Gen Z vs. Gen X

I was nearly 40 years old when selfies began trending. I've latched on and evolved into the digital era, yet not without the much needed help of my Gen Z daughter.

Gen Zer Cozette with her very much Gen Xer mom, Carami

I was nearly 40 by the time the term “selfie” really started trending. It’s a relatively new term but wow, it feels like it has been around forever doesn’t it? Prior to the selfie era, what did I ever know about photography? NOTHING.

In the ‘90s, my feisty redheaded friend Erin had this entire ritual when getting ready to take a photo. She would tell the person behind the camera to “wait just a second” while she sat up, leaned forward, twisted her torso, elongated her neck, lifted her arm off her body then proceeded to give an enormous unnatural smile with really high eyebrows. Of course I always thought she was overdoing it. I was oblivious to what the outcome would be until the printed pictures came back over and over and over with her looking absolutely fabulous. She’s naturally a very beautiful woman, but hot dog!! She really stood out on those poorly lit, low quality pharmacy prints. Well how did I look you ask? Take one wild guess. I looked like I’d been riding around atop a double decker bus in a dirty city, wind blown, sunburned, shoulders hunched like I picked vegetables daily for hours in a field for a living. My smile seemed tiresome and my eyes small and dull. 

Gen X: Latchkey Generation

Several years and a million roles of developed film later, I realized that she was not overdoing it and that I was entirely photo dense. Why wasn’t I telling the person behind the camera to “wait just a sec” and striking my pose? There’s probably a therapist out there who can give a few definitive answers to that question, but one answer is that I did not realize for two decades that there was something I could do to control what I looked like in pictures. I was clearly not a natural super model or even trying to be one. Whatever I was giving was just right and good enough. That was the true me. Just happy to be there. Satisfied to sit with friends and document a few moments together in front of the camera lens. Much of my laissez-faire attitude about picture taking had to do with my personality, but A LOT of it had to do with the generation I came from: Generation X. According to Google, Gen Xers are typically perceived to be disaffected and directionless. This precisely describes my psyche during years of terrible snapshots. Sandwiched between the much larger Baby Boomer and Millennial generations, the members of Generation X, those born between 1965-1980, have variously been called the “middle child generation,” the “slacker generation,” the “MTV generation,” the “latchkey generation,” and “the least parented, least nurtured generation in US History.” Gen Xers are typically described as resourceful, independent, and good at maintaining work-life balance. Fun technology claim: they were the first generation to grow up with personal computers.

Generation of Digital Natives: Gen Z

Fast forward to raising children in the 2000s. My first daughter, Cozette, was in fact born in the year 2000. Remember Y2K? Well, we didn’t all die on New Year’s Eve 1999 and she ended up coming to this earth after all. She is considered to be from Generation Z, humans born from 1997-2012. Insider Intelligence claims that Gen Zers are different from older generations, because they are the first consumers to have grown up wholly in the digital era. They’re tech-savvy and mobile-first—and they have high standards for how they spend their time online. Some of us in the older generations would beg to differ, judging that they spend too much time online; it’s debatable. That being said, they're the first generation of “digital natives”, never knowing a world without devices or the internet. And what’s on the internet, none other than lots of words to read, audio to listen to, pictures to look at and videos to watch. This generation has been looking at and listening to digital material since they came out of the womb. So they know a little more about creating digital content as well. Therefore, taking a selfie or regular pic with appealing poses and just right camera angles is extremely natural and practically innate. 

Throughout my daughter’s entire high school career I received constant eye-rolls on how I was holding the phone when I took her and her friends’ pictures. She would say, “don’t worry about it, we got it.” So do you know what this got me? It got me hardly any pictures of my daughter’s high school years, because apparently I never took them right. Furthermore, the pictures that were taken of her were always lost in the oblivion of her phone and never seen from again. If they weren’t just right, no one had the honor of looking at them, unlike my terribly dim lit pharmacy prints. I think I showed those around to anyone who would take a gander, even though they were embarrassingly unbecoming. 

So why does my daughter innately know how to take pictures so much better than me? Gen Zers constantly use their phones as mirrors, but Gen Xers did not grow up staring at themselves in the mirror. We actually spent our entire childhood outdoors. We liked being outdoors, but furthermore the adults would say, “you cannot come back inside.” That is precisely the reason we drank out of the water hose. At dinner time my mom would open the front door and yell at the top of her lungs, “Carami, time to come home!” Whether I was at the fishing pond two blocks away or next door at James Doyle Dancer’s house (we always said his whole name), I would hear her, immediately put down what I was doing, and run on home. My daughter, on the other hand, grew up with a phone in her hand, even when she played outside it was in her back pocket. Gen Z learned how to stand and pose. They practiced face angles and camera angles. They were given immediate feedback and didn’t have to wait for rolls of film to be developed. 

We Depend on Each Other

Now Cozette is so patient with me. Heading into my Second Half, I argue that my tech skills are adequate. (The kids laugh, but I can do this techie stuff gosh darnit!) My daughter teaches me new computer/mobile hacks on the daily. I’m so fortunate to have my own private “digital native” around. The truth of the matter is that we need each other - that’s the whole idea of this life. She needs me to indicate when to say, “who gives a care, let’s go outside and drink out of the water hose.” I need her to show me how to make us look marvelous when it counts. Each generation brings their own ingenuity and flavor to the party which awards us all a sweet spin in life. Combined together our outcome is much more auspicious. And my friend Erin, well she is an anomaly Gen Xer who always keeps me on my toes. 

💙Carami

Upper Left: Cozette & Carami | Upper Right: Josi, Mom (Carami), Cozette | Lower Left: Erin & Carami '90s | Lower Right: Carami & Erin 2023

Connect ~ Instagram: @cozettevanwie | Instagram: erinpiersonmills

Let’s interact: What do you struggle with that people of other generations seem to be natural at? Or how have you helped others with your innate gifts? Leave a comment!

Sources

https://www.insiderintelligence.com/insights/generation-z-facts/#:~:text=But%20Gen%20Zers%20are%20different,they%20spend%20their%20time%20online.

https://www.beresfordresearch.com/age-range-by-generation/

https://www.britannica.com/question/What-is-Generation-X-known-for#:~:text=Generation%20X%20is%20known%20as,grow%20up%20with%20personal%20computers.

https://www.northernpublicradio.org/community-calendar/event/growing-up-gen-x-08-03-2023-15-11-43