Generation X was named after a book. Author Douglas Coupland’s 1991 novel, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, struck a nerve and the name stuck. Consequently, the following generations were dubbed, Gen Y and Gen X. Taking us back to the beginning of the alphabet for the next generation. This seems symbolic of the impact this generation is poised to have on the culture of the world. A re-start. A do-over.
The first generation to not know a world without social networking. The generation that sees social media as a career. The generation that sees the 2014 aesthetic as vintage. Gen Z youtuber, Haylo Hayley feels old as she rants about this in one of her vlogs. That’s right, today, a generation gap exists between a 25 yr old and a 12 year old.
The internet hit us in the 1990s, mobile phones soon after, mobile phones with internet a little after that, and then social media apps and now, gulp, generative AI. Every generation misses simpler times. Same holds true for the gen alpha. They miss the times where they could post on social media without the sparkle of ring-lights in their eyes. They are fully occupied by an online world and their avatars in them. They are too distracted to read. But that, by no stretch, means they are less informed. This generation knows more than any generation previous ever could dream of knowing on any given topic. They struggle with finding authentic sources when it comes to history and politics but they know enough to not to be naive about things. They are not innocent about the scams, crimes, wars, discrimination and ecological damage that is happening today. They are in touch with reality like no previous generation was at their age. For the generation that experienced the pandemic in their formative years, the only way to survive is to keep things light and trivial, not deep and philosophical, going by the content they consume and create.
Conversely, they are victims of the human traits of this stage of physical development. This is the age when they first start exploring self-identity, experience soaring passions and earth shattering heartbreaks. The chief source of validation for this generation happens to be social media where they are being fed with rigid notions on what’s cool and what’s not in fashion and with unheard of measures of body perfection such as calf size and the ideal angle between the nose and the upper lip.
The same social media platforms that provided millennials and Gen Zers a means to explore and constantly reinvent their individuality are feeding Gen Alpha with algorithms for vanity metric validation. This has given birth to ‘influencer schools’ to teach people how to go viral. These schools essentially hand out the set formula to become an influencer which is a legit career option now.
They are only 12 when generative AI has entered the arena. They will own the intelligence of AI by the time they form the workforce. Nobody older than them is as equipped to take charge of the world that is to come. Not after we are gone but much before that. It may be apt to say that our collective future lies in the hands of generation alpha. But today, they are also just children who need to be protected from the tyranny of social media validation. We, along with generation alpha need to together carve out a way to benefit from our online existence and not be destroyed by it. Earlier we protected our children from the real world. Now we also protect them from the online world. Some things remain the same.
How can brands build a connection with Gen Alpha? By telling them that they are enough. That they are not defined by vanity metrics. But this could just be typical mom-gen speak from a limited understanding of their reality. To get Gen Alpha, we need to listen, observe and hope to learn because after all, they are the first generation to belong to this new reality.
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