Thrifting as a Lifestyle Statement
Walk through any college town today and you’ll find Gen Z hauling bags from Goodwill like they’ve discovered buried treasure. Gen Z has embraced thrifting as a moral imperative and a fashion statement, scouring racks for vintage finds. The ThredUp 2024 Resale Report found that the U.S. secondhand apparel market grew seven times faster than the broader retail clothing market in 2023, driven largely by younger shoppers.
Boomers were the original thrifters, often out of necessity or counter-cultural rejection of mass consumerism in the 1960s and 70s. They frequented army surplus stores and flea markets to find durable goods and unique styles long before it was a hashtag. The 1960s and 1970s saw a surge in thrifting’s popularity, driven by countercultural movements such as the hippie and Bohemian styles, with thrift stores becoming treasure troves of vintage fashion offering unique pieces that reflected individuality and rebellion against mainstream fashion.
Vinyl Records and the Analog Ritual
Walk into an Urban Outfitters and you’ll see teenagers buying vinyl records as if they just invented high-fidelity audio. Vinyl albums outsold CDs for the second year in a row in 2023, with roughly 43 million units sold. Gen Z loves the tactile experience, the large artwork, and the ritual of dropping the needle on a favorite track.
Boomers were the generation that first defined musical identity through record collections. Albums weren’t just entertainment – they were social markers, displayed proudly and handled with care. The ritual of flipping a record and studying album art was part of the emotional connection to music. Vinyl records and transistor radios emerged during the lives of the baby boomers, as did rock and roll. They didn’t need a revival campaign. It was simply how music worked.
Astrology and Spiritual Curiosity
Gen Z has turned astrology into a massive industry, using apps like Co-Star to navigate their relationships and daily lives, using star charts to explain everything from their personality quirks to their dating compatibility. The catchphrase “What’s your sign?” dominated every party in the 1970s the way birth chart memes flood Instagram today.
In the United States, the first people to embrace the New Age belonged to the baby boomer generation, those born between 1946 and 1964. This spiritual boom is a direct descendant of the New Age movement that boomers popularized in the 1970s. They were the ones who brought the Age of Aquarius into the mainstream, exploring zodiac signs and mysticism as alternatives to organized religion. The crystals and tarot cards on a Gen Z desk would look right at home in a boomer’s dorm room from 1975.
Roller Skating as a Social Scene
Roller skating has rolled back into fashion, with parks and rinks full of teens filming tricks for social media. If you were around during the roller disco craze, the sight feels like déjà vu rather than a discovery. Social media had a major hand in catapulting roller skating back into popularity, giving roller skaters a platform to post videos frequently set to nostalgic music and wearing clothing styles reminiscent of the 1970s. Younger millennials picked up skates in their 20s and Gen Z experienced its first major foray into skating popularity.
At the height of the disco craze in 1979, Billboard reported that there were an estimated 5,000 roller rinks in the U.S., attracting more than 28 million young American skaters. Roller rinks were once the center of teenage social life, with weekend sessions featuring disco lights, couples-only skate times, and DJs spinning popular music. Skaters practiced backward spins and choreographed routines. The rink was the TikTok of its era – the place where you performed, connected, and showed off your best moves.
Environmental Activism and Climate Consciousness
Gen Z is arguably the most vocal generation on climate issues, and rightly so given the urgency of what they’re inheriting. Yet boomers participated in the earliest environmental movements. The first Earth Day in 1970 mobilized millions and helped establish major environmental protections. Young boomers joined protests, conservation efforts, and community cleanups to protect natural resources.
Low-waste living isn’t new either. Before it had a name, boomers did it out of habit. They had milk that came in bottles they’d reuse, as well as brown paper bags they would save. Any leftovers went in old yogurt containers, not plastic wrap, and if something broke, they fixed it. The zero-waste ethos existed long before it had a hashtag or a dedicated TikTok niche.
DIY Culture and Hands-On Making
The rise of DIY videos among Gen Z echoes the hands-on culture boomers practiced at home. Many boomers learned to fix appliances, build shelves, and sew clothing because professional services were too expensive. Craftsmanship was a common family skill rather than an internet trend.
Long before YouTube tutorials, boomers were building, fixing, and growing everything. They fueled the early rise of self-reliance movements like gardening, fixing their own cars, and making their own clothes. Today, upcycling a thrifted dresser gets thousands of likes. Decades ago, it just got the shelf fixed. The difference isn’t the skill – it’s the audience.
Talking Openly About Mental Health
Millennials and Gen Z have genuinely normalized transparent conversations about anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions. They have made therapy and discussing it acceptable and removed the stigma related to admitting you need help. That progress is real and worth acknowledging.
Still, the foundation was laid earlier. Contrary to popular belief, the mental health movement did not start on TikTok or Instagram. Generation after generation of activists, psychologists, and marginalized communities had been talking about it since the 1960s. Social and political changes such as the Civil Rights Movement created a shift in mental health care. Large, isolated asylums started to close in favor of smaller, community-based care, with the focus becoming providing more humane and accessible mental health services.
Houseplants as a Personal Identity
Scroll through Instagram and you’ll see Gen Z apartments that look more like greenhouses than living spaces. The 2023 National Gardening Survey found that participation in indoor houseplant gardening jumped more than any other activity, with younger households driving the growth. Owning a rare monstera has become as much a personality trait as a hobby.
Indoor jungles have sprouted across social media feeds, complete with trailing vines and rare leaves. Gen Z calls themselves “plant parents,” but gardening is a tradition rooted in boomers’ victory gardens and backyard plots. Caring for plants teaches patience, nurtures the desire for growth, and gives you a break from screens. While younger folks photograph every new leaf, boomers remember when vegetable patches and flower beds were about feeding families and brightening yards.
None of this diminishes what Gen Z has done with these ideas. Repackaging something with fresh energy and modern reach is genuinely creative work. Every generation has its signature trends, but cultural habits tend to circle back in surprising ways. Gen Z is often praised for its creativity and reinvention, especially in fashion, technology, entertainment, and lifestyle choices. Yet many of the trends they proudly embrace were once the norm for boomers several decades ago. The similarities show that what feels new often has roots in the past, reshaped by modern technology and taste. Culture doesn’t get invented – it gets inherited, and then reimagined.
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