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@ ashley.jones
2024-07-02 10:36:56I am not a Zoomer. Please stop with this misconception.
I was considered a Millenial my entire life until I was 20 in 2019. It was that year that I started hearing people refer to me and others my age as Zoomers. I was confused as to why there was a sudden shift when my entire life I was a Millenial. I even remember one of my High School teachers mention how it was funny we were all in the same generation, she was around her late 20's and we were 18, only a ten year age difference.
This sudden shift is bizarre and most people go along with it mindlessly. I was always a Millenial. I still am. Apparently now the general year of birth for Zoomers is anywhere from 1994-1997. Generations are never a strict year range. Generations are made up on experiences regarding a certain time line. I'm at the age range where based on how you lived your childhood, based on the experiences you had, you can easily fall into the Millenial or Zoomer generation. Even though someone may consider me a Zoomer, I absoloutely do NOT relate to Zoomers at all. Never have, never will. Once again, generations are made upon experiences, not solely the year cut off. That is just a generalization.
I have had a number of Zoomers (around 15-19) call my phone line and it's insane how many references I make or things I talk about that they have no idea about. Even something as extremely iconic as Duke Nukem is unknown to them. No, I'm not kidding. When I was a kid on the internet, you couldn't go a day without seeing Duke Nukem referenced somehow. He was really popular, along with Beavis and Butthead, which is one of my favorite shows as a child and still is to this day. I especially differ from Zoomers when it comes to technology and experiences on the internet. I was on the internet from a young age. Since I had a very hard time making friends at school, I used the internet as a way to have communication with others. I was the "lul so randum" type, but online that was fairly standard. In person it was annoying and I was weird. That being said, I experienced a ton of things on the internet that Zoomers have no concept about. I was torrenting from a young age, and while torrenting definitely shouldn't be an achievemnet, these RETARD ZOOMERS don't even know how to download an .mp3 from a Youtube video. They screen record it on their phone and complain about having to be silent so they don't ruin the audio with their voice. Yes, this is clearly, CLEARLY, a major generational difference. Another thing, one of my fondest memories was downloading toolbars and getting viruses and trying to figure out how to remove it from the family computer before anyone found out. Zoomers don't have toolbars, they don't know what those are. They got replaced for apps. Zoomers can't get viruses anymore - every device, be it a computer or phone, is heavily babby-proofed so if you want a virus, you're going to have to jump through some hoops to get one. Things like HTML and markup were common when I was a kid, and I learned the very basics of it. The only time a Zoomer will know HTML is if they have a Neocities phase for 2 weeks. The list continues. "VHS aesthetics" is a phrase that makes me want to kill myself. Most Zoomers never had experience with VCRs, and for some reason hold this nostalgia for how VHS tapes look even though they never experienced it. What's funny is that the "VHS aesthetic" is not true to life - you'd have to have a heavily damaged tape via magnents or moisture damage to get that awful of a look. VCRs, VHS tapes, camcorders, I used them all as a kid and it wasn't anything special. That was what we had before we started using DVDs. Same with CDs, used those and I'm pretty sure most Zoomers would not have used CDs.
I'm not saying I'm a hardcore Millenial. There are certain things I didn't experience or can't remember. However, I am definitely a late-term Millenial, one of the very last few. FOR GODS SAKE I WAS BORN BEFORE THE MILLENIUM. MILLENIAL -> MILLENIUM. Being a later Millenial, I experienced a VERY different internet from the Zoomers. Especially when it comes to internet culture. The entirety of how people acted on the internet is inperceivable to Zoomers. People didn't take things so seriously or personally, it wasn't expected that you should tell people your real name or every little thing about you (unless a personal website), being on the internet wasn't a 24/7 thing either. Being on the internet was with intention. It wasn't readily available any single time you were bored. It was 100% noticible how internet quality declined the more phone users used the internet. When you use a phone, you're vastly limited as to how you interact with the internet. Your posts will be shorter and of less value because it takes much longer to type on a phone, and it's way more inconvenient to look up reference things when on a phone compared to a computer. You are also using the internet with way less intent. When you were forced to be on a computer, it was more of a dedicated event. You're on the computer, you're using the intenret. With a phone, it's a very passive mindless butchered use of the internet. I genuinely don't understand how someone has a comfortable time using a cell phone for internet browsing. It feels like an insult. You feel like a monkey doing that. However, that's really all Zoomers know and prefer, they didn't experience much different. I did, though, which is why it's confusing to me when people call me a Zoomer. As you can see, it's all about the experiences rather than just a birth year.
For more examples, how I experienced my first exposure to pornography wasn't through the internet. It was Playboy magazines for years, then porn on TV, then the internet. For most Zoomers it would have been via the internet.
I will say that there are people who are my exact age who definitely fall in line with the Zoomer category. Mostly because these kids growing up were normies. They were watching the latest TV, movies, music, and didn't use the internet because that was still for losers up until Facebook and smartphones became popular. Since I was a loser retard, I was using the internet at a young age, I experienced a totally different world from the normies.
To add onto this, much of the media I consumed growing up was from the 80's and 90's. They were showing plenty of re-runs of 90's cartoons when I was a kid. However, I never had Saturday morning cartoons, since I'm a late Millenial, there were channels like Cartoon Network. My parents mostly played music from the 80's and is probably why I really enjoy the music from that time. Shows and movies I loved included/includes the 1985 Care Bears series (one of my favorites), PeeWees Big Adventure (amazing), Beavis and Butthead, TMNT, etc. I also had many toys from the 70's since that's when my parents were children and they passes their toys onto me. Many 1970's Fisher Price toys, toys like Little People, the Little People boat, carport, Barn, and a metal Dollhouse from the 1970's. I recall even wearing those god awful super scratchy kids pajamas from the 1980's that had cartoon characters on them. Mine had Strawberry Shortcake. I have a lot of experience with these things.
There is a clear generational devide between me and the Zoomers. They cannot relate to the things I talk about, the references I make, and vice versa. When I mention Beanie Babies to a 17 year old, they think I'm talking about Beanie Boos, which isn't something I saw until probably 2015 when I was 16. The phrase "boomer shooters" is a dead giveaway that someone's a Zoomer and has shit taste, because that term is a disgrace to games like DOOM and Duke Nukem.
Also, how I handle things like homosexuality and identity politics is vastly different from Zoomers. The Zoomers act like this stuff is real, without question or self awareness that it's weird. I never hesitate when I know something is faggot behavior. Trannies are not """trans""", they're trannies and weirdos. But when these Zoomers call me they start off the conversation with "what are your pronouns?" with a SERIOUS intention. I don't play along with that stuff, and it's a generational thing with people like me who grew up in a certain time who haven't changed due to societal pressure. It's clear I'm very guy-ish with my interests and things I do, so when I remark about my dislike of my breasts, they immedietly jump to "well you can get "top surgery". It's insane how programmed the Zoomers are. Their generation is continually taught to never truly be okay with who you are. You always have to feel pressured to fit in a certain label, a certain race, a certain gender, it's all overdramatized identity politics. I say if a man ever sucks a cock or yearns for a cock, that man's a homo. Then they try to explain to me that sexuality is a fricken' spectrum. Sure, it's a spectrum: FUCKING GAY and STRAIGHT. If a man EVER yearns for a cock or has jacked off to gay porn (yes, trannies are gay because they're men), then that man is forever a homo. I don't care if he regrets it, if he 70% likes women 30% likes men - it doesn't work like that. The dude is a fag. And guess what? I don't care. I don't care if someone is gay or wants to play dress up, with red lip stick between his stubble. Who cares. I don't. However, it is weird. It's funny. It's bizarre being exposed to Zoomers with how brainwashed they are into this garbage. Plenty of Millenials are as well, however, ones who grew up on the internet with that certain internet culture call it as they see it and I will never change that about myself. There is no way on Earth someone can truly compare me to be similar to a modern day 15 or 20 year old. The experiences don't align.
Clearly I am not a Zoomer.