Generation Alpha (ca. 2010-2024) isn't even finished being born yet, but the LA Times informs me today that we already hate them anyway:
GPT-4 says this illustration captures "the essence of Generation Alpha." Note the frisbee in the upper right.
“Everyone on the internet is really scared of Gen Alpha,” said Gen Z influencer Rivata Dutta, aka Riv, whose content is popular with alphas on TikTok. “They’re like, oh my God, Gen Alpha is so weird.”
....In recent months, the alphas have emerged as TikTok’s newest supervillain, a designation that has followed them into mainstream media. If zoomers are delicate snowflakes, alphas are the opposite — a horde of marauders chasing Drunk Elephant beauty products.
....“I need to ask millennials — why are your kids so awful, and more importantly, why do you think it’s so funny?” TikToker Alanna Dinh said in a viral video in November.
I don't really have anything to say about this. It just amuses me that most of the Alpha hostility comes from Gen Z. It appears to be based on little aside from the fact (?) that Alphas are even more digitally dependent than Zoomers, with their heads always buried in an iPad. In another decade, I suppose that Betas will spend 24/7 in VR headsets and the Alphas will be the ones complaining.
27 thoughts on “The new worst generation ever is Gen Alpha”
Solar
"It just amuses me that most of the Alpha hostility comes from Gen Z"
I'd say the hostility comes from the snowflake generation feeling sad that they will no longer be the center of the universe.
Who? Kevin, or the person who wrote the article from which he’s quoting?
Lounsbury
Idiotic American "generations" commentary generally.
Doctor Jay
You know, I'm just enjoying how nobody in this story says anything about Boomers. It's kind of as if we are no longer the One True Cause Of Everything Terrible.
Salamander
I beg to differ. Clearly, and has been well known and accepted for many decades, the " Baby Boomers" are the worst of all "Generations." Plus, we're still around, crapping up the world with our dementia, internal combustion engine driving habits (and bad, dangerous driving at that!), Cold War mentalities, militarism, Reaganism, hippyism, druggie lifestyle, evangelicalism, insistence that there are "males" and "females"... well, you name it.
Yeah. we're the absolute worst! No competition! We're da bomb! As in "A" and "H".
tango
How come everyone hates us boomers? We won the Cold War, invented the Internet, started the sexual revolution, had great music, and played a big role in women's and civil rights. And that's despite inheriting a seriously messed up America too.
Sorry, I need to stop it and start putting the hair shirts of penance back on...
(I increasingly wonder if these arbitrary generational borders mean much anymore... but to be honest, the kids these days are alright despite what people say...)
Lounsbury
No they don't - the entire generations nonsense is ad-hoc marketing pseudo-science - what is staggering is how in American commentary and culture they have become reified into something that you seem to largely take seriously.
KinersKorner
Never understood why a guy born in 1947 and another born iin 1961 are in the same generation. Being the latter I’ve zero in common with the former. More in common with Gen X, who I mostly grew up with anyway. So I do tend think it’s a load of crap.
tango
You got me 100% wrong here, my last bit there points out that I think the entire Zoomers and millennial thing is not worth much.
That said, I think that there is some commonality among boomers, especially the non-southern ones who grew up in the suburbs. The development of youth-oriented pop culture and music, affluence, and the blooming of TV created a cohort of people with more in common than most cohorts in American history.
jambo
All the recent parsing is pretty arbitrary, but the baby boom generation makes sense because it was a true demographic phenomenon. The pig in the python and all that. The exact end point of it might be subject to debate, but the fact that the immediate post war years lead to an unusual increase in births isn’t.
Special Newb
Boomers hit the jackpot and pulled up the ladder while dooming the planet. And then Boomers won't fucking let go of power so those of us who came after can fix things.
iamr4man
Apparently you missed this:
“ Zoomers fear them. Boomers want more of them. ‘
See? We want more of them, and since they are bad then we boomers are to blame. Probably true too. I spoil my grandkids by giving them gifts like lots of Totoro stuff Warner’s classic cartoons and Little Lulu comics. They are sure to turn out badly.
lawnorder
We Boomers had our time in the sun when we were the younger generation and were going to hell in a handbasket. Looking back, I sympathize with our parents' generation. Hair styles, the sexual revolution, civil rights, drugs, rock and roll, "never trust anyone over thirty", the hippie movement generally. We shook the world up really thoroughly and the elders had serious difficulty handling it.
emjayay
Links to videos needed for evidentiary purposes.
different_name
Seems like a reporter lacking anything to write about. But that describes basically all generational reporting.
My childless 50-something existence means I really only interact with adults. The 20-somethings I know seem generally more well-adjusted and sane than the median member of my generation was at that age. Certainly more so than I was.
And certainly a lot saner than the median boomer.
Kevin M
The bottom-feeders in media really want us to care about these generational labels. I rarely thought about generations in this sense before maybe ten years ago. I just thought of young people, old people, and middle-aged people. Now we've got this whole framework for age-based blame games.
I agree about 20-somethings and 30-somethings. I've worked with a lot of them and they have acquitted themselves quite well.
lawnorder
I'm a median boomer, born 1955, and I like to think I'm pretty sane.
Justin
Seems right to me.
“Fear has been growing in the nation’s capital amid a violent crime surge, up 39% last year and many kids are caught up in it. Data show juveniles make up the majority of arrests in DC for crimes like robbery and carjacking. For carjackings, which nearly doubled in 2023, the average age of those arrested was 15 years old. Guns are used in about half of carjackings, police data show.”
At least in some places the kids are nuts and their parents suck too.
Dana Decker
Presently, the gen labels are not particularly good. At least with "Greatest/GI generation", "Baby boomers", "Millennials" there was a historical or calendar reference.
Each gen spans 17, 26, 17, 18, 15, 15, 15, 15 years. The first four are connected to events (e.g. crash '29, WW2) but the last four are all arbitrarily 15 years long, and difficult to remember because they don't align with decades.
Group them by decades (or double-decades?) and go modern. Century-dot-decade, like software releases. That way it's clear what you mean when you talk about gen 21.1.
If that's too sterile, at least find some historical reference points and make them the gen labels.
CAbornandbred
👍👍👍
lower-case
i ignore any commentary re individual 'generations'; republicans are the worst members of each and every generation
Srho
Wild in the streets. "We're gonna put everybody over 10 outta business!"
Scott Martin
We hate them for living in the world we have created for them
erick
Wait so the generation who are what, like 15-30 themselves discovered that kids who are 14 and under think weird stupid stuff is funny? Like had they never met kids before?
Chip Daniels
Someday maybe people will let go of this named generation nonsense.
There isn't any reason to sweep a hand across a set of people born between two arbitrary dates and ascribe traits to them.
shapeofsociety
Complaining about younger people has been a favored pastime of older people since time immemorial, recorded as far back as some of our earliest surviving records. Most people get better as they mature, and everything will work out.
"It just amuses me that most of the Alpha hostility comes from Gen Z"
I'd say the hostility comes from the snowflake generation feeling sad that they will no longer be the center of the universe.
Gen X reporting. Meh.
Who? Kevin, or the person who wrote the article from which he’s quoting?
Idiotic American "generations" commentary generally.
You know, I'm just enjoying how nobody in this story says anything about Boomers. It's kind of as if we are no longer the One True Cause Of Everything Terrible.
I beg to differ. Clearly, and has been well known and accepted for many decades, the " Baby Boomers" are the worst of all "Generations." Plus, we're still around, crapping up the world with our dementia, internal combustion engine driving habits (and bad, dangerous driving at that!), Cold War mentalities, militarism, Reaganism, hippyism, druggie lifestyle, evangelicalism, insistence that there are "males" and "females"... well, you name it.
Yeah. we're the absolute worst! No competition! We're da bomb! As in "A" and "H".
How come everyone hates us boomers? We won the Cold War, invented the Internet, started the sexual revolution, had great music, and played a big role in women's and civil rights. And that's despite inheriting a seriously messed up America too.
Sorry, I need to stop it and start putting the hair shirts of penance back on...
(I increasingly wonder if these arbitrary generational borders mean much anymore... but to be honest, the kids these days are alright despite what people say...)
No they don't - the entire generations nonsense is ad-hoc marketing pseudo-science - what is staggering is how in American commentary and culture they have become reified into something that you seem to largely take seriously.
Never understood why a guy born in 1947 and another born iin 1961 are in the same generation. Being the latter I’ve zero in common with the former. More in common with Gen X, who I mostly grew up with anyway. So I do tend think it’s a load of crap.
You got me 100% wrong here, my last bit there points out that I think the entire Zoomers and millennial thing is not worth much.
That said, I think that there is some commonality among boomers, especially the non-southern ones who grew up in the suburbs. The development of youth-oriented pop culture and music, affluence, and the blooming of TV created a cohort of people with more in common than most cohorts in American history.
All the recent parsing is pretty arbitrary, but the baby boom generation makes sense because it was a true demographic phenomenon. The pig in the python and all that. The exact end point of it might be subject to debate, but the fact that the immediate post war years lead to an unusual increase in births isn’t.
Boomers hit the jackpot and pulled up the ladder while dooming the planet. And then Boomers won't fucking let go of power so those of us who came after can fix things.
Apparently you missed this:
“ Zoomers fear them. Boomers want more of them. ‘
See? We want more of them, and since they are bad then we boomers are to blame. Probably true too. I spoil my grandkids by giving them gifts like lots of Totoro stuff Warner’s classic cartoons and Little Lulu comics. They are sure to turn out badly.
We Boomers had our time in the sun when we were the younger generation and were going to hell in a handbasket. Looking back, I sympathize with our parents' generation. Hair styles, the sexual revolution, civil rights, drugs, rock and roll, "never trust anyone over thirty", the hippie movement generally. We shook the world up really thoroughly and the elders had serious difficulty handling it.
Links to videos needed for evidentiary purposes.
Seems like a reporter lacking anything to write about. But that describes basically all generational reporting.
My childless 50-something existence means I really only interact with adults. The 20-somethings I know seem generally more well-adjusted and sane than the median member of my generation was at that age. Certainly more so than I was.
And certainly a lot saner than the median boomer.
The bottom-feeders in media really want us to care about these generational labels. I rarely thought about generations in this sense before maybe ten years ago. I just thought of young people, old people, and middle-aged people. Now we've got this whole framework for age-based blame games.
I agree about 20-somethings and 30-somethings. I've worked with a lot of them and they have acquitted themselves quite well.
I'm a median boomer, born 1955, and I like to think I'm pretty sane.
Seems right to me.
“Fear has been growing in the nation’s capital amid a violent crime surge, up 39% last year and many kids are caught up in it. Data show juveniles make up the majority of arrests in DC for crimes like robbery and carjacking. For carjackings, which nearly doubled in 2023, the average age of those arrested was 15 years old. Guns are used in about half of carjackings, police data show.”
At least in some places the kids are nuts and their parents suck too.
Presently, the gen labels are not particularly good. At least with "Greatest/GI generation", "Baby boomers", "Millennials" there was a historical or calendar reference.
Each gen spans 17, 26, 17, 18, 15, 15, 15, 15 years. The first four are connected to events (e.g. crash '29, WW2) but the last four are all arbitrarily 15 years long, and difficult to remember because they don't align with decades.
Group them by decades (or double-decades?) and go modern. Century-dot-decade, like software releases. That way it's clear what you mean when you talk about gen 21.1.
If that's too sterile, at least find some historical reference points and make them the gen labels.
👍👍👍
i ignore any commentary re individual 'generations'; republicans are the worst members of each and every generation
Wild in the streets. "We're gonna put everybody over 10 outta business!"
We hate them for living in the world we have created for them
Wait so the generation who are what, like 15-30 themselves discovered that kids who are 14 and under think weird stupid stuff is funny? Like had they never met kids before?
Someday maybe people will let go of this named generation nonsense.
There isn't any reason to sweep a hand across a set of people born between two arbitrary dates and ascribe traits to them.
Complaining about younger people has been a favored pastime of older people since time immemorial, recorded as far back as some of our earliest surviving records. Most people get better as they mature, and everything will work out.