Differentiating generations may be extremely beneficial for many industries. Determining their time frames and characteristics is a difficult and intricate process, based on generalization, so it is possible for a group of people to feel excluded or mismatched. Such communities are called micro-generations — they are communication spaces bringing together people with similar lifestyles, who do not identify themselves with larger entities, such as generations. The most recent emerging one are the zillennials: people caught in-between the Y and Z generations. There has not been much research concerning this group’s phenomenon yet, so no data-based definition has been proposed to date.This thesis focuses on defining the lifestyle of American zillennials and it results in proposing micro-generational definition. In order to examine this group, some research was done, which showed TikTok to be a place where they were coming out. Therefore, all the hypotheses were based on these observations. Main research methods used to confirm or reject them were: a case study (of a Facebook group called Born Zillennial) and individual in-depth interviews (five American zillennials took part). The questions asked revolved around the following dimensions: shopping habits, activism, relationships, mindset and mental state, the use of technology and social media. Additionally, the respondents talked about their feelings towards the sense of belonging to a micro-generation and the pros and cons of creating generational divisions.
The results of the analysis led to some interesting conclusions. zillennials are a generation in-between, and although influenced by the older and younger ones, their characteristics are unique. The events that helped them shape were the COVID-19 pandemic and the TikTok generation war. The research also showed some occurrences within the group that did not appear in any previous generations. Zillennials are by far one of the most captivating micro-generations.