Marketing & Advertising information says a lot about our culture as a whole, and as the Millennial’s, or Generation Y, reaches the fatal age range of  35 to 44, American branding is shifting its focus to the post-millennial era, Generation Z.

According to The Social Librarian, Generation Z was born between 1995 and 2012, and is growing at a rapid rate. Every student in this school is apart of Gen. Z and the media already has pre-meditated judgments for us, at the ready. This is The Age Of Adz and soon enough, these ads are going to be aimed toward us, if they haven’t been already.

Being born at the turn of the century, means that we were doomed to live in an age full of paranoia. I was four years old, sitting around at my grandmothers house when she got the call from my parents saying, “Turn on the news, something horrible has happened down in New York.” As my grandma walked frantically across her house on the phone with my mom talking each other down, I remember staring out her window in amazement that an attack this big could actually happen. So, according to open agency ad corporation, Sparks & Honey, marketers believe us to be obese, A.D.H.D addled, over-sexed entrepreneurs with, paranoia filled, hyper-active imaginations, as a result of growing up in a pseudo-martial law state, post-9/11, brought on by the Patriot Act.

I shouldn’t try to paint Sparks & Honey as the bad guys here, but I don’t like being labeled & stereotyped. Frankly, it’s insulting.

Yes, stereotypes are typically debauched images of a small percent of the population, but I believe the media needs to realize stereotypes are just that; a minuscule part of the population as a whole. Marketers are in a constant search for whatever the next best trend is going to be, when in reality, we all are individuals with our own opinions of what is and what is not ‘cool.’ Unfortunately, most of Gen. Z can’t seem to grasp the concept of independence, so we continue to feed into the mass amount of lies given to us on a daily basis, without truly thinking for ourselves.

Seeing conformity of that level on a generational basis really pains me, because willingly following others moral values without bothering to find out what the values are, is the blind leading the blind. Generation Z has the potential to be incredibly powerful individuals with meaningful voices, in a time that desperately lacks any. Quoting the third track off of Arcade Fire’s debut masterpiece, Funeral, “The power’s out in the heart of man,” and I just hope we can light it up again.