‘I know an older Gen Z was behind this’: IHOP menu savagely drags millennials and they are already asking to ‘speak to a manager’

IHOP’s new kids’ menu is absolutely dragging the millennial generation by referring to the childhood of anyone born in the 80s and 90s as “the late 1900s.” Seriously, you might want to sit down for this because the International House of Pancakes just went full savage on an entire generation, and people are already asking to speak to a manager on TikTok.

The whole ordeal started when TikToker Britni, @britnixh91, shared a video highlighting the paper kids’ menu she found while out to eat with her children. One element of the menu already amused her before the true insult landed, but honestly, this is the most aggressive way a restaurant has ever reminded people that they’re no longer kids.

The part that was already so incredibly millennial-coded before the insult came up was the classic “S Thing.” If you’re nodding your head right now because you spent countless hours in grade school perfecting that pointy, six-line symbol, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. The menu actually had a whole section dedicated to showing kids how to draw it, and @britnixh91 recognized it right away, which is why she was filming the discovery in the first place.

The S Symbol isn’t cool anymore, it means you’re old

You’d think the pure nostalgia of seeing the “S Thing” on a kids’ menu would be the main takeaway, but then she looked a little closer and realized the sheer, unadulterated pettiness of the menu’s copywriter. As she read it out, the fun fact stated: “Fun fact: The S Thing was really popular in the late 1900s!”

I mean, technically, they’re not wrong, but why did they word it that way? That’s the question everyone is asking, because while the 1990s definitely falls under the umbrella of the 1900s, it feels so unnecessarily historical, right? As one commenter, @alex, put it, “late 1900’s is diabolical.”

This kind of language instantly makes you feel like you belong in a history book, not standing in line for pancakes on a Saturday morning. To be fair, the “S Thing” did rise to popularity back in the 1980s, so it had a solid two decades of strong recognizability, but centering the 90s in that term just felt like a personal attack that they absolutely knew would land.

The internet, as you can expect, was quick to react with a mix of despair and outright suspicion. The general consensus is that there’s absolutely no way a human who lived through the 90s wrote this copy. A lot of people are pointing the finger at the next generation, with @queenravengames joking, “I know an older Gen Z was behind this, I just can’t prove it.” My favorite comment clap back was “You know what else peaked in the 90’s? YOU IHOP” by @TinyShoes.

But the most perfectly relatable part of the whole reaction is how it encapsulated the classic millennial stereotype—the one about wanting to complain until you get your way. That’s what happened here. @coffeendrawing admitted to the all-too-relatable internal journey, saying, “At first I was like ugh, another person being offended… but then I was like oh no I’m really offended now and I want to speak to a manager.” That’s the entire experience, and it’s funny because it’s true.