Zoomers Will be the Death of Me

I’m getting too old for this

Grayson Bell
3 min readMar 24, 2022

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Zoom Cast, 1972
The cast of Zoom, 1972, Courtesy of WGBH Archives.

Everywhere I turn on social media, regardless of my intentions, I’m finding members of Generation Z either upset with what I’ve said or attempting to gatekeep me out of a particular community, merely because of my age.

I’m a member of Generation X, and I was born in the 1970s and came of age in the 1980s. I was part of the latchkey generation, raised with the threat of the cold war and the false promise of trickle-down prosperity. While I am a product of my time, I do my best to keep up, as best as my aging brain can handle.

Zoomers are gatekeeping older generations

I’m not the only one who has run into this, as both older Millennials and Gen-Xers are getting told to get out by Zoomers from participating in geeky fandoms, online video game communities, and many other recreational activities.

I have been told that I’m too old and I should grow up and raise my kids. When I mention that I’ve never had kids because I’m childfree by choice, I’ve been called a liar. Apparently, Zoomers and younger Millennials have invented the concept of being childfree and anyone older must have had kids, whether we wanted to or not.

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Grayson Bell

An autistic, gay, transgender man writing queer fiction and about LGBTQ issues, focused on the transgender community. (He/Him) http://graysonbell.net/