Today’s world is a very unique one because of a pandemic. Everything seems to have moved online, including our education. However, to the very niche age group that is our generation, this situation is not much out of the ordinary. We’ve been relying on the internet for education for a while now; the only difference is that we now rely on it 100% of the time.
The internet has been our safe-haven for the most part. Before we buy or do anything, we ensure that we’ve read good reviews of it online, including starting a movie or TV show, ordering a pair of air pods off of Amazon or ordering takeout for the 5th time in a week. Gen-Z has been heavily reliant on technology from the beginning, so it only makes sense that the rest of the world, particularly businesses, adapt to this new mindset too.
Recently, I have seen a lot of these articles about Gen-Z killing businesses. If we believe Business Insider and Bloomberg, then all of Gen-Z should be in prison by now for cold-blooded murder. Apparently, generation Z is killing Facebook, Gap, cable television and the language of English somehow?! This is crazy!
Millennials claim that they aren’t the only murderers and that Generation-Z is on a killing spree. According to them, Gen-Z is killing Facebook as we speak. First of all, how are millennials accusing us when they themselves don’t use Facebook? In this day and age, is our cyber safety not important? With cyberbullying increasing at such an alarming rate, Facebook’s terrible privacy and security settings don’t help! How can you blame Gen-Z for trying to make a safe choice? And also, my pretentious relatives use Facebook and the only time they’ll get access to my private life is when they pry it from my cold, dead hands!
Business Insider claims that “teen” Generation-Z is killing Gap. Not the gap of social distancing because Gen-Z has been social distancing long before the pandemic started. We are talking about the overpriced clothing store. It makes huge profit margins from cheap cost prices that come from workers in sweatshops from Sri Lanka. These workers make about 1/100th of the American minimum wage. Why do you think brands such as Lush and 10tree are booming? They are also famous clothing and beauty stores, which are, admittedly, expensive, but they sure are ethical. All their products are eco-friendly, and their workers are not exploited! Would you rather buy from Gap knowing that workers in Sri Lanka are paid MUCH less than the minimum wage to sew the buttons on your shirt? Or would you buy 10tree’s clothing that actually treats workers well and uses eco-friendly material? 10Tree’s main slogan is: 10Tree keeps you looking good, while you keep the planet looking great! They plant 10 trees for every item sold! And they definitely pay their workers enough to make a living! Here’s the thing: we don’t mind paying extra as long as we don’t have to face the guilt of wearing something that indirectly ruined a 5-year old’s life.
Next, we are accused of killing cable television. Generation Z definitely watches streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, but we should not be the ones blamed for killing cable. Cable television is extremely expensive and does not have the content that we look for. We wash dishes to earn pocket money. Why would we give away that hard-earned money for TV shows we never watch? There is no variety and shows are made for the sake of it. If cable television had more variety than the average “hating your wife and daughter-in-law” gimmick, and better shows, Gen- Z would obviously watch and prefer it. What would we gain by rebelling against our own entertainment?
Industries and businesses are apparently “threatened” by Generation-Z and we are the ones to blame, right? We are ruining traditional businesses. We should be in jail for murdering so many industries. These businesses or our “victims” don’t understand that it isn’t our fault that they are failing to run. We are evolving and now that more platforms are available to us, we are more aware of what is happening around the world. Our taste is changing as we don’t just see the product, we also see the injustice that goes into creating it. Businesses and industries are not going to be successful if they fail to change and evolve according to the taste of their customers. They are not going to be successful if they can’t identify the reason behind their customers’ change of taste. They are not going to be successful if they blame their customers for their loss.
How will new businesses and industries boom if we cling to the old ones that we know are not ethical and don’t like? If businesses never evolved, we would still be stuck riding horses down the road because Henry Ford would never have evolved his business into making cars. It has been done in the past and businessmen need to realize that they need to bring their businesses into the 21st century rather than blaming us for murder. Gen-Z is not the murderer here, the businesses and industries that are accusing us are the bad cops.