By Josh Gardner, who is killing intergenerational healing

TIME to admit it: millennials are more cooked than pub chips. Boomers think we’re snowflakes, Gen X think we’re entitled pricks, and Gen Z think we’re cringe uncs.

For what? Because we believe a £15-a-day takeaway coffee habit is totes reasonabs? Because we ran a viciously Maoist social media regime? Or because we took self-obsession to new levels and can’t let go of Harry Potter? I honestly can’t tell.

Either way, we’re losing the war between the generations. Unless we lock in soon we’ll be L plus ratio’d into oblivion forever. So we have to launch a pre-emptive strike on Gen Alpha.

It’s strategic genius, and not in the actually-the-opposite-of-that Donald Trump sense. Their oldest members are 14, so their banter’s going to be weaksauce. And the youngest are mere months old. Even our most blue-haired can beat that.

And as they’re yet to be defined, we can project whatever bullshit stereotypes onto them we want. Maybe their saying 6, 7 is killing the housing industry? Millennials took more shit for less.

I decided to get in there early by bullying the first Gen Alpha I could find. It was a 13-year-old on TikTok, so I rinsed him by pointing out that he’ll never be able to buy cigarettes.

But rather than ragequitting, he said ‘Sir, you appear to be in your thirties and concerned with media-generated tribal conflicts. Don’t you think that’s a little tragic?’

‘Not to mention the fact that the Tobacco and Vapes Bill will likely lead to the creation of a black market instead of permanently eradicating them, as with cannabis.’ Yeah. He was crashing out alright.

Then I heard sniggering behind me and turned to find a cross-generational grouping laughing – unbelievably – at me. Saying my attack was just ‘typical millennial copium’.

‘You’re just like me and you hate me!’ cackled a Boomer. ‘That was more cringe than when you got a moustache tattooed onto your index finger!’ laughed a Zoomer.

They weren’t wrong. In my haste to assert dominance I’d fumbled big time. Oh well, I’ll get another chance when Generation Beta comes of age. Those f**ks are going down.