For generations, parents have warned their children not to play with matches.
Now, 20-year-old YouTube rapper and social media mega “star” Jake Paul and his band of boys demonstrate life-threatening, dangerous pyrotechnic stunts daily to their 10.5 million followers.
“He’s establishing himself in the eyes of grown-up America as an embodiment of everything that is wonderful and horrible about Generation Z,” wrote the New York Times.
Photo Courtesy of the New York Times
Vlogger (video blogger) Jake Paul epitomizes his market of Gen Z-ers, those born in the Bush and Obama years. They are the first generation to be raised in the era of smartphones. Many don’t remember a time before social media.
A high school dropout, Mr. Paul leveraged his millions of social media followers, along with a well-honed skills for rubber-faced comedy and ambulance-worthy stunts. “We were working with brands and advertisers. I was, like, 17 years old, making more money than my parents!”
STYLE
These tweens and teens of today are primed to become the dominant style influencers of tomorrow. Flush with billions in spending power, they promise untold riches to marketers who can find the master key to their psyche. Because, of course, they grew up shopping online.
“No wonder the race to define, and market to, this demographic juggernaut is on. They are the next big retail disrupter,” explained Women’s Wear Daily. And besides wealth, Generation Z also commands attention through its sheer size.
Young people today feel much more emboldened to express their own sense of style compared to previous generations. But there is also a robust global industry of youth-oriented apparel brands, along with fashion magazines and style blogs dedicated to influencing fashion. The time-honored premise that cooler-than-thou clothes and shoes are, as always, up there with food, water or oxygen as staples for many teenagers.
REACH
To reach Gen Z, it is recommended that you 1) Depict them as diverse (ethnically, sexually, fashionably) 2) Task in images: emojis, symbols, pictures and video 3) Communicate more frequently in shorter bursts of “snackable” content 4) Tap into their entrepreneurial spirit. 5) Collaborate with them … and help them collaborate with others.
“Generation Z tends to be the product of Generation X, a relatively small, jaded generation. They came of age in the post-Watergate, post-Vietnam funk of the 1970s, when horizons seemed limited. Those former latchkey kids, who grew up on Nirvana records and slasher movies, have tried to give their children the safe, secure childhood that they never had.
“You see the mommy blogs by Generation X-ers, and safety is a huge concern: the stainless-steel sippy cups that are BPA-free, the side-impact baby carriages, the home preparation of baby food,” continued Mr. Howe, who runs Saeculum Research, a Virginia-based social trends consultancy.
Part of that obsession with safety is likely due to the hard times that both Generation Z and their parents experienced growing up. Their parents may have been safety-firsts, but the Z generation is predisposed to making vlogs of themselves doing cartwheels over their cats and fire-swallowing.
BORN ENTREPRENEURS
The New York ad agency, Sparks & Honey observed also that “entrepreneurship is in the DNA of Generation Z.”
“Kids are witnessing start-up companies make it big instantly via social media,” said Andrew Schoonover, a 15-year-old in Olathe, Kansas. “We do not want to work at a local fast-food joint for a summer job. We want to make our own business because we see the lucky few who made it big.”
Which leads to a final point about this new generation’s similarities to the Silent or Greatest Generation (who also grew up with an economic catastrophe and foreign aggression on American soil) As Mr. Howe points out,” it was not just the most career-focused generation in history. It was also … the richest.”
“My personal goal,” Jake Paul offers, “is to be a billionaire.”
The New York Times posed these questions about Jake Paul. Is he genius or a jerk? A punk or a prophet? In a media landscape where clicks are money, does it even matter?