Stephanie Worsop: Turning my millennial self into a Gen Z

Generation Z put Millennials in the firing line. Photo / Getty

OPINION

If you're up to play on social media you'll have noticed us millennials have been getting absolutely dragged by our sassy younger Gen Z siblings.

It started when these youngins put us in the firing line for our admissions of not knowing how to "adult" properly and our weird, cult-like obsession with Harry Potter.

Our love of avocado on toast and dependence on coffee have also elicited exaggerated eye-rolls from the up-and-coming generation.

And if that wasn't enough, these upstarts then started roasting us about the emojis we use - particularly the crying laughing emoji (because apparently, nothing is THAT funny).

Now, after months of merciless and unrelenting teasing, we're being told you can spot one of us from a mile away because of our outdated skinny jeans and side-parted hair.

My first response was to get defensive. After all, we inherited a broken economy so it is hard to "adult", I've been parting my hair on the side for nearly 15 years and Harry Potter was a cultural reset, okay!?

But then, after I calmed down and backspaced the sassy retorts I was going to respond with, I thought I'd do a little experiment.

If Gen Z really knows what's best for millennials, I'll put their taste to the test.

For the past couple of weeks, I have slowly been making changes to my appearance, habits and personality, to better fit what Gen Z says is the better way to be.

I've replaced my excessive use of the crying laughing emoji with the skull and I refrain from making Harry Potter references (in public, at least).

I even exiled my trusty pair of black skinny jeans to the back of the wardrobe, replacing them with a pair of loose-fitting, mid-rise jeans.

These changes weren't so hard, I get the appeal of looser denim, it is more comfortable - though this younger generation didn't have to experience the discomfort of having wet ankles while wearing circa-2003 flare jeans in the rain.

And I also found it surprisingly easy to replace the crying laughing emoji I have come to depend on, knowing I'll get less heat using the infinitely cooler skull emoji.

I was never much of a coffee drinker so that was easy to ditch and because of the copious amounts of avocado toast I ate during my first trimester of pregnancy, I can't actually eat it any more without being reminded of that period of horrid morning sickness.

But despite all these changes I willingly made, there was one thing I kept putting off, convinced that if I changed it, I would be a doppelganger of Neil from The Young Ones.

The middle part.

After painstakingly training my naturally-middle-parted hair to part on the side at age 14, I've been unwilling to revert back to a style that was seriously uncool when I was at school.

But hey, if it's a middle part the younger generation wants, it's a middle part they'll get.

So I bit the bullet and you know what I discovered? IT LOOKS GREAT!

I've been strutting around town, flipping my hair, feeling like the sleekest, most chic 28-year-old around!

While I may revert back to reading the Harry Potter books religiously, using the laughing crying emoji, and wearing the far more flattering skinny jean, the middle part is here to stay.

I know Gen Z's jesting has all been in good spirit but if there's anything this little challenge has taught me, it's that perhaps it wouldn't hurt for us millennials to stop and listen to them once and a while.

After all, if they can convince me a middle part looks good, maybe they're wiser than we think.