If you’re older than, let’s say, 28, there’s a decent chance you feel completely baffled by what younger people are doing off and online—I write about youth trends for a living, and I still don't really know; you can't fully know unless you're in it. The culture of 2025 is so fractured, ironic, algorithm-driven, and contradictory, it can feel alien, even fictional to outsiders. But on the other hand, we're all people, and the human spirit persists, even as it's being bent into impossible shapes by machines, greed, and carelessness. To help make some sense of it all—or at least give you a list of things to Google—here’s a snapshot of trends shaping Generations Z and A in the middle of 2025.
Coined by writer Kyle Raymond Fitzpatrick, "AmIAlive core" isn't a well-known term among young people, but if there's a single concept that describes how Generations Z differs from previous generations, I thinks it's this. To simplify it: AmIAlive Core posits that young people young people don’t live life, they perform it, so they are subconsciously unsure if they are actually living human beings. Living entirely mediated lives in which "experiences" happen in video games and the outside world is seen through the vertical window of TikTok videos has made it impossible for young people to live authentically, so they play-act life and adopt styles and philosophies based on whether they think is compelling content. A vacation is a chance to pose for exotic instagram pictures. A concert is a chance to whip out your phone instead of dancing. It's bleak, but that's where we are.
The death (and continued life) of TikTok
If there's a shared common space for Generations A and Z, it's the social media platform TikTok, and TikTok has been going through some things. In January 2024, the "Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act" went into effect. It required that ByteDance (TikTok's parent company) either sell the app to a U.S. company or cease operations in the U.S. by January 19, 2025. In response, TikTok briefly went dark in the United States on the deadline date. For young people, the death of TikTok would be like losing a shared universe; a world would die. Some responded by flocking to other social media outlets like RedNote or lashing out in anger at the government. But luckily, nothing happened—yet. President Trump announced a 75-day hold to allow ByteDance to find a buyer. That was extended by 90 days on June 15 via executive order, leaving a platform in limbo: technically alive, but existentially shaky.
The merciless cultural takeover that is artificial intelligence is affecting everyone, but no group will feel its impact more than Gen Z and Gen A. They are the first to grow up chatting with AI, learning from it, competing against it, and questioning it in real time. Whatever AI becomes, they’ll inherit it and and help shape it. Artificial intelligence is already being used to cheat at school, spread religion, make jokes about Bigfoot, and create disturbing videos featuring kittens. Meanwhile, a growing contingent of young people are rejecting AI entirely, particularly when it comes to AI art. Prediction: Serious resistance against AI will grow among younger people.
The 80/20 Rule and the gender wars
Social and cultural conflict over gender roles is definitely not new, but Generations Z and A are adding a unique spin to the morass, most visibly with the 80/20 Rule. Put simply, the 80/20 rule is an axiom that states 80% of women are attracted to only 20% of men. The 80/20 Rule is discussed, memed, and repeated so often in online spaces for lonely dudes that's it's rarely questioned, even though it's pretty much total nonsense.
Young people have always been attracted to dumb, dangerous stunts, and there was a time when many of them were amplified by social media sites, particularly TikTok. These days, though, TikTok locks down fads like "The Skull-Breaker Challenge" with ruthless efficiency. But the trend of destroying school laptops slipped through the cracks for a couple of weeks as the school year ended. That these cheap laptops were the target of mindless teenage vandalism makes sense—they're an instantly recognizable symbol of educational conformity, circa 2025.
Nostalgia for the early 2000s
People are usually nostalgic for a more innocent age, but young people's fascination with the early 2000s seems to indicate the opposite. Through the lens of a teenager in 2025, the politically incorrect, crass, no-apologies pop culture of the early aughts represents a kind of lost freedom. "Back then, you could do whatever you wanted without being canceled, arrested, or ridiculed," is the vibe. Obviously this isn't entirely true, but there's something to it. Most people didn't have smart phones back then, so it really was the last time kids could do stupid things and not be immediately posted on Instagram.
2000s nostalgia goes hand-in-hand with:
Kids may be yearning for wilder times, but they're mostly keeping their impulses in check. The trend of children being more behaviorally conservative than their parents and grandparents continued unabated in the first half of the year. Young people drink less, smoke less, do less drugs, and have less sex than previous generations. Whether these trends are due to a greater concern for personal well-being or the result of a locked-down culture and lack of freedom is up for debate, but the numbers speak for themselves.
Millennial green and Millennial burger joints
While there isn't much evidence of the kind of massive cultural generation gap that separated children and parents in the 1960s, that doesn't mean today's young people aren't turning a withering eye on the previous generation. Some may be trying to mimic the early 2000s, but others want to make sure older people know ridiculous they are, whether it's the millennial fascination with Harry Potter, the boring, beige and green decorating aesthetic that defined the era, or the faux-hipster folksiness of "millennial burger joints."
This meme is based on a simple but compelling question. Who would win in a fight to the death: 100 regular guys or a single gorilla? There are many theories, but no ethical way to answer the question. The meme sits at the intersection of absurdist humor, male insecurity, and simulation-brain thinking. I'm not sure why, exactly, but it feels revelatory about the younger generation in the same inexplicable way the popularity of "pet rocks" feels revelatory about Baby Boomers.
The continuing rise of "brain rot"
The above trends relate mostly to Generation Z. Generation A, people born between 2010 and 2024, are a different animal. That generation is defined by "brain rot," an online style that is nearly impossible to understand. Brain rot describes online content with no educational, social, or artistic value. It also describes the effects that continued viewing of this content is suspected to have on its audience. Brain rot content often involves references to other memes, which are often themselves based on other memes. The eventual result is expressions that are impossible to understand for anyone but their intended audience.
Here's how Cookie King, a pioneer of brain rot, described the inspiration for a video he posted: "On Instagram, there was a new meme. It was about Chopped Chin and Property in Egypt, and people were doing battles between them. I was like, 'Wait, what if I just combined them together with the Johnnie Walker thing and the Friggin' Packet Yo?" There has never been a better explanation presented.
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