2025 marks a year of many new beginnings.
In just a few short weeks, Donald Trump will return to the White House for the second timeâthough for the first time as a convicted felon.
Lichtenstein and Thailand will join 36 previous countries in the world to legalize same-sex marriage.
Justin Trudeau will step down after serving as Canada's Prime Minister for a decade.
And, of course, Generation Alpha will come to an end, and Generation Beta will begin.
Coined by Australian social analyst and demographer Mark McCrindle, Generation Beta's name stems from the second letter of the Greek alphabet.
Like their predecessors, Generation Beta is predicted to be a generation immersed in technology.
Setting Generation Beta apart, however, is that they are expected to live in a world where Artificial Intelligence (or AI) is de rigueur, making them "AI Natives."
Children born in 2025 will also be the first who are expected to live to see the twenty-first century, a statistic that will easily make Gen Alphas, Gen Zs, and Millennials (this writer included) seem older than Earth itself.
Perhaps the biggest concern of the previous living generations is the fact that in only a few short years, Gen Betas will likely make fun of us for still partaking in fads and trends that were cool in our day but will seem laughably passé in their eyes.
With this in mind, countless Millennials, Gen Z-ers, and Gen Alphas took to the internet, specifically X (formerly Twitter), to make sure they could make fun of this future generation while they still had the time.
Many very subtly pointed out that making fun of Gen Betas now was slightly questionable.
Others took an opportunity to poke fun at the name, pointing out how not everyone will immediately think of the second letter of the Greek alphabet when they see the word "Beta":
@Ryan_gasoline/X
@zubic-eth/X
While others couldn't help but express just how old the idea of this new generation made them feel:
Some had trouble being hopeful about this new generation, be it owing to the current state of the world, looking back on our past, or just in general:
Gen Beta might wear it a bit more literally, but all children are "beta" to some degree, as they are only the beginning stages of the adults they will become.
Only time will tell what this new generation will bring to the world.
