India, Aug. 9 -- A rash of protests have rattled south Asian countries in the last three years - Sri Lanka in 2022, Bangladesh in 2024, Nepal in 2025 and India this year. These agitations are disparate in trigger, scope and effect, but are bridged by their spearheads - Gen Z.

The term, used broadly to describe people born between 1997 and 2012, spent years being tossed about as shorthand for a generation of young people with bottomless appetites for smartphones, social media and a unique lexicon. Now, it rattles governments across the world.

Beware the kids with the smartphones and endless stream of memes. But where did the term Gen Z come from? Indeed, how were generation labels first coined, what socio-cultural factors underpinned the...