Were you born in the mid-to-late 90's? Was 9/11 one of your earliest vivid memories? Did you have an analog childhood and a digital adolescence and early adulthood? Did you grow up playing with Tamagotchi’s, Gameboys and Bratz dolls? Do you feel too young to be a Millennial but too old to be a Gen Z’er? Then congrats, you’re a Zillennial! Meaning you’re not fully one or the other, you’re a mix of both. Be prepared to live the rest of your life with a serious case of generational middle child syndrome.
Micro-generations are not a new concept. They’ve been a thing since the mid-20th Century. Which comes as no surprise since that’s when technology really began to evolve and spread worldwide, starting with the television becoming a staple household item by 1955. Generation Jones (Baby Boomer and Gen X cuspers born roughly between 1955–1964) are the earliest micro-generation that’s been properly studied and acknowledged by research experts. They were too young to attend Woodstock and participate in Beatlemania, but were too old to have their teen years defined by MTV and John Hughes movies.
