more a local thing - but it seems like the kids are really into Sublime. I don't get it, I didn't like their music when they were first popular and while they had a hit or two, they weren't anywhere near as popular with my peers than they are today, it seems to me.

Usually better opinions on current events than people my age

I'd even say that young people today have better opinions on current events than people my age had when they were their age. Most late Gen Xers were always awful about politics, just pure end of history garbage. We're the generation that grew up with AES being replaced by Pizza Hut and shock therapy, and the kids these days grow up with the planet being set on fire by capitalism, so this shouldn't surprise anybody.

I still don't get Twitch or watching people play games. It's just hours of unedited content to me

The kids seem mostly fine. They probably don't understand quite how extraordinary the pressure is on them compared to even just 25 years ago. I'm very concerned about how their math skills are developing, but I think that has something to do with how much schools have fallen apart and/or turned into performance pressure cookers. They're kinder than previous generations, and honestly it's surprising to me that they are because of how fucked society is around them.

I don't get their humor, but I assume it's very funny if you're in the know.

Video tutorials.

Just give me some damn written instructions I don't retain anything from watching someone else do it 😣

Most of the stuff I don't 'get' comes from really good places.

Like, I don't get all the hyper-specific labels for gender and sexuality, but I'm so glad we live in a time where people are able to actually talk about that sort of thing openly.

Same with mental illness. I'm always baffled when young people will just tell yme they have autism or anxiety or ADHD or whatever because when I grew up that sort of thing was so stigmatized you never told anyone. It's a good baffled though. Like, go you for saying that. Don't say it at a job interview, but go you for saying it.

Saw a group of about 12 bro kids, they were all wearing sandals, pink boat shorts and white button up short-sleeves with the 'Edgar' haircut I've only really seen online prior. Bros have gotten off popped collars and fauxhawks but the update gives the exact same vibe. So I hate that but also hated how those same people dressed when I was younger and just overall just don't like that genre of guy

As somebody who fits best in the zoomer archetype:

Cannot get into ASMR. I've tried. Often its women 20 years younger than me, rubbing their fingernails on hairbrushes. The intentional sounds they make with their lips and fingers are things that would make me want to change seats on a bus.

I really understand this. I'm not massive on ASMR but there are a couple I think do a pretty good job. I gravitate towards the more non-sexual stuff and higher-concept, higher-effort stuff, and tend to avoid anything that's too intimate because it makes me very uncomfortable as an aro.

Instagram. I was maybe the last person to get a smart phone. It was probably 2016. I'm just fully lazy to take photos of stuff. This is a real issue when I'm single and I need to start putting photos on dating sites, as all pics of me in my phone are me squeezing carrots in my nostrils and similarly goofy things.

I also don't use Instagram or really any phone apps like that. I only have a Whatsapp for work. My opinion of TikTok has changed from "I have no idea what's going on there and want nothing to do with it" to "Hm, maybe it actually does have some potential if the US wants to get rid of it" but I still will never download it, just very uninterested.

I feel like I'm an odd zoomer as I don't really use social media beyond Hexbear and checking my twitter for ~10-20 minutes per day for geopolitical news, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a very large minority of zoomers who also not plugged into this stuff and we just find it difficult to find each other because, uh, that would usually require social media nowadays.

This is a real issue when I'm single and I need to start putting photos on dating sites, as all pics of me in my phone are me squeezing carrots in my nostrils and similarly goofy things

Unironically would make me more likely to swipe yes.

Whatever "Roblox" is. Whenever I see or hear about it, it strikes me as some sort of scam or something. I think it's some sort of game engine? But seemingly way more proprietary than any other?

This isn't new per se, but much more mainstream now: fandom

I love art and there's tons that I'm passionate about but like, the whole "obsessing over a character and writing fanfic and getting into fights over ships, etc." and stuff is a completely alien mindset to me. Don't get it

Not really. They're little weirdos, but not much differently than any other generation of little weirdos.

20-somethings seem to be a lot less into drugs and alcohol which is great, definitely a positive change, but I don’t get it.

Why the heck do people my age and younger all universally use phones for everything? It sucks.

Just browsing on a phone alone weirds me out. I work in tech, my phone is fairly modern and sizeable, I'm not even that old, but I simply can't get on with it.

• Phones are almost always slow to load, ugh
• 95% of people don't use Firefox + Adblock so it's full of shitty ads and I don't even know how to use the internet with ads anymore
• Touchscreens are never precise enough to touch small buttons (and I have dainty fingers),
• So many sites have a 'mobile-friendly' version that often lacks functionality I need. A big percent of website visits on my phone require me to use 'Desktop mode'.
• Typing into stuff requires the on-screen keyboard, which takes a minimum 40% of the screen, so I can't see and type at the same time.
• Screen tiny.

I do browse on my phone, but holy hell do I hate it. Why does anyone prefer it ever when there's a choice? Is it just because I have a dedicated ergonomic desktop setup? But even then I'd prefer using my laptop on my bed any day of the week before being confined to my phone.

And don't get me started on using any mobile OS other than Lineage. The amount of undisableable notifications makes me cry.

I can't really think of anything aside from TikTok or other short form video scroll thingys. How did this video format become so popular? I try scrolling through tiktok and I can feel my brain melting from how erratic and all over the place all of these videos are.

Nah way man, I'm gonna keep rocking forever, forever, forever...

I am an early 00s baby so I can give you some insight on a couple of those things. First, I like ASMR, but it has to be really specific. There are only a few creators I watch and I only watch specifically sci-fi or medical roleplay. I have no idea why these are the only videos that work for me, but they are. But when they work, they feel great. I get a really relaxing tingly feeling in my head, like when you're a kid and your parent is scratching your head. It's definitely weird but it works for me. I can't explain it.

I use Instagram loads, but only really to look at memes and talk with my friends. I don't post much, and most of my friends don't post much either. My feed is 95% shitposts and 5% cooking videos.

Anime is so popular and moves so fast now, and has so much support, in comparison to the 90s when a lot of it would never get an English dub or sub. There's always gonna be a few popular battle shonen - it used to be Bleach and Naruto, then Attack on Titan, now it's Jujutsu Kaisen and My Hero Academia. But there's also so many seasonal anime that asking someone "do you watch anime" actually doesn't tell you much about their tastes.

I always take my photos and videos in portrait because I guess that's the best way to look at them on a phone. I never turn my phone sideways because it's easier to scroll in portrait.

Also, a lot of people are saying that Gen z are a lot cooler than our predecessor politically. That may be true (idk I wasn't there when you were young), partially because we grew up in a post cold war, post 9/11, post 2008 crash world, but also partially because of the movements which came before us. I would say most young people are very good on LGBT issues specifically, and I think that's in large part thanks to the especially vocal movements of older queer people who came to the forefront as we were growing up. We were more exposed to gay and trans people in a positive light, thanks to a lot of millennials.