of the United Kingdom’s capitol city.
This article includes additional reporting from Alexa Phillips.
Walk into any Miniso, concert venue, or theme park, and you’ll see something similar: full-grown adults shamelessly reconnecting with the youth that shaped them. This is the foundational psychology behind a growing number of us Millennials, who are prioritizing spending based on a form of personal expression and autonomy once stripped away from us.
While future generations will attempt to synthesize the feeling of the monoculture, we were the last generation to form our identities from inside it. We experienced our formative years, from elementary school through college, experiencing things as one. We shared the excitement of a new CD release, waited in line for concert tickets, and rushed to the mall on a Friday night. Mainstream media helped shape trends, but we were the final gatekeepers. We determined which trends became mainstream; an algorithm didn’t pre-qualify and sort culture for us.
This is our baseline for cultural participation, and it’s why it still has such a chokehold on us. And it’s the reason that the camisole of our misspent mall-rat youth has become a symbol of reclaiming the agency we felt when we first wore it.
How we dressed, what we listened to, and even how we interacted represented a freer existence. A self we constructed and curated on our own, without the urging of an algorithm. And as we navigate some of the most complicated milestones of our lives, including aging parents, young children, and careers that did not deliver, we are reaching back for that self.
Research from GWI found that 61% of us are nostalgic for the 1990s, compared to 37% of Gen Z, most of whom weren’t even born yet. Herein lies the difference between nostalgia and anemoia. According to a study in the Journal of Global Marketing, when consumers have experienced a specific era, nostalgia is a mechanism for identity restoration. For those who didn’t, it’s aspirational and aesthetic.
We are being called cringe for our earnestness and our outward excitement. But that hasn’t stopped Gen Z and Gen Alpha from raiding our cultural closet. They’re flocking to the neon maximalism of Lisa Frank, the layered camis of Hollister, and the novelty of Tamagotchi, while calling us embarrassing for driving their emergence. We too are revisiting the brands and trends from our youth, but not purely for aesthetics and social media credibility.
We are buying back our identity, with each purchase acting as an expression of selfhood and cultural rebellion.
As consumers, we are making very deliberate choices about where joy lives in our budget, and it’s leading to a new form of brand loyalty that allows us to revisit an existence that predates the economic uncertainty, political unrest, and cultural monotony.
"Millennials are buying into lifestyle," explained Sally Lyons Wyatt, Circana’s Global EVP. "This is all around living through the Great Recession. You've got parenting and career-driven and then just social media belonging." Our generation is not just spending money. We are spending toward something; a version of ourselves we had before the decade of disruption.
The Sandwich Generation’s Push for Autonomy
Social workers Dorothy Miller and Elaine Brody coined the term “sandwich generation” in 1981 to describe the economic, physical, and emotional squeeze women in their 30s and 40s felt while caring for both their children and aging parents. The term may be pushing 45-years-old, but it lands especially hard for our generation. We’ve had to navigate the intensifying caregiving load while simultaneously navigating a growing identity crisis.
We entered the workforce during Hustle Culture’s come-up. The “Girlboss” moment told women they could be anything they wanted to be. Men were advertised a lifestyle of over-optimization that was powered by wellness hacks and productivity apps. The outcome is that 66% of Millennials report moderate or high levels of burnout, compared to just 39% of Boomers.
Our cohort also hit peak burnout at age 25, a staggering 17 years earlier than the national average. For those of us now in our mid-30s to early 40s, that peak has already passed.
The utilitarian grind has translated into fully-formed digital behaviors. In our New Modes research, 66% of us manage bills and utilities online every week, and 46% monitor our personal finances online weekly, both significantly higher than Gen Z (46% and 33%, respectively). Circana's retail data corroborates these channel preferences. Wyatt noted that eCommerce is "a stronger player for Millennials than the other generations,” with Millennial women in particular acting as the Chief Buying Officers of their homes.
In order to save time and emotional bandwidth, we are also more willing to be the guinea pigs of new technologies. In our holiday research, we were the most frequent AI shoppers of any generation: two-thirds (66%) used AI to shop "often," compared to 59% of Gen Z and 49% of Gen X. And among those of us who use AI at all, 30% use it several times a day, higher than Gen Z's 23%. For our cohort, technology is a means to an end. It’s a way to close the countless tabs clogging our brains and give us some semblance of peace.
As technology alleviates the mental and emotional load, we allocate more time and money towards lifestyle purchases related to family, technology, and experiences. And now that we’re in our primary earning years, we are taking control of our lives by prioritizing small moments of joy and excitement. More than one-third (34%) of our generation (versus 30% of Gen Z) say we enjoy our favorite indulgence every day, according to Method1 research. Twice as many (72%) of us say this type of indulgence is part of a healthy, balanced lifestyle. It’s equally a reliable ritual and a worthy investment. When the utilitarian grind is offloaded, identity-restoring purchases feel especially precious.
Joy Through Nostalgia and Maximalism
After offloading household necessities and routine purchases to technology, we are allocating the time, money, and emotional bandwidth we have left on what brings us joy. In fact, adults (especially women) account for 35% of the US toy industry’s growth.
The rise of the kidult connects to the content being consumed and monetized on social media. Influencers, ASMR content, and unboxing videos get the most views and shares because they provide mental soothing and entrancement after a long, stressful day. Content consumption leads to actual purchases to fulfill the dopamine rush of unboxing and getting a “little treat” that adds brightness to our day. Together, these elements serve an inner child that’s emotionally overwhelmed and constantly burdened by political and financial volatility.
Brands like Miniso are seeing the trend in their financial results. The Chinese company specializes in “soft toys” and has built a compelling IP ecosystem around blind boxes for characters developed by Sanrio, Disney, and major manga properties like Jujutsu Kaisen. But it has harnessed its diverse consumer base, which spans ages 8 to 35, to expand into new categories, from beauty to apparel and even snacks.
Tom Bartlebaugh, CEO and Head of Miniso USA, acknowledged the shift directly.
“With my generation, you grew up, and you left certain things behind,” he said. “But we’re not seeing that now. The kidult trend is very interesting because the person continues to grow and live on with a license, whatever it is. They don’t grow out of it. They’re continuing to purchase and collect as they get older.”
The same impulse is reshaping how we dress. “Dopamine dressing” accounts on social media deliberately challenge the Millennial minimalism that defined the early 2010s. Creators in our generation are posting outfits with bold colors, sequins, and pattern mixing to assert their rebellion. We’re mixing satin skirts with oversized band tees and Vans. Millennial pink and millennial beige are falling by the wayside because while they once signaled aesthetic sophistication and even wealth, they didn’t evoke joy.
Brands are seeing nostalgia and aesthetic expression converge as we start our families. Apparel brands like PatPat build their product roadmaps around partnerships that ignite nostalgia.
The same impulse is reshaping how Millennials dress. “Dopamine dressing” accounts on social media deliberately challenge the Millennial minimalism that defined the early 2010s. Creators in their late 30s and early 40s are posting outfits with bold colors, sequins, and pattern mixing to assert their rebellion. They’re mixing satin skirts with oversized band tees and Vans. Millennial pink and millennial beige are falling by the wayside because while they once signaled aesthetic sophistication and even wealth, they didn’t evoke joy.
Brands are seeing nostalgia and aesthetic expression converge as Millennials start their families. And apparel brands like PatPat build their product roadmaps around partnerships that ignite nostalgia.
“Parents love the idea of sharing something they grew up with alongside their kids,” Ranu Coleman, Head of Marketing for PatPat, told Future Commerce. “It becomes less about the product itself and more about passing down culture and memory.”
Lifestyle trends like “Millennial Summer” are becoming social media trends because we want to return to the final moments when identity felt free, and we want to create the same feeling for our kids. It represents a time when we had the freedom to play, be silly, and experience life without worrying what an algorithm forced upon us. We could dance at concerts without fear of being recorded and shared on social media. We could test new identities through fashion and culture, and leave behind what didn’t serve us.
These cultural expressions become commercial expressions when brands can meaningfully participate and create those moments of autonomy and freedom.
A Life Worth Buying Towards
We are feeling a more seismic sandwich-generation squeeze than any cohort before us. We are responding with spending patterns that are equally intentional and emotionally loaded. We are seeking a greater sense of personal autonomy and joy in our discretionary spending.
And as we move into positions of real purchasing power, that reformation is becoming a market force. The categories we invest in, including experience, home, nostalgia, and emotional reward, will only expand. We're reshaping this cultural moment, recreating the conditions that shaped us for ourselves and for the generations coming up behind us.
Cringe or not, we are the beating heart of a culture so many young consumers subscribe to as a rebellion against the desensitization of social-media culture. Our generation shops with intention, delegates logistics to technology, and makes every discretionary purchase a deliberate act of self-reclamation. The brands that understand what we are buying toward are the ones positioned to earn the relationship that lasts.
This article includes additional reporting from Alexa Phillips.
Walk into any Miniso, concert venue, or theme park, and you’ll see something similar: full-grown adults shamelessly reconnecting with the youth that shaped them. This is the foundational psychology behind a growing number of us Millennials, who are prioritizing spending based on a form of personal expression and autonomy once stripped away from us.
While future generations will attempt to synthesize the feeling of the monoculture, we were the last generation to form our identities from inside it. We experienced our formative years, from elementary school through college, experiencing things as one. We shared the excitement of a new CD release, waited in line for concert tickets, and rushed to the mall on a Friday night. Mainstream media helped shape trends, but we were the final gatekeepers. We determined which trends became mainstream; an algorithm didn’t pre-qualify and sort culture for us.
This is our baseline for cultural participation, and it’s why it still has such a chokehold on us. And it’s the reason that the camisole of our misspent mall-rat youth has become a symbol of reclaiming the agency we felt when we first wore it.
How we dressed, what we listened to, and even how we interacted represented a freer existence. A self we constructed and curated on our own, without the urging of an algorithm. And as we navigate some of the most complicated milestones of our lives, including aging parents, young children, and careers that did not deliver, we are reaching back for that self.
Research from GWI found that 61% of us are nostalgic for the 1990s, compared to 37% of Gen Z, most of whom weren’t even born yet. Herein lies the difference between nostalgia and anemoia. According to a study in the Journal of Global Marketing, when consumers have experienced a specific era, nostalgia is a mechanism for identity restoration. For those who didn’t, it’s aspirational and aesthetic.
We are being called cringe for our earnestness and our outward excitement. But that hasn’t stopped Gen Z and Gen Alpha from raiding our cultural closet. They’re flocking to the neon maximalism of Lisa Frank, the layered camis of Hollister, and the novelty of Tamagotchi, while calling us embarrassing for driving their emergence. We too are revisiting the brands and trends from our youth, but not purely for aesthetics and social media credibility.
We are buying back our identity, with each purchase acting as an expression of selfhood and cultural rebellion.
As consumers, we are making very deliberate choices about where joy lives in our budget, and it’s leading to a new form of brand loyalty that allows us to revisit an existence that predates the economic uncertainty, political unrest, and cultural monotony.
"Millennials are buying into lifestyle," explained Sally Lyons Wyatt, Circana’s Global EVP. "This is all around living through the Great Recession. You've got parenting and career-driven and then just social media belonging." Our generation is not just spending money. We are spending toward something; a version of ourselves we had before the decade of disruption.
The Sandwich Generation’s Push for Autonomy
Social workers Dorothy Miller and Elaine Brody coined the term “sandwich generation” in 1981 to describe the economic, physical, and emotional squeeze women in their 30s and 40s felt while caring for both their children and aging parents. The term may be pushing 45-years-old, but it lands especially hard for our generation. We’ve had to navigate the intensifying caregiving load while simultaneously navigating a growing identity crisis.
We entered the workforce during Hustle Culture’s come-up. The “Girlboss” moment told women they could be anything they wanted to be. Men were advertised a lifestyle of over-optimization that was powered by wellness hacks and productivity apps. The outcome is that 66% of Millennials report moderate or high levels of burnout, compared to just 39% of Boomers.
Our cohort also hit peak burnout at age 25, a staggering 17 years earlier than the national average. For those of us now in our mid-30s to early 40s, that peak has already passed.
The utilitarian grind has translated into fully-formed digital behaviors. In our New Modes research, 66% of us manage bills and utilities online every week, and 46% monitor our personal finances online weekly, both significantly higher than Gen Z (46% and 33%, respectively). Circana's retail data corroborates these channel preferences. Wyatt noted that eCommerce is "a stronger player for Millennials than the other generations,” with Millennial women in particular acting as the Chief Buying Officers of their homes.
In order to save time and emotional bandwidth, we are also more willing to be the guinea pigs of new technologies. In our holiday research, we were the most frequent AI shoppers of any generation: two-thirds (66%) used AI to shop "often," compared to 59% of Gen Z and 49% of Gen X. And among those of us who use AI at all, 30% use it several times a day, higher than Gen Z's 23%. For our cohort, technology is a means to an end. It’s a way to close the countless tabs clogging our brains and give us some semblance of peace.
As technology alleviates the mental and emotional load, we allocate more time and money towards lifestyle purchases related to family, technology, and experiences. And now that we’re in our primary earning years, we are taking control of our lives by prioritizing small moments of joy and excitement. More than one-third (34%) of our generation (versus 30% of Gen Z) say we enjoy our favorite indulgence every day, according to Method1 research. Twice as many (72%) of us say this type of indulgence is part of a healthy, balanced lifestyle. It’s equally a reliable ritual and a worthy investment. When the utilitarian grind is offloaded, identity-restoring purchases feel especially precious.
Joy Through Nostalgia and Maximalism
After offloading household necessities and routine purchases to technology, we are allocating the time, money, and emotional bandwidth we have left on what brings us joy. In fact, adults (especially women) account for 35% of the US toy industry’s growth.
The rise of the kidult connects to the content being consumed and monetized on social media. Influencers, ASMR content, and unboxing videos get the most views and shares because they provide mental soothing and entrancement after a long, stressful day. Content consumption leads to actual purchases to fulfill the dopamine rush of unboxing and getting a “little treat” that adds brightness to our day. Together, these elements serve an inner child that’s emotionally overwhelmed and constantly burdened by political and financial volatility.
Brands like Miniso are seeing the trend in their financial results. The Chinese company specializes in “soft toys” and has built a compelling IP ecosystem around blind boxes for characters developed by Sanrio, Disney, and major manga properties like Jujutsu Kaisen. But it has harnessed its diverse consumer base, which spans ages 8 to 35, to expand into new categories, from beauty to apparel and even snacks.
Tom Bartlebaugh, CEO and Head of Miniso USA, acknowledged the shift directly.
“With my generation, you grew up, and you left certain things behind,” he said. “But we’re not seeing that now. The kidult trend is very interesting because the person continues to grow and live on with a license, whatever it is. They don’t grow out of it. They’re continuing to purchase and collect as they get older.”
The same impulse is reshaping how we dress. “Dopamine dressing” accounts on social media deliberately challenge the Millennial minimalism that defined the early 2010s. Creators in our generation are posting outfits with bold colors, sequins, and pattern mixing to assert their rebellion. We’re mixing satin skirts with oversized band tees and Vans. Millennial pink and millennial beige are falling by the wayside because while they once signaled aesthetic sophistication and even wealth, they didn’t evoke joy.
Brands are seeing nostalgia and aesthetic expression converge as we start our families. Apparel brands like PatPat build their product roadmaps around partnerships that ignite nostalgia.
The same impulse is reshaping how Millennials dress. “Dopamine dressing” accounts on social media deliberately challenge the Millennial minimalism that defined the early 2010s. Creators in their late 30s and early 40s are posting outfits with bold colors, sequins, and pattern mixing to assert their rebellion. They’re mixing satin skirts with oversized band tees and Vans. Millennial pink and millennial beige are falling by the wayside because while they once signaled aesthetic sophistication and even wealth, they didn’t evoke joy.
Brands are seeing nostalgia and aesthetic expression converge as Millennials start their families. And apparel brands like PatPat build their product roadmaps around partnerships that ignite nostalgia.
“Parents love the idea of sharing something they grew up with alongside their kids,” Ranu Coleman, Head of Marketing for PatPat, told Future Commerce. “It becomes less about the product itself and more about passing down culture and memory.”
Lifestyle trends like “Millennial Summer” are becoming social media trends because we want to return to the final moments when identity felt free, and we want to create the same feeling for our kids. It represents a time when we had the freedom to play, be silly, and experience life without worrying what an algorithm forced upon us. We could dance at concerts without fear of being recorded and shared on social media. We could test new identities through fashion and culture, and leave behind what didn’t serve us.
These cultural expressions become commercial expressions when brands can meaningfully participate and create those moments of autonomy and freedom.
A Life Worth Buying Towards
We are feeling a more seismic sandwich-generation squeeze than any cohort before us. We are responding with spending patterns that are equally intentional and emotionally loaded. We are seeking a greater sense of personal autonomy and joy in our discretionary spending.
And as we move into positions of real purchasing power, that reformation is becoming a market force. The categories we invest in, including experience, home, nostalgia, and emotional reward, will only expand. We're reshaping this cultural moment, recreating the conditions that shaped us for ourselves and for the generations coming up behind us.
Cringe or not, we are the beating heart of a culture so many young consumers subscribe to as a rebellion against the desensitization of social-media culture. Our generation shops with intention, delegates logistics to technology, and makes every discretionary purchase a deliberate act of self-reclamation. The brands that understand what we are buying toward are the ones positioned to earn the relationship that lasts.
This article includes additional reporting from Alexa Phillips.
Walk into any Miniso, concert venue, or theme park, and you’ll see something similar: full-grown adults shamelessly reconnecting with the youth that shaped them. This is the foundational psychology behind a growing number of us Millennials, who are prioritizing spending based on a form of personal expression and autonomy once stripped away from us.
While future generations will attempt to synthesize the feeling of the monoculture, we were the last generation to form our identities from inside it. We experienced our formative years, from elementary school through college, experiencing things as one. We shared the excitement of a new CD release, waited in line for concert tickets, and rushed to the mall on a Friday night. Mainstream media helped shape trends, but we were the final gatekeepers. We determined which trends became mainstream; an algorithm didn’t pre-qualify and sort culture for us.
This is our baseline for cultural participation, and it’s why it still has such a chokehold on us. And it’s the reason that the camisole of our misspent mall-rat youth has become a symbol of reclaiming the agency we felt when we first wore it.
How we dressed, what we listened to, and even how we interacted represented a freer existence. A self we constructed and curated on our own, without the urging of an algorithm. And as we navigate some of the most complicated milestones of our lives, including aging parents, young children, and careers that did not deliver, we are reaching back for that self.
Research from GWI found that 61% of us are nostalgic for the 1990s, compared to 37% of Gen Z, most of whom weren’t even born yet. Herein lies the difference between nostalgia and anemoia. According to a study in the Journal of Global Marketing, when consumers have experienced a specific era, nostalgia is a mechanism for identity restoration. For those who didn’t, it’s aspirational and aesthetic.
We are being called cringe for our earnestness and our outward excitement. But that hasn’t stopped Gen Z and Gen Alpha from raiding our cultural closet. They’re flocking to the neon maximalism of Lisa Frank, the layered camis of Hollister, and the novelty of Tamagotchi, while calling us embarrassing for driving their emergence. We too are revisiting the brands and trends from our youth, but not purely for aesthetics and social media credibility.
We are buying back our identity, with each purchase acting as an expression of selfhood and cultural rebellion.
As consumers, we are making very deliberate choices about where joy lives in our budget, and it’s leading to a new form of brand loyalty that allows us to revisit an existence that predates the economic uncertainty, political unrest, and cultural monotony.
"Millennials are buying into lifestyle," explained Sally Lyons Wyatt, Circana’s Global EVP. "This is all around living through the Great Recession. You've got parenting and career-driven and then just social media belonging." Our generation is not just spending money. We are spending toward something; a version of ourselves we had before the decade of disruption.
The Sandwich Generation’s Push for Autonomy
Social workers Dorothy Miller and Elaine Brody coined the term “sandwich generation” in 1981 to describe the economic, physical, and emotional squeeze women in their 30s and 40s felt while caring for both their children and aging parents. The term may be pushing 45-years-old, but it lands especially hard for our generation. We’ve had to navigate the intensifying caregiving load while simultaneously navigating a growing identity crisis.
We entered the workforce during Hustle Culture’s come-up. The “Girlboss” moment told women they could be anything they wanted to be. Men were advertised a lifestyle of over-optimization that was powered by wellness hacks and productivity apps. The outcome is that 66% of Millennials report moderate or high levels of burnout, compared to just 39% of Boomers.
Our cohort also hit peak burnout at age 25, a staggering 17 years earlier than the national average. For those of us now in our mid-30s to early 40s, that peak has already passed.
The utilitarian grind has translated into fully-formed digital behaviors. In our New Modes research, 66% of us manage bills and utilities online every week, and 46% monitor our personal finances online weekly, both significantly higher than Gen Z (46% and 33%, respectively). Circana's retail data corroborates these channel preferences. Wyatt noted that eCommerce is "a stronger player for Millennials than the other generations,” with Millennial women in particular acting as the Chief Buying Officers of their homes.
In order to save time and emotional bandwidth, we are also more willing to be the guinea pigs of new technologies. In our holiday research, we were the most frequent AI shoppers of any generation: two-thirds (66%) used AI to shop "often," compared to 59% of Gen Z and 49% of Gen X. And among those of us who use AI at all, 30% use it several times a day, higher than Gen Z's 23%. For our cohort, technology is a means to an end. It’s a way to close the countless tabs clogging our brains and give us some semblance of peace.
As technology alleviates the mental and emotional load, we allocate more time and money towards lifestyle purchases related to family, technology, and experiences. And now that we’re in our primary earning years, we are taking control of our lives by prioritizing small moments of joy and excitement. More than one-third (34%) of our generation (versus 30% of Gen Z) say we enjoy our favorite indulgence every day, according to Method1 research. Twice as many (72%) of us say this type of indulgence is part of a healthy, balanced lifestyle. It’s equally a reliable ritual and a worthy investment. When the utilitarian grind is offloaded, identity-restoring purchases feel especially precious.
Joy Through Nostalgia and Maximalism
After offloading household necessities and routine purchases to technology, we are allocating the time, money, and emotional bandwidth we have left on what brings us joy. In fact, adults (especially women) account for 35% of the US toy industry’s growth.
The rise of the kidult connects to the content being consumed and monetized on social media. Influencers, ASMR content, and unboxing videos get the most views and shares because they provide mental soothing and entrancement after a long, stressful day. Content consumption leads to actual purchases to fulfill the dopamine rush of unboxing and getting a “little treat” that adds brightness to our day. Together, these elements serve an inner child that’s emotionally overwhelmed and constantly burdened by political and financial volatility.
Brands like Miniso are seeing the trend in their financial results. The Chinese company specializes in “soft toys” and has built a compelling IP ecosystem around blind boxes for characters developed by Sanrio, Disney, and major manga properties like Jujutsu Kaisen. But it has harnessed its diverse consumer base, which spans ages 8 to 35, to expand into new categories, from beauty to apparel and even snacks.
Tom Bartlebaugh, CEO and Head of Miniso USA, acknowledged the shift directly.
“With my generation, you grew up, and you left certain things behind,” he said. “But we’re not seeing that now. The kidult trend is very interesting because the person continues to grow and live on with a license, whatever it is. They don’t grow out of it. They’re continuing to purchase and collect as they get older.”
The same impulse is reshaping how we dress. “Dopamine dressing” accounts on social media deliberately challenge the Millennial minimalism that defined the early 2010s. Creators in our generation are posting outfits with bold colors, sequins, and pattern mixing to assert their rebellion. We’re mixing satin skirts with oversized band tees and Vans. Millennial pink and millennial beige are falling by the wayside because while they once signaled aesthetic sophistication and even wealth, they didn’t evoke joy.
Brands are seeing nostalgia and aesthetic expression converge as we start our families. Apparel brands like PatPat build their product roadmaps around partnerships that ignite nostalgia.
The same impulse is reshaping how Millennials dress. “Dopamine dressing” accounts on social media deliberately challenge the Millennial minimalism that defined the early 2010s. Creators in their late 30s and early 40s are posting outfits with bold colors, sequins, and pattern mixing to assert their rebellion. They’re mixing satin skirts with oversized band tees and Vans. Millennial pink and millennial beige are falling by the wayside because while they once signaled aesthetic sophistication and even wealth, they didn’t evoke joy.
Brands are seeing nostalgia and aesthetic expression converge as Millennials start their families. And apparel brands like PatPat build their product roadmaps around partnerships that ignite nostalgia.
“Parents love the idea of sharing something they grew up with alongside their kids,” Ranu Coleman, Head of Marketing for PatPat, told Future Commerce. “It becomes less about the product itself and more about passing down culture and memory.”
Lifestyle trends like “Millennial Summer” are becoming social media trends because we want to return to the final moments when identity felt free, and we want to create the same feeling for our kids. It represents a time when we had the freedom to play, be silly, and experience life without worrying what an algorithm forced upon us. We could dance at concerts without fear of being recorded and shared on social media. We could test new identities through fashion and culture, and leave behind what didn’t serve us.
These cultural expressions become commercial expressions when brands can meaningfully participate and create those moments of autonomy and freedom.
A Life Worth Buying Towards
We are feeling a more seismic sandwich-generation squeeze than any cohort before us. We are responding with spending patterns that are equally intentional and emotionally loaded. We are seeking a greater sense of personal autonomy and joy in our discretionary spending.
And as we move into positions of real purchasing power, that reformation is becoming a market force. The categories we invest in, including experience, home, nostalgia, and emotional reward, will only expand. We're reshaping this cultural moment, recreating the conditions that shaped us for ourselves and for the generations coming up behind us.
Cringe or not, we are the beating heart of a culture so many young consumers subscribe to as a rebellion against the desensitization of social-media culture. Our generation shops with intention, delegates logistics to technology, and makes every discretionary purchase a deliberate act of self-reclamation. The brands that understand what we are buying toward are the ones positioned to earn the relationship that lasts.
This article includes additional reporting from Alexa Phillips.
Walk into any Miniso, concert venue, or theme park, and you’ll see something similar: full-grown adults shamelessly reconnecting with the youth that shaped them. This is the foundational psychology behind a growing number of us Millennials, who are prioritizing spending based on a form of personal expression and autonomy once stripped away from us.
While future generations will attempt to synthesize the feeling of the monoculture, we were the last generation to form our identities from inside it. We experienced our formative years, from elementary school through college, experiencing things as one. We shared the excitement of a new CD release, waited in line for concert tickets, and rushed to the mall on a Friday night. Mainstream media helped shape trends, but we were the final gatekeepers. We determined which trends became mainstream; an algorithm didn’t pre-qualify and sort culture for us.
This is our baseline for cultural participation, and it’s why it still has such a chokehold on us. And it’s the reason that the camisole of our misspent mall-rat youth has become a symbol of reclaiming the agency we felt when we first wore it.
How we dressed, what we listened to, and even how we interacted represented a freer existence. A self we constructed and curated on our own, without the urging of an algorithm. And as we navigate some of the most complicated milestones of our lives, including aging parents, young children, and careers that did not deliver, we are reaching back for that self.
Research from GWI found that 61% of us are nostalgic for the 1990s, compared to 37% of Gen Z, most of whom weren’t even born yet. Herein lies the difference between nostalgia and anemoia. According to a study in the Journal of Global Marketing, when consumers have experienced a specific era, nostalgia is a mechanism for identity restoration. For those who didn’t, it’s aspirational and aesthetic.
We are being called cringe for our earnestness and our outward excitement. But that hasn’t stopped Gen Z and Gen Alpha from raiding our cultural closet. They’re flocking to the neon maximalism of Lisa Frank, the layered camis of Hollister, and the novelty of Tamagotchi, while calling us embarrassing for driving their emergence. We too are revisiting the brands and trends from our youth, but not purely for aesthetics and social media credibility.
We are buying back our identity, with each purchase acting as an expression of selfhood and cultural rebellion.
As consumers, we are making very deliberate choices about where joy lives in our budget, and it’s leading to a new form of brand loyalty that allows us to revisit an existence that predates the economic uncertainty, political unrest, and cultural monotony.
"Millennials are buying into lifestyle," explained Sally Lyons Wyatt, Circana’s Global EVP. "This is all around living through the Great Recession. You've got parenting and career-driven and then just social media belonging." Our generation is not just spending money. We are spending toward something; a version of ourselves we had before the decade of disruption.
The Sandwich Generation’s Push for Autonomy
Social workers Dorothy Miller and Elaine Brody coined the term “sandwich generation” in 1981 to describe the economic, physical, and emotional squeeze women in their 30s and 40s felt while caring for both their children and aging parents. The term may be pushing 45-years-old, but it lands especially hard for our generation. We’ve had to navigate the intensifying caregiving load while simultaneously navigating a growing identity crisis.
We entered the workforce during Hustle Culture’s come-up. The “Girlboss” moment told women they could be anything they wanted to be. Men were advertised a lifestyle of over-optimization that was powered by wellness hacks and productivity apps. The outcome is that 66% of Millennials report moderate or high levels of burnout, compared to just 39% of Boomers.
Our cohort also hit peak burnout at age 25, a staggering 17 years earlier than the national average. For those of us now in our mid-30s to early 40s, that peak has already passed.
The utilitarian grind has translated into fully-formed digital behaviors. In our New Modes research, 66% of us manage bills and utilities online every week, and 46% monitor our personal finances online weekly, both significantly higher than Gen Z (46% and 33%, respectively). Circana's retail data corroborates these channel preferences. Wyatt noted that eCommerce is "a stronger player for Millennials than the other generations,” with Millennial women in particular acting as the Chief Buying Officers of their homes.
In order to save time and emotional bandwidth, we are also more willing to be the guinea pigs of new technologies. In our holiday research, we were the most frequent AI shoppers of any generation: two-thirds (66%) used AI to shop "often," compared to 59% of Gen Z and 49% of Gen X. And among those of us who use AI at all, 30% use it several times a day, higher than Gen Z's 23%. For our cohort, technology is a means to an end. It’s a way to close the countless tabs clogging our brains and give us some semblance of peace.
As technology alleviates the mental and emotional load, we allocate more time and money towards lifestyle purchases related to family, technology, and experiences. And now that we’re in our primary earning years, we are taking control of our lives by prioritizing small moments of joy and excitement. More than one-third (34%) of our generation (versus 30% of Gen Z) say we enjoy our favorite indulgence every day, according to Method1 research. Twice as many (72%) of us say this type of indulgence is part of a healthy, balanced lifestyle. It’s equally a reliable ritual and a worthy investment. When the utilitarian grind is offloaded, identity-restoring purchases feel especially precious.
Joy Through Nostalgia and Maximalism
After offloading household necessities and routine purchases to technology, we are allocating the time, money, and emotional bandwidth we have left on what brings us joy. In fact, adults (especially women) account for 35% of the US toy industry’s growth.
The rise of the kidult connects to the content being consumed and monetized on social media. Influencers, ASMR content, and unboxing videos get the most views and shares because they provide mental soothing and entrancement after a long, stressful day. Content consumption leads to actual purchases to fulfill the dopamine rush of unboxing and getting a “little treat” that adds brightness to our day. Together, these elements serve an inner child that’s emotionally overwhelmed and constantly burdened by political and financial volatility.
Brands like Miniso are seeing the trend in their financial results. The Chinese company specializes in “soft toys” and has built a compelling IP ecosystem around blind boxes for characters developed by Sanrio, Disney, and major manga properties like Jujutsu Kaisen. But it has harnessed its diverse consumer base, which spans ages 8 to 35, to expand into new categories, from beauty to apparel and even snacks.
Tom Bartlebaugh, CEO and Head of Miniso USA, acknowledged the shift directly.
“With my generation, you grew up, and you left certain things behind,” he said. “But we’re not seeing that now. The kidult trend is very interesting because the person continues to grow and live on with a license, whatever it is. They don’t grow out of it. They’re continuing to purchase and collect as they get older.”
The same impulse is reshaping how we dress. “Dopamine dressing” accounts on social media deliberately challenge the Millennial minimalism that defined the early 2010s. Creators in our generation are posting outfits with bold colors, sequins, and pattern mixing to assert their rebellion. We’re mixing satin skirts with oversized band tees and Vans. Millennial pink and millennial beige are falling by the wayside because while they once signaled aesthetic sophistication and even wealth, they didn’t evoke joy.
Brands are seeing nostalgia and aesthetic expression converge as we start our families. Apparel brands like PatPat build their product roadmaps around partnerships that ignite nostalgia.
The same impulse is reshaping how Millennials dress. “Dopamine dressing” accounts on social media deliberately challenge the Millennial minimalism that defined the early 2010s. Creators in their late 30s and early 40s are posting outfits with bold colors, sequins, and pattern mixing to assert their rebellion. They’re mixing satin skirts with oversized band tees and Vans. Millennial pink and millennial beige are falling by the wayside because while they once signaled aesthetic sophistication and even wealth, they didn’t evoke joy.
Brands are seeing nostalgia and aesthetic expression converge as Millennials start their families. And apparel brands like PatPat build their product roadmaps around partnerships that ignite nostalgia.
“Parents love the idea of sharing something they grew up with alongside their kids,” Ranu Coleman, Head of Marketing for PatPat, told Future Commerce. “It becomes less about the product itself and more about passing down culture and memory.”
Lifestyle trends like “Millennial Summer” are becoming social media trends because we want to return to the final moments when identity felt free, and we want to create the same feeling for our kids. It represents a time when we had the freedom to play, be silly, and experience life without worrying what an algorithm forced upon us. We could dance at concerts without fear of being recorded and shared on social media. We could test new identities through fashion and culture, and leave behind what didn’t serve us.
These cultural expressions become commercial expressions when brands can meaningfully participate and create those moments of autonomy and freedom.
A Life Worth Buying Towards
We are feeling a more seismic sandwich-generation squeeze than any cohort before us. We are responding with spending patterns that are equally intentional and emotionally loaded. We are seeking a greater sense of personal autonomy and joy in our discretionary spending.
And as we move into positions of real purchasing power, that reformation is becoming a market force. The categories we invest in, including experience, home, nostalgia, and emotional reward, will only expand. We're reshaping this cultural moment, recreating the conditions that shaped us for ourselves and for the generations coming up behind us.
Cringe or not, we are the beating heart of a culture so many young consumers subscribe to as a rebellion against the desensitization of social-media culture. Our generation shops with intention, delegates logistics to technology, and makes every discretionary purchase a deliberate act of self-reclamation. The brands that understand what we are buying toward are the ones positioned to earn the relationship that lasts.
This article includes additional reporting from Alexa Phillips.
Walk into any Miniso, concert venue, or theme park, and you’ll see something similar: full-grown adults shamelessly reconnecting with the youth that shaped them. This is the foundational psychology behind a growing number of us Millennials, who are prioritizing spending based on a form of personal expression and autonomy once stripped away from us.
While future generations will attempt to synthesize the feeling of the monoculture, we were the last generation to form our identities from inside it. We experienced our formative years, from elementary school through college, experiencing things as one. We shared the excitement of a new CD release, waited in line for concert tickets, and rushed to the mall on a Friday night. Mainstream media helped shape trends, but we were the final gatekeepers. We determined which trends became mainstream; an algorithm didn’t pre-qualify and sort culture for us.
This is our baseline for cultural participation, and it’s why it still has such a chokehold on us. And it’s the reason that the camisole of our misspent mall-rat youth has become a symbol of reclaiming the agency we felt when we first wore it.
How we dressed, what we listened to, and even how we interacted represented a freer existence. A self we constructed and curated on our own, without the urging of an algorithm. And as we navigate some of the most complicated milestones of our lives, including aging parents, young children, and careers that did not deliver, we are reaching back for that self.
Research from GWI found that 61% of us are nostalgic for the 1990s, compared to 37% of Gen Z, most of whom weren’t even born yet. Herein lies the difference between nostalgia and anemoia. According to a study in the Journal of Global Marketing, when consumers have experienced a specific era, nostalgia is a mechanism for identity restoration. For those who didn’t, it’s aspirational and aesthetic.
We are being called cringe for our earnestness and our outward excitement. But that hasn’t stopped Gen Z and Gen Alpha from raiding our cultural closet. They’re flocking to the neon maximalism of Lisa Frank, the layered camis of Hollister, and the novelty of Tamagotchi, while calling us embarrassing for driving their emergence. We too are revisiting the brands and trends from our youth, but not purely for aesthetics and social media credibility.
We are buying back our identity, with each purchase acting as an expression of selfhood and cultural rebellion.
As consumers, we are making very deliberate choices about where joy lives in our budget, and it’s leading to a new form of brand loyalty that allows us to revisit an existence that predates the economic uncertainty, political unrest, and cultural monotony.
"Millennials are buying into lifestyle," explained Sally Lyons Wyatt, Circana’s Global EVP. "This is all around living through the Great Recession. You've got parenting and career-driven and then just social media belonging." Our generation is not just spending money. We are spending toward something; a version of ourselves we had before the decade of disruption.
The Sandwich Generation’s Push for Autonomy
Social workers Dorothy Miller and Elaine Brody coined the term “sandwich generation” in 1981 to describe the economic, physical, and emotional squeeze women in their 30s and 40s felt while caring for both their children and aging parents. The term may be pushing 45-years-old, but it lands especially hard for our generation. We’ve had to navigate the intensifying caregiving load while simultaneously navigating a growing identity crisis.
We entered the workforce during Hustle Culture’s come-up. The “Girlboss” moment told women they could be anything they wanted to be. Men were advertised a lifestyle of over-optimization that was powered by wellness hacks and productivity apps. The outcome is that 66% of Millennials report moderate or high levels of burnout, compared to just 39% of Boomers.
Our cohort also hit peak burnout at age 25, a staggering 17 years earlier than the national average. For those of us now in our mid-30s to early 40s, that peak has already passed.
The utilitarian grind has translated into fully-formed digital behaviors. In our New Modes research, 66% of us manage bills and utilities online every week, and 46% monitor our personal finances online weekly, both significantly higher than Gen Z (46% and 33%, respectively). Circana's retail data corroborates these channel preferences. Wyatt noted that eCommerce is "a stronger player for Millennials than the other generations,” with Millennial women in particular acting as the Chief Buying Officers of their homes.
In order to save time and emotional bandwidth, we are also more willing to be the guinea pigs of new technologies. In our holiday research, we were the most frequent AI shoppers of any generation: two-thirds (66%) used AI to shop "often," compared to 59% of Gen Z and 49% of Gen X. And among those of us who use AI at all, 30% use it several times a day, higher than Gen Z's 23%. For our cohort, technology is a means to an end. It’s a way to close the countless tabs clogging our brains and give us some semblance of peace.
As technology alleviates the mental and emotional load, we allocate more time and money towards lifestyle purchases related to family, technology, and experiences. And now that we’re in our primary earning years, we are taking control of our lives by prioritizing small moments of joy and excitement. More than one-third (34%) of our generation (versus 30% of Gen Z) say we enjoy our favorite indulgence every day, according to Method1 research. Twice as many (72%) of us say this type of indulgence is part of a healthy, balanced lifestyle. It’s equally a reliable ritual and a worthy investment. When the utilitarian grind is offloaded, identity-restoring purchases feel especially precious.
Joy Through Nostalgia and Maximalism
After offloading household necessities and routine purchases to technology, we are allocating the time, money, and emotional bandwidth we have left on what brings us joy. In fact, adults (especially women) account for 35% of the US toy industry’s growth.
The rise of the kidult connects to the content being consumed and monetized on social media. Influencers, ASMR content, and unboxing videos get the most views and shares because they provide mental soothing and entrancement after a long, stressful day. Content consumption leads to actual purchases to fulfill the dopamine rush of unboxing and getting a “little treat” that adds brightness to our day. Together, these elements serve an inner child that’s emotionally overwhelmed and constantly burdened by political and financial volatility.
Brands like Miniso are seeing the trend in their financial results. The Chinese company specializes in “soft toys” and has built a compelling IP ecosystem around blind boxes for characters developed by Sanrio, Disney, and major manga properties like Jujutsu Kaisen. But it has harnessed its diverse consumer base, which spans ages 8 to 35, to expand into new categories, from beauty to apparel and even snacks.
Tom Bartlebaugh, CEO and Head of Miniso USA, acknowledged the shift directly.
“With my generation, you grew up, and you left certain things behind,” he said. “But we’re not seeing that now. The kidult trend is very interesting because the person continues to grow and live on with a license, whatever it is. They don’t grow out of it. They’re continuing to purchase and collect as they get older.”
The same impulse is reshaping how we dress. “Dopamine dressing” accounts on social media deliberately challenge the Millennial minimalism that defined the early 2010s. Creators in our generation are posting outfits with bold colors, sequins, and pattern mixing to assert their rebellion. We’re mixing satin skirts with oversized band tees and Vans. Millennial pink and millennial beige are falling by the wayside because while they once signaled aesthetic sophistication and even wealth, they didn’t evoke joy.
Brands are seeing nostalgia and aesthetic expression converge as we start our families. Apparel brands like PatPat build their product roadmaps around partnerships that ignite nostalgia.
The same impulse is reshaping how Millennials dress. “Dopamine dressing” accounts on social media deliberately challenge the Millennial minimalism that defined the early 2010s. Creators in their late 30s and early 40s are posting outfits with bold colors, sequins, and pattern mixing to assert their rebellion. They’re mixing satin skirts with oversized band tees and Vans. Millennial pink and millennial beige are falling by the wayside because while they once signaled aesthetic sophistication and even wealth, they didn’t evoke joy.
Brands are seeing nostalgia and aesthetic expression converge as Millennials start their families. And apparel brands like PatPat build their product roadmaps around partnerships that ignite nostalgia.
“Parents love the idea of sharing something they grew up with alongside their kids,” Ranu Coleman, Head of Marketing for PatPat, told Future Commerce. “It becomes less about the product itself and more about passing down culture and memory.”
Lifestyle trends like “Millennial Summer” are becoming social media trends because we want to return to the final moments when identity felt free, and we want to create the same feeling for our kids. It represents a time when we had the freedom to play, be silly, and experience life without worrying what an algorithm forced upon us. We could dance at concerts without fear of being recorded and shared on social media. We could test new identities through fashion and culture, and leave behind what didn’t serve us.
These cultural expressions become commercial expressions when brands can meaningfully participate and create those moments of autonomy and freedom.
A Life Worth Buying Towards
We are feeling a more seismic sandwich-generation squeeze than any cohort before us. We are responding with spending patterns that are equally intentional and emotionally loaded. We are seeking a greater sense of personal autonomy and joy in our discretionary spending.
And as we move into positions of real purchasing power, that reformation is becoming a market force. The categories we invest in, including experience, home, nostalgia, and emotional reward, will only expand. We're reshaping this cultural moment, recreating the conditions that shaped us for ourselves and for the generations coming up behind us.
Cringe or not, we are the beating heart of a culture so many young consumers subscribe to as a rebellion against the desensitization of social-media culture. Our generation shops with intention, delegates logistics to technology, and makes every discretionary purchase a deliberate act of self-reclamation. The brands that understand what we are buying toward are the ones positioned to earn the relationship that lasts.
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