People born in these years are officially ‘Zillennials’ and it explains a lot

The great Millennial vs Gen Z debate is one which has taken over the internet in the past couple of years.

Previously innocuous trends, such as your choice in socks and the style of jeans you wear or the way you part your hair, have since become recurring battlegrounds for the two generations online, with all of us expected to pick a side and defend it to the death.

Your social media habits aren't exempt from the great debate either, with Millennials being ribbed for their heavily filtered and hashtagged Instagram photos, while Gen Z prefer to open up TikTok and record themselves dancing.

But what if you find yourself identifying with both and neither generation simultaneously? Enter the 'Zillennial'.

What is a Zillennial?

While generational boundaries vary from person-to-person, millennials are typically believed to be born between 1981 and 1996, while Gen Z is considered to be from 1997 to 2012.

Zillennials will remember their childhoods being dominated by playing out rather than screen time (Getty Stock Images)

However, the creation of Zillennials overlaps both generations, including everyone from 1992 until 1999 (or 2002, depending on who you ask) and features a combination of traits from both generations.

Which certainly makes sense for me, as someone who falls into the Gen Z category but is also old enough to remember Facebook's 'Become a fan' feature and the Millennial obsession with Harry Potter, HBO's Girls and Starbucks frappuccino pics posted with the 'Rio De Janeiro' filter.

Why Zillennials may have actually had the 'best quality of life'

Being at the crossroads between Millennials and Gen Z can be confusing when the two are bickering over who is more cringy, but it also has its benefits, as a recent study suggests that people born between 1992 and 1999 were able to enjoy the 'best of both worlds' when it came to technological advancements.

As the last generation to experience childhood before the complete omnipresence of the internet and social media, Zillennial childhoods included aspects such as Blockbuster, the enforced screentime from the family computer with dial-up internet and having to physically go outside and 'knock on' for your friends.

However we also grew up alongside technology, going from the family computer to the iPhone (Getty Stock Images)

Which you have to agree is a lot better than brainrot memes, Skibidi Toilet, and not being able to think critically without the use of artificial intelligence.

Zillennials also spent their formative years watching technology progress in real time, coming of age as regular phones became smartphones, social media jumped from the desktop to the phone screen, and iPods were killed off by Spotify.

This allowed Zillennials to adapt effortlessly to using technology in a way which our parents (and even some Millennials) haven't been able to.

Literally the best of both worlds.

I'm not the only person to think this, either, as a recent Instagram post on the topic saw users broadly agree. "I honestly found life got more & more toxic as technology progressed," wrote one person, while a second penned: "I feel like we saw the last of the best life."

"Best generation for sure," added a third.