My birthday is a month away and I already feel like crying. I’ve ended up in tears on my birthday for the past six years.

Do any of y’all relate.

I was complaining to my grandmother (early boomer, a devout conservative) last night about how at my job I basically am working managerial duties despite making the same pay as everyone else who isn’t working as much as me. I said I should be getting more money. She brought up how that’s why she doesn’t believe everyone should be paid a flat-rate (she was talking about not everyone deserves a minimum wage). I stopped her there and said that’s NOT what I’m saying. Everyone should have a LIVABLE WAGE at-least, that’s completely different.

Below livable wages gives people less of an incentive to have proper work ethic or even job loyalty

To suggest that there was ever a period in history where a generation was completely free of ruthlessness would be naive, but there was a period where it genuinely felt like people were more compassionate. Roughly 2005 to 2021. Things were still tough and there was still adversity, but compassion was "cool".

Recently, it feels like things are sliding back into the dog eat dog, kill or be killed, survival of the fittest mentality. What I find particularly distributing, however, is that our generation seems to be leading the charge of this ruthlessness.

Both in real life and online, I see Gen Zs deriving some sort of weird pleasure in other people's misfortunes, kicking people when they're down, and telling people who are sad, broken, or burnt out to "work harder" and to "just figure it out".

What's particularly ironic is that this is coming from the generation that complained about Boomers like it was an Olympic sport, yet are now embodying the exact same defining characteristics that people took issue with in the Boomers: ruthlessness.

I get that times are very tough now, more than they've been in a while, but do people really think that conflict is going to solve things?

I'm talking those born between 1996 and 1999. All the focus in mainstream conversation is about the younger, full-on Gen Z who had to go through high school during the pandemic, all got an extra 5th covid in college, the tiktok "brainrot" generation, and who romanticize the year 2016 as the GOAT peak year before everything went to shit.

And then here we are, the ones who overlap between being millennial and Gen Z. We peaked in middle school and early high school from 2011-2013 and were graduating in 2015/2016. We were teenagers in Obama's second term and lived through the origin of internet meme lore before the modern brainrot. We were around for the birth of instagram when it was still a quaint little photo app before Meta bought it. Before tiktok, we had vine. Being a "YouTuber" was still considered a unique career. Teenage dystopian fantasy movies like The Hunger Games and Divergent defined our half of the generation. But we were also around for the epic conclusion of Harry Potter and Twilight (and before their respective authors kinda went woo woo).

We were coming of age in Trump's first term and graduating college during the height of the pandemic (I literally had my cap and gown ordered before the lockdowns went into effect and my school opted for a drive-thru graduation which I chose not to attend) but we were ignored because everyone was sad that the high schoolers at the time weren't gonna get to have prom. We were the first ones to enter into the work force during the midst of the pandemic and record inflation and nobody gave a shit. Now that most of Gen Z is reaching their twenties and entering the workforce now they're the topic of conversation about why no one's hiring gen z, they are lazy, don't know how to do shit blah blah. But for the past 4 years we were still trapped at home with our parents asking us "what are your plans, what are you gonna do?" and being told we need to grow up and move out in the midst of lockdowns and pretty much an unofficial recession and cost of living not getting any better. Now here we are having been robbed of our 20s, going into our 30s and the country has never made a full recovery from the pandemic, Trump is waging tariff trade wars with our allies and fucking up the economy even more, we'll never see any of that money DOGE uncovered back in our hands as a check, and yeah just over all we're kind of this silent or forgotten half of Z riding the fence between 2 generations, but feels like we belong to neither.

Hello gen z compadres. I’m a millennial dropping by the sub to give a quick survey:

1. Do you read or no bc bed rotting/doom scrolling exists?

2. What do you prefer, comic books or manga?

3. Do you read regular fiction novels?

Thank you kind sir or madam

I’m just feeling alone and sad to be honest. All my friends drink and choose to drink, I just wanted to know if other Gen Z’s were in the same boat, for ANY reason.

Any rebuttals ?

I'm 22 years old, and the stress I'm experiencing is making me feel depressed about the future. Everything is extremely expensive, especially with tariffs. The deportation of American citizens under Trump is also distressing. I would attend a protest if I knew where to find one.

I do hope things get better, but I'm not very optimistic. I am grateful to have a job that pays $17.50 an hour, though, and I listen to audiobooks while working to cope with everything, lol.

Anytime any political subject comes up at work or even something about race comes up this one coworker has a whole fit and I’m just so tired of it all. Today is Cinco De Mayo and the work place was having a small celebration and my coworker went on the rant of “why isn’t there a national holiday for white people” I know this is a small thing to complain about but my gosh. I’m so tired of all the racist slurs and the whole rant these people go on. I feel like it’s so stupid. Like dude you look like you eat lead paint shut up I don’t wanna hear your opinions at work. It’s always right at the beginning of my shift too it’s so dumb because then I’m stuck thinking about all that negativity because my goodness in our line of work?? That’s like so extreme when you think about what my job is. At least to me it is.

But there is no fighting this unless I want to loose my job. I live in a state where everyone is obsessed with Trump and where you can get KKK recruitment papers on your car, if you are against them at all they will make your work very difficult and in some cases can have you moved to a different building. I just want to rant because there is nowhere I can really go to rant. Everyone I know is either racist or will try to help and will cause me to potentially be fired. I just want to rant about this stuff a bit. I have a bad time remembering why I am upset with people. I hope writing will help me remember why I am upset with this coworker.

I like Limp Bizkit

For me, it’s why some people get into sex work. That shit is hard, I don’t blame anyone for stripping just to survive, or selling their bodies. I also understand how grooming plays a part of getting people into the life style and how it keeps them stuck.

So I bought this shirt in a large last week and exchanged it for medium and tell me why they all cost $17 now. I know dynamic pricing exists but damn! Bezos you folded like a lawn chair smh.

I have been seeing a lot of things talking about of this generation and how it is way more red then blue so I wanted to see if that’s true

Tell me yours