I think what’s probably filtering it is that it’s designed like the internet of yesteryear. It mimics early reddit and the forums which came before. It speaks to millennials in what we’re looking for in social media (the stuff that feels comfortable and familiar, the stuff we grew up with).

I think gen z in many ways is just as tech savvy, but more for understanding the nuances of modern applications. The user interface for things like Snapchat or Tiktok take me a while to get used to, and I was never a fan of endlessly scrolling video (or vertically filmed video, dear GOD), and yet to young people, those things are a snap and more easy to navigate than what we find easy to navigate. I learned to edit media in Final Cut Pro and Photoshop and there’s gen z kids blowing me out of the water in over-the-top production-value by using off-the-shelf apps and just their phone. It’s kind of wild how accessible media creation has gotten. I learned mine literally working at a television station, streaming kids learn it from studying online.

I think gen z is probably mostly just young and hasn’t become as jaded and cynical as we have yet about things like advertising or algorithmically manicured social feeds. They don’t see a problem with them yet because they haven’t been alive long enough to have enough bad experiences to turn them away from such systems. Even for our generation, we’re in the minority: most people our age bracket still use Facebook. We’re like the weird kids, we never stopped being weird.