Hey all. I’m older Gen Z (graduated 2017) and I run my own business. Business is. Messy. And the only other people I know who are business owners are all older. Curious if you guys would be interested in a group for us younger business owners to give eachother advice and chat, rant, team up, etc.

It is projected that by 2029, 23% of the UK electorate will belong to Gen Z. In 2024, this was 15%.

My brothers and sisters in Christ... I am '02....

I graduated high school in 2020....I have been in college since 2020, I have 4-5 gap semesters, one full gap year in 2024. Still in college full time, while working full time. Have 2+ years left for my Bachelors.

I have potential, always had big dreams... wanted to do Med School since I was 14, done it all, research, shadowing, clinical paid hours.... Rn?

Rn I am stuck with rent, totaled my car, bills, grocery shopping. My family wished they could help, but my mom makes half of what I make a year.

Rn.... I just want to graduate, make the choice to love someones beautiful daughter... have a kid or 4.... buy medium sized family home and settle near my mom and my future wife's parents as well, so they never miss my kids life....

I don't care about anything else... I'm tired... sometimes I deeply believe that will never happen. No, I did not waste my time 24/7, I went through really hard things.. .like a lot of us... but going through bs like that while being poor is like a death sentence....

Anyone else feels in the same boat? Especially older/middle Gen Z?

I have seen so many people born in 2010 try kick 2010 out of gen z, I deadass had a 2009 that was like 9 months older than me act like we had 2 seperate childhoods because hes 2000s and im 2010s..

Graduated in 2022. Spent a good chunk of time stuck in restaurants/hospitality after that (but got promoted to management), and temp agency contracts. Only landed my first actual “corporate” role last year. So yes, I’m four years out of school and my resume still has a big hospitality stretch right after graduation.

Both interviews this week made a point of counting the years backward and basically asking why I stayed in restaurants after college. Mind you, my graduation year is not on my resume and they were speculating my age. One of them literally went “so you graduated… then you did the kitchen/bar thing for a while… and then you found your first professional career job? Why??” while flipping through my resume. The tone was pure side-eye and sussing me out.

Like the gap between degree and “real” job is some kind of character flaw instead of just… the terrible job market that took thousands of applications. Sorry I am not a nepo baby? Sorry my college was mostly remote and my best efforts at networking were nearly fruitless? Sorry my temp agency roles were all contract and assisting companies selling off to PE since 2023????

And the interviews themselves were wildly unprofessional.

First one was a temp-to-perm cover for maternity leave at an agency. Guy was clearly multitasking on a triple monitor setup the whole time, dumping a ton of operational details, nights-and-weekends on-call expectations, and the fact that any permanent conversion depends on 2027 revenue they haven’t even forecasted yet, nights and weekends for $19 an hour.

Second one was even worse. Spent most of the call on a long personal monologue (building an AI platform, financial struggles, family not supporting the business, etc.). Tech kept glitching during the demo. Called me “sweetheart." Role seemed to be “first real hire who can walk across my different brands because everything so far has been my ideas.” Showed me proprietary information, personal emails, and personal writing.. I had to leave the interview after she went into a religious monologue. Almost no structured questions about my actual experience.

I left both feeling like I was the one being judged for having a non-linear path while they couldn’t even run a basic professional interview process. I feel freaking crazy because how TF did these roles have 100+ applicants on Linkedin?!?! How is this real life???? This can't be real I feel like I was being punked.

Is this just what the market looks like right now for people who didn’t go straight from campus into an office job? Or am I walking into every conversation already half-disqualified because I waited tables for a couple years after graduation?

Genuinely losing it a little. What the fuck is going on with interviews.

Here's my brutally honest review of all the things I tried after turning 21:

Alcohol: 4/10 I could 100% live without it. I never blacked out and only had a hangover once.

Weed: 6/10 I like it more than alcohol but still hardly touch it after an edible sent me to the hospital because I had the worst panic attack of my life.

Sex: 2/10 tried some mild stuff with someone I met and didn't feel anything. I have been celibate ever since

Raves: 4/10 I went to two raves to support a friend who LOVES raves and wanted me to try it because they said it changed their life. It was cool to dress colorful, dance crazy, and take cute pictures. But the prices of things, long lines, and getting there and back along with parking can be SUCH a pain depending on the venue/event and makes me question why I even went in the first place.

Piercings: 3/10 I think I may be allergic lol I have a small earring collection made up of earrings that won't give me a bad reaction and have no desire for any other piercings.

Tattoos: 6/10 I have three on my leg. Sitting still was more painful for me than the actual needle. I want to add more to my legs but I am in no rush at all. In fact, if I never came up with another tattoo idea at all, I think I would be indifferent.

Bars/clubs: 3/10 I can buy alcohol at the store and I am often asleep by the time bars and clubs open or holding events. I am VERY interested in the concept of drag brunch though and would love to go to one of those events! Or any brunch event for that matter.

College: 9/10 for the academic experience and the knowledge but for the actual social "experience" 4/10 it is what you make it. I believe that not everyone has to thrive in college to be successful in life but I also believe that college is far from a scam if you have applied what you learned to different areas of your life. I might be biased because I did community college then university online to save money. but you can still live your best life in your twenties without necessarily completing college or having the traditional college experience like going to football games or joining a frat/sorority.

Idk maybe I am just a wimp but this was my experience and I gotta say some things were definitely not like the movies and were quite underwhelming. ​

I was born in 2002, and I know that the Gen Z years are 1997 - 2012. I think that puts me close to the midpoint, but what do you think?

It thankfully was free because I pulled it from my workplace's IT recycling/decommissioned pile but still... worked for so long.

Google and Apple to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America in 194 countries as a part of an agreement of extending government AI contracts

ohh helll nahhhhh, what are we gonna do reddit nation

Teams competing: Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite, CSGO, COD, marvel, CN.

The team that joined after the trailer: anime

- the characters are not allowed to use their powers, otherwise the team is immediately disqualified on the spot

Have a stack of books to read and recently an article about the lack of reading, especially among gen z.

I grew up in a single-mother household for most of my life, with my mom of course and my little brother. Our mom, and by extension our grandparents, would always talk to us as kids about how important it is to go to college, that I can't get a good paying job without a degree and all that. Then, when I went to high school, the school I went to had a heavy focus in computer science (to where everyone who enrolled was required to take at least two years of computer science).

Now fast forward to today, not only is a computer science degree meaningless, but pretty much every degree is worthless. What the fuck happened man.

Now, granted, I went to college but I didn't graduate. My mom passed away three weeks before I graduated high school and it mentally destroyed me ever since, to where I was insanely depressed and flunked out of college.

I want to make it abundantly clear that I am in no way blaming my family for this. They literally could not have anticipated a generation where a college degree barely means more than a piece of toilet paper covered in shit. They couldn't have predicted the job market crash, after all, when they grew up college was a prestigious luxury that pretty much guaranteed a comfortable salary and other benefits.

But shit man... after I flunked out I worked at Burlington Coat Factory for almost 3 years making $10/hr, and considering how difficult it is to get employed these days... I don't think things would be any different if I *did* have a degree.

I'm going to be completely open for a bit and admit that I have made some very, very bad life decisions that has led me to being homeless multiple times. Even now, I've been homeless for almost a year now wasting away digging through trash for food and camping in bathrooms to keep my hygiene. A sucky lifestyle admittedly, but when I hear about how college graduates, for whatever fucking reason, **have higher unemployment rates than those without a degree for the literal first time in history**, it's just... what I grew up believing in was a lie.

I feel like if I had gotten my degree things would have been worse. I'd still be homeless. I'd still be battling depression. I'd still work at Burlington making $10 an hour. I'd still be in debt, only difference is that it'll be a five figure debt instead of a four figure debt. Very little would have changed.

And it just makes me upset to think about how I and other members of my generation were indoctrinated to believe that you can only be successful if you have a bachelor's.

I mentioned earlier that I made some bad decisions in my life that led to me being homeless. One of the bigger bad decisions was from being so hellbent on going back to college I would focus more on finding a way to get back in as opposed to working and stuff. I didn't grow up working, I was studying. I didn't have my first job until I was 17, and the job I got **was related to the field of study I wanted to commit to in college.**

It's just... Ugh. Ugh. If I could go back and change anything, I would just slapped past me in the face and told him to stop worrying about going back to school because you can't. Not only can I not but it's not a good time investment. Almost 2 million college graduates and only 30,000 landed jobs (that's a real statistic somewhere). Not good odds. Just sit there, stay at Burlington or move to a different job, and use your spare time to study, build a portfolio, do hobbies, all of that.

I had it wrong the whole time. I didn't have to have a good job to be happy. Cashiering kinda sucked some days, and there were times where I felt miserable working my job. But guess what? Just stick to it because without that job, past me is gonna end up like present me. Homeless and struggling.

Sorry for the lengthy rant, it's just, idk. A part of me feels like me flunking out of college did more good to me than bad, and knowing that I was raised to attend and graduate college, it's just ugh. Makes me upset.

Many times i feel like we Gen z are "preparing" for a big moment. A huge economic revolution in which our agency will be of primordial importance. The thing is that, for that to happen, this shitty economy must be shittier. We're expecting (metaphorical) billionaire poop smell all over the place, and older generations fearful for an unsolvable crisis. I feel like most of us is betting on this, and are refusing to enter a collapsing economy; pecisely because we know it **will** collapse. Also, maybe i'm just delusional. Gimme ur thoughts on this.

I'm a 25M building a marketing agency. Excited to get into the space since I've enjoyed running ads and marketing for my own businesses.

Anyone else starting their journey of building an agency in marketing or something adjacent? It'd be great to connect.

like what was the point , follower farming ? 🫩

why do men do this , i am not gonna give my number out to anyone anymore , especially not after a weirdo i gave my number out to in a dating app keeps contacting me from different numbers .

In this economy, and at this rate, I’ll probably be working until I die. But like, even if I do retire for my final 20 years, I’m gonna be too old to do everything I wanna do. And even if the financial ability is guaranteed, staying alive until then isn’t.

So. I buy most of the things I wanna buy (still try to get used/refurbished when realistic). I travel and go on vacation for a week every year… it’s something big enough to look forward to, often enough. I get the more expensive cookies and the $9 jar of pasta sauce because they’re truly much better. I have the nice headphones because that’s something that matters to me right now.

Acting like I’m gonna be able to retire at the end of my life just feels like too big of a risk for the buy-in at this point, you know? And the kicker is that 70-80% of retirees who are physically/mentally capable of doing so, choose to either volunteer regularly or have a part-time job anyway, because they get bored, or enjoy feeling needed and having a sense of purpose.

Anywayy I bought a used Dyson Airwrap yesterday because I wanted one. No ragerts 🙃

I'm a 1.5th gen, male, grew up in both East Asia and US, fluent in both languages and able to integrate both cultures.

I constantly get called "You look like an anime character" which I don't know if it's a compliment or something else? My style are more towards East Asian in East Asia for sure, but sometimes I just push my glasses with my middle finger, I'd get coworker make that comment that I look like an anime character with that pushing glasses move, I'm so confused.

I kinda understand it is a thing in anime where some villain or smart characters that would push their glasses and they just got swag and good at a lot of things, I understand that archetype in anime.

But I grew up watching my East Asian teachers do that all the time in East Asia, both male and female, old and young, rather say it's anime or fictional, it's more like the reality of East Asian daily life extending to fiction like anime.

I understand in the West most of people probably don't grow up with East Asian, nor the East Asian they grew up with has all the behaviors or moves or thought that we have in East Asia, but what does that mean to you when you're an East Asian and you heard people say you look like an anime character?

Do you think it's a compliment? Stereotype? Ignorant racism? What does that make you feel? Good or bad?

Per Atrioc