Gen Z has been branded a “lazy” generation of workers, marked by their TikTok addiction and work-from-home allegiance. But multi-millionaire podcast personality Mel Robbins hit back at critics who slam the next generation of workers—and even encouraged them to step into their shoes and see if they’d like it.
“We sit here and we look at twentysomethings and we’re like, ‘Oh, they’re weak or addicted to social media, or all anxious,’” Robbins said in a video posted to her TikTok last year. “Have you stopped to consider what it’s like to be a twentysomething today?”
Robbins’s empathy for older Gen Z and young millennials is in stark contrast to the negativity clogging the feeds of young people.
Whole Foods’ former CEO John Mackey said young people “don’t seem like they want to work”; Whoopi Goldberg criticized Gen Z and millennials for not “bust[ing] their behinds” like her generation did, and that they only want to work four hours a day. Actress Jodie Foster deemed her Gen Z employees “really annoying” and difficult to work with.
But Robbins asserted that older generations wouldn’t know what it’s like to navigate adulthood in the 2025, like homeownership being “out of reach,” a ballooning generational wealth gap, and colossal student loan debt.
