I couldn’t quite finish it…but it was hands-down the best breakfast burrito I’d ever had in my life.
Wendy had done us proud.
I threw the remainder in the trash and as I walked into the Oregon Convention Centre, suffering slightly with the meat sweats, I knew I was once again with my people.
But that feeling of comfort and contentment wouldn’t last long.
In fact, the more I walked around the convention centre, this feeling that I was with my people, well, it started to trouble me. Deeply.
I Am a Middle-Aged Man
I mean, I really don’t like to admit it.
But, it’s true.
…and as I looked around, the majority of people I saw were people just like me. Middle-aged men.
Mutton Dressed as Lamb
I turned to my friend Joe and proposed a game…“Spot the Gen Z”.
Turns out, it wasn’t going to be that fun of a game.
The nearest thing we found to a real Gen Z in the wild were a couple of Millennials cosplaying as Gen Zs.
We met one person under 25 at WCUS.
One.
We’re at one of the main yearly conferences for the platform that powers ~half of the web, and there’s no young people to be seen.
This can’t be right.
I’d love to say that I worried about this for the entirety of my 10-hour flight home. But that would be a lie.
I watched Matt Mullenweg’s ending keynote at the gate, popped a couple of super strong Co-codamol, strapped my head to the aeroplane seat, and passed out.
Getting Scientific
The moment I got back, I knew I had to verify what I’d experienced at WCUS.
Was WCUS really just a sausagefest of middle-aged men?
I decided to figure this out in the only way I knew how:
- Scrape the Gravatars of all the attendees
- Get rid of all the ones that weren’t actual photos
- Use AI to analyse the age and gender of attendees
Sure…this is imperfect, but, I figured it would give me a rough sense of the situation.
In fact, even taking into account that the AI model I used seems to be…very generous…in its age analysis, the results still ain’t pretty.
No wonder I only met one person under the age of 25 at the event. According to the AI analysis, under 25’s accounted for less than 3% of attendees.
The (mean) average age of attendees was ~38 years old.
The event seemed to skew very male heavy too – with the AI analysis putting the percentage at over 72%!
Will WordPress Die With the Millennials?
There’s clearly something very wrong here.
It’s certainly not that Gen Z aren’t engaged with tech.
It’s certainly not that Gen Z aren’t entrepreneurial. Business & entrepreneurship is more popular than ever.
So what the heck is going on?
Some potential options:
WordPress Is Irrelevant for the Way Young People Use the Internet
If I asked a millennial to find out how to do something – for example, how to cook the perfect steak – the vast majority would “Google” it. That’s how we use the internet, that’s just how we roll.
It’s easy for us to assume that everyone does the same. But it’s not true.
I challenge you to ask someone in their late teens or early twenties. The vast majority of the time you’ll find that they reach for their phone and do a search on TikTok.
When I realised this, as a millennial, it literally blew my mind.
This surely has an impact on how younger folks use the internet. It leads me to ask questions like:
- Do young people use websites as much?
- Is culturally the reliance more on social media platforms than standalone websites?
WordPress Isn’t User Friendly Enough for the Younger Generation
Maybe WordPress is just too clunky for Gen Z? Perhaps the simpler, centralised platforms are scooping up all of that business. Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, etc.
I mean…it would make sense – these kinds of platforms advertise heavily to this audience. Squarespace especially do brand deals with HUGE numbers of YouTubers. This is the kind of media that is being consumed by Gen Z.
We’re Not Reaching Gen Z Well as a Community
Maybe we have failed Gen Z by focusing on catering to our own. Perhaps we have not taken the time to understand the needs of the next generation and be accommodating to that. Perhaps we have been too slow to change?
Are younger folks in the community getting a platform?
Are we highlighting the stories of young entrepreneurs doing cool things with WordPress at WordCamps and online?
Are we giving exposure, reach, resource, encouragement to Gen Z creators in the space? YouTubers, Podcasters, TikTokers, who are going to spread the good word about WordPress and help onboard new younger users?
Gen Z Have Spotted an Opportunity That We Have Missed
This is a bit ethereal – but it’s very possible that Gen Z have spotted something we have completely missed.
If this is the case, we should probably figure it out before it’s too late.
Let’s Have Dialogue
I really am not claiming to have the answers here. Seriously.
But, this is a can of worms I want to open.
We all have our reasons for wanting WordPress to thrive. We have skin in the game in one way or another.
It’s clear to me that if we don’t better engage Gen Z, WordPress is destined to become a declining legacy web tool that the lame, out of touch millennials like to play with.
What are your thoughts?
I invite you – let’s dialogue on 𝕏. Link me to any blog posts you make about this.
Let’s have this conversation.