Gen Z Has No Use For Your Professional Vibes

The more you try to prove your authenticity bona fides, the more you’re going to push customers away

image by freepik

I’m breaking down a pretty tricky lesson that started with an analysis of Gen Z branding preferences and is now evolving into a shift in user experience and user interface design for product developers and startup founders.

Let’s start at the top. And lemme shake my fist at the clouds for a minute.

Time To Be Real!

I’ve got zero use for the BeReal app — this is the social app that forces and shares a photo once a day at a random time — which to me seems at once completely derivative and also totally horrifying. But I’m old, wtf do I know?

Anyway, when Saturday Night Live (again, zero use) did a sketch about the app, it popped up onto my radar a second time (I have Gen Z kids, so I keep up). This time the theme that most of the articles about BeReal tended to push for clicks sake was the fact that BeReal was popular because Gen Z favors authenticity over professionalism. Honesty over brand. Steak over sizzle.

And yeah, I’m aware the last one is something a Boomer would say. Look, I’m Gen X, we hate everyone.