Millennial mom and Gen Z daughter’s ‘then vs. now’ trend video goes viral

Some days, it feels like GenZ and Millennials are from totally different planets. This lighthearted video from @livingwithlady highlights some key differences between a Millennial mom and her GenZ daughter, showing the comical side of some distinct differences between the two generations.

The mom and daughter completed the viral “Then vs. Now” challenge, where they’re asked to charade prompts and see how they do things differently. The prompts included “answering the phone” and “hanging up,” “making heart hands,” “taking a photo,” “rolling down a car window,” and “posing for a group photo.”  The differences are delightful and both mom and daughter shared a ton of laughs making the content. 

When answering the phone, of course, the mom did the pinky and thumb simulation and held it up to her ear, while her daughter’s hand was in the shape of holding a smartphone before bringing it up to her ear. One viewer aptly responded in the comments, “FALSE. Millennials would NEVER answer a phone call.” Touché. 

The heart hands charade that came next was probably the craziest, because while the mom made the heart using her whole hands—as one does—her daughter looked like she was throwing up signs with her velociraptor hands using just her two pointer fingers and thumbs. Her mom commented “What is that?! It’s like two velociraptors!”

“The heart sign … why are they complicating things?” one flabbergasted viewer jokingly commented.

Thankfully, another viewer said reassuringly, “You might be happy to know that Gen Alpha has readopted the correct way to do a heart lol.”

For taking a photo, the mom of course held a traditional point and shoot camera, while her daughter mimicked holding a smartphone up and using her thumb to press a button. Her daughter had a good cackle with that one.

However, the “rolling down the car window” was probably the best one, as of course, the mom manually rolled down the window and the daughter mimicked rolling down a window by simply pressing a button. The mom captioned, “She doesn’t understand the strength those windows took!”

And then there was the “posing for the group photo.” Of course, the pose the mom did was the bane of our existence, infiltrating all of our early Facebook posts of the 90 group photos we took while we were “out.” The side-hold with her hand on her hip and a popped out leg, while her daughter simply made a peace sign and straightened her front leg. Then mom came through and did the dreaded squat in the front pose, all while their dog joined in on the fun.

But one thing we can agree on generationally is putting our family dog in a festive holiday sweater when it’s chilly outside, as evidenced by the pup’s cameo in the end when the mother/daughter duo were “posing for a group photo.”