Gen Z grew up on social media. The same that spreads the propaganda, the fake information and the toxic masculinity bullshit.
They also grew up with an impossible social economic context where they barely have any hope. Trump’s making promises to make the country great again. What have they got to lose?
Why is anyone surprised?
What have they got to lose?
Gay marriage, contraception, porn, legal divorce? Just off the top of my head.
Porn isn’t going anywhere. LoL
Divorce either.
Gay marriage? It’s already dangerous to just come out, let alone get married.
And contraception? They’ren already losing that one too in many states thanks to local governments anyway.
“divorce either”
Just like abortion, right? You realize it hasn’t been that long that you had to prove one party was at fault in order to be allowed to divorce? You hate each other? Denied!
You have to get married to get divorced, and marriage is simply not on the table for most people. It’s expensive and pointless. Marriage rates have been dropping for a couple of decades. It’s just not important since we completely removed the original purpose… Expanding the economic success of both families.
So you don’t mind if the rights of a minority are infringed upon? You realize it’s a way to control women? Marriage doesn’t need to be expensive either and a man wanting to put a ball and chain on a woman will force her to get married and she’ll be legally stuck with him for the rest of his life if no fault divorce is made illegal again. What about the 62 million married couples that already exist?
Porn isn’t going anywhere. LoL
Give Project 2025 a read. Wild things in there.
Gay marriage? It’s already dangerous to just come out, let alone get married.
Thanks to who?
And contraception? They’ren already losing that one too in many states thanks to local governments anyway.
Literally a direct cause of the last Trump administration.
https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/amp/rcna161562
There’s a massive difference between the social stigma attached to coming out, and the revocation of the legal rights associated with marriage.
It’s not even that long ago that people couldn’t visit their life partner in the hospital following an accident, because they weren’t married.Limited access to certain types of contraception in certain areas is a very different beast than overturning the case that ruled that contraception isn’t criminally indecent.
If you don’t know how far civil rights have come even in the past 20 years, or how much further back than that they openly want to push things back, I don’t think you’re paying attention.
Abortion had just as much legal protection as porn or gay marriage, and it “wasn’t going anywhere” until it was suddenly gone.Oh I am paying attention. I know that’s at stake. I was born in the early 80’s so I’ve seen the progress. And I’ve seen the conservatives chipping away at it for the past 20 years. Both in the US and Canada. (I’m Canadian)
I’ve been stuck with the massive democratic power of the boomer masses my whole adult life and saw them vote in these conservative and neo liberal parties that have completely destroyed whatever social safety net that they benefited from and any freedom and equality only for them to have more money to put in their retirement funds.
I was hoping the Gen Zs would join our ranks, but social media, corporate lies, toxic ideologies meant to address their insecurities, and now AI have fucked up their perspective.
Man it’s like you’ve never even met any of the dumb crackheads that are cucking for these evangelicals
As a Gen-X I will never blame the later generations. Especially Gen Z and younger, if I was in their shoes I’d be livid. You bring me into this mess and then tell me it’s on me to fix it? F U
As a Gen-Xer, we got the benefit of the boomers taking almost all the air out of the room, and their parents thinking our generation was even worse than the boomers. The boomers mostly ignored us, called us slackers, etc…some time goes by and we are getting lumped in with the boomers and the “greatest generation” and getting blamed for all the problems, so that’s been fun.
But it is nice sometimes to finally get remembered, even if it’s for blame.
Gen X had no future, it was all boomers until…oh, it’s still boomers.
They also grew up during the pandemic so they might actually be less educated than Boomers.
People are surprised that they grew up with tech and are more susceptible to the propaganda than previous generations. People are also surprised at how vile and uncaring young men have turned into, they want to “own the libs” no matter the cost. They like seeing the pain they cause
they want to “own the libs” no matter the cost. They like seeing the pain they cause
I have a hard time believing this.
When you actually talk to the kind of young, Gen Z men that regularly spout right-leaning propaganda, generally speaking, you don’t see people who enjoy suffering.
You see young men who are suffering themselves, but are given no outlet by society to express or fix it, and are heavily propagandized to by fascists who know that by creating arbitrary divides, (the most common one you’ll see with these young men being “men vs women,” think Andrew Tate type rhetoric) they can redirect the anger of these young men from systems to other individuals and groups that aren’t the actual cause of their problems.
When young men are the specific, designated target of right-wing propaganda, which explicitly tries to tell them that “men used to have it better,” and actively tries to make them believe that they’re not strong enough, not good looking enough, and not rich enough, then of course you’ll get young men that feel, in some ways justifiably, shunned.
To put it how Jason Stanley put it in his book, aptly named How Fascism Works, “Misogyny is what faces women when patriarchal expectations are left unfulfilled.”
Those expectations never need to have actually been reality, but just the very expectation that they should have those things can make them feel slighted.
But remember, while these young men are angry, sad, and scared, they still don’t enjoy causing pain. (I’m talking broadly of course, you’ll always be able to find some crazy dudes if you look enough) They just feel like they haven’t been given what they deserve.
Just like the rest of Gen Z.
The only thing that makes them different is the fact they believe the source of their suffering is a different group of people.
I’m not excusing any of their behavior or beliefs, far from it. But claiming that young men enjoy inflicting pain on others because they hold beliefs that make them feel slighted by society is just plain wrong in the vast majority of cases.
You see young men who are suffering themselves, but are given no outlet by society to express or fix it, and are heavily propagandized to by fascists who know that by creating arbitrary divides …
Man I cannot take another four years of “won’t you think of the poor lowly Trump voters?” (this time Gen Z style). The original was cringeworthy and I doubt I’ll like the sequel any better.
People have bigger problems than your average Gen Z white male Trump voter, as I’m sure they’re accustomed to telling others online and in real life whom complain (when they aren’t going on call of duty n-word tyraids and having discord chats with other idiots).
won’t you think of the poor lowly Trump voters?
This is absolutely, categorically not what I was saying.
To clarify using this point I already made,
Just like the rest of Gen Z.
I’m commenting on the fact that they experience the same issues that the rest of their generation, and in many ways, society at large experiences, not saying that their own struggles mean we should subordinate our own opinion of what society needs for their sake.
I’m not pulling a “won’t you think of the poor lowly Trump voters,” I’m doing a “these are people too, who still think they’re doing what’s ‘right’”
To these young men, society teaches them that they are fault because of the patriarchy, but leaves the door wide open for the right to proclaim that the sentiment means their own issues aren’t being taken into account, which, in many ways, is true with the way liberal media often presents the patriarchy, denouncing its effects, but not clarifying that the patriarchy doesn’t mean these young men should be doing perfectly fine already.
The messaging these young men see is (and I’m oversimplifying here, of course) “men as a category are in the wrong because of the patriarchy,” but not “but young men still face many problems, just like the rest of their generation, so we should work on fixing that too”
So of course, the right swoops in and replaces what could be a positive secondary statement, and replaces it with “they say you benefit from privilege, but if you do, why is your life so bad right now?” (ignoring the fact that their struggles are almost entirely the same as the rest of Gen Z, men or not)
Again,
I’m not excusing any of their behavior or beliefs, far from it. But claiming that young men enjoy inflicting pain on others because they hold beliefs that make them feel slighted by society is just plain wrong in the vast majority of cases.
Believing, falsely, that your issues are caused by a different source than the ground truth, and believing that a man who says he can fix all of that will, y’know, fix all of that, in no way means that you enjoy inflicting pain.
To these young men, society teaches them that they are fault because of the patriarchy
Women have lost their way and need to be put back in the kitchen. The gays have gotten to much freedom to be flamboyant and they’re destroying decency and indoctrinating children. The blacks are getting too uppity, they need a knee on the neck. Minorities have gotten too much and need mass deportations now.
But yeah cis hetero young men get the blame for everything.
By your reasoning, women, LGBT+, minorities are all justified in becoming extremists. Yet the only demographic is leading way on this. Now I’m sure you’ll feedback loop your logic to take it as young men getting all the blame.
But yeah cis hetero young men get the blame for everything.
Where in my response did I imply they get the blame for everything? Jesus man, at least be mildly charitable when you interpret my responses.
Women have lost their way and need to be put back in the kitchen. The gays have gotten to much freedom to be flamboyant and they’re destroying decency and indoctrinating children. The blacks are getting too uppity, they need a knee on the neck. Minorities have gotten too much and need mass deportations now.
I understand this rhetoric gets used. I’m trying to explain why.
To these young men, they’ve been told that they have privilege, but haven’t been truly explained what that means. It leads them to believe people are telling them they’re already doing well, even if they aren’t. Grifters take advantage of that, and use the common tactic of fascist rhetoric, which is to create a false past where everything was better, and offer these young men a simple solution to their problems: “taking back” the rights/freedoms/abilities/access that they “once had.”
They might hold abhorrent viewpoints, and for the final time, I don’t endorse or defend any of them, but they don’t enjoy inflicting pain, or even think that they are in the first place
I may have worded my responses in a much more convoluted way than intended, and for that I apologize. My only point in this conversation, far from defending their viewpoints or trying to pull a “let’s look at all sides” argument, is simply that while they might have been propagandized to enough, to the point they believe false things about reality, they don’t enjoy, or want to inflict pain. They simply want society to right the “wrongs” they’ve experienced, but don’t understand what the root cause is of their pain.
I am specifically, solely trying to make the case that while their actions may end up causing harm, they don’t enjoy causing harm in itself. That is all.
I don’t think all of them enjoy inflicting pain, but Gen Z Trump voters are just Trump voters, and some of them certainly enjoy inflicting pain (especially those walking around puppeting rape threats). I find the actions people take to be more illustrative of their character than imagined back stories.
No offense to you, but I’ve personally read tens of thousands of words in the wake of 2016 about economic anxiety only to have those same people suddenly about face on every economic issue once “their guy” took over and the opening of your post reminded me a lot of that.
and some of them certainly enjoy inflicting pain (especially those walking around puppeting rape threats)
Oh, definitely. There are always going to be some people that enjoy causing pain, and I’m not ignorant of their existence. I just believe that, broadly speaking, the majority of people in most groups, young Gen Z men included, don’t actually enjoy causing harm, or even necessarily believe they’re causing harm in the first place.
Right-wing grifters have a very easy time convincing people of arbitrary divides to cause conflict, and when young men are in a situation just like the rest of their female Gen Z peers, but don’t see the same issues happening to those women because of their media bubble, to them, the world just looks like it’s leaving them behind.
To them, they don’t see themselves as causing pain, only as trying to gain back what they’ve “lost.”
Essentially, while I do believe their beliefs are often wrong and misguided, I don’t think that most of them believe they’re even causing harm in the first place, let alone enjoy doing so.
I don’t think that’s what they meant. What they meant is that those who adhere to the virilist ideologies found online are the ones who do. Because apparently violence and aggressive behaviour is viril.
They grew up with tech without understanding it, which is a big difference from millennials.
Millenials appear to have been peak liberal.
Watching TNG reruns nightly as an 8 year old really gave me some hope for humanity’s potential.
Same. Le sigh 😕
We were teenagers under dubya and the iraq war. Depending on how much the country swings into actual fascism this time, gen alpha might wind up standing for general anarchism
I think the ones that elected FDR 4 times have us beat
Hell I’d vote for him a fifth time, but he’s mysteriously not running.
Although I suppose he wasn’t running the first four times either…
Took me far longer than it should have to get this joke.
Sure…
“Liberal.”
First generation seen moving left as it ages and a reverse tendency might be happening with the Z men while the Z women are much more left leaning. It might also be part of why Z men seem so much farther right, the women of their generation are much farther left than women of previous generations so the division is much more clear. In truth the men might not be much further right than men of previous generations were when it comes to the policies they agree with, we just didn’t pay as much attention to it back then…
Just some stuff they were talking about on the radio a few weeks ago…
That’s generally the consensus, that young men are roughly as conservative as they were historically, but women are more left-wing (although maybe a bit less than expected, given recent election results).
Results from Reagan’s 1980 election win look fairly similar: https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-1980, excepting that women and men were voting in similar ways for each age group, and bigger margins to Reagan in the older groups.EDIT: Nevermind this doesn’t actually show age by gender data.
If this is true, it might explain so much of why they were so angry.
Its never been up to a single generation anyway
When the link snaps open the entire chain is broken.
It is up to every generation.
Why hasn’t there been a push to counter the propaganda on social media with social media?
Use short form, humorous posts that integrate facts and ideas that give a different more positive take on others. I would guess there are great writers and actors that have a progressive-ish mindset that could put something like this together.
But honestly what is the reason this hasn’t been done? Or if it is being done why isn’t there more of a push to get it seen?
That would require ongoing funding outside of election years. These are paid for by Mercers and Kochs or the Kremlin on the right, and i don’t think Gates or Cuban is too eager to fund left-wing propaganda.
There is Holywood money in the world of progressive actors that could put something together but I don’t know that world and how it works so I have no idea if it’s something that is actually feasible.
You will be surprised to learn how little money the most famous actors in Hollywood actually have, that’s why they’re all trying to sell vagina candles and tequila.
If you don’t control the platform, it might just be wasted efforts, although I guess they could try. But it might be that those pulling the strings can be sure that virtually no one is reached.
It’s a frustratingly true response… sigh
The establishment wants to stay established, so they only use their established channels, not realizing how disconnected they became.
Algorithms ensure that the only content that ends up getting to your eyes is content that you already agree with for the most part. Or content that you hate so much that you have an incurable urge to respond to it with swearing and vitriol. (or at least that’s why I think TikTok keeps giving me Maple Maga bullshit)
In other words, you can put up whatever you want but thanks to modern social media, the only people who will ever see it are the people who already agree with you.
No analysis of how the older generations that turned out for Obama and Kerry went even harder for Trump than Gen Z ? Gen X went Trump by 22 percent.
Gen Z is doing their best and if you put this all on them then you’re going to lose the next election too.
Trump Youth.
“But that is far from a sturdy monolith. It can, and should, be easily conquered. All it takes is a platform that authentically offers something—anything—to youth voters. As they’ve proved, time and time again, they’ll listen.”
Democrats: Sorry, we’ll talk a big game and then just have 2 fuckwit Senators ruin everything. Don’t worry though I promise next time will be the same!
In before Newsom or Shapiro nominee in 2028. (that is, in the far-fetched scenario we still have real elections).
They about to be thrown off mom and dads insurance and learn the hard way about the “team” they voted for.
Not to mention the fact that inflation is about to go through the roof and there will be food shortages when they start deporting migrants.
It was pretty funny seeing people putting so much faith into these kids
The funniest one was when they thought Taylor Swift fans of all people would save democracy.
“Crazy how Millennials were the only ones to learn how to use computers and we apparently are also the only ones who learned to see through disinformation,”
Whoever this Dylan jackass is can piss right off. Gen-X built your fucking computers.
I mean, Boomer grandparents did the real lifting if we’re going back…
I have been saying for the past 6 - 8 years that Gen Z is the future, they are different, they are compassionate, etc. My opinion changed on that Tuesday in a bad way.
