So the year is 2018, and Target is suddenly in the business of producing consumer electronics. Meanwhile, Taco Bell is producing its own line of designer apparel. And IKEA, after opening a low-priced boutique hotel in Sweden, is thinking about opening a second one in... Connecticut? Remind me again... Whose version of the future are we living in now? Gen Z’s, that’s whose.

Yeah, it’s true: Gen Z is more global than previous generations. But that doesn’t mean they all share the same jokes, memes or slang. Just because Gen Z students frequent similar restaurants -- whether they’re New York or Sydney -- doesn’t mean they don’t have cultural differences.

It’s January 2016. I’m sitting in the basement of my then boyfriend’s apartment. He and his friends are picking out tracks to play for their house party happening in a couple hours.

To be successful in marketing these days, brands need to do a better job of understanding Gen Z.  But how do Gen Zers act? Rather than provide examples from other marketers or the numbers behind different studies, we decided to sit down with a member of Gen Z and have her tell you for herself.  This is your opportunity to hear from a Gen Zer on how she thinks, how she chooses to spend her time and dollars, and what makes her tick.

It doesn't seem to matter how blue-chip your e-commerce platform may be — or how much of a household name your brand is among previous generations. Lots of brands have an "it's complicated" status with Gen Z. If you're one such company, you're in good company. Take eBay for instance. eBay is a far cry from 1995, when — so legend has it — the e-commerce giant sold its very first item online: a broken laser pointer for $14.83. Today’s eBay ranks at 172 among the world’s Fortune 500 companies and has a net revenue of nearly $9.6 billion. Its extant first-party data is the envy of most other e-commerce platforms. Year after year, its machine-learning algorithms manage to captivate and retain the long-term loyalty of millions of buyers and sellers worldwide.

In an era where travel gets determined more often by Facebook than by Fodor’s, the definition of “what’s important” to do while vacationing gets blurrier with each passing year. And no single group is redefining what vacation time well-spent means more than Gen Z. With roughly $143 billion at Gen Z students' disposal, it’s high time travel marketers paid closer attention to what activities these new vacationers are looking for.

Gen Zers depend on social media to connect with brands. That’s just a fact of life. The majority of North American tweens, high schoolers and collegiates (one recent study shows it to be 80 percent) believe social media influences what they buy online or in-store.