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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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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...
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.
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.
“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.
Well, TBF, the boomers helped bootstrap what Gen X was working with, and then there are the Elder Gods like Turing, Hopper, John McCarthy, Neumann, etc...
In any case, if someone thinks that learning computers means they can see through disinformation....LOLOLOL. This is exactly why I keep beating the drum for critical thinking and media literacy, steeped within a rich liberal (in every meaning of that term) educational program.
It's like every generation loses the ability to do something in computer technology that was just abstracted away somehow. I as a millennial have never soldered a PC mainboard (modding an Xbox doesn't count), but I'd say that otherwise, my understanding is pretty good. And I think all of my friends understand the concepts of files.
I recently asked someone about 10 years older if he knew what partitioning and formatting means in the context, and he knew, despite initially saying he has no clue about computers, to show someone 10 years younger (who didn't know) that such knowledge was just basically required back in the day. And it's not like these terms are obsolete, the concepts are still the same, even though we went from MBR to GPT and from FAT32 or whatever to better filesystems. It's no different for phones, but not required and even hidden.
I'd say generally, the technology userbase broadened while average knowledge in the group declined, however I'm not sure whether the absolute numbers of people with a certain knowledge level actually went down.
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.
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.
why I think TikTok keeps giving me Maple Maga bullshit
I mean... it shows the garbage to you, and you keep coming back..... maybe it's time to ditch tictack
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.
The establishment wants to stay established, so they only use their established channels, not realizing how disconnected they became.
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.
"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).
Trump Youth.
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.
If we were able to age out of authoritarian conservatism, it would have happened a long time ago. Possibly as far back as "cooking food over fire is making kids these days weak". That should never have been a strategy. Doubly so when there's a time limit to solve global warming.