Certified Gen Z experts (and actual Gen Zers) Karen Rickers and Gabrielle Carruthers reflect on the year 2024 – what is driving their generation, how they have changed, and their hopes for the future.

Karen 🎾

What a year it has been! 2024 has been quite the rollercoaster and has seen some future-defining societal shifts, environmental catastrophes and political incisions. As a generation that grew up in one crisis after the other, it is safe to say that we went a little numb and disillusioned and lost interest in fighting for a better tomorrow. But 2024 saw some very important political elections and government motions that made us (and TikTok) rather political again. For example, it was very interesting to witness the US election unfolding on our play ground, mobilizing young voters using our language, our platforms, our memes. Considering all this upheaval, we have to thank the pop girlies (Taylor Swift, Chappel Roan, or Beyoncé come to mind) to provide us with some much-needed distraction – be it Grammy-nominated albums or record-breaking tours. Charli xcx went even further than that and provided us with the pop culture hoorah of the summer – “brat summer”. But it was so much more than just a summer trend, wasn’t it? It coined something very relevant to our generation, this idea that you should be unapologetically yourself and that sometimes you have to prioritise yourself and your own well-being over global problems.

Gaby 🎀

Exactly, wellbeing has remained in the spotlight in the wake of everything that happened this year, but it’s beginning to look a little different. In recent years there has been a certain level of commodification of wellness, with things like biometric rings, wellness apps and personalised supplements; wellness has become a trillion-dollar industry. I saw a funny tweet about this where they were complaining about actual real issues, and someone replied, ‘have you tried healing your gut?’, but I think for the most part, we can tell when wellbeing-focused content is a gimmick, and when it’s the real deal. Our approach to wellbeing is going back to basics a bit more. We’re seeing a spotlight on sports at the moment post-Olympics, combined with a continuation of the COVID momentum, when everyone started to pick up new hobbies. We saw Padel and pickleball gain popularity, and tennis had a moment post- ‘Challengers’. Lately I’ve even seen lots about fishing, with Drake featuring on The Drake (a popular fishing magazine). So, while the whole new wave, sci-fi-esque, personalised wellness wave is fascinating, we’re probably more likely to go back to the basics, reconnect with the outside world and find new (offline) ways to spend our time.

Karen 🎾

So true! I think that when it comes to self-care and protecting our mental, our emotional health in particular, we have come to value anything that protects our peace. That can mean stepping away from our screens, leaving doomscrolling behind in favour of meeting our friends in the real world, going to concerts, vintage thrifting or pursuing our creative hobbies such arts or crafts – or maybe just sleeping it all off. I am expecting this IRL trend to continue for a while, but we are of course not ditching our screens entirely – it really is about finding a balance between online and offline. Self-care in an online space can be binge-watching your comfort throwback series (“Friends” in my case) and scrolling – because let’s be honest, sometimes just scrolling is fun & allows us to shut down our brains for a bit. Really though, it is about scrolling more mindfully, for example by following therapy or feminist or fashion accounts that makes us feel part of a bigger community. We are also a generation that is big on gaming – and that really brings us closer together – it seems like everyone is talking about Baldur’s Gate 3 at the minute!

Gaby 🎀

Agreed, and this ties to the previous point actually, but we’ve seen quite a rise in escapism through gaming, especially through cosy gaming – calming video games where there’s no real violence, and it’s more about building a new life in a virtual world. These types of experiences help us to destress. As social media becomes more for entertainment than socializing, we’re also looking to gaming as a way to connect with our friends. Given that we’ve already given up on traditional media like TV, brands can look to gaming as a way to connect with a large Gen Z audience. One example I quite liked was Charli XCX’s collaboration with Dress to Impress, which was arguably – at least for young women, the Roblox game of the summer.

Karen 🎾

Also, it is another great example of the importance of tapping into pop culture to create a connection with our generation. I want to zoom in on what you said about social media being less and less about socialising which is frustratingly true… Instagram, TikTok – they have all become riddled with ads, sponsored posts and influencers rather than putting our friends and family in the spotlight – which is what social media was meant to be all about right? Luckily, we are starting to see a real pushback: Gen Z is quietly unfollowing influencers and rejecting ads – in other words, much like we do where our mental health and wellness is concerned, we are pushing back on the commodification of social media. An example of that was the de-influencing trend where some influencers were recommending which of the overhyped, must-have products not to buy. You could of course easily make the point that this still counts as influencing and consumerism, but I think it is a step in the right direction. And we really need to turn things around because – goodness me, have you seen some of these borderline insane trends where people decorate the inside of their fridge or have to shed their faces in the morning of the dozens of skin or hair care products they use overnight??

Gaby 🎀

Yes I saw those! It feels like TikTok trends have become more and more ridiculous, and almost reached a breaking point this year. Obviously, overconsumption has had a lot of attention over the years, but young women are still the biggest supporters of brands like Shein. This is in part owed to the hyper-fast trend cycle that platforms like TikTok generated, meaning that popular fashion changes so much more quickly, and people turn to fast fashion brands to keep up. However, this summer we saw the whole ‘underconsumption core’ emerge (which is still a ‘core’ in itself, but we’ll take what we can get), and I think this is part of a larger shift in mindset. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been seeing people talk about this and I would definitely agree, my TikTok FYP has really changed in terms of microtrend content. I rarely see this anymore; I couldn’t even tell you what is trending right now in the TikTok sphere. I think we’ve seen much less ‘core-ification’ this year, and potentially a movement towards mass trends with greater longevity. I guess the takeaway is that lifestyle brands are coming back. It’s more about capturing our minds than our wallets, and having us buy into a way of life, rather than an ever-changing aesthetic.

Karen 🎾

Very important take-away, especially as we so often see brands try and jump onto a micro trend, only for the trend to be over by the time brands get to it. So really, I think the red thread through our conversation and across themes such as mental well-being, IRL and social media is that of embracing a different mindset, away from toxic stress to something that is more mindful. Another area where this is becoming more and more relevant is AI. Ever since AI hit the mainstream last year, people have been scrambling to understand how it can be used for good – rather than chipping away at people’s work and creativity. We have recently attended a few events centred on this question and the possibilities of a softer digital future. That means more mindful, positive and constructive applications of AI, for example the AI-driven Wikipedia CleanUp project to filter out false information. Even better, we went to an exhibition at the Natural History Museum here in London called Visions of Nature. Sponsored by Microsoft and built on VR, the exhibit tells the tale of what our world would look like 100 years from now if we started to act on climate change now – and AI should be a big part of that!

Gaby 🎀

Events like those are really positive, because there is still a certain amount of hesitancy when it comes to AI. We’re some of the highest adopters, so it’s clear that we’re using it, but I feel like some brands have rushed into using AI as a bit of a gimmick. So, for example Mango recently did a teen fashion campaign with entirely AI generated models. I think this is tricky territory and can be quite harmful in terms of self-esteem and body image, especially for young girls. Gen Z is all for AI when it comes to streamlining our work, or providing us with a more personalised shopping experience, but I’d suggest being a bit more cautious when it comes to doing anything flashy. We aren’t as enamoured with technology as we’re often painted out to be. Dove did a great anti-AI campaign earlier this year, which is what we’ve come to expect from them and their stance on #realbeauty, and I’d like to see more brands taking a similarly mindful approach.

Karen 🎾

I love that because it emphasises a very important point: our generation can oftentimes be rather contradicting, from who we vote for, what sustainable products we actually buy to which technology we want to buy into. At the same time, we are yearning for the past: just think of the uptick in Nokia phone sales and uprise in apps mimicking the old ways of social media – all driven by nostalgia. But the world is pushing our generation into the future, creating another contradiction and a state of limbo that is difficult to escape. Everything is changing so quickly, what will the future even look like? So really, I think that the main lesson to take with you as a brand (or anyone looking to understand Gen Z a little bit better) is an appreciation of the fact that we are of course not all the same. We are still trying to figure ourselves (& the world) out, but for the most part, these are our priorities:

1. Balancing meaningful IRL connections with softer digital experiences, that add to – not diminish – our lives 💞
2. Protecting our wellbeing holistically, that means mental, physical, emotional, spiritual and finding our purpose ❣️
3. Holding space for living our lives the way we want and can and putting ourselves first amid all this chaos – brat mindset even in winter! 💚