The Millennialization of Gen Z
How one doggo is bridging the gap between generations.
Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, from Kate Lindsay and Nick Catucci.🧩
And now we turn to our Gen Z Correspondent, Michelle Santiago Cortés, reporting from Bones Day TikTok. Michelle, can you tell us: How high are generational tensions on the ground right now? —Nick
Noodle the dog owner’s “bones or no bones day” declarations are very popular, on and off TikTok. The creator has 3.8 followers, 37.5 million likes, and write-ups in The New York Times, NBC News, and NPR. Statistically, it may still be more likely that a semi-online human being doesn’t know we're in the Bones Day Era, but the phrase “no bones day” is officially part of the American TikTok lexicon and the clout-chasing vocabulary of major institutions with weirdly personable social accounts.
Now that there's a floppy pug who foretells what kind of day we will have when he decides whether or not to get out of bed, it’s hard to imagine the internet without him. And not just because the Bones Day trend is ubiquitous: It’s almost retro in how it harkens back to a “quirkier” internet, one ruled by Tumblr, the word “random” and the awesomesauce aesthetic. It is, in other words, extremely millennial.
Millennials love dogs more than podcasts, Democrats, and beanies combined. And Noodle the pug is a very special dog indeed, one we’ve invested with an absurd power. But Noodle is basically inanimate—like the 2013 doge meme, a friendly face on which we can project whatever we want. Give a millennial a doggo, and they will inevitably turn it into a meme, TikTok, or cryptocurrency.
And yes, there's that word: doggo. The terms “bones day” and “no bones day” represent a very specific and kind of gratuitous Molly Baz-style of abbreviation. This is language that requires context to understand, but is, endearingly, born out of the simple joy of deciding that today is going to be alright. DoggoLingo isn’t dead, it just evolved.
Personally, I delight in comments on TikToks and memes that call limp or soft things “boneless.” As old as the boneless meme is, it’s not used enough. But if Noodle’s father, Johnathan Graziana, only posted silent videos about his dog flopping over in a daze, there would no doubt be “boneless” jokes in the comments.
Graziana is, unsurprisingly, 30. If your first thought is, “Yes! Finally! A TikTok win for millennials!,” congratulations, you’re insecure about aging. But it’s OK. We’ve all been fooled into thinking that our youth is our most valuable source of social currency.
Nobody has a monopoly on youth or internet trends. Every adult was once a teenager. And if today’s teens are lucky, they’ll live long enough to grow into adults as well. A large portion of Gen Z was online when millennials ran the internet—they were just too young to be a majority. But we, too, once thought doge memes were cool (and also that tacos and pizza were the absolute best foods). Despite what a handful of cringey millennials might think, Gen Z didn’t fall out of the sky to tell you you’re cheugy. Let this No Bones Era mark the end to this weird and unnecessary Gen Z-Millennial turf war.