Richard Hanania mounts a surprisingly provocative challenge to a cultural habit we barely notice: the relentless labeling of young people as "Zoomers," "Gen Alpha," and other arbitrary cohorts. His core claim is that this practice isn't just lazy journalism, but a pathological social force that actively delays adulthood and fractures intergenerational understanding. By tracing the history of these labels, he argues we have shifted from naming generations after shared historical trauma to assigning them generic letters before they have even lived a day of adult life.
The Arbitrary Alphabet
Hanania begins by dismantling the logic behind our current naming conventions. He notes that earlier generations earned their titles through retrospective recognition of shared experiences. "People born in the early twentieth century were 'great' because they lived through the Depression and won World War II," he writes. In contrast, the modern era has devolved into a frantic search for labels that fit a rigid timeline. "For the last three generations, we are just phoning it in," Hanania observes, pointing out that "Generation X" started as an unknown variable but was reinterpreted as a chronological placeholder, forcing subsequent cohorts into a Greek alphabet sequence. "We call those who came of age at the turn of the millennium 'Millennials.' Then you get Gen Z as the second cohort after Gen X. Having run through the alphabet so quickly because we started near the end, we decided to start over and switch to Greek, and so say hello to Generation Alpha."
This argument is compelling because it highlights the absurdity of our current system. If we applied these rules retroactively, Hanania suggests, we would end up with nonsensical designations for historical figures. He asks us to imagine the Gettysburg Address referring to "Generations H through J" or soldiers of the Civil War as "Generation O and Generation P." The sheer awkwardness of this thought experiment underscores how alienating our current terminology is. As Hanania puts it, "This is like if you're having kids, and name the first two Tom and Sally. Then you call your third Octavian, because you're a big fan of the Roman Empire."
"The Greatest Generation was collecting social security when they got their label, but today Americans are already classified as fetuses."
The timing of these labels is perhaps the most damning evidence Hanania presents. He contrasts the delayed naming of the "Greatest Generation" with the immediate categorization of today's youth. "Now, we're already talking about 'Generation Alpha,' a bucket we're going to presumably put all babies into until 2028," he notes. This shift means that young people are internalizing an identity before they have any agency or experience. A counterargument worth considering is that these labels serve a useful function for marketers and sociologists trying to track rapid cultural shifts. However, Hanania's point stands that the premature application of these labels creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of immaturity.
The Psychology of Eternal Youth
The article's most striking insight lies in its exploration of how these labels alter human development. Hanania argues that by giving young people a permanent generational identity, we inadvertently encourage them to remain in a state of extended childhood. "When Zoomers grow up, they still take the generational identity with them. A middle-aged Zoomer is still a Zoomer," he writes. This creates a psychological barrier where individuals measure their life milestones not against the universal human experience, but against the specific, often lowered, expectations of their cohort.
He illustrates this with a powerful hypothetical: "Is it normal and right for people to get married at 30? Is it normal and right for Zoomers to get married at 30?" The distinction is crucial. The first question invites comparison with parents and grandparents, while the second isolates the individual within a bubble of generational exceptionalism. "With (2), you ask whether this is something that makes sense for someone in your generational cohort," Hanania explains. "Of course, in 2027, we will all assume that of course 'Zoomers' don't get married at 30. No Zoomer has ever been 30 before."
This framing effectively connects linguistic habits to real-world behavioral trends, such as delayed marriage and career instability. Critics might argue that correlation does not equal causation and that economic factors are the primary drivers of these delays. Yet, Hanania's psychological analysis offers a compelling supplementary explanation: if you are told you are fundamentally different from previous generations, you may feel less pressure to conform to traditional timelines. "This contributes to extended childhood," he concludes, suggesting that the labels themselves are part of the problem.
The Erosion of Shared Wisdom
Perhaps the most profound consequence Hanania identifies is the breakdown of intergenerational dialogue. When we frame society as a clash of distinct, incompatible cohorts, we lose the ability to learn from history. "When you say old people might have something to teach young people, it sounds plausible," Hanania writes. "But if you frame the same thing as a matter of whether a 'Boomer' has anything useful to say to a 'Zoomer,' we've defined people in such a way that we expect there to be unbridgeable gaps."
He suggests that this mindset fosters a culture of victimhood and self-absorption. "I get frustrated when I hear young people talk about how nobody older can understand their dating or financial struggles," he admits. "I think it's in part that they've been taught their whole lives that contemporary adults grew up in a social context that was too divorced from their own to provide any insights." This aligns with the historical context of how generational terms were popularized; as Douglas Coupland's work on Generation X showed, the term initially captured a specific cultural mood, but it quickly hardened into a rigid identity that separated the young from the old. Hanania warns that we are now doing this to children who haven't even reached adulthood. "We are not even giving kids a chance to grow up before putting into their minds the idea that everything they experience will be different from all that came before."
"We are biasing the way we view the world by deciding ahead of time that each cohort is going to experience something so unique that it needs its own label."
Hanania's critique extends to the political and social implications of this labeling. He draws a parallel to how government categories like "Asian American Pacific Islander" or "Hispanic" were adopted into cultural discourse, creating new forms of identity politics. "Once the state divides people into groups and distributes advantages on that basis, the relevant labels acquire cultural resonance," he notes. By treating generations as distinct political blocs, we risk elevating "lived experience" over logic and empirical evidence. "A New York Times headline from last Thursday reads 'It Feels Like There's No Jobs': 12 Gen Z Voters on the U.S. Economy,'" Hanania points out. "It's obvious to me that as soon as the report is framed as Gen Z talking about its experiences, we know that the spin is going to be negative."
Bottom Line
Richard Hanania's argument is a necessary corrective to the lazy habit of generational labeling, successfully demonstrating how these terms create artificial barriers and delay maturity. His strongest point is the psychological impact of assigning a permanent identity to young people before they have formed their own. The argument's vulnerability lies in its reliance on correlation rather than hard causation regarding economic behaviors, but the cultural diagnosis remains sharp. The most important takeaway is that we should stop treating "young people" as a foreign species and start viewing them as part of the continuous human story.