Coming For The Crown
Tweens on social media are terrifying their millennial counterparts.
Are their fears justified?
She has blonde hair and wears silk pajamas.
Her get-ready-with-me routine is more than 10 steps long and includes a serum that retails for $87.
Depending on which headlines you read, Gen Alpha kidsare lonely.
Gen Alpha kidsare disrespectful.
Gen Alpha kidssuffer from brainrot.The whole generationis doomed.All millennials and Gen Z know for certain?
These kids are terrifying.
What I am afraid of is Gen Alpha.
Millennials werethe me me me generation.
Gen Z was supposedly so disturbed they wereeating Tide Pods.
(They werent.)
Parents, teachers, and civilians who encounter Gen Alpha rarely escape unscathed.
Now, she has 400,000 followers tuning in to watch her riff on how to deal with the cohort.
Im like, Dude, I dont think this is COVID.
This is something else here.
Their unique early mastery of social media and the internet means theyre armed with unprecedented resources to fight back.
I feel victimized by some of these 6- and 7-year-olds, another teacher on TikToksays.
[Girls] are very sneaky about it, she says of the bullying.
Some of these antics are, of course, to be expected these are children, after all.
But back in February, a group of Pennsylvania middle schoolers crossed a new line with their bullying.
As a result, several students were briefly suspended, according toThe New York Times.
Social media often takes the blame for transforming impressionable kids into formidable opponents.
TikTok culture has also pushed girls in particular to grow up faster.
Suddenly, we withered millennials are bowing down to the likes of Evelyn.
Such is the life of creatorslike Haven Garza,Ayla Palmer, andHarper Zilmer.
You want to wear what someone slightly older than you is wearing.
Plus, we know that Gen Alpha can onlyfollowtrends for so long.
Soon, theyll start to create the trends themselves and well be primed to follow suit.
Convenient that we millennials are already on bended knee, eager to kiss the Ring Pop.
So who do we blame for this entire generations main character energy?
Like, Im never going to use this in my life.
Because were literally talking about 12-year-olds here, she says.
I think its a fear of our own obsolescence and irrelevance versus actually fearing a generation.
Certain kids have always been precocious, she continues.
Its just that now they have platforms like TikTok that are amplifying their precociousness.
Just ask Gen Alpha themselves.
Thats not me or most of my friends at all, insists Catherine*, an 11-year-old from Michigan.
Catherine enjoys school and doesnt see the animosity toward adults that others have reported.
Shes aware of the headlines, but thinks Gen Alpha doesnt get enough credit for their positive traits.
But we have a big imagination which can lead to great stories and problem-solving.
These are people whose formative years occurred during the pandemic and Black Lives Matter movement.
Its a generation set to bethe most diverse yet that has been raised with equality and consideration in mind.
This is an especially hopeful vision for young women.
Theyll be alphas, in every sense of the word.
All hail the queens.
