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.
Their POV is that the earth is going to burn to a crisp before they’re out of paying back their college debt whether the tie is blue or red.
Play an online game and hang with some teenagers every now and again and just listen in. I hear some straight depressing shit. They have zero hope for anything.
Kamala might keep the lights on. Trump might accidentally trip over a good idea. Worth a shot if you’re fucked either way, right?
They were wrong, granted… but justified? Sure.
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!
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.
Gay marriage?
The real solution here is to abolish marriage as a state sponsored privilege. It’s a religious ceremony that should have no place in government. It’s pretty gross how there’s so much pressure and so many benefits (eg. tax breaks) from participating in this ceremony. If people want to perform this ritual, it should be like a baptism without any state involvement. Nobody cares about gay baptism, but marriage is a hot button issue because it confers so much privilege. As a non-religious person, it’s super oppressive.
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.
They also grew up in a time where the education budget was slashed over and over, even some states like Florida getting rid of history and sciences during trumps last presidency. No surprise there.
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 Gen Z white males, as I’m sure they’re accustomed to telling others online and in real life when they complain between call of duty n-word tyraids and discourse chats about shit coins.
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.
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…
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.
Idk what that means though. Are you saying men always felt women’s place was in the kitchen and now women are saying it isn’t so they’ve moved more liberal?
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.
Turns out that growing up with a phone in their hand made a lot of them particularly susceptible to right-wing propaganda.
They’ve been raised to believe their thoughts are valid and they should speak up, instead of shutting the fuck up and listening until they have enough experience.
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.
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.
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.
Why hasn’t there been a push to counter the propaganda on social media with social media?
Because the dems are also right-wing and have no credibility.
The actual left-wing is constantly pushing counter-narratives but without the massive funding of capital (eg. koch bros). No billionaire is going to fund a left-wing Prager U that talks about how billionaires are trash.
Because a lie will circle the earth a dozen times before the truth gets a foot (or whatever tf the saying is).
It is so much easier, and takes so much less time and energy to make up disinformation, than to fight it. And people on the left tend to actually care about the truth, and we also want others to understand the truth (and to gain the means for them to independently arrive at the truth), and spouting disinformation goes directly against that.
It’s amazing what people are willing to do to win when you not only make it acceptable, but encourage complete disregard for ethics.
Its never been up to a single generation anyway
