Meet the Zillennials: The luckiest micro-generation in the workforce, born between 1993 and 1998

I remember my father unpacking an America Online box and then waiting 45 minutes while his computer made a series of strange noises. My brother and I stood behind him, joking about how long this was taking — logging onto the supposed “information superhighway.”

The computer sat in a corner of the living room, next to his record player, where my brother and I would make mixtapes off his vinyl, using a boombox and blank cassettes. I could not have known that within a few years I’d be downloading MP3s from my dorm room, the record player and boombox already feeling like ancient artifacts. But I remembered watching my dad unpack the “internet” box — so I was open to what came next.

That accident of timing made me a “Xennial”: the micro-generation wedged between Gen X and Millennials, old enough to remember a time before computers and young enough to become bilingual, in a way, with the new technology.

Now there’s another cohort sandwiched between the tail end of Millennials and the leading edge of Gen Z, and in their infinite wisdom, the generational framers have named them “Zillennials.” They appear to be just as bilingual as the bike-riding, Oregon Trail–playing cohort that came before them — and, as it turns out, considerably luckier. Understanding why matte...