Once celebrated as pioneers of taste in the 1990s, the tide of public opinion on 40-year-olds turned after the release of the iPhone 17 last September.
The smartphone, long considered the preserve of the youth, was suddenly recast as a tacky trademark of Young 40s. These are, in the words of Gen Z Jeong Ju-eun, people “trying too hard to look young”, who “refuse to accept that time has passed”.
The figures seem to reflect this shift. While the majority of young South Koreans still prefer the iPhone to the Samsung Galaxy, over the past year Apple’s market share fell by 4% among Gen Z consumers and rose 12% for people in their 40s, according to research by Gallup.
Something similar played out a few years back with Geriatric Millennials, born in the early ’80s, whose brand of humour—the crying-laughing emoji, finger moustaches and the word “adulting”—was derided as cringey.
Back then, debate over Geriatric Millennials sparked self-deprecating jokes, think pieces and quizzes dictating if you’re meant to pile on the ribbing or be subjected to it.
The same trends have taken hold in South Korea with Young 40s.