A new generation is here. It’s name is already and insult.
Parents of the newly minted Beta babies are navigating an awkward association; brushing off a ‘placeholder’ name
Most generations get a reputation once they can talk and walk about in the world. The newest cohort already has a bad rap, and they haven’t even started eating solids.
Generation Beta officially arrived on Jan. 1, successors to Gen Alpha. While the name follows the conventions of the Greek alphabet, its connotation is less scholarly and more sus for some young parents and every school-age child. Beta is commonly used as slang for weak and passive.
The man responsible for this awkward moniker is Mark McCrindle, a social researcher and demographer who also coined Gen Alpha. His use of Greek letters was meant to be systematic and scientific, he said. Not descriptive, or suspicious.
The terms have “no inherent meaning,” McCrindle said, “yet people have ladened these labels with characterizations.” Thankfully for parents, those people are mostly under the age of 14. Walk through any elementary or middle school, and you’ll hear Gen Alpha throwing around beta (an insult) and sigma (a compliment) -- both terms part of a broad and evolving lexicon known as “brain rot.” Still, beta’s slang roots run deep: Over the past two decades, as the so-called manosphere began to coalesce, alpha became a label for a conventionally handsome man of high status, while beta came to refer to a weaker, more passive and submissive man, said John Kelly, a language expert and writer who previously worked for Dictionary.com.
It’s not an ideal start for a new generation. Gen X only became the slacker generation in the early 1990s when they were teens and 20-somethings listening to grunge and rap and living through a recession. Millennials started as Gen Y but by the early aughts were frivolous young adults, mocked for whittling away all their money on avocado toast. Gen Alpha is known as the iPad kids (for now), since many have grown up watching screens at restaurants, in waiting rooms, during breakfast and downtime.
Micaylah Preston has been preparing for months for her first child to arrive. She made an ornament of her ultrasound for her Christmas tree, tested out strollers with her husband in December, celebrated a Valentine’s Day-themed baby shower and is planning a babymoon with her husband to the Florida Keys in March before their daughter arrives in May.
The Gen Zer has also already brushed off the slang associations of beta. The Columbus, Ohio, resident believes her generation of parents -- mostly other zoomers and younger millennials -- will reclaim the word as positive, and even cool. After all, the world -- and the slang that helps us understand it -- is changing more quickly, thanks to technology and social media.
“Our daughter’s upbringing will be shaped by an entirely new era of technology and personalization and connectivity,” said the 24-year-old entertainment marketing strategist. Beta babies are entering a world where artificial intelligence is ascendant and already reshaping people’s lives in radical ways.
McCall Cook, a 29-year-old videographer for weddings and brands in Vineyard, Utah, has a 7-week-old Beta and a 3-year-old Alpha. She expects her newborn will be even more technologically adept than her Gen Alpha toddler, who can already use a phone better than her mom.
“I can’t even imagine how tech savvy Generation Beta is going to be with AI and all the new technology advances that we’ll be having,” Cook said. Neither kid uses ChatGPT yet. But her husband turns to the OpenAI chatbot to answer any and all questions -- a habit she says will probably help with decision-making around their newborn.
Cook imagines beta fading from the vernacular or completely changing depending on what happens with technology.
McCrindle noted that in software, beta typically refers to the latest version of a product. Though not all betas in tech work out. Many are used to test and iterate on features, sometimes fixing or unleashing bugs into the software and inadvertently breaking something. Then there’s the infamous Betamax, which ended up on the losing end of its VCR battle with VHS. Both are now relics.
Ascribing any meaning -- good or bad -- to a generation that’s two months old is a futile exercise. Parents shouldn’t be too concerned about beta slang, even if it has some social currency now, said Kelly, the language expert.
“It may not have the mainstream currency that other available options have, like loser,” he said.
Jordan Ackerson, a 12-year-old in Deerfield, Ill., said words like sigma and beta are starting to become less popular among his friends. But younger kids, like third-graders, are still into it.
While he finds Generation Beta a little “cringe,” he doesn’t really care about the name.
“At least I am Alpha,” he said.
Kelli Farrell, a 37-year-old attorney in Huntington Beach, Calif., with a Beta baby due in September, doesn’t believe the name is destined to stick. Millennials were once the object of scorn, she noted. They were ridiculed as both entitled and perpetually behind. Now, her generation is seen as motivated and reasonable.
“With everything going on with technology and the resources that are available to them, there’s actually more of a positive outlook that we can have with this generation,” said Farrell. “I hope that’s something that they’ll use to their advantage.” Danny and Jill DeBold, both 37, aren’t worried for their Betas either. The couple’s twin boys were born in late January.
“Generations used to be named for historic events,” Danny DeBold said. “Gen Z, Gen Alpha and Beta are placeholder names until something can be applied to them.”
The Wall Street Journal
