This is not my personal opinion, I know Gen Z men who voted for Harris. But the voter demographics really speak for themselves, and maybe now people will look at the radicalization of young men as a serious (but solvable) issue.
The worst part is no-one cared, fucking ātheyāll grow out of itā and now everyone is suddenly in shock. When I talk about it to my friend today heās even in fucking denial about it, āOh they didnāt actually mean that, it was all jokesā.
Most edgy teens do grow out of it. I roll my eyes at embarrassment at some of the stuff I wrote in college, and high school me was even stupider.
But one difference in my high school years (in the 90ās), edginess wasnāt inherently politically coded. Some of it was racist, sexist, or homophobic, but plenty of the targets were also Republican constituencies: rural/small town people, Christians, fat people, old people, prudes, etc. In a conservative suburban area, jokes about abortion, sex, drugs, etc. were often designed to elicit shock and disgust.
I think weāve seen a cultural shift in which edginess is seen as right wing in itself, in part because the right, which used to get offended at things like Harry Potter and Howard Stern and Disney movies, has fallen in line with edgy Gen X comedians who somehow didnāt grow out of it, and made room for people who smoke weed and mock the Bible.
in the 90s you attacked whatever was around cause you were a piece of shit, now you got the internet so pieces of shit worldwide can band together and hate a specific cause.
band together and hate a specific cause.
The thing with Gen X teenage nihilism was that the only cardinal sin was actually having a strong opinion. There wasnāt much room to hate on anything, because actually hating something showed that you cared too much, and that wasnāt what we were about.
Gen Z seems to be much more willing to embrace negative emotions and acknowledge that they care enough to hate. Whether thatās a better or a worse thing, Iām not sure.