“You’ve GOT to be kidding…”
“It’s pretty bad out there.”
“4 with puppy dog feet. 6 of broccolis.”

Magicians are, apparently, getting pretty annoyed with young people lately. Their latest complaint? Kids don’t even know the names of playing cards anymore.

Oh, the humanity!

The underlying (and sometimes rather explicit) tone of this complaint? Young people – Gen Z in particular – are stupid, lazy, or simply not paying attention to the world around them.

But that’s clearly not true.

In fact, there’s a simple reason why Gen Z might not know these things—it’s because they’ve never needed to. If you’re part of a non-digital generation, you grew up playing cards at a table with friends or family. You had to name the cards, call them out, and remember the difference between the suits and face cards because it was part of the game.

But for Gen Z?

Most of their card-playing happens on their phones or devices. And when you’re playing solitaire or a round of poker on an app, you don’t have to say “queen of hearts” out loud. The game does the work for you—drag, drop, tap. The visuals are there, but the verbal associations aren’t necessary.

This myth that Gen Z is somehow “lazy” or “unfocused” for not knowing these things misses the point.

The truth is, they do know the cards, just in a different way. They recognize the suits and faces instantly—by sight—because that’s what their digital card games have trained them to do. There’s no need for them to say the names out loud when they’ve spent years interacting with cards in a visual medium.

This isn’t about laziness; it’s about adaptation. Technology has changed the way we interact with information, and this is a perfect example. Gen Z has adapted to a world where knowing the names of the suits just isn’t necessary. So instead of dismissing them, we need to recognize that this shift is part of a larger technological evolution.

And here’s where perspective-taking comes in.

Before jumping to conclusions about what one generation “should” know, it helps to consider the environment they’ve grown up in. Digital card games don’t require the same verbal cues that a physical deck does, so why would Gen Z memorize something that doesn’t serve them in the context they’re familiar with?

The next time someone complains that “kids today don’t know the basics,” remind them: It’s not that they don’t know—it’s that they’re learning differently. And maybe there’s something to be learned from that, too.

BTW, don’t believe me? Here are screenshots from a thread in a private magic group that went on and on and on…