Can We Stop Acting Like Gen Z Is One Person?

· Paige Karchmar · Marketing / Gen Z

A FADER piece asked college students what's in their bags, and the answers were so specific they made every Gen Z marketing deck look a little silly.

This week I read a FADER article where photographers stopped college students around the country and asked what they were wearing, listening to, studying, and carrying in their bags. Basically the questions you could ask anyone walking to class.

The answers were all over the place, and that's exactly what made it good. A student at NYU matched her outfit to her Nigerian roots. A Pratt student carried a special eraser for illustration work. Someone at SCAD had black truffle Lay's Stax, because apparently your chips can be part of your outfit now. And a Temple student had Thai basil from an agricultural research project.

None of them sounded like the Gen Z you see in marketing presentations.

The Gen Z Starter Pack Doesn't Exist

Even on one campus, there's no single way people dress, spend money, or decide what's cool. At UT, someone can be completely obsessed with a trend the person next to them in Gregory Gym has never heard of, and somehow we're both supposed to fit into the same generational strategy.

Nobody in the FADER piece was trying to speak for their generation. They were just talking about themselves, and the details that stood out weren't even trendy. They were specific: the eraser, the snacks, the things people carry because they actually use them. That tells you more about someone than another list of five things Gen Z supposedly loves.

Why Brands Keep Getting This Wrong

I get why businesses want to figure us out. We're a huge group of current and future customers, and trends move fast. But the effort usually turns into a checklist: use the slang, make shorter videos, hire influencers, don't look too corporate.

None of that tells you much about the actual person. A student buying an internship outfit, someone grabbing art supplies, and someone getting food between classes might all be 20, but their reasons for buying are completely different. Those reasons are where the real opportunities are.

Pay Attention to the Details

If I ran a small business near campus, I'd spend less time reading about what Gen Z wants and more time watching what my customers actually do. A few real conversations can reveal things no trend report will.

A clothing store on Guad might find out students aren't only shopping for going out. They're also hunting for something that works at a career fair without making them look like they borrowed it from their parents. That's a far better starting point for a display or an Instagram post than announcing a style is trending with Gen Z.

You don't have to understand every 20-year-old in America to reach the ones who might love your business. You just have to get curious about who they actually are, and maybe stop assuming we all have the same TikTok feed.