By Alex Williams, New York Times

Hear the word “millennial,” and plenty of images spring to mind.

There’s Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, in his hoodie, earning his first billion by the age of 23.

There’s Miley Cyrus, preening for the cameras in a flesh-baring act that recalls a Snapchat sexting session.

They’re brash, they’re narcissistic, they’re entitled. Or so the cliché goes.

But what about “Generation Z,” the generation born after millennials that is emerging as the next big thing for market researchers, cultural observers and trend forecasters?

With the oldest members of this cohort barely out of high school, these tweens and teens of today are primed to become the dominant youth influencers of tomorrow. Flush with billions in spending power, they promise untold riches to marketers who can find the master key to their psyche.

While it is easy to mock the efforts of marketers to shoehorn tens of millions of adolescents into a generational archetype, à la the baby boomers, it is also clear that a 14-year-old in 2015 really does inhabit a substantially different world than one of 2005.

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