Here we go again. Get ready folks, it’s time to start stereotyping and denigrating a new generation of young people. Move over Millennials, pop pseudo-science and the societal scope of scorn, ridicule, and general whining has now been leveled on Generation Z.

Just as fashion and hairstyles find themselves on a twenty- to thirty-year loop, so too does the generational labeling of a group of Homo sapiens who happen to have been born during a certain gap of time. Some fashion and hairstyles are good, and some not-so-good, no matter what timeframe they find themselves in. The same applies to people.

The past few years I’ve noticed that mullets have been trying to rear their ugly heads again, but as a testament to the continual evolution of human intelligence, this time around they haven’t been able to grip the skulls and drape the necks to the epidemic extent accomplished in the 80’s and 90’s.

The little fashion sense I possess, leads me to believe that high-waist jeans and mullets will never take us over completely again. Like the middle-aged guy lingering at the end of the bar in the hip new dance club, they’ll always be on the fringes, waiting and hoping to regain a bit of past glory.

The people sense I have gained during my time in this lovely world, which I hope transcends my fashion sense, leads me to believe that there will always be jerks lingering at the fringes of our day-to-day interpersonal interactions. Jerks of all makes and models, encompassed within and spanning the breadth of each of the arbitrary generational boxes they’ve been put in.

Outliers at the fringes will always exist, but they should not be held up as a representation of the whole. We see what we choose to look at, and believing is often seeing. I believe that the whole of humanity is good. Good and seeking better. Seeking better for themselves, for those they love, and often for those they do not know and may never know. This is what keeps us moving forward.

It’s hard to move forward when you’re stuck in a box. It’s also not nice to stick people in boxes, or so my Grandma told me as she freed my frantic little brother from the cardboard confines I had coaxed him into. Moral of the story for little brothers, when you are assured that the top will remain open, always glance around for a role of packing tape. You’ve been warned.

What is the moral of the story for the Greatest, the Boomers, and the X, Y, and Z generations? Mullets, high-waist pants, and being a jerk are things you will regret, and boxes are small, sweaty, and dark. Sweaty is unavoidable and often desirable in life, but one should resist the stifling closed mindedness of the small, dark banality of the generational box invented to sell books and magazines, generate click-bait, and corral you into a way of being.

A way of being is individual, not generational.

After having to endure several painfully useless meetings at work the past few months, meant to inform us about, and prepare us for, the arrival of Generation Z on campus, I have had enough of this nonsense. I am hereby officially establishing the Generational Differences Denier Organization of People that Happen to Be Human.

Mullets and high-waist pants will be tolerated, but jerks must demonstrate a sincere attempt at redemption.