let's talk about THE KIDS 👧🏾🧒🏼👦🏿👶🏽

A deep dive on Gen A culture with marketer and trend expert Coco Mocoe.

Want more of The Trend Report™? Upgrade to a paid subscription for even more trend updates, thinking, curation, and more 🌼

It’s time to talk about the kids — and I’m not talking about Gen Z: I’m talking about literal kids, teens, tweens, and everything in and out and between those who are under 18. Specifically: I’m talking about Gen A, kids who are hypothetically born between 2010 and 2024.

These are the children of Millennials and Gen Z, the kids who we talk about when we talk about the students who can’t read, the kids who are generally dumb, and children who are obsessed with horror media. This generation is forming as we speak, children who have been getting attention for loving Sephora too much and for being chained to their iPads. They’re important because many of us are their parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, caretakers, teachers, and general other people who interact with kids. They’re a point of fascination because, as we know, they have a bit of a mean streak and have inspired the likes of “Skibidi Biden.” They are chaotic, they are the future: they are the kids of today.

And I’ve been thinking about them a lot, especially given all the time I spent working for and with brands like Nickelodeon and YouTube and how their interests trickle up and around such places, which brands then vomit out as advertisements. When we talk about generations, we’re talking about bottom lines: this is about the newest eyes and ears, bodies that can be converted to numbers reported in growth reports. They’re signs of success, they’re the people who pump up the capitalist system. It’s really gross to think that way but, to enter in the mind of big business, you have to see them (And all people!) as such — and this is why they’re “important” now: they’re increasingly becoming a marketing demographic. It’s not just the “skibidi” things but it’s why Five Nights At Freddy is PG-13 and why Jenny Ortega is starring in the new Beetlejuice: these extensions of Gen A tastes and mindsets are becoming more and more of an influence while being more and more of an influence-able audience.

But is it really their time? Is all this too premature to say? Isn’t all of this generationalism stuff bullshit anyway? How will they fit into the extended cinematic universe of cross-generational beefing? To find out, I had a lil chat with trend expert extraordinaire

Coco Mocoe

. Coco is a huge voice in the trend space (And someone you definitely know from TikTok!) who has carved a niche for being able to, say, “predict” and understand the market, particularly as it relates to younger people.

Over the course of an hour, she and I had a lil talk about the Gen A universe in the hopes of defining them and their ilk — at least for the time being, before they change shape and become something else. This conversation has been edited for clarity and is part of a two-part collab series: this post is dedicated to Gen Alpha while a corresponding post about Gen Z and Millennials (And beyond!) is over on Coco’s Substack. Let’s get into it!

KRF: I’m very excited to talk about this, as I think Gen Alpha is wild in many ways. And, having worked for a few entertainment and tech brands, there’s always this talk about hitting a demographic — and I don't think they realize that so much of the demographic is Gen Alpha. They’re becoming more and more of a thing! Or is it too early to say? Do you think we’re really in the age of Gen Alpha? Or are we still in Gen Z? Are the two passing the torch?

CM: I think they're still on the young side, but it's still important to study their behavior now, so that you can understand them when they do become, you know, consumers. My first job in marketing was at Famous Birthdays, which is a teeny bopper website. At the time, in the late 2010s when I was there, we were talking about and reporting on Gen Z celebrities, which were essentially Musical.ly stars and YouTubers. No one was really taking us seriously, or taking them — the Gen Z stars — seriously. It was because the kids we were catering to were in middle school. It was such a great resource for understanding them and, when I ended up going on to work at BuzzFeed, I was able to really hit that demographic because I understood their behavior as consumers. But: do they even exist? No one really knows where the numbers are. What year is [Gen Alpha’s]? I always call myself a Zelder because I was born in 96 but I think the cutoff is…95? I don't even know what generation I'm in. Who knows?

KRF: And: does it matter? That's the other thing, especially with those cutoffs: there’s no hard, set anything to dictate generations. It’s all marketing. Maybe it’s the technology that defines generations? I think the reason why Gen Alpha is probably coming into its own now is because they have similar tools to Gen Z and, like previous generation, they have a means to articulate themselves and make themselves known. I think that’s happening earlier than it usually happens, which is making it seem like now it's all Gen A. Take Poppy Playtime: for a long time, in the 2020s it was assumed that it was Gen Z media, when in fact it's eight year olds. These kids know how to use CapCut and they're able to make media about the media they love too. That's great, but it confuses everything. Does that mean this is a group that we should be engaging with? I mean, there's not a nine year old reading my website — but I could be wrong. I would love to be proven wrong. I think it all goes back to participation, particularly in discourse: it has to sort of reach a certain threshold.

CM: When I was doing research for this, there's this one girl who is going viral on TikTok for doing blunt get ready with mes — and she's clearly a middle schooler. She's kind of become the face of what Gen Alpha is going to be. I don't think we need a representative of Gen Alpha just yet, because they're so young: they're not even a representative of themselves. I can't imagine knowing who I was at 11 and setting it in the history books of what my generation is going to be. But I do think it is fascinating from a more bird's eye view, in terms of how they'll be different from Gen Z. I think Gen Alpha is going to be the most private generation since the invention of the internet. I think they're going to move through the internet as avatars. I mentioned this on a panel once and people came up to me and were like, “Oh my god, I'm a parent to Gen Alpha kids and you articulated something that I didn't even understand but makes sense.”

KRF: I mean, really, at the end of the day what the Gen A thinkpieces and posts are about is just parents who are trying to understand kids, which is the same thing with Gen Z and Millennials, all the way up and down to Boomers and Gen X and the Silent Generation. That's wild that you think they're going to be a very private generation. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

CM: Anytime I say it, people are taken aback. I'm so okay with being wrong, and I don't think there's ever going to be a measurement: there's never going to be someone pulling out a ruler to be like, “This is how private they are.” But just looking at Gen Alpha's behaviors online, they are obsessed with Roblox. They move through the internet using avatars and, when I was doing research for this, I saw a post from my old boss at Famous Birthdays about how they’re able to figure out who was going to be famous next based on what people were searching in the search bar, to get information on online celebrities. Wikipedia isn’t writing articles about these people yet, you know? A few months ago, he said on LinkedIn that there's been an influx of people searching for Roblox usernames, which are completely private, anonymous users who are celebrities now. No one knows who they are or seen their face or know how old they are. Gen Alpha lives in a world where they were kind of forced online. Compare this with Gen Z, who were stripped from their classrooms and, while that wasn't malicious, they had to go on Zoom to finish their education: there's some resentment towards the internet. Every generation wants to be influencers and YouTubers and but I do think that Gen A idolize a lot of celebrities that hide their face. They're being raised by Millennials who understand the dangers of a digital footprint too: whereas Gen Z and Millennials were raised by people who didn't really understand digital footprints. I have this inkling that Gen Alpha…maybe they themselves won't be as private, but their celebrities are going to be avatars. Like Sims characters. One day we’re going to see the next big app be a mix of Tiktok and The Sims, where your social standing online is not going to be dependent on your own physical self but the avatar that you've created.

KRF: I think that's already happening: just look at VTube culture. Even with the use of filters like animojis, and how every so often there’s a viral post with a child talking as a chicken. It's very funny — and I think you're right. There's a very interesting relationship or porousness with anonymity, which I guess they would just call avatars, to your point. These are also the expressions of gaming and the mechanics of gaming wired in their lives, in ways that Gen Z and Millennials and every other generation will never understand. Think about the Metaverse, which was full of children. I feel like it’s becoming almost like a fake ID, this wild thing they'll slip in and out of, to use in different ways to fit in with different communities. There will be a kid trying to figure out if they’re queer by using an avatar, pretending to be a 40 year old gay man or whatever. That’ll be interesting.

CM: God forbid your wifi goes out — or you lose your identity. The closest example I have of this from my growing up was maybe Club Penguin, where you could meet other people and literally make friends. I had Neopets, where you could run shops: these were little crumbs of what was to become. But one thing: I’m not equating privacy with not being online. Kids are on their iPads all the time which is an example of being online and completely private. Those two things can exist at once. I think Gen A is going to be chronically online, like every generation — I just think they're gonna move through it more so as avatars than their own selves.

KRF: That’s gonna create a tension. For my generation, I remember being told to make sure that your tagged photos on Facebook aren't of you drinking because you won’t be able to get a job, which wasn't true. That never was a thing. For Gen A, it will crash into how Millennial parents who saved their kids’ usernames — but their kids will probably not ever use it. Why would they? It's their real name! Plus, like, that's embarrassing, mom. Why would I use that? They're not going to use the same tools as us in the same ways we use them because we are old: that's a classic generational thing. You're not going to want to use what your parents and their friends use anyway.

CM: It’s all so fascinating.

KRF: This may sound abstract but I think an example of using these tools in different ways was that recent Times story about the students making fake, incriminating TikTok accounts to get back at their teacher. There are a lot of wild stories like that and, while I know those are not indicative of every Gen A kid, there's a really interesting relationship between being extremely online and being able to see the whole universe of media and ideas — everything that came before us, all the way down to fucking Plato — which are then synthesized to, say, bully somebody. That’s a very extreme example of using these tools. The difference is they don’t understand the ramifications. And why would they? They’re children. I’m curious about this line of gestures in Gen A, maybe less about them and more about the media representation of them. I’m curious about these ideas of the “mean kids” in Gen A that keep breaking through. Are they outliers? Is this just sensationalism?

CM: I think what's happening here is that every generation has their outliers, their bad kids: it's part of your prefrontal cortex not being developed. The reason it's becoming even more extreme is because of the intersection of technology and the way technology works, as oftentimes younger people are early adopters. Kids are brilliant online. These platforms are their language, essentially. And, if you learn a language when you're younger, you just understand it better. You know the nuances of the language, the little, small things that happen there, which helps you learn the language better than adults. Every generation is going to get better than the next. In terms of this Gen A brutalism, it could just be middle schoolism. Maybe they are just middle schoolers! That’s what terrifies Gen Z, at least the pieces I've seen from Gen Z about what Gen Alpha is going to be like. They grew up online, obviously, and they're still growing up. They were pulled out of classrooms so they didn't have that physical class setting for a long time: boundaries were removed in terms of how you're supposed to talk to and treat people. Because, online, you get away with so much more — especially when you can be anonymous.

KRF: You're exactly right. To them, being online is not the real world and you don’t realize that dunking on a teacher by making a fake TikTok has real world ramifications that are huge and profound. It’s that “You would not say that to a person's face.” thing. It reminds of when kids watch 5-Minute Crafts and accidentally make a bomb, or severely injure themselves: they don't realize this shit because they're kids. But, on the other flip side, a big elephant in the room of Gen A brutalism is that I don't think that Millennial parents — and Gen X and Boomer parents and grandparents — realize how mean they are. Think about the Trumps and the Karens, all the way up or down to drag queen throwing shade at each other. It doesn't matter who is doing it but these expressions of meanness are modelled, reflected. No wonder Gen A do this mean shit — because that's what the people upstairs are doing and they want to be like that too. They are their parents' children.

CM: I can see that. Working in the industry, I've met some more Gen Z creators who may have more out there, outlandish personalities where they yell at the camera, saying crazy things. But, in person, they're the most calm, zen person. They’re shy. So I do think that they're putting on more filters, which, like avatars, removes emotions and boundaries. We also have to think with the Sephora thing that these kids are also looking for third spaces: we don't have third spaces — and I think that's the same with kids. They go to malls, which are some of the last safe, air conditioned places in America to hang out and get cheap and go to Sephora. They don't really have anywhere safe to go, physically, except a mall. Then they're watching videos of kids putting on makeup! Gen Alpha is shaped by rampant consumerism online, which we see with all the TikTok shop stuff. They really are making do with what they have. The brutalism is just them growing up online without boundaries.

KRF: That’s true. The key difference is that connectivity, which each earlier generation’s entertainment was further and further removed from. We also have to think about it in the way that our parents, that Boomers, love television. It’s always on, always there. It drives me fucking crazy! However, when you think about it, the television is the Boomer’s iPad. That was the thing that grew up with them and that did not fuck them up or ruin their life: it was where they turned to for support. That’s the trickle down we’re seeing with iPad kids. It’s the techno-ephemera of being, like the book was in the 1800s or whatever.

CM: It’s emotional pacifiers. I can’t blame kids, as long they’re not too loud at, like, a restaurant. I get it. I know that if I'm at a party and I'm nervous and I don't know anyone: I'll go on my phone. Everyone kind of has their thing.

KRF: One thing I find particularly fascinating — and we talked about this a little bit with the brutalism — is the unique relationship between Gen Alpha and, um, let's call it horror content. Skibidi toilets, the backrooms, Poppy Playtime, Five Nights at Freddy's: all that stuff, along with Stranger Things and like the whole canon of horror, from Beetlejuice to The Exorcist. These are very much the hallmarks and touchstones of Millennial parents and Millennial life. I’m curious about the draw to horror and their relationship and how it will affect media. Sure, movies and television — but I do think it’s going to shape video games in many ways. What do we think that relationship is like? Is this a core tenant of Gen A culture?

CM: That's such a good observation. Consider kids’ fascination with Wednesday Adams and Jenna Ortega. Yeah, the show had some dark themes — but the audience demographics seemed to skew so young.

Continue on to learn about the relationship between Gen A and the tactileness of horror, Gen A’s favorite apps and websites, the next biggest Gen A stars, and the future of kid influencers ⬇️