Being a “Good” Gen Alpha Boy

As marketers, whose job it is to apply our knowledge of human behavior to more effectively and efficiently drive consumption, we face a regular, moral conundrum. How are we using our insight into human desires, fears, and behavior? Are we taking advantage of our audiences’ problems and digging into their vulnerabilities in order to sell more products? Or are we applying our understanding of macro tensions in such a way that we drive business growth by helping to solve human problems?

At A&G, every day and with every client, we intentionally choose the latter. In the spirit of full disclosure, many of us are raising Gen Alpha boys (and the girls growing up alongside them). This is not a topic removed from our own realities, anxieties, and hopes. So it is important we say this overtly: While there are many ways to use the insights we share below, we hope you’ll join us in choosing to do so in a way that respects and responds to human fragility, instead of simply capitalizing upon it.

Growing Up A Problem To Be Solved.

For too many Gen Alpha boys, it is a sad truth that from the moment they enter public spaces, especially the classroom, their energy is too easily labeled a problem. A natural drive to be physical, competitive, and active is increasingly treated as “disruptive” – a set of behaviors to be contained, not understood or nurtured. It is a narrative reinforced by the data. Today, boys account for over 70% of all school suspensions and are four times more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD¹. For young boys of color, this label is applied even more aggressively; by age nine, nearly 40% of Black boys have already been suspended or expelled at least once². The label of “problem” is shouted from news headlines about boys lagging in literacy, women comprising 60% of college students³, and 60% of young men between the ages of 18 and 24 living with their parents. And it underlies the many ads depicting their future selves as “bumbling or incompetent.⁴” Yes, men continue to hold positions of power across the world. But the world is telling boys a different story about themselves: at 13, you are a disruption; at 25, an academic failure; and at 30, a buffoon father. Like the Gen Z boys before them, we are handing Gen Alpha boys a script that says they don’t have problems, they are the problem.

Gaming As A Reflection of Worth.

It’s easy to see stats about Gen Alpha tweens and teens spending up to 9 hours a day on gaming and social media platforms⁵ and feel concerned. Over 60% of teen boys identify as “gamers”⁶ and gaming is the number one interest of boys aged 8-15⁷. But before we jump to the problem of screen time and social isolation, let’s consider the purpose of gaming for Gen Alphas. On platforms like Roblox (whose daily active users surged to 112 million in 2025), Gen Alphas are the ones building the worlds we grown-ups are trying to market in. Here, they gain respect and status from their peers based not only on what they can buy, but on what they can build. Their increasing use of Discord as a clubhouse-style communication channel shows their hunger for belonging, a chance to prove their loyalty to their squad (48% of teen players want games to include either teamwork or events, a proportion that rises to 56% among teen Minecraft players⁸). For many Gen Alphas, gaming isn’t a game. It’s a third space, where they proudly practice their independence, creativity, and allegiance to each other. It is where they earn tangible proof of their value. The problem, of course, is that in exchange for a world that affirms their value, they are falling prey to algorithmically-generated content, instant gratification, and variable reward schedules designed to extract their value.

“Gently” Parented In An Ungentle World.

Many young boys find themselves caught between two worlds. At home, they’re being “gently parented” by older Gen Zs and Millennials who came of age during the Me Too era, became hyper-aware of missteping and raising a “toxic” boy, and have been all too eager to wrap their young boys in a safe bubble and avoid talking about masculinity at all. But the moment these young boys go online, that bubble bursts. The algorithm feeds them a model of masculinity in the form of “alpha male” creators, some of whom are aggressive, misogynistic, and decidedly ungentle. A recent study found that 73% of boys aged 11-17 are “regularly” being exposed to the “digital masculinity” content about making money (44%), building muscle (39%), and fighting (35%). And the same research indicates that this type of “rage bait” content is directly linked to low self-esteem, making them 4 times more likely to think “sharing worries makes them look weak.⁹” A 2024 ADL study found that 78% of teen boys (age 13-17) experience “significant harassment, hate speech, or toxicity” in online games. They are stuck between a home world that gives them no answers and an increasingly angry digital world that gives them a lot of the wrong ones. For the next generation of young boys, already less likely to be taught by men, volunteer alongside men, or be seen by a male pediatrician, they have too few real-world role models for what masculinity can be at its best.

Marketing Takeaways:

– Create Infrastructure for Boyhood: While marketers often capitalize on consumer friction or fear, we have proven we can also resolve it. Brands like Mastercard and Whirlpool didn’t just highlight problems; they built the infrastructure to solve them (“True Name” and “Care Count” campaigns, respectively). This is the blueprint for winning with Gen Alpha boys. This generation doesn’t need more content telling them how to be ‘better.’ They need fewer barriers to the places where they can already see themselves as ‘good.’ Our opportunity is to move from judging and correcting boys to defending the spaces where they thrive. By pushing against the sanitization of natural competitive, physical, and chaotic energy (successfully seen with Nike’s “Winning Isn’t For Everyone,” Dick’s “Sports Matter,” and Nerf’s “Nerf Fests”), brands can earn deep loyalty by validating and productively channeling boy energy, rather than policing it.

– Build Skills, Not Ads: With billions in ad spend targeting them across 8.5 hours of daily screen time, Gen Alpha is arguably the most marketing-literate, and skeptical, generation in history. They don’t want to be sold to, they want to be equipped. The brands earning the trust of Gen Alpha boys don’t treat them as a passive audience. Instead, they engage them as creators and invest in their natural drive to build, strategize, and trade. LEGO x Fortnite found success by validating Gen Alpha’s hunger to engineer complex, cooperative worlds, not just play in them. Similarly, fintech brands like Greenlight recognized that when trading Pokémon cards, a young boy isn’t just playing with toys, he is proudly managing an asset portfolio. Marketers will start to win with this wary audience when our goal shifts from extracting their value to affirming their worth.

– Be A Male Role Model: Data consistently shows that positive portrayals of men deliver stronger ROI¹⁰, yet the industry continues to struggle with finding the space between “toxic masculinity” and “soft” or “bumbling masculinity.” This has contributed to a ‘male role model vacuum’ that toxic influencers and public leaders are all too happy to fill, leaving Gen Alpha boys with a false choice: ‘good guys’ that are soft and boring or ‘bad guys’ that monopolize all the charisma, energy, and airtime. Brands have an opportunity to show up with another option: masculinity that is high-energy, but also high-character. Gillette proved the power of this in partnering with Deion ‘Coach Prime’ Sanders. He embodies a masculinity that is aggressive about winning but obsessive about respect. Ask yourselves, how do you portray men in your communications? Who in your organization are you elevating as male role models for the next generation? To win with Gen Alpha, we must stop playing it safe by equating decency with dullness, and start elevating men who make integrity inspiring.

One more thing:

– Accept The Hard Truth: They Probably Don’t Want To Hear From You: This is hard for Millennials (the OG center of the digital world) to hear, but hear it we must. We don’t get it and we never will. No matter how many Youtube videos we watch, conferences we attend, or books we read about the “anxious generation,” we will never fully grasp what it means to be a Gen Alpha. And if we want to connect with them, we have to stop trying so hard to make them think we do. Because they know we can’t and everyone will cringe a lot less if we accept it too. Instead, we must start investing in primary research and working with the young creators we and they can trust. 

Check out the other parts of this series here: Part 1, Part 2

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1 – EdWeek, 2025

2 – American Academy of Pediatrics, 2025

3 – NCES, 2025

4 – ADD Resource Center, 2025 Report

5 – Common Sense Media, 2025

6 – Pew Research Center, 2025

7 – GWI, 2025

8 – GWI, 2025

9 – 2025 Common Sense Media Report

10 – Kantar, 2024

Note: As always, it is impossible to write about an entire generation or even entire sub-segments of that generation, without it involving biases and generalizations. We are talking about the most diverse generation this country has ever seen and part of our challenge will be to continuously dig deeper into the influences, fears, and needs of this generation through the lens of this country’s many different cultures. In Part 3, we will be discussing this exact issue – who gets to define what it means to be “Gen Alpha”? And who doesn’t?