In just a few short months, I will be 27 years old.
It feels shocking to write those words. Just yesterday I was skipping across my high school campus, like the happy Irish Catholic Austrian Jew that I am. And now my youth slips through my fingers like so many grains of sand. The long scythe of the reaper, my mortality, draws ever closer.
To add on to this burden, we have the emergence of a new group of young people — Generation Z, known as the Zoomers. I’m not even out of my twenties and I already feel the media pushing me off of stage right, to the doldrums of middle age, filled with Whole Foods trips, long conversations about kitchen appliances, and Lipitor.
I spent many hours trying to think of a way out of this mess. How can I change my reality in order to hold on to being the center of attention just a little while longer? Then, after a particularly long period of thought, it struck me: We must abolish Generation Z. By doing so, millions of early twentysomethings and teenagers will be erased of their identity. And that’s an unfortunate thing, but it’s a price worth paying to assuage my achy breaky heart.
Now think about the logic for this proposal. It is way too early to be introducing a new generation. Not enough has changed in our country to justify this. We introduce the next generation to mark the sign of a new era. That hasn’t happened yet. Millennials came of age surrounded by social media, smartphones, Taylor Swift’s catchy hits, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
All of these things are still ongoing. So why should my time be considered at its end? There’s no need to transition to the next cadre of folks.
Furthermore, Zoomers are simply too much like the millenials to justify their own category. We were very mentally ill and socialist, they are extremely mentally ill and communist. We protested capitalism by Occupying Wall Street, camping out in tents, and eating chimichangas over an open fire.
They took activism one step further after Trump’s victory, and simply yelled in unison at the sky.
While these are positive developments, they are not enough to justify a new generation.
Now the kids coming up criticize us for sure. Yet the critiques are so marginal they prove my point entirely. We millenials get ripped for our skinny jeans, side parts, and love of Harry Potter, and the use of slang like “adulting” and “doggo”.
Many of these attributes are indeed flawed — skinny jeans are immensely uncomfortable for those of us with large, bulbous thighs, for example. But that doesn’t change the fact that for 95% of the other things, zoomers are exactly the same as their ancestors from the 2010s.
One suspects that today’s college kids and teens understand these facts, the haunting truth that they have yet to cultivate true differences about themselves. The cancel culture is a large outgrowth of this. Unable to create a distinct culture of their own, they instead make war against society — which is only more proof Gen Z should be scrubbed from the census.
The Zoomers have the goal of waging a revolution, yet they cannot even lead a conversation without accusing someone of a hate crime. I once had a conversation with a nice young girl about asexuality, the identity where one simply does not experience sexual attraction for their fellow human beings.
She was telling me about her friend who was a member of this demographic. I was shocked and said, “You’re telling me, even if Susie opened her front door and found Ryan Gosling on her porch, in chinos and a fresh Oxford from Polo Ralph Lauren, ready to make her eggs Benedict, she’d feel absolutely nothing?”
At this, my Zoomer companion expressed outrage. She said I was mocking Susie to the point of erasing her humanity. I thought, “Erasing her humanity? Give me a break. It’s just a joke, something to lighten the mood, an emotional olive branch.”
Furthermore, isn’t that just a fact of life? Welcome to the real world, lady. Every time I see myself naked I feel my humanity erased.
In the end, the only social change Gen Z has created is ensuring we all have severe anxiety, knowing we’re just one politically incorrect joke from being canceled, losing our jobs, and forced to join the circus. The most far-left generation in history has been a boon for the pharmaceutical industry, as more and more Americans turn to Xanax, Wellbutrin, Lexapro, Morphine and various other narcotics in order to cope with the stress from their new woke overlords.
Of course, while these kids love to judge us, they commit plenty of sins that are problematic in their own right. On the question of gender, they believe in identifying as what you choose — man, woman, nonbinary, queer, whatever it may be. And to that I say: more power to you.
However, if you’re over the age of 25, and decide to still identify as young, the Zoomers won’t let you. As soon as your mid-twenties approach, your youth expires, and you become a dinosaur. Try to party in the club, rock out to the latest snappy tunes from Olivia Rodrigo, or use the term “Bussin,” and Gen Z will look at you like you’re a golden retriever trying to win the Kentucky Derby.
I once had a kid tell me, “Wow you look great for your age.”
I thought to myself, “I’m 26 years old, what does that even mean? What am I supposed to look like? Barry Manilow?”
There’s a simple solution to all of these problems: abolish Gen Z. Make them millennials, for they are so much like us to begin with.
Under such a new status quo, the world becomes a more clear and logical place. And I get to feel young for just a while longer.
My needs will be met, millions of innocent Zoomers will be robbed of their identity — and that’s an unfortunate thing that one must consider with deep seriousness — but did I mention my needs will be met?
Joshua Heath is a Santa Clarita resident. “Democratic Voices” appears Tuesdays and rotates among local Democrats.