Caught in the crossfire: Millennials navigate the wild, witty, whirlwind world of Gen Z

From TikTok dances that last 15 seconds but somehow break the internet, to memes that feel like an emotional rollercoaster with no seatbelt, Gen Z has carved out a digital culture that is as bewildering as it is brilliant.

Meanwhile, Millennials—caught somewhere between dial-up nostalgia and the rise of streaming—are left staring at screens, wondering: What just happened?

Born roughly between 1997 and 2012, Gen Zers have grown up with smartphones as extensions of their bodies and social media as their emotional home. But their cultural output is far from polished; it’s intentionally raw, chaotic, and radically self-aware.

I recently watched a film called Log Out and a series named ‘Adolescence’—two stories of digital dystopia that spirals quickly into emotional and technological overload. At first, I thought it was a little over-the-top, a dramatised exaggeration of life online. But when I mentioned this to my Gen Z niece, she said, deadpan, “That movie was lowkey an understatement.” According to her, real life online is even more chaotic—"fr," she added. For the uninitiated, that’s Gen Z slang for real, and yes, they even speak in abbreviations. To her, “spiraling online isn’t sci-fi—it’s just Tuesday.” Spiralling online means sharing or oversharing publicly online  and is Tuesday means ‘ normal’.

Where previous generations were taught to present a curated version of themselves, stay timid, show respect to others, Gen Z throws that out the window and posts their most awkward, teary-eyed, slightly unhinged selves online—and calls it healing.

They show unfiltered honesty, especially around mental health, identity, and politics. They create memes that look like glitch art but carry emotional depth. Their humour is absurd, existential, and intentionally uncomfortable.

One viral post might be about climate anxiety, the next about being the “main character” on the street, and then something so niche and bizarre it feels like an inside joke you were never invited to.

Even their slang is its own universe. “Not for beginners.” “Rizz.” “Delulu is the solulu.” These phrases sound like puzzles until you realize they’re emotional shorthand—mini philosophies disguised as jokes. Gen Z doesn’t just coin words; they create moods, emotional states, entire microcultures around a phrase. They’ve turned language into a kind of chaotic emotional performance, always on the edge of irony and seriousness.

One week it is all about manifesting “main character energy,” the next, they are proudly embracing goblin mode (as says my niece)—a rejection of productivity and polish in favour of idling in bed, doomscrolling (learned it from her), and gobbling snacks. They call it a protest against hustle culture, wrapped in meme-speak.

And then there is the content—if we can even call it that. To the untrained eye, Gen Z’s digital world looks like a mess: crying selfies, frog or SpongeBob memes, TikToks of people staring into the void while text floats above them like an intrusive thought.

But that’s exactly the point. There is no pretence of having it all together. In fact, being mentally unstable has become a personality aesthetic. It is both a coping mechanism and a badge of emotional honesty. Millennials? They’re usually stuck in perpetual “I’m fine” mode—putting on a brave face no matter how rough things really are underneath.

Millennials, now in their 30s to early 40s, are often left bewildered. The idea of livestreaming your anxious breakdown or turning your worst moment into a “core memory” meme would have felt humiliating in the 2000s. For Gen Z, it’s Tuesday.

Trying to decode their ever-mutating slang feels like learning a language with no dictionary. “Vibing” could mean anything from chilling peacefully to dissociating from reality. “Main character energy” sounds empowering, until it’s used sarcastically. Millennials scroll through these digital fields like tourists with outdated maps, trying to laugh at jokes they are not sure are jokes.

But this confusion is not just generational lag—it reflects a deeper shift. Gen Z’s online culture is a response to instability: climate crisis, economic precarity, political chaos, and the emotional whiplash of growing up too connected to everything.

Millennials might feel lost because their formative years were structured differently—from no internet to slower internet, clearer cultural lines, less emotional exposure. Their online lives were more about performance. They were raised with unspoken rules: don’t overshare, don’t make a scene, and never question things that are a "matter for elders."

Speaking out about personal struggles, especially mental health or family dynamics, was often seen as taboo—or at least impolite. Gen Z’s world is about hyper-presence: showing up as you are, no matter how messy, as long as it is self-aware and possibly captioned in lowercase letters.

Still, there is common ground. Both generations are deeply invested in authenticity. Both value emotional depth and social justice. And in some ways, Millennials laid the groundwork for the platforms and conversations Gen Z has now exploded.

Even if the tones are different, the intent often overlaps: to make sense of a confusing world, to laugh through the panic, and to connect through vulnerability.

The whiplash is real. But maybe we do not need to catch up entirely. Maybe the best approach is to watch, learn, and occasionally participate—with a sense of humour and zero expectations.

Because at the end of the day, this extravagantly talented, awkward, funny, and deeply expressive generation is just trying to make sense of the world—one spiraling TikTok and emotionally unhinged meme at a time. And yes, Millennials had their own journey too—one that straddled the analog and digital divide. They were the last to experience the crackle of tape recorders, the thrill of burning CDs, the clunky charm of VCRs, PS1 startup sounds, and waiting for your favorite song on the radio.

Gen Z has no idea what any of that felt like—and that’s okay. Both journeys are valid, and both are beautiful in their own way. Maybe we don’t need to understand everything. Maybe part of growing up is accepting that sometimes, not knowing is kind of the point. Sometimes, ignorance really is bliss—and in the age of constant knowing, that might be the most radical peace of all.