Basically I'm attempting to avoid being this guy:
Let it be known that I am the type of person to dramatically overthink certain miniscule details when it comes to my writings. Half of my hard-focus issues probably end up completely ignored by the readers. For example, I have a tendency to make slight intentional grammatical errors in speech and narration as a way to convey slack speaking mannerisms to make my characters seem less robotic. I also prefer to use extensive emphasis tools such as all caps or exclamation marks as a way of making a scene more manic, as well as using speech breaks and ellipses to convey awkwardness or dead air. Ironically, every English teacher I ever had in my life told me not to do either of those things, but I'm very-much not known for obeying authority figures.
Back on the subject: as a Millennial, I have always written my characters in these stories as Millennials until the Thirst Games earlier this year, when I began the process of mentally shifting over to a more Gen-Z aka Zoomer style of character to reflect how people in school ages would act in 2021. This has been a process for me which is still not where I would like it to be. For starters, my style of humor is very distinctly Millennial and I have not yet been able to shift over to Zoomer surrealist humor what-so-ever. The more I thought about my own process, though, the more I began to notice the flaws I was working out of myself popping up in other stories. This, in turn, led to even MORE brainstorming on my part in order to understand the cultures of the different generations and it all just ballooned onward from there.
Some of the most distinctive Millennial personality and culture traits are: They are brazen, intentionally reckless (YOLO), depressed hiding behind dark humor and specific hyperfixations as coping mechanisms, obsessed with justice/fairness/equality, terrified of appearing weak in any way, they dislike being touched by people outside of a tiny few exceptions in their lives, generally hate mainstream religions and all concepts of lifestyle restrictions they demand, they don't trust a Gen Xer or Boomer with anything, they are intelligent and highly value intellect (valuing nerds over jocks), they are artistic and obsessed with "standing out" to an almost unhealthy level, and they celebrate diversity and expression in all of its forms despite the older generations seeing all forms of diversity as deviancy. Their humor is based on slapstick, roasts, pop culture references, and shock and in many cases they prefer to stretch a joke as long or as far as it could possibly go (meme culture). Millennials can be petty and are usually obsessed with revenge when crossed, as their generation has a huge inability to allow themselves to "lose" in any engagement, no matter how minor or abstract. They love bad guys and anti-heroes to an absurd level, openly disliking anyone that is too vanilla and goodie goodie (as seen in the major hate thrown towards John Cena, Superman, and Goku relative to their main bad boy counterparts). As part of this, Millennials tend to have vividly colorful language and highly distrust anyone who doesn't.
Meanwhile, Zoomers are more: Exceedingly positive towards themselves and others, humor is surrealist and often a mix of awkwardness and weirdness, extremely devoted to breaking the gender binary in every possible way, instead of abandoning religions like Millennials Zoomers are attempting to reclaim religions back from the older hate groups who lead them currently, they value charisma above all other traits, they are heavily into touching one-another and expressing all forms of physical affection for friends and acquaintances without fear or holding back, they are very open with their feelings in a way older generations can't fathom. They shower one-another with positive vibes far more than Millennials, because Millennials feel very uncomfortable and distrustful when positivity passes a certain threshold. Tons of Zoomers have unusual non-traditional names as a side effect of their parents being so obsessed with standing out, which includes many weird spellings of otherwise common names.
Another component is the main antagonists relative to the generations. For example, Boomers and Gen Xers tended to be bullied in school by the ultra-popular jocks and rich kids, and the worst thing you could be was a nerd. Millennials love nerds though, so that particular bullying trend didn't exist in Millennial schools much (plus Columbine making everyone piss themselves over bullies). Millennial bullying centered extensively on gender-nonconformity (insulting boys by calling them girls and vice versa) and there was overlap with homophobia in there as a form of gender nonconformity. As we Millennials got older we generally reversed our views on that subject 180 degrees as we became the champions of LGBT rights and individual expression. We still have hang-ups deep inside on that subject though, so both men and women will hurt you if you deliberately misgender them as a diss. Zoomers, of course, LOVE gender nonconformity and at this point you can't walk 20 feet in a school without bumping into a nonbinary person experimenting with how to express and present themselves. Zoomer bullying falls onto political lines, with groups like the KKK, the Christians, and the Incels openly flaunting their bigotry as if it was a virtue. Zoomers are knee-deep in the Cold Civil War in America.
Relative to our stories, Incels especially are an unavoidable cancer who exist solely to make women miserable (yet they wonder why women won't sleep with them). More stories featuring Zoomer protagonists should have some level of Incel involvement simply because their kind are unavoidable now. I have noticed very few times when Incels were ever used here to add to a naked girl's humiliation. They would be the kind of boys to openly insult a naked girl's body and its flaws rather than outwardly showing any sexual interest in her. There are lots of stories on here where a naked man gets ridiculed by the women seeing him, but not as much in the other direction even as the Incel movement has made this such a common occurrence. Incels see expressing sexual interest in a female to be a sign of weakness and failure, and they utterly despise women who flaunt their bodies in any way as if they were the ultimate enemy.
So yeah, I've been attempting to adjust my overall character style for younger characters into the Zoomer line of thinking instead of the Millennial style, for accuracy in the modern era. There are several moments in Sophie Digitally Naked in School where I have been experimenting with that, especially the open use of physical contact and wholesomeness between the characters, and the Incel Billy as a constant source of loud disrespect and insults. In the future I intend to play with the wide gender spectrum more, simply because that is a gigantic part of Zoomer culture right now. I will surely be working on this more over the next several years simply because I'm a stereotypical ADHD Millennial who gets lost on pointless hyperfixations.
So with my random ranting finished, tell me what you all think on this subject, and if anybody else has been putting forth any big effort towards writing in a Zoomer style now that the oldest Zoomers are entering their early twenties. The other end of this would be wondering if people plan to start writing more stories set in the past in order to work with their own teenage years.