The Founders, the Plurals, iGen or ReGen – what should we call the post-millennials?

Name: The Founders.

Age: 15, tops.

Appearance: Pragmatic, independent, digitally native.

Hold up, that’s not a description. It’s just a meaningless list of marketing buzzwords. Well, you would say that. You’re a millennial. You ruin everything.

Can we start again? We seem to have got off on the wrong foot. Fine. The Founders is the name that has been given to the new post-millennial generation, referring to anyone born after December 2000.

Why are they so pragmatic and independent? Because each generation rebels against the previous one, and millennials are famously needy and entitled.

How dare you say that! I’m totally going to no-platform you. See? According to the president of MTV, who came up with the term, the Founders are identified by “this self-awareness that systems have been broken. But they can’t be the generation that says we’ll break it even more.”

That’s why they’re called the Founders? Yes, because it will be their job to repair a world that millennials have mucked up beyond repair.

What’s the cause of this intergenerational behavioural shift? Well, one theory is that the Founders are the first generation to be parented by Generation X (who grew up with realistic expectations and ended up slightly disenfranchised), as opposed to millennials (who were raised by soppy-faced baby boomer optimists and ended up horrifically risk-averse and entitled). Frankly, I like the sound of the Founders a lot more.

It’s a terrible name, though. You should have heard some of the alternatives. According to MTV, other potential names included the Plurals, the Navigators, the Regenerators, iGen, ReGen and the Homeland Generation.

That sounds like the worst Battle of the Bands lineup in history. Exactly. Founders is easily the best of a bad bunch.

We should write a letter of thanks to the faceless team of corporate bureaucrats who were paid to arbitrarily name this upcoming generation of superheroes, then. Seriously, you millennials. You’re the absolute worst.

Do say: “Thank goodness MTV has discovered the name of this emerging generation.”

Don’t say: “It’s just a shame that none of them will ever know what MTV is.”