Zennial

Zennials are those of us born in the micro-generation occurring between 1992 and 1998 – in the blurring of time that manifested itself between the Millennials (roughly 1980/81/82 to 1994/95/96) and Generation Z (roughly 1995/96/97 to 2010/11/12).

There has been a lot of debate as to whether the last cutoff year for Millennial Gen is 1994 (as some start the 15 year Millennial gen in 1980), 1995 (my preferred cutoff and cited on Urban Dictionary a lot), or 1996 (now becoming more popular as the cut-off date as the generations mature and congeal). Therefore, to arrive at the Zennial micro-gen years, take the middle of those 3 years (1995) and extend it 3 years before (1992), and then 3 years after (1998).

Some of us remember 9/11 clearly (the oldest Zennials were 9), others barely so (the youngest Zennials where 3 or nearly so) – but we all were raised with the consequences of our changed society afterwards.

• On one side, we’re considered lazy. We don’t want to work in the real world, our shelves are lined with participation trophies and “activism” is a dirty word.
• On the other side, we’re the new world saviour. We work hard with the technology that’s native to our lives and find that activism is the only way we know how to change the political and economic world.

This dichotomy is the life of a Zennial. How can we save the world with fiery activism and technology while also being too lazy to amount to much of anything?

If you were still in single digits in terms of age when 9/11 happened, but also are old enough to remember it, even if somewhat hazily, then you are a Zennial.

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