S. Korea's generational labels keep failing — so why do we keep using them?

In Korea, it doesn’t matter if generational labels make sense. They just need to go viral.

"They all started as marketing terms. But as social descriptors that actually reflect reality? 'MZ' was too broad and vague. 'Young Forty' is politically charged. But in a crowded culture, lazy categories always win, I guess," Chun Young-woo, 43, a marketing executive at Seoul-based Metric Studio, told The Korea Herald.

"MZ Generation" is a blurry hybrid of Millennials and Generation Z that landed in Korea's public discourse in the late 2010s and exploded in the early 2020s. Now, it has morphed into a catch-all punchline for anything from youth entitlement to crypto addiction.

Then came “Young Forty” in recent months, an equally vague term now attached to middle-aged men in logo-heavy hoodies and orange iPhones.

“This is a society with rapidly shifting age dynamics and no clear cultural language to talk about it,” said Jung Soon-dool, a professor of social welfare at Ewha Womans University. “So people reach for simple labels. But obviously, those labels aren’t built to hold what’s actually going on.”

South Korea has the fastest-aging population in the world. The country’s median age hit 46.2 last year and is projected to cross 60 by 2056. The lines that once divided “young,” “middle-aged” and “elderly” are no longer useful.

But that hasn’t stopped media, companies and even government agencies from leaning into artificial generational slices.

“MZ Generation” began as a marketing term in 2019. It grouped people born from the early 1980s to the early 2010s, nearly 30 years apart, under one banner. Companies used it to sell sneakers. Politicians used it to promote their campaigns. Even some analysts used it to explain market and industry trends.

“It was never a coherent demographic,” said professor Jung. “It was a placeholder, something that sounded real, but actually just meant ‘younger than me.’”

“I hated the MZ label,” said a 27-year-old marketer who asked to be identified only as Seo. “One week we’re innovators, the next we’re selfish kids who quit our jobs too fast. None of it felt like it described me or anyone I knew. But once it’s out there, you can’t escape it.”

When the “Young Forty” meme began trending this year, Seo admits she laughed. “It felt like payback. But then I realized that it’s the same script, just with a new age group.”

The real problem, experts say, isn’t the labels themselves. It’s the pressure behind them. In a country where five generations now coexist in the workforce and public life, people are desperate for ways to categorize and understand one another.

“These terms become pressure valves,” professor Jung explains. “They let people express economic resentment, cultural fatigue or generational anxiety without having to say it directly.”

That may be why vague terms survive, even after they lose all descriptive power.

Marketing executive Chun finds it exhausting. “It’s like every few years, there’s a new generational punching bag,” he says. “First boomers, then MZs, now us. I don’t even think the mockery is generational anymore. It’s about who people are mad at this quarter.”

This cycle shows no signs of stopping. Already, “Young Fifty” has been floated in think pieces and comment sections, describing 50-somethings who still travel solo, wear performance sneakers and post gym selfies. The jokes write themselves. So does the outrage.

But it’s not really about fashion.

“It’s never about the clothes,” Chun says. “It’s about anxiety. In an aging society, where youth is still idealized but increasingly rare, everyone feels like an imposter: too old to be young, too young to be old.”

The generational labels serve to manage that discomfort. They give people something to blame.

“These fake generations — MZ, Young Forty, whatever comes next — they’re mirrors,” says professor Jung. “And we don’t like what we’re seeing. So we laugh at the reflection.”