In the latest episode of the youth of today not understanding the old fogies, there's a particular texting habit which has Gen Z exceedingly confused.
As much as I might like to think that a lot of these generational divides are artificial constructs designed to more easily label us and pit us against each other, sometimes there are genuine moments of confusion.
At present Gen Z are the people in their teens to their late 20s and apparently they're challenging people to think about the ways they go about running a workplace.
Then there's times when Gen Z are a judgmental bunch who need to be reminded they're running the same gauntlet the rest of us did and things existed before they discovered them.
Advert
Sometimes there are things they've got into which turn out to be not so new after all and they have rather similar tastes to generations which came before them.
As for what's got them confused now, it's a thing they call the 'Boomer ellipses' which is where older generations write something out and then seemingly leave things hanging by sticking an ellipsis on the end.
And we all know how ambiguous doing that can be...
It's like someone texting you and then leaving things open ended... they just jump to the next subject without definitively closing the previous statement... it's apparently making some of the younger cohort of humanity a bit on edge.
Certain members of Gen Z have tried to argue that the 'Boomer ellipses' are 'passive aggressive at worst, insane at best' by someone who doesn't seem to know how the 'at worst/at best' phrase works.
The ambiguity of those three dots has them wrapping themselves in knots trying to figure out the deeper meaning behind it all.
The angry Gen Zer wrote on Reddit: "Small example: Boomer Neighbor texts me asking which post office branch is ours.
"I reply right away and she responds with, 'Thanks...' Like what the f**k else needs to be said or implied? Why not 'Thanks!', 'Thanks.' or 'Thanks [smiley face].'"
Other generations have piled in to argue that the ellipsis is 'more casual' or to indicate sarcasm.
But then this circles back round to the person getting the message not knowing if there's more being left unsaid, if what's being said is insincere or if it's a fairly innocuous sign.
One person in the comments tried to explain 'Boomer ellipses' like this: "Serious answer: analogue forms of informal writing, like recipe cards and postcards of the 20th century often utilized ellipses or dashes as space-saving methods of shifting ideas. Online or in texts, we can just line break to communicate the same thing without wasting physical paper space."
But the original poster wasn't happy, writing: "That might be the reason for some fraction of the generation but it doesn’t explain 'Thanks…' and nothing further."
This text exchange has clearly haunted them.
Meanwhile, the wonderful generation known as Millennials have also recently had a bit of a shellacking from Gen Z over the 'Millennial pause'.
Perhaps our generations are just divided by a common language.
Joe Harker