The more I see a 30-year-old and a 16-year-old have a heated feud on TikTok regarding which generation is lazier, or worse yet, which hair part is better, the less I want to ever interact with someone who fits into the stereotype of their generation. If you ask me, frankly, the entire debate regarding which of these neighboring generations is better is ridiculous and utterly pointless.

However, as a member of Generation Z, I’m going to take a stance. While it may seem biased, I don’t believe it is, and Gen Z is ultimately making (slightly) less of a fool of themselves, at least when arguing which generation is better.

Generation Y, or better known by the popular name millennials, encompasses anyone born from the years 1981 to 1996. This generation falls in line after Generation X, which generally tends to be the parents of Generation Z kids. Generation Z, referred to as Gen Z, is the next grouping after Generation Y. They are the spawn of the early 2000s with their birth years ranging from 1997 to 2012. Because of this, in 2023, millennials are approximately in their late 20s to early 40s, whereas Gen Z-ers extend from those who have just hit their double-digits to those in their early 20s.

Both Generation Y and Generation Z have their defining characteristics, mostly pertaining to pop culture, fashion, and style. One of the most aggressive argumentative examples is between the millennial side parts and Gen Z middle parts when it comes to hair. Personally, I’m a middle-part fan as well, but what it comes down to shouldn’t even be considered generational, but rather attributed to society’s ever-changing style norms and lookbooks.

Besides style, interests are also a huge aspect of each generation. While modern, immersive video games line the shelves of Gen Z kids as they chug their Monsters, the millennial generation tends to be swarmed by the Harry Potter series as they take selfies with their butterbeer at Universal Studios. While there is, undoubtedly, overlap regarding what hobbies each generation partakes in, and most activities are timeless, certain niche interests do fall into a certain timeframe and birth year range.

Although the generations are unique despite being side-by-side, Gen Y and Gen Z have their conflicts, primarily over trivial topics on social media. The majority of the instances are actually quite amusing and lighthearted, this “all in good fun” trend, like any, occasionally took an unnecessarily heated turn.

This is where, in my opinion, the millennials and Gen Z tend to diverge. While Gen Z took this in their typical “let’s make a weird joke out of this and forget it a month later” manner, millennials took the topic a bit more seriously. Most notably, they made parodies and songs regarding their “millennial pride,” which is yet another example of the difference between Gen Z and millennial humor. 

The songs, too, could be taken flippantly, but many of these songs have a strangely aggressive tone to them. A prime example of this is an odd parody of “God Bless the USA” that replaces the original lyrics with millennial sentiments posted by @dear_brandy on TikTok. 

This example is just one of many out there, and while I firmly believe that the entire debate is pointless, the millennials are more often the ones leaving me miffed after watching their videos, and not just because they are attacking the generation that I was born in.

Unsurprisingly, my personal preference as far as trends go definitely leans towards Generation Z interests, but rather than understanding millennials better through their arguments, I only feel further antagonized. Both sides are guilty of being over the top, but I will be sticking with my own generation during this round.