What's on Your Mind?

Gen Z’s latest online fixation is the so-called ‘millennial optimism’ era. The TikTok trend sees users posting early-2000s throwback snaps set to The Middle East’s 2009 song “Blood”. Think moustache tattoos, Apple Photo Booth selfies, and owl-print tops paired with galaxy leggings. For those too young to experience it firsthand: the 2010s were a simpler, happier time. As one TikTok creator posted: “Millennial optimism era really had me thinking I could make a living as a part-time barista and live in a six-bedroom house with all my friends.” As one commenter confirmed: “Tbh this was actually possible in 2012.” In another clip, one Gen Zer wrote: “Every day I’m fa…

There’s a generational shift happening in workplaces that goes far deeper than debates about RTO or perks and snacks. Gen Z—the cohort that learned to communicate through stories, stickers, and swipe culture—is fundamentally reimagining how work gets done. After analyzing data from 2,475 professionals across our latest research, I’m convinced they’re crafting the future of work. Gen Z intuitively understands something many organizations are still learning. As we live in a world drowning in information, clarity is a competitive advantage. And increasingly, that clarity is offered visually. The Visual-First Expectation Sound familiar? Workplace tools mirror socia…

If you’ve caught a movie in the theater recently, you may have noticed the crowd leaned, well, decidedly younger. Gen Z and millennials are driving a renaissance of sorts at movie theaters, taking in more movies each year and spending more money per outing than older generations, according to the results of an annual moviegoing trends and insights study released this month by Fandango. But Gen Z was a standout in a couple key ways: 87% of people born after 1997 said they had watched at least one movie in the theater in the past year, the highest share of any generation, and they were also the most likely to purchase tickets online or pre-order snacks, according t…

With around one billion searches on ChatGPT each week, Gen Z are increasingly turning to AI to solve a daily dilemma: what to wear. Last month, OpenAI announced updates to ChatGPT’s Search, enhancing the shopping experience with personalized product recommendations and direct purchase links. Users have already begun using these features to plan their outfits. “I’m going out to dinner tonight, what should I wear?” one user asked ChatGPT in a TikTok video. The AI suggested a fitted black cami, black trousers, strappy heels, and silver hoops. “Why did ChatGPT kind of slay though?” the creator said. Another fashion and lifestyle creator prompted ChatGPT wi…

Rather than clocking in at a Saturday job or selling old clothes for quick cash, Gen Z has another side hustle up their sleeve: selling their personal data. To take advantage of the nearly seven hours a day Gen Z spend on their phones, a new app called Verb.AI, launched by youth polling company Generation Lab, is now offering to pay young people for their scrolling time. By installing a tracker which monitors what they browse, buy, and stream, Verb creates a digital twin of each user that lives in a central database. From there, companies and businesses can query the data in a ChatGPT-like interface, and get a more accurate picture of consumer preferences than the…

If your company is losing Gen Z talent, chances are, the problem isn’t them—it’s you. The phrase “quiet quitting” has become a catch-all for blaming Gen Z workers for workplace disengagement. Older generations stereotype them as unmotivated, unwilling to go the extra mile, and too demanding. But here’s the reality: Gen Z isn’t disengaged—they’re just done tolerating bad leadership. My research, including surveys, interviews, and case studies across industries, shows that what many have labelled “quitting” is actually a rational response to workplaces that lack fairness, structure, and alignment with employee values. Instead of writing off an entire generation, le…

With TikTok and DeepSeek, young people are forking over sensitive personal data to the Chinese government. We should be worried. Among Gen Z, there’s a certain nihilism about China’s access to American data. Some argue that they have nothing to hide. Others say that, if American billionaires can access their data, why not let China, too? When TikTok momentarily shut down, young people ran to RedNote, a Chinese alternative, as a not-very-veiled middle finger to the U.S. government. China’s threat to our data security is difficult to comprehend. If they were accessing sensitive information, we wouldn’t see it. And, for young people not yet in the workforce, their …

Libbie Bischoff didn’t set out to reinvent the signature. Really, she was just flipping through a vintage knitting magazine from the 1950s. The Minneapolis-based type designer collects the mags, partly because her grandmother taught her to knit, and partly because she finds incredible typography hidden within their pages. It was in one of these magazines that she found the casual, flowing script that would become one of Docusign’s new signature styles. Together with Lynne Yun—a New York-based type designer, calligrapher, and founder of the studio Space Type—Bischoff is responsible for the first major update to the platform’s signature options in more than 20 year…

By now you may have heard about the so-called “Gen Z pout,” a selfie face pose that comes as a response to the now “cringe” millennial duck face made popular by the Olsen twins in the 2000s, who would purse their lips to look pouty and suck in their cheeks when posing. Here’s what to know about the newest Gen Z slang. What exactly is the Gen Z pout? This week, a bunch of articles came out about this new trend and the nuances surrounding it that the untrained eye might miss. The pose has been seen on the faces of celebs such as Love Island’s Iris Kendall, or actresses Rachel Sennott, Lily-Rose Depp and Ariana Greenblatt. “If millennials pursed and pointed ou…

A startup marketing to Gen Z on college campuses filed a lawsuit this week alleging that Instacart engaged in federal trademark infringement and unfair competition by naming its new group ordering app “Fizz.” The plaintiffs, Fizz Social Corp., claim they have been operating their event planning platform under the “FIZZ” trademark and have become a well-known social platform used on more than 400 college campuses. The app, which requires users to sign up with a college email, features anonymous text posts, polls, photos, and the ability to send direct messages. The company has raised at least $41.5 million as of last summer, TechCrunch reported in 2024. “This new F…

Big city or small town? Tourist trap or undiscovered sights? Following an itinerary or spontaneous exploring? Travel has become a trend as generations raised on social media catch flights, not feelings. But Gen Z and millennials may also be redefining travel—all in the search of a more authentic adventure. Hidden-gem locations and no-stress getaways are top of the list for young travelers. It’s a shift from the kinds of bucket-list destinations that have saturated Instagram and TikTok and fueled an overtourism crisis in recent years. As traveler-favorite towns are combatting high influxes of visitors, some travelers are looking to new horizons. They’re …

Gen Z isn’t “quiet quitting”—they’re rejecting outdated leadership. That’s the conversation my recent Fast Company article sparked, and the response has been overwhelming. Leaders, managers, and employees from across industries have reached out, confirming what many of us have seen firsthand. Workplace culture is changing fast, and leadership needs to evolve with it. But as the dust settles on this conversation, I’ve been thinking about a different question: If leadership needs to evolve, what role does Gen Z play in shaping the change they want? It’s easy to say leadership is broken—and in many cases, it is. But just as bad leadership creates disengaged employees, di…

When it comes to deciding on a job, Gen Z isn’t just thinking about paid time off, return-to-office mandates or salary negotiations. They’re checking whether a company will cover GLP-1 weight-loss drugs—and they’re not alone. It’s a benefit that could actually push young employees from one job offer to another. A new ZipHealth survey of over 1,000 workers found that nearly half (47%) of Gen Z said GLP-1 coverage would affect their choices between two similar jobs—that’s compared to 35% of millennials and 36% of Gen X. In more extreme cases, another 7% of workers said they would be open to taking a pay cut if it meant working somewhere that offers GLP-1 coverage. …

Every January, we’re bombarded with resolutions rooted in consumption—buy this, try that, subscribe to something new. For Gen Z, this consumer-first vision of the New Year feels outdated and hollow. Instead, Gen Z is turning to peers for a community-driven “soft start” to the year ahead. Popularized on TikTok, January resets offer a modern alternative to the outdated idea of resolutions. This shift from consumer-driven goals to community-supported resets is especially visible in how Gen Z is approaching health and wellness in 2026. It’s not surprising either. Earlier in 2025, millions of young people took to social media to publicly document their quit journeys us…

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. For Generation Z, real estate is more than just settling down—it’s about staying connected, empowered, and mobile. Born between the mid-1990s and early 2010s, they are the first fully digital generation, raised on smartphones, cloud-based everything, and on-demand convenience. Gen Z’s influence on the housing market is rooted in their expectations. They bring a consumer mindset to renting …

Jonathan Haidt, author of ‘The Anxious Generation,’ breaks down the psychology behind Gen Z’s social media addiction and what digital dependance actually does to a young person’s brain. View the full article

McDonald’s, Wingstop, and Starbucks are among Gen Z’s most popular and appealing restaurant brands, according to Dcdx’s new Magnetic 100: Restaurants report, measured by organic, user-generated content. The report looks at what young consumers spent their hard-earned money on in the first quarter of 2025, noting which brands attracted the most organic conversations, either by generating online buzz or through word-of-mouth, including during big cultural moments such as the Super Bowl and holidays like Valentine’s Day. Some surprising names to crack Dcdx’s top-10 roster this year were Crumbl Cookies (#6) and Raising Cane’s (#7), a fast-casual chain specializing in …

General Motors lifted its financial outlook for the year and slightly lowered its expected hit from tariffs, as the automaker awaits expected relief on tariffs in the U.S. while confronting a weakening market for electric vehicles. The company now expects its annual adjusted core profit to be between $12.0 billion to $13.0 billion, compared with its prior estimate of $10.0 billion to $12.5 billion. The Detroit automaker said tariffs would hit its bottom line less than anticipated, lowering its updated impact to a range of $3.5 billion to $4.5 billion, from a previous $4 billion to $5 billion. Shares rose about 8% in premarket trading. GM’s outlook hike lifted cros…

In the high-stakes world of revenue orchestration, a quiet but costly friction is slowing down deals. It isn’t market volatility or budget cuts—it’s a fundamental disconnect between the generations tasked with closing the sale. Steve Cox, CEO of the newly merged sales tech powerhouse SalesLoft and Clari, sat down with me recently to discuss a startling finding from their latest report: generational conflict is costing sales organizations an estimated $56 billion in lost productivity annually. That’s not a typo. Billion, with a B. “When Boomers hear ‘AI makes you faster,’ what they really hear is ‘You’re too slow,’” Cox explains. Meanwhile, 39% of Gen Z sellers pre…

Generic store brand groceries can increasingly be found in the pantries, fridges, and freezers of Americans across all income groups. Once designed to communicate value and affordability, a new generation of private labels designed for high earners is driving sales. Among households earning more than $100,000 a year, 82% say they’ve increased the frequency of buying store-brand groceries “often” or “very often,” according to a report from Alvarez & Marsal Global, a consulting firm. That’s compared to 74% of households earnings less than $100,000 a year who also say they’ve increased their store-brand grocery purchases. Grocers have rebranded and grown the…

If you have ever welcomed a new baby into the world, you know the mix of hope and uncertainty that comes with those first days. For decades, newborn screening has been a quiet triumph of public health, catching rare but serious conditions before symptoms appear and giving families a head start on care. Now, genomic newborn screening, which includes whole genome sequencing, is poised to take this life-saving work further by screening for hundreds of genetic conditions at birth and changing the standard of care. FROM RESEARCH TO REAL-WORLD IMPACT The GUARDIAN study is pioneering genomic newborn screening in New York City. As the largest genomic newborn screening prog…

It turns out 2025 isn’t the year for legalized sports betting in Georgia. Efforts to send a state constitutional amendment to voters failed Thursday in the state legislature, as neither the amendment nor a bill laying out details ever came to a vote in the House. Voters in Missouri narrowly approved sports betting in a 2024 referendum, making it the 39th state to legalize the practice. But like in Georgia, legalization faces high hurdles in the 10 remaining states that bar sports gambling. Thursday was the deadline for each Georgia chamber to pass its own legislation to the opposite chamber. The measures still could be revived in the last month of the session, but it m…

Gerber Products Company and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have issued a serious recall notice, discontinuing all batches of Gerber’s Soothe ‘n’ Chew Teething Sticks due to fears that they could present a choking hazard for babies. The baby food brand confirmed that at least one emergency room visit has been linked to the product. The recall and discontinuation notice was posted to the website of Nestlé USA, Gerber’s parent company. Here’s what you need to know: Which products were affected? The recall includes both Strawberry Apple and Banana flavors in all package sizes. Where were the products sold? The affected products were available onl…

A private European aerospace company scrubbed its attempt on Monday to launch the first test flight of its orbital launch vehicle from Norway. Unfavorable winds meant that the Spectrum rocket couldn’t be launched from the island of Andøya in northern Norway, Munich-based Isar Aerospace said. The launch is subject to various factors, including weather and safety. The company said it could also conduct the test flight later in the week. Another date hasn’t yet been set. The 28-meter (91-foot) Spectrum is a two-stage launch vehicle designed for small and medium-size satellites. The company has largely ruled out the possibility of the rocket reaching orbit on its first co…