It’s another “divide and conquer” angle. Not to say that zero of tension between age groups is ever organic, but the capitalists definitely play it up on purpose, so people who could otherwise grow to be on the same page will look at each other with disdain. It also allows them to shift blame more selectively. Like the whole “so and so age group is poor because they’re buying lattes.” This wouldn’t work very well if they said every age group is poor because they’re buying lattes, but they find a group that is buying lattes, combine it with division of age group, and now they’ve got an in group and out group that they can play off of; “it’s not that we’re blaming everyone’s poorness on superfluous spending, just the people of that group over there, but you’re not one of them, you’re one of the good ones.” “Yeah, I’m one of the good ones. You poor people over there only have yourselves to blame. I’m a financially responsible person, that’s why I’m not living out of a car [yet could also have my whole life upended by surprise medical bills].”

Meanwhile, Elon Musk is over there, able to buy a whole social media platform, but we’re supposed to belief some people buying coffee to compensate for chronically being overworked, stressed, and sleep deprived, are the problem.

Think vsauce made a video about this whole thing. Every generation does this. Could be considered a superstructural contradiction, although I really have no idea how to expand on this (shows you I’ve seriously been lagging behind on theory).

Did the same thing to us millennials for years so I feel you

Once Gen Alpha reaches the workforce, they will become the next punching bag. I grew up hearing people, harassing millennials and now have to watch it happen to Gen Z. With Gen Z it is more fierce as now with social media in full string most people are doing it for clout, talentless social media accounts and “journalists” who akin to paid bloggers than actual journalists.