Gen Z: The Divided Generation
The Gender Divide Is Not the Only Divide
I have written about Gen Z before. But I do not focus on the entire generation too often in my posts. Why? I guess because it’s hard to pin down Gen Z. From 2020 to recently I have read articles that hilariously contradict each other. Gen Z is liberal. Gen Z is conservative. Gen Z is having less sex. Just kidding: Gen Z is the kinkiest generation ever.
And so on. It didn’t take me long to realize that Gen Z is a divided generation that’s hard to pin down. I just didn’t see the value in writing about it. An article that openly states there is no way to pin down the most prized demographic? Ugh. Might as well write an article about being a single guy who’s just going with the flow.
Then the election scrambled the mainstream media’s brains. Thinkpiece after thinkpiece about how Gen Z is ruled by right-wing male podcasters. Some even saying the Internet is making our kids Nazis. Many of these seem to notice a major divide between men and women.
True. But that’s just one split. First off, Gen Z also voted Joe Biden in. Let’s remember that. The belief that Joe Rogan convinced the youth to vote for Trump betrays the unspoken belief the media has that they were responsible for the youth voting for Biden, Obama, etc. Never underestimate how little the elites think of those beneath them in power.
There has been a focus on how podcast bro types in the 18-24 demo overwhelmed Gen Z Kamala supporters at the polls.1 Never mind that the alt-left was never going to vote for Kamala Harris. This has been what the media either doesn’t understand or pretends to be confused about: Trump’s victory was less about a particular Gen Z presence than it was about a notable Gen Z absence.
Though we can’t say in good faith the youth were united against Trump — even the young men — we can acknowledge that most of Gen Z did not like Harris or Biden. For some, it was the “woke” messaging of the Biden administration. Yes, Harris avoided this messaging in her campaign. But people are more likely to believe what is done in office than what is said in a stump speech. But why did Chappell Roan not endorse Harris, then? Surely she doesn’t think she is too woke. Nope; she saw through her centrist neoliberal bullshit, like the rest of Gen Z did. Even though Gen Z didn’t seem to like Harris or Biden, there was no one cause that united them to think this way.
So, if we’re looking at a divided generation, shouldn’t we look at a map of the terrain? My pleasure. First, let’s take another angle on the “podcast bros.” They are not only overwhelming females in general; they are also a dominant force in culture. In April, when I needed time to kill before watching Civil War at Williamsburg Cinemas, I stopped by a cafe that had a stereotypical Millennial hipster aesthetic. Everything seemed stuck in 2018. Until I overheard the male barista tell his coworker he couldn’t wait to catch the latest Kill Tony episode.Just to be clear, this podcast bro takeover of culture comes at the very dear expense of the similarly conservative Dimes Square movement. Red Scare is not on any of these fans’ radar. Contrary to what Curtis Yarvin said, the dudes — sorry, the “hobbits” — have more power than the urban elite “elves'“ of the dissident right.
That’s right, even the online right wing youth are divided.
Gen Z is not necessarily the first divided generation. Let’s compare and contrast Gen Z with Gen X again. Gen X was also divided. The difference is the division (politically at least) of Gen X was neater. The first wave Xers of the ‘80s leaned towards the right while the second wave Xers of the ‘90s went the other direction. The ‘80s had passionate Reaganites while the ‘90s had apathetic Clinton voters. Another difference between the Gen X divide and the Gen Z divide: back then, political disagreements were something that could be looked past. Feminist Democrats danced to misogynist rap. Gen Z’s different factions, however, are all convinced that their way is the only way.
In a politically charged landscape without a monoculture, does any of this really come as a surprise? This was another reason I initially held off on writing this: it seemed obvious to me that Gen Z was divided. I wasn’t surprised at all the hacks that pretended they had the magic bullet to hitting all of Gen Z’s wallets. Couldn’t blame ‘em for trying. But insisting that Joe Rogan is a pied piper that all the Gen Z males magically follow is too off-base to go unanswered.
Thing is, many Gen Z guys like Trump not because of any endorsement. To a large chunk of them, Trump himself is the entertainer. He did have celebrity endorsements, but they were all just opening acts for him. For liberals to understand this, they need to look at how Bill Clinton affected Gen X. Many of the Boomer pundits in the media still look at him through Boomer eyes: as a Southern, rascally JFK that saw two terms. Gen X, meanwhile, simply thought he was the cooler candidate. It is not an accident that Clinton told Trump to run for President: being a colorful outsider worked so well for him. Much like Xers voted for Clinton because, who else would they vote for, surely it can be said that Trump ultimately ran the more entertaining campaign. Harris was too stuck on talking points to breathe. Also, just like it is fun to watch Trump’s enemies in the media hyperventilate over how popular he is, it was fun to watch Clinton’s Christian Right enemies lose their cool: the more they said Clinton was a pot smoking sex maniac…why look at that, his numbers went up!
Just like Gen Z and Gen X have similarities, on some levels, Gen Z has commonality with all generations. The thing is, no generation ever was a monolith. It was just easier for the mass media machine to convince them that they were. When the Boomers were angry at the system, Woodward and Bernstein had an easier time focusing that rage against Nixon so, in the future, urban first-wave Boomers would vote Democrat. During the Reagan Revolution, Hollywood had no patience for targeted marketing. Better to assume that patriotic blockbusters were the safe bet. The MTV Choose or Lose campaign nudged Gen X off the couch for Clinton. Obama, Twitter and the liberal media had an unholy alliance leading Millennials in their intended direction. As we know now, the media is too fragmented to create a consensus of any sort. A show like Friends could be a major hit when there were like 100 new shows on TV, not 600. And that is TV. Never mind the Internet lol. What’s more, all those Gen Z groups are algorithmically rewarded for their insularity. Echo chambers need strong walls.
OK, but what about the Gen Z left? Why can’t they get it through their thick Minecraft-block skulls to vote blue no matter who, dammit? Must be that Gen Z does not remember good Democrats. Gen Z hearing Millennials talking about Obama’s ‘08 election is like Gen X hearing Boomers talk about JFK’s “Ask not what your country can do for you” speech,” is like Boomers hearing those who grew up during the Depression glow about FDR’s fireside speeches. Which is to say, all three of these do not scan as Democratic presidents, but rather as mythical creatures that we will never see. A Democrat today who insists theirs is the party of Obama and Kennedy looks as dumb as Republicans did when they insisted they were members of the Lincoln party. As the youthful Gen Z looks breathlessly for the next trend to jump on, the Democrats are hopelessly stuck in the past:
The Democratic Party is a party ferociously committed to looking backwards. They yearn for 1995, when the future was neoliberal deregulation, triangulation, and the Clintons. When Fukuyama announced that history had ended, it seems like a lot of Democratic officials stopped reading.
Hey wait a dam minute now! I thought we were gonna look at a map of the terrain!
Yeah, yeah, OK sorry for the digression let’s look at the fault lines. Politically, Gen Z is comprised of many e-deologies (credit to
for his tireless work cataloging them). It was recently announced that the Oxford word of the year is “brain rot.” A clear result of that brain rot is all these extremely online political ideologies (tankies, eco-fascists) that function more like, as might say, niche fandoms than actual serious political movements. Why be “informed” by Rachel Maddow when you can watch a charismatic Arab streamer shit on Chapo Trap House and praise Stalin?Now yes there are political fault lines, but that isn’t the only division within the generation. Was a time when a “generation gap” was between generations, not within a generation. Let’s zoom out further: why is Gen Z so hard to pin down in general? When you market to a Millennial: epic bacon Gryffindor. Gen X? Slacker weed back off man I am a scientist. Again, Gen Z has no monoculture, so the next best thing is to look at some of the Gen Z subgroups (there are probably more, which just proves my point):
Hustle Bros
Good Ole Dudes
Alt Dirtbags
Tech Skeptics
Cozy Kids
Girls & Gays
Yes I came up with the names. And some of you will no doubt throw out “hustle bros” and “good ole dudes” and throw in “manosphere” and “Zynternet.” Sure. The reason I opted for my first two terms is because “manosphere" and “Zynternet” refer more to online realms than people. But there is of course a possibility that Hustle Bros and Good Ole dudes are “susceptible” to both.
Hustle Bros are obsessed with day trading, sports betting, crypto as well as scams and drop shipping. Trump and the Manosphere appeal to their aggressively rapacious mindset. Good Ole Dudes are just regular fratty types of guys that like the Zynternet — an online realm of loosely federated podcasts and social media personalities where babes, beer, Zyn tobacco, golf and fratty, vaguely conservative comedians like Shane Gillis and Theo Von are always around. Alt Dirtbags are a combo of Bernie Bros and Dimes Square hipsters. There was always a lot of overlap with them. Nick Mullen and Stavros Halkias are two podcasters that appeal to Bernie Bros but also to the Dime Square contingent (if only because of their old Cum Town exchanges). Notice how male-coded comedians and female podcasts like Red Scare fit in here. Tech Skeptics are the Gen Z members that prefer print to online; IRL to URL; dumbphones to smartphones. Cozy Kids are those who love “cozy tech” like Animal Crossing as well as AI companions like Friend. Girls & Gays are the Gen Z superfans who show the fuck up for Barbie, Chappell Roan, Wicked, etc.
Now it is tempting, after seeing that two of the major groups of Gen Z are Hustle Bros and Good Ole Dudes, to weep because there is so much male aggression. Have we forgotten the ‘60s? Before it got more Aquarian, there were the barbarians of the British Invasion as well as the pissed off suburban garage rockers barking about how their woman done wrong all over town.
How about 1999? The year bro culture took over? Woodstock ‘99? The decade that began with Nirvana and ended with Limp Bizkit? When lad mags like Maxim were everywhere and “Girls Gone Wild” commercials single-handedly supported late night television? It seemed that black and white males were bonding in pop culture over their shared misogyny; this was best exemplified with the Limp Bizkit/Method Man collaboration “N 2 Gether Now.” All because the liberal media celebrated Bill Clinton’s womanizing and treatment of Monica Lewinsky as par for the course, by the way. That’s right; the liberal media unwittingly fanned the flames of ‘90s bro culture. But, we survived it. And that was when many (myself included) thought the apocalypse might actually happen on January 1st. Side note: it can even be argued that the hipster/indie rock revolution was a response to bro-y post-grunge the way grunge itself was a backlash to hair metal.
This brings us to another germane topic: political aesthetics. Just like Gen Z cycles nonstop through aesthetics in general (cottagecore, indie sleaze), they also respond to new political aesthetics. So yes, after years of language sensitivity, male podcasters flouting those conventions were seen as refreshing. But, just like Bizkit Nation got overcooked, with the indie rock kids gradually taking over, the Hustle Bros and Good Ole Dudes might get overtaken by the Alt Dirtbags and/or Girls & Gays.
Hopefully this time, if the Alt Dirtbags become more prominent (Hasan Piker is Alt-adjacent and he is everywhere right now), they will maintain their fight for the working class, unlike the hipsters. One could even argue that the split between the hipsters — especially the liberal indie twerp variety — and the mostly working-class male audience of bro-y post-grunge/nu-metal helped influence the realignment of Democrats representing educated elites and Republicans repping the little guy.
Another thing about political aesthetics: subtle is best. As Citarella has mentioned, male influencers do not make their conservative messaging obvious. Typically, a young man is converted not by clicking on an outwardly political video, but by, as Citarella says, giving work-out tips or talking about MMA. Then, somewhere in the patter, a stray comment about trans women in sports may be thrown in. Or, as the TikToker says below, the subtlety of the Good Ole Dude style Joe Rogan is the undisputed master of is not a style that Hasan Piker, attractive and intelligent as he is, fits. As the TikToker says, you need to be interested in politics to watch Piker. You absolutely don’t need to be in order to listen to Rogan.2
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Cum Town exile Stavros Halkias has a better shot at winning the now-coveted “leftist Joe Rogan” title. Indeed, there was a viral video weeks ago of him explaining left wing politics to Theo Von that had many saying as much. Wrong video to show, though, counter-intuitively. Better to show a compilation of him saying that as well as of him talking about terrible Greek diners, if you wanted to make the point of him being an entertaining influencer, like Rogan is.
Yes, there are several groups within Gen Z that are divided from each other, but that doesn’t mean the only thing they have in common is their birth year range. One thing that they all seem to share: overall, they are anti-establishment. Even the Girls & Gays, who seem to be the friendliest with institutions, have toned down their political messaging after seeing how easy it was during 2020 for awful corporations to pinkwash their ad campaigns.
That said, Girls & Gays were the driving force of major blockbusters (Barbie and Wicked [the latter will be further discussed later]) as well as of course the Coconut Pilled Brat Summer K Hive TikTok Bonanza of July and August for Kamala Harris. Looking closer at that helps us see how, even when promoting a presidential candidate, the Gen Z Girls and Gays seemed to do so at a remove. In the very early days, before Charli XCX officially called Kamala “brat,” the K Hive was already comparing Harris to Selina Meyer, Julia-Louis-Dreyfus’s comically inept character on “Veep.” After she initially announced her campaign, the Kamala HQ team was forged and needed to redirect that energy. She couldn’t be consistently given the unflattering comparison. Unofficial boosters for Harris compared her to a fun aunt who drinks wine – a stock character that Girls and Gays deify regularly. The “Kamala is brat” tweet helped solidify the strategy: footage of her dancing and laughing. She was fun; Trump was angry. The energy was infectious. At the time, I was impressed with the narrative control, although I knew as soon as she opened her mouth it would take a turn. But even this is an opportunity to see how hard Gen Z is to pin down. It really seemed like Gen Z purple hairs were going to bring a blue wave in November.
The Obamas were not as helpful as one would have expected. You could just imagine him coaching her: use the platforms responsibly; try not to go off script, etc. What if, in a parallel universe, Kamala HQ’s TikTok team ran everything for her? Perhaps she would have been coached to lean into the fun wine mom act. No matter – this is not meant to be a deep look at “what if;” more an example of how even Gen Z G&G’s were more likely to paint her as a regular, recognizable person than the Aaron Sorkin-penned DC superhero most Democratic candidates are supposed to appear as.
If Girls and Gays are not all that comfortable with actual institutions (many of them of course also being pro-Gaza), many of them are openly indifferent to mainstream acceptance. Case in point: the “Saturday Night Live” “Domingo” sketch, which has their first breakout character in almost a decade.
The sketch is a viral hit. But, as I have discussed before, along with others, viral success on TikTok is not remotely the same as a sketch that gets quoted all over the country from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine. More importantly, there is no real attempt to make the sketch broad. Even Stefon was a broad portrayal of a gay guy. The two “Domingo” sketches that have been released so far, though, have a particular comedic sensibility that could only appeal to the Girls & Gays. Even though both sketches have musical icons (Arianna Grande and Charli XCX) singing their respective parodies of “Espresso” and “HOT TO GO!,” both of them sing their parts as nasally and gratingly as possible. What are both song parodies about? Why, a really hot Latino guy that the bride/mother might have cheated on the husband/father with. OK so this lusty Latino appears throughout the sketch, yes? No; he makes a grand entrance in the final minute of both sketches, confessing their tryst both times.
The joke in both sketches is that…the guy is hot. Most SNL nerds (myself included) might feel alienated but we are not the intended audience. At a recent Sabrina Carpenter concert, Marcello Hernandez showed up as his breakout character Domingo. The screams of the girls and gays? Like The Beatles at Shea.
Another less viral SNL sketch that came on towards the end of another episode was aimed squarely at the Girls and Gays as well. The premise: “It Girl” Thanksgiving hosted by Marc Jacobs (Bowen Yang) and Julia Fox (Chloe Fineman). As
mentions, this was as inside baseball as it gets. Jokes that would only appeal to bicoastal creatives and downtown fashion junkies are being told on the very last successful television comedy show standing. You would think there would be some fear of being too hip for the room here. Nope. From the piece:In the post-election world specifically, there is a renewed interest in the niches, and we are yet to see all the clownery and awkward content that will inevitably come out of the mass take on it
Again: Gen Z is indifferent and/or hostile to institutions. There’s another tell in the “Who’s the Joe Rogan of the liberals” question: the assumption that you need just one megastar. Trump appeared on Rogan as well as Adin Ross, Theo Von, the Nelk Boys, etc. If you want to hit with Good Ole Dudes, you don’t just appear on Barstool Sports. Maybe you do a cross promotion with the trashcanpaul Instagram page. Remember: the attention economy has been hit by inflation. One celebrity is not enough. One platform is not enough.
Most embarrassing of all though with the mainstream media’s Joe Rogan question: how easily they got sideswiped by the biggest guy out there. How did they miss something as big as Rogan? This has them wondering: what else are we missing? MJ Lenderman? Nope: he appeared on Fallon. 3 What about Mk.gee? Musical guest on “Saturday Night Live.”
This isn’t just an issue with arts and entertainment. Mid-priced name brands like Kraft are losing out to premium brands as well as no-frills (via
and his Trend Report). As discussed before, there are obscure political movements. Nowadays, being everything to everyone means being nothing to no one.While committing to a particular sensibility is wise for Gen Z creators, committing to a platform is not, especially in light of the looming TikTok ban. That is another thing that unites all the groups I listed above: platform independence. It’s not that no one is on the platforms anymore. It’s that trying to beat a platform is just not a logical, sustainable idea anymore. Most people know better than to stick to one dating app like Tinder. Try Bumble and Hinge as well. Why just do Instagram? The most dramatic, historic example of this is the Trump-Harris election. As Harris stayed close to her Kamala HQ platform strategy, Trump, despite having his account restored on X, focused on speeches that audience members themselves could post online for free as well as appearing on podcasts that would, again, post clips of the interviews.
This strategy seems obvious until you graph the online growth chart of the Millennials. As preteens, they were on AOL IM. Then MySpace. Then Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. In their defense, the Internet was literally a lot smaller back then. Plus, the idea of a central location was attractive to a generation old enough to remember and respect the power of institutional media. Millennials had a singular relationship to platforms, the way Gen X had to MTV and Boomers had to TV in general. It can even be argued that Elon Musk buying Twitter in 2022 was the nail in the coffin for Millennial hegemony on the Internet. I have stopped calling Gen Z The TikTok because the kids, God bless ‘em, knew the ban was coming and shook off the platform shackles. This is the life of Generation Shadowban: get jailed by one platform, run on the lam to another one. How are Millennials doing? They are confident, it seems, that Bluesky will slap the taste out of Musk’s mouth.4 Never mind the fact that Gen Z is neither that big a presence on X or Bluesky.
Another place where the Gen Z absence is notable: the 9 to 5 workplace. A common thread for the six groups is that they do not want to work for the man. In that way, they are similar to the Boomers who dropped out and took acid. There is not only overlap with the Boomers of the ‘60s though. Also the Boomers of the ‘80s that got older and went to Wall Street. Again, even here, the nature and philosophy of the day-jobless is not the same across the board. Hustle Bros work harder than they would at a 9 to 5 but they are their own boss. Cozy Kids bed rot and live a liberal-friendly version of the NEET lifestyle. As
says here, offering more jobs to Gen Z will not bring them on board. They hate jobs. Fair enough, but how do they meet people then? How does the divided generation get past theWhy is Gen Z such a divided generation? First off, it’s divided for now. These are the first five years of Gen Z coming into its own, which is another reason I did not want to initially write this. Imagine writing something definitive about Millennials in 2004? The US Office wasn’t on TV yet. Bacon humor was niche at the time; you got yelled at for ripping off Jim Gaffigan if you did any bacon humor back then. So there is certainly hope that Gen Z will be unified. But yes, now let’s look at why they are divided. One quick reason that was touched on: the loneliness epidemic. COVID led to lockdowns. Yes, some like myself worked onsite. But after work…everyone was expected to stay home. Younger members of Gen Z were not even going to high school. Quite a few missed graduation. This meant they had online communities that reinforced their obsessions, without fear of classmate reprisal. Bros got more bro-y, girls got more girly, alts got more alt-y. The Cozy Kids look back at lockdown with nostalgia. They do not want to leave their idyllic Animal Crossing paradise.
Another reason for all the division: the self itself is fragmented. As
says, we are in the era of the post-individual. Strickler’s essay is deep and illuminating, but it is best summarized by a quote he includes in the article: “Once upon a time people were born into communities and had to find their individuality. Today people are born individuals and have to find their communities.” Back when this quote was written in 2014, people weren’t as extremely online. Now they are, which is why one reason Tech Skeptics are going back to print and vinyl; they want to forge more durable communities. Could work by the way; text is apparently having a moment.The self is also fragmented though. Just like a Gen Z person could cycle through aesthetics, they can also be members of all six groups, using different avatars for each even. A Good Ole Dude can easily listen to an Alt Dirtbag podcast. A Girls & Gays girl might love Animal Crossing. It’s almost like these divsisions are not meant to accommodate different people, but different facets of the self.
If the past 100 years have been the century of self and we currently live in the age of the post-self, I find it interesting that at the same time the self has become fragmented, Western propaganda has lost its mojo. From the ‘20s, when Hollywood dominated the film industry due to Europe’s struggles with WWI, till 2023, when TikTok helped pierce the Gaza narrative, there was some sort of trust in media. Even during the media-skeptical ‘60s, Walter Cronkite was the most trusted man in news. With no faith in institutional media and no monoculture, different groups have different beacons of communication.
This is why, yet again, we need a revolution beyond politics. A politics of consciousness. Like the book says, we are WEIRD; all that industrialization and post-industrialization is altering our consciousness. Respect to the Tech Skeptics, but it is not enough to “touch grass.” What good is touching grass if there’s a Jersey Mike’s across the street? Better to travel and touch grass in countries that are still pre-industrial — what I would, perhaps ill-advisedly, call “ayahuasca countries.”
Our consciousness, especially Gen Z consciousness, is in a very precarious place right now. The Church, which was at the center of human thought for centuries, lost its power during the abuse scandal of the ‘00s. Though the Christian Right lost the Holy War, the liberal media has lost its institutional power as well recently. The liberal media itself didn't really have the power of the Church except during the years of 2008-2022, when, through Twitter and the cancel culture mob, they had the Church of the Other. Now that has also fallen.
There needs to be a revolution in consciousness to counter all that brain rot. Brain rot that is caused by and also leads to cultural rot as well as institutional rot. Seems like, after backing Trump and winning, the Paypal Mafia might be poised to replace the church and the liberal media. From Spike:
On November 20th, a crypto magnate paid $6.2 million at Sotheby’s for Maurizio Cattelan’s conceptual duct-taped banana, Comedian (2019). He bragged about it on X (née Twitter), tagging SpaceX. The banana is an artwork by an artist who no longer believes in art. It was purchased for an unethical sum by someone who doesn’t really believe in money. What does this prove? That established culture can’t match the zeal of crypto evangelists and accelerationists and shitposters.
Culturally, they definitely won. We are absolutely in the era of brain rot slop. And this doesn’t just apply to obvious markers, like Beeple Instagram posts and Costo Guys. Jack Antonoff asked what was the export of Dimes Square…a podcast? That’s the kind way of putting it. It was slop the whole time. The Instagram shitposts. The feature films that were more known for creating scene drama than any enthusiastic buzz. It was all premium, handmade slop.
It isn’t just culture that’s turning into slop. Enough shitcoins might turn the economy into slop. Memecoins based on nonsensical knee-surgery jokes and blow job humor only undermine crypto, which could end up undermining the entire economy. The Great Depression was built off junk bonds.
Though I hope a revolution in consciousness leads to a more durable spiritual center for Gen Z, I gotta step aside and tip the hat to
; IP and fandom are the closest thing to a unifying force for Gen Z. First off, the fragmented self itself is IP:What cyberspace (or at least, certain more populated places in cyberspace) does to our relationships is meaningfully different from what a bar or a membership club does. While bars and clubs charge for access to physical spaces and the associated experiences and clientele, the actual conversations and connections that happen there remain “private property” of the participants. In fact, they’re not property at all—it’s communication.
Social platforms, however, directly commodify users’ thoughts and interactions: every post, comment, and connection becomes a product. Our speech is an object before it’s communication. What’s more is they’re not even really ours. Our IP is more like intellectual tenancy: we rent space in the attention economy that the platforms control. Social media transforms not just our words and consciousness into products, but it also turns creators into sharecroppers of their own thoughts.
But IP in the traditional self is also almighty. Case in point: JK Rowling won the culture war. After years of activists calling for boycott of all Harry Potter content to send a message to Rowling for her anti-trans TERF messaging, HBO stood behind her recently, saying they do not agree with her words, but will stand by her work.
Of course, Harry Potter is not a major Gen Z IP. But Fortnite is. Even socialist influencers like Hasan Piker play Fortnite. It’s not hard to imagine a Hustle Bro, a Good Ole Dude, an Alt Dirtbag along with Girls & Gays not only playing Fortnite, but playing on the same team.
As Katherine Dee said, we are in the age of political fandoms right now. Case in point: the United Healthcare CEO assassin. As I said before, media is too large for any one ideology to take root. The right wing is currently having its own split: on one side, publications like The New York Post and Daily Wire that denounce the shooting; on the other, commenters that are treating the UHC shooter like a folk hero. Of course it isn’t just the right wing having this issue. On the other side, the alt-left is that much more powerful and united (ironic I know) as the weakened liberal media calls their dark memes “ghoulish.” Considering the climate, can we really say it’s an accident that, in this decade, for maybe the first time ever, The Penguin and The Joker are more popular than Batman? It seems Trump supporters are rooting for villains from cautionary tales.
For some, Trump was a villain turned anti-hero; like Hannibal Lecter, whom he kept babbling about, he was, for some, a villain who helped take down an arguably larger villain: the establishment. Will he be like Lecter and make good on the promise or will he be like The Penguin and leave us holding the bag?
Wicked’s protagonist is the villain from The Wizard of Oz. But the screen adaptation is biggest stage-to-screen Broadway adaptation of all time and has melted all of Gen Z media, with videos of sing-alongs in theaters. Conservatives are enraged at the wokeness of the film and the press tour. Never mind that they just won an election. Though they are focused on the wokeness, Wicked might have more revolutionary potential in it, beyond identity politics. I haven’t seen it yet, so I can’t confirm. But it seems that even Gen Z likes to sing together.
Also, why didn’t Gen Z women show up for Kamala? A Google News search yielded no answers. Curious, no?
Yes, Hasan attracts women and gays which, first of all, shows that even bro-y Twitch streamers attract women and gays. That said, the overlap in political beliefs is absolutely the reason they admit and profess their attraction to him (as opposed to their grudging, private Chris Pratt lust).
Not sure if the writer of the linked article, Ali Breland, is a Millennial, but he is still on X.
Fantastic piece, bringing together so many interesting threads
This made me feel old.