I'm firmly a Millennial but I relate a lot more to Gen Z because our childhoods/formative experiences had a lot more in common. (For example, I got online when I was 4 and was allowed free rein, very similar to a lot of Gen Z/"iPad kids", but that's a pretty rare experience in my age group [33]). Our worldviews are more aligned as well: Things that people thought were insane when I said them 10-20 years ago are now mainstream. I feel like I have backup for the first time in my life.

I adore Gen Z.

This is what the news and Reddit want you to think about our generation. The reality is much different from my observation

What are the actual differences between millenials and gen z? I would argue both are characterized by the fact that there is no single fit-all characteristic. There is no common pop-culture to define a generation any more.

Experiences. One big one is that most Millennials were hit by 2008, while Gen Z wasn't, but at the time we believed what we were told that 2008 was an aberration and things would get back to normal. We were also raised in the "go to college and you'll be set for life" era, so we were given expectations that were then ripped away by rapid change.

Gen Z didn't believe anything they were told to begin with, because while Millennials grew up in the 90s and early 00s and got some optimism in our culture, America has been a polarized, rapidly-changing nation for pretty much all of Gen Z's time.

The tl;dr I'd say is: "Millennials had our expectations dashed, and Gen Z didn't build up the expectations to begin with."

(Note that I'm not commenting on whether this rapid change is good/bad/malicious/whatever. Just that how we've planned for and lived our lives has changed a lot in the last 15 years.)

Older Gen Z graduated into the pandemic, like millenials with '08

Yup, but unlike us, they had '08 before them to look at and go 'hmmmm.... I've seen this before'. (I was a '10 graduate).

We (Millennials) mostly believed what we were told, due to both not having experienced a shock like that before + having more limited information access. Gen Z has enough contrary evidence and ability to share things that they just took a Fast Pass for the cynicism line. And good for them, honestly.

Please tell me we're not at the point where "We were told 2020 was an aberration" is okay.