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Gen Z and Millennials have revealing chat about how differently they've experienced the 2000s

"Millennials had dial up internet. And a life before that internet was created."

Images via Canva

Gen Z discusses the biggest cultural differences between them and Millennials.

Gen Z (those born between 1997 and 2012) and Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) only have a handful of years between them. But if you ask them, they were raised worlds apart.

In an online forum discussing generational differences, a member named @No_Title_615 posed the question: "Why are Gen Z so much different to Millennials?" They went on to share, "So I grew up during the 2000’s and 2010’s and as a society I felt like we were honestly in a really good place culturally. However as we entered the 2020’s I felt a big shift in society."

The shift? A noticed change in overall optimism to pessimism. "Suddenly there was so much more doomerism. The optimism of the 2010’s pretty much went away," they wrote.

The post prompted many Gen Zers and Millennials to add their thoughts and opinions about their differences growing up--and they did not hold back. From societal norms to technology and more, here are the most interesting responses from Gen Z and Millennials.

"Millennials grew up and learned the internet and technology as it was happening whereas GenZ will utter phrases like “wtf do you mean, no internet?” at some point in their lives." —@Quiet-Donut2192

"I feel like the optimism of the 2010s was more an Obama 2nd term thing than an all of the 2010s thing." —@Someperson727

"Millennials had dial up internet. And a life before that internet was created." —@grom513

dial up, dial up internet, internet, aol, internet memeDial Up The Struggle GIFGiphy

"The way that I see it, is that the 2010’s were right after the housing crash, and ppl became more optimistic, going to clubs more and such. However, post-COVID, I feel after that crisis, music I particular seems to be getting better. After a social crisis, the music seems to reflect the feelings that everyone is feeling. Then afterwards, a couple of years or so, the music becomes more uplifting and even reflective. This is the period that we’re in, imo. Hope this makes sense." —@Maxi-Lux

"9/11 and COVID were large reasons that separate Gen Z and Millennials. Millennials had an understanding of what life was like before 9/11, not Gen Z. Millennials had a taste of the workforce before COVID, not Gen Z. Gen Z grew up and faced adulthood in the midst of crisises, Millennials had the taste of the normal life before it got taken away." —@XConejoMaloX

scrolling, smart phone, iphone, scrolling mindlessly, scrolling gifAdd Hasan Minhaj GIF by MOODMANGiphy

"Smartphones changed everything. My upbringing was largely the same as millenials, but when smartphones started getting popular, everyone I knew got busy, cold, and distant. I'd try having conversations with people and they'd just stare at their phones the whole time. I think constant internet access has left people fragmented, with our heads in the clouds. You could live right next to each other but have nothing in common, because everything is online now." —@OnTheRadio3

"I say this all the time and frequently get a lot of flack for it but the doomerism is a byproduct of inexperience. People who spend most of their time online or in videogames or otherwise rotting away alone at home aren’t gaining much in the way of life experience but they don’t want to come off to others (or themselves) as naive, sheltered, etc. so they adopt this kind of idiotic cynicism to stand in for the wisdom of experience. Others see this and basically copy it because if you don’t know better then it sounds very worldly and jaded. Gen Z exhibits this due to the isolation and terminally online nature of their upbringing." —@Woodit

party rock, millennials, party rock dance, dancing, shufflingdance party everyday im shufflin GIFGiphy

"Gen Z refused to Party Rock." —@One_Huckleberry_

"Millennials had access to the world’s information without it being algorithmically weaponized against them during their formative years." —@Messiah_Thomas

"We know what it’s like to not have the internet or phones on us 24/7. Also we know what it’s like to play outside and be bored to our core." —User Unknown

play outside, outside, outdoors, playing, boredPlay Go GIFGiphy

"I mean bruh, 2020 literally started off with a pandemic, it’s not the best reference point to go off of plus we are only halfway through our current decade. I think nostalgia for happier/youthful times is playing a part in warping your perspective. There’s a lot of factors though, Gen Z as a whole has been disenfranchised by a feeling of lack of purpose and bad financial prospects. It’s not something I’d arbitrarily chalk down to our generation as a whole, but rather the material conditions of our modern day environment and things happening beyond our control. For most of us, we were hit by the Covid lockdowns right after or during high school so key years of our youth got utterly fucked and what came after was bitter sweet. Things got a hell of a lot more expensive in the last few years and wages aren’t sufficiently rising to keep up with inflation. so that plays a huge part. More youth are realizing the contradictions and flaws within our economic system and yearn for change. Tough times can create a lot of animosity and frustration in people." —@Triscuitsandbiscuits

"I wonder if the fact that there was a global pandemic had anything to do with decreasing levels of optimism." —@AdMurky3039

tiktok, tiktok dance, tik tok choreo, tiktok dancing, dance tiktokJimmy Fallon Dancing GIF by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy FallonGiphy

"Internet, YouTube, Tik Tok. Constantly exposed to what we would have considered bad influences before." —@Electrical-Lead-3792

"We had an incredible upbringing. Music was great, the state of the world was great (besides 9/11). Pop culture was great. Everything was just getting better and better. Movies, games, phones, internet, cars getting cooler and cooler, buildings getting cooler and cooler. People getting cooler. And we learned almost everything through experiences, socializing, mentorships, taking advice, listening to our elders, asking questions, experimenting, arguing, challenging ourselves, breaking ourselves down, lifting ourselves up, and figuring what this world means to us. While the new generation, the minute they’re unsure about something they run to ChatGPT. They don’t take risks. They don’t argue anything, the right opinion is the most popular or upvoted. They’re not insightful. They don’t value perspective. And everything is as good as it gets for them. Different times. We were like the roaring twenties before 1929 happened." —@SasukesFriend321


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This man is a role model for incarcerated kids. Why? He used to be one of them.

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For kids who have grown up in low-income neighborhoods, it can be hard to see a way out.

Seeing the adults around them stuck in the same cycle of poverty, a lot of kids find it hard to believe that there’s any opportunity for them to be different — to be the ones who make it out and carve out a different way of life. The American Dream seems too elusive. Like it doesn’t apply to them.

Robert Clark was one of these kids.

After losing his mother at a young age, Robert turned to the wrong people for guidance. That, paired with the limited resources in his neighborhood, meant that he found himself going down a path that would almost guarantee continual incarceration. Or death.

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When he was released from prison at 21, he'd had enough. He wanted out of the life he was living. He cut ties with the people he’d been hanging around and tried to carve out a new life for himself. But it wasn’t until he ran into an old friend that he found direction. This friend told him about YouthBuild.

Check it out:

YouthBuild provides troubled youth a path to success with a program that gives back to the community by building affordable housing and offering continued education. A Starbucks original series.

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YouthBuild is a program that helps low-income kids, like Robert, who have dropped out of school to pursue their GED.

When they’re not studying, they’re building housing for the homeless and low-income families in their own neighborhoods.

"We discover that there is an enormous range of talent that is being locked out of society," said Dorothy Stoneman, founder of the program. "But if the young people are given an opportunity they will seize it."

It’s a two-fold approach. The kids working on bettering themselves while doing something for people who are, in many ways, worse off than they are or in circumstances they’ve experienced. It shows them the path forward while giving them the chance to help others move forward, too.

YouthBuild offers hope.  It offers structure. It offers expectations. And the kids rise to the occasion.

Today, Robert is the first YouthBuild graduate to found and lead a YouthBuild program.

He has a passion for helping others to see their way out of the lifestyle he once lived. He knows these kids. He gets them. And he’s committed to helping them.

Because he was once one of them. 

"The early months of the YouthBuild program was a magical experience for me," said Robert. "It introduced me to a voice that I didn’t know I had. It was the greatest lesson for me about the power of love, opportunity, and expectation ... they expected that I would be something. And they loved me until I learned to love myself.”

YouthBuild is definitely about learning and building, but equally importantly, it's about community.

The kids who are served by the program need people to talk to who understand where they’ve been and can show them a new path forward. Someone to believe in them in order to see and believe in better for themselves. Someone to give them hope.

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These 5 countries are the best for business leaders who want to solve societal issues.

America is #1! ... At least in one very cool way.

Social entrepreneurship.

"What the heck is that?" you might be asking.

Social entrepreneurs are those who use a business opportunity to solve a societal problem.

So if a company, say, prioritizes cleaning up a local river as part of its business model or a start-up gives away a winter coat to a child in need for every jacket it sells, those endeavors could be considered social entrepreneurship.

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Social entrepreneurs have played increasingly important roles in terms of economic growth and solving systemic problems throughout the world. And there's no better place to be one than in the U.S., according to a recent study released by the Thomas Reuters Foundation.

By conducting surveys in 45 countries with hundreds of experts — academics, policy-makers, investors, and entrepreneurs themselves — the foundation analyzed where it's easiest (and most difficult) to become a do-good business leader. Several factors can help or hurt a social entrepreneur, like if investors are easy to come by or if the public understands what a social entrepreneur even is (which can affect a business' fundraising efforts), and those variables can vary pretty significantly from country to country.

The foundation's survey asked participants a series of questions related to businesses with a bigger mission such as "Is it easy to get grant funding?" or "Is social entrepreneurship gaining momentum in your country?" Then they ranked the top countries based off of those responses.

Here are the top five countries on the list:

5. Israel

Photo by Eric Piermont/AFP/Getty Images.

Israel finished fifth overall but ranked highest in the world in terms of the general public's understanding of what social entrepreneurs actually do — one of the critical questions the survey took into consideration.  

4. Singapore

The bustling Orchard Road shopping district in Singapore. Photo by Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty Images.

Singapore ranked particularly high on the list in terms of entrepreneurs getting the non-financial support they need in order to get the ball rolling on their goals, like mentoring from experts and access to legal advice.

3. United Kingdom

Photo by Chris Radburn-WPA Pool/Getty Images.

U.K. respondents reported overall favorable conditions for their social entrepreneurs, who ranked second in the world as far as their ability to make a living in their line of work.

2. Canada

Photo by Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images.

Social entrepreneurship is definitely on the up and up in Canada as the country ranked somewhere in the top 10 across all questions asked in the survey.

1. United States

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images.

The U.S. ranked highest in terms of reported favorable conditions for social entrepreneurs. Respondents also said social entrepreneurship in America is "gaining momentum" and that it's relatively easy for businesses with a noble mission to find the talent they need to succeed.  

Stacked up against the rest of the world, there's certainly room for improvement in America on many key issues.

When it comes to health, police brutality, education, inequality, and gun violence, America is, er ... not blazing the trails of social justice (to put it lightly). In part because of issues like these — and the fact we're in the middle of a nasty presidential election season — it can feel like cynicism about the state of our country is reaching all-time highs (there's a reason why the tagline, "Make America Great Again" has struck a chord with so many people, after all).

But surveys like this one can serve as a reminder that, all things considered, there are many reasons to feel proud to be an American. The fact we're empowering innovators who want to make a living making the world a better place is just the latest item on that ever-growing list.

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Alicia Keys' look at the VMAs shows she meant it when she said she's over makeup.

'I don't want to cover up anymore.'

Alicia Keys did something pretty gutsy at the MTV Video Music Awards.

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She showed up to the red carpet, husband Swizz Beatz at her side, wearing absolutely no makeup.

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We're not talking "no-makeup makeup" either, by the way. (You know, when people use makeup to rock a more natural look?)

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Whether she's appearing in promos for her new gig hosting the 11th season of "The Voice" or performing at the DNC, you may have noticed that Keys has been walking out the door without a single dab of lipstick or swipe of mascara.

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Keys expressed why she decided to go the makeup-free route in an essay for Lenny in May 2016.

"Before I started my new album, I wrote a list of all the things that I was sick of," she penned in the newsletter, which was co-created by Lena Dunham. "And one was how much women are brainwashed into feeling like we have to be skinny, or sexy, or desirable, or perfect."

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"One of the many things I was tired of was the constant judgment of women," she wrote.

"The constant stereotyping through every medium that makes us feel like being a normal size is not normal, and heaven forbid if you’re plus-size. Or the constant message that being sexy means being naked. All of it is so frustrating and so freakin’ impossible."

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Keys' decision to ditch makeup is laudable — not because makeup or the women who wear it are inherently bad (they're not) — but because she's embracing what works for her.

People of all genders should be able to wear as much or as little makeup as they choose without feeling like they need to conform to society's expectations (expectations that start kicking in younger than many of us may realize).

To wear makeup or not to wear makeup is a personal choice. When it comes to the images presented in the media, however, it can start to seem like wearing makeup is the only choice. Keys' decision to reject that pressure is setting an amazing example.

No one should feel like they need makeup to hide who they really are, which makes Keys' VMAs look one for the books.

"I don’t want to cover up anymore," she wrote in Lenny. "Not my face, not my mind, not my soul, not my thoughts, not my dreams, not my struggles, not my emotional growth. Nothing."

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