‘I should have been a Millennial’: The kids yearn to be cheugy as Gen Z’s Millennial hate gives way to Millennial envy

Generation wars are turning into generation jealousy among TikTok Zoomers as videos romanticizing the 2010s go viral. Montages of popular media that users are calling "2013 core" are now spreading across social media as both Millennials and Generation Z recall the last time they felt any amount of hope for a better world. More than just your standard past-decade nostalgia, this trend actually has Gen Z wishing they'd been born Millennials after all this time mocking the older generation.

'A spark of hope and joy'

@romulusedits all adventurous women do #fyp #foryou #2013 #2014 #2015 #girlshbo #hbogirls #newyork #portland #broadcity #millennial #hipster #twee #zooeydeschanel #chloesevigny #500daysofsummer #skyferreira #fleabag #lorde #highfidelity #20s ♬ original sound - cary!

A TikTok post from Feb. 21, 2025 by @romulusedits gained 1.2 million views from members of both generations with a montage recalling everyone's favorite shows from the 2010s. Girls, Broad City, Portlandia, plus films like 500 Days of Summer and celebrities like Zooey Deschanel and Lorde bring people back to a time when the future looked bright, if a little weird.

Perhaps the Zoomer ire for Millennials was really envy all along.

The video got TikTok user @oatmilkl0ver444 "realizing we hate on millennials bc their 20s actually had a spark of hope and joy."

Meanwhile, user @beccaiona admits that "we hate on millennials because we wish we were them."

Millennial viewers, of course, jumped on the nostalgia to remember a time when they were coming of age during the Obama era of hope and change. Some even took the opportunity to declare themselves the actual greatest generation.

"We millennials were mocked for our avocado toasts, made broke from the recession as we entered the workforce, and still found joy in life & had empathy for each other," said @plantyangie. "Why we are the peak generation."

The video made its way to X at the beginning of March, where the aching recollections continued.

"You don't understand," wrote user @splashmouf. "It was optimistic, fun and cross-cultural but everything was sprinkled with a fine dust of evil."

We miss peak BuzzFeed

Nostalgia for the 2010s didn't start in 2025, however. TikTok videos labeled "2013 core" and telling people to act like it's 2013 go back as far as 2022. A viral video from Feb. 3 of that year by @shizzless showed a compilation of aesthetics from 2013, including Forever 21 outfits, pastels, Starbucks frappuccinos, and Gossip Girl. The 12-second montage earned over 55,000 likes.

@shizzless i lowkey copied ariana grandes hairstyle to school everyday lol???? #fyp #era #aesthetic #fy #foryou #astrology #victoriassecret ♬ i could be the one - ˖ . ݁????????. ݁₊

"pov: it's 2013 and you idolized every girl with this aesthetic," the caption reads.

Skip forward to March 9, 2024, and a video by @monica_alexandra would gain over 54,000 likes by filming a TV playing HBO's Girls under a long caption romanticizing the peak BuzzFeed era.

"I'm watching Girls on HBO for the first time and I realize I wasn't meant to be 23 in this age," it reads. "I was meant to be a 23 year old hipster living in Brooklyn in 2012 wearing too many floral patterns, listening to vampire weekend, and writing absurd listicles on buzzfeed while it was at its peak. I'm a converted millennial apologist now because what a time to be alive."

The X user who reposted the more recent 2010s nostalgia montage also referenced that website, writing that they were "born in the wrong generation, i was meant to be a young millennial working at prime Buzzfeed!!!"

Bleak future predictions continue to rise

A lot of this nostalgia seems to be fueled by the feeling that the 2010s were a more hopeful time—especially before, say, early November 2016. A pandemic followed by reemerging job market struggles continued to beat down any sense of optimism, and now we're here.

In 2023, a survey by the Pew Research Center found that a strong majority of U.S. adults felt that the nation was in decline by multiple metrics. On the economy, 66 percent of respondents predicted it would be weaker in the coming years, and 71 percent thought the country would have less importance to the larger world.

These pessimistic numbers were up from 2018, but even then, a majority foresaw America's image declining and our problems getting worse. A full 87 percent of those surveyed felt either fairly or very worried about "the ability of political leaders to solve the country's biggest problems."

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