Let me Tell you a story from a whippersnapper if you care to listen. When I was young and roaming the digital wild West, there's one thing I kept seeing from my peers. People saying "as a millennial/ gen. Z, I'm sorry for my generation" This is always stuck with me as something that was depressing in and of itself, but that also gave me pause for the idea that we needed to be sorry for something in the first place. They were apologizing for stupid things like memes or childish behavior, but I had seen them do these things in the past and have a great time doing it.

The main thing this taught me is that people are a product of their time and the current time. It's usually not worth it to just write these people off as lost souls, but rather to reach out and try to peel back that layer of societal contempt. There's still a human under there and they still have some of the old ideals you used to know, just under a layer of dust. When I see my peers changing nowadays, I don't let that affect my perception of them, I still remember them as the Goofy 14-year-olds shouting swag in the hallways. Now, whenever I meet up with them, I make the effort to brush off whatever nonsense they're going on about now and peel back that layer to see the version of them that I know and grew up with.

It's easier than you might think, just takes a few well placed laughs and you've got your friends back