You can tell if a woman is millennial or Gen Z, TikTokker claims

Distinguishing whether someone is a millennial or Gen Z is no small feet, but a podcast host believes she has a sure-fire way to tell.

Phoebe Parsons, the millennial host of the FIT(ish) podcast, claimed all she has to do to figure out a women’s generation is looking at their feet for a certain “controversial” fashion trend.

“Gen Z exclusively wears their socks up and millennials still wear ankle socks,” Parsons explained in a video posted to TikTok.

The pilates and barre instructor then showed that she, a millennial, was wearing ankle socks while recording the video.

For a while, ankle and no-show socks were standard — but ankle socks started to make a comeback in 2020. There were a few runway moments early that year that featured a white tube sock, but the trend really started to uptick when people were staying home during the height of the pandemic and weren’t wearing “real” clothes or shoes.

Gen Z has adopted the trend as a mainstay of fashion, but many millennials in the comments still swear by their no-shows.

“As someone with short legs hidden socks are best for elongating the legs,” another said.

“Socks up remind me of when my mom would dress me as a child. It makes me feel like a small child,” someone pointed out.

“If they’d been as aggressively bullied over the smallest hint of sock as we were, they’d never dare,” one millennial declared.


A pink-haired hipster teenage girl in a white T-shirt,jeans and with a skateboard is sitting on a city street on a summer day and using a smartphone.Generation Z style,social network,hobby.
For a while, ankle and no-show socks were standard — but ankle socks started to make a comeback in 2020.
Getty Images/iStockphoto

“I wore the socks up to the gym one day and I felt like they looked soooo bad every time I saw myself in the mirror all I could see were the socks,” one shared.

“I will NEVER let my socks show *shutters in millennial*,” someone quipped.

Gen Z has an affinity for bringing back old fashion trends, many of which have millennials cringing.

They especially love resurrecting dead trends of the ‘90s and early 2000s, such as unbuttoned pants, exposed bras, no bras, jorts, dresses over jeans and underwear as outerwear.