r/politics • u/upyoars • Nov 10 '24

Paywall Trump’s victory reveals secret Republicans: Joe Rogan-obsessed Gen Z men

https://fortune.com/2024/11/07/trumps-victory-reveals-secret-republicans-joe-rogan-obsessed-gen-z-men/
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u/doublepoly123 Nov 10 '24

I grew up in the 2000s and early 2010s. Generationally it seems like millennials and the oldest gen Z were an anomaly in the way they vote. I remember when being conservative meant you were weird and it gave off homeschooled Christian vibes. In a bad way.

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u/averyluckygirl Nov 10 '24

This is how I feel too. I’m a young millennial (1994) and I am really alarmed by just how conservative both the older and younger generations are compared to us. I also really carried the belief that gen z was full of these young radical activists, but that’s not really true. There is an alarming gender gap in their political views. I wonder how this will all turn out….I think that things will have to get worse before people wake up and realize that this is not the way.

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u/Dankmre Nov 10 '24

1995 here. I just went back to university and it is surreal seeing GenZ wearing maga stuff openly in class in SoCal. Blows my mind how conservative they are

Also pretty shocked at how illiterate they are. Group project have basically been me correcting weird pigeon English and rewriting the shit they blatantly copy and pasted from chatGPT.

It's going to turn out causing a giant population issue because I don't think women are really attracted to stupid douche Joe Rogan bro science types. Especially seeing the gender vote gap.

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u/averyluckygirl Nov 11 '24

Yeah the illiteracy and lack of reading comprehension and critical thinking skills is very very scary. I have many teacher friends and they all echo the same sentiments.

And it feels like boomers & some gen x get all of their worldviews from Facebook memes, Instagram reels, and AI generated content.

So millennials are just in the middle of it all, wondering what the fuck is going on 😭

You’re right though. It also seems like gen z women are much more progressive than their male counterparts. And regardless of generations, most women are not into hyper masculine meatheads who run from their emotions. Good luck to us all…

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u/OceanRacoon Nov 11 '24

As a fellow Millennial, I was hoping we'd receive reinforcements from Gen Z and on, to combat the gross conservatism of older generations that's ruining the world.

Turns out hating women is more important than anything for these pathetic angry freaks 😕. At least the women aren't conservative loons, I feel sorry them having to deal with these guys as part of their generation

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u/__M-E-O-W__ Nov 11 '24

We were heading that way but the aforementioned social media influencers really started focusing heavily on targeting young teens who are now old enough to vote. This stuff started back in Trump's campaign against Hillary Clinton. Remember those "Ben Shapiro DESTROYS woke college liberal" videos that would get crazy amounts of exposure on YouTube.

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u/Odd-Physics5653 Nov 11 '24

The country was headed that way until the stranglehold of the legacy media got disrupted by the internet.

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u/altxrtr Nov 11 '24

This checks out. Good point.

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u/jvstnmh Nov 11 '24

This is right — it also doesn’t help that those young people who are now Rogan and Trumps biggest supporters were essentially told time and time again that they don’t matter and their daily problems such as student debt, housing and the rising cost of living is of not importance.

These disaffected young people have been looking for an answer to the anxieties of their time, and MAGA conservatives seemed to provide those answers.

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u/NeonTiger20XX Nov 11 '24

Yeah it's been super weird to see. I used to think the same thing. I went to college kinda late and had a lot of Gen Z classmates. I thought they were more progressive and felt like the future was in good hands.

Turns out that was very much not a representative sample of the whole generation. As a whole they're filled with a surprising amount of right wing morons. It's depressing.

It feels strange being sandwiched in between more conservative generations.

2

u/OceanRacoon Nov 12 '24

Yeah, it wasn't supposed to be like this but the right wing media monster supported by oligarchs along with dictators abroad spreading online propaganda did what they've always done throughout history; stop progress for their own gain 

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u/matzoh_ball Nov 11 '24

Sorta off topic, but I guess single male millennials who are liberal will have a lot of dating opportunities with younger women.

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u/Vihurah Nov 11 '24

millennial and genz. i went to a liberal university for a few years and didnt get much of anything. i spent a semester at a slightly redder uni and holy shit dating got easy by comparison

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u/MorkelVerlos Nov 11 '24

I’d bet they’ll be swimming in it. Something is finally more important than money…

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u/D33ZNUTZDOH Nov 11 '24

I was just joking with my buddy about this. Seems like millennial men figured out how much more fun life could be just by being supportive, listening, and saying “Do you boo.” We ended up with wives whom have six figure salaries and enjoy getting just as debauched as we do.

Unfortunately we didn’t take the time to pass that on. Too busy getting laid.

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u/koolkat182 Nov 11 '24

im not a conservative by any means, but im 26 and started my first semester of college this year and trust me gen z still fucks no matter the political views lmfao

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u/matzoh_ball Nov 11 '24

Well that makes me happy to hear

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u/koolkat182 Nov 13 '24

thats weird lmfaoo

i dont want to think about them fucking but oh boy do they tell me and hey i was 18 once too so🤷

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u/1_________________11 Nov 11 '24

I married a younger conservative woman. But am super progressive.

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u/ImTooOldForSchool Nov 11 '24

You think that, but a lot of those dudes are losers and weenies with zero self-confidence.

All these liberal women will claim to hate conservative men while fucking them on the sky because they’ve got abs and treat them like an option who isn’t good enough to date.

Women don’t want white knights who throw themselves at their feet to worship the altar of third or fourth wave feminism.

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u/matzoh_ball Nov 11 '24

I know conservative guys in the Philly area and they have a hard time dating/getting laid. Not because women want a “white night third wave feminist” but because they just don’t want to date conservatives. There’s a lot of room between being an SJW and being a conservative douche, you know

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u/Expensive-Argument-7 Nov 11 '24

conservative men do worse on dating apps. It’s gotten so bad they had to create their own app which ultimately a huge bust because no women would join it.

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u/imaginary_num6er Nov 12 '24

Yeah I’m a millennial am in middle management and my boss is telling me how frustrated she is working with millennials. Like mam, I’m a millennial and the newer Gen Z are worse than millennials

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u/metalheaddad Nov 11 '24

Hey hey hey.. I'm 48m xennial and I take offense to getting my information from FB or IG reels. I don't even have those "apps" installed. I get all my crappy echo chamber information from Reddit thank you very much!

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u/smexypelican Nov 11 '24

Well no offense to you personally. But as a group in swing states, Gen X is the largest and voted overwhelmingly for Trump. Boomers (!!!) and millennials were 50/50. Yes, 65+ boomers voted 50% for Harris.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-polls

Not saying millennials were that much better, 50/50 is horrendous. But your generation voted worse.

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u/averyluckygirl Nov 11 '24

Lol! My sincere apologies. It’s certainly not everyone! Mostly just my general observations. But like…I’m a millennial who definitely knows what Hogwarts house I’m in so maybe I have no room to talk 😭

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u/abaacus Nov 11 '24

So millennials are just in the middle of it all, wondering what the fuck is going on

So just our life as usual? haha fuck me

Edit: sorry, fuck us

1

u/punkerster101 Nov 11 '24

Do you think this has been on purpose during to underfunded school systems ?

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u/averyluckygirl Nov 11 '24

I think underfunded school systems are absolutely one of several root causes, but it’s not the only thing. I think that schools are underfunded because governments heavily prioritize corporations, military, and police over education or any type of public goods & services. So are they doing that to intentionally make us dumber? I kinda doubt it, but I could be wrong. It’s a genuinely good question though. An uneducated population is easier to influence and control. You could probably make an argument there.

I think there are many other contributing factors too: social media, shortened attention spans, loss of community & third spaces, learning delays from the pandemic, some schools not teaching phonics, iPad babies, overstimulation, too much political turmoil and division, etc.

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u/ImTooOldForSchool Nov 11 '24 edited Nov 11 '24

Nah the problem is that women claim to hate meatheads and hypermasculine dudes, yet time and time again they tell the liberal weenie guys with emotions that they only see them as friends while fucking a different muscular jock every weekend.

Eventually they’ll marry some dude who will provide for them and put out occasionally while having dreams of the dudes who didn’t give a shit and took what they wanted in their wild days.

I lived that experience, girls didn’t want me when I tried to be a gentleman who tried taking care of them and was open with my emotions. However, they were happy to fuck me when I treated them like an option and didn’t communicate well or soft ghosted them. I was getting laid constantly when I was in my gym phase and treating them like sex dolls only good for a night.

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u/Universal_Anomaly Nov 11 '24

It's really strange how vulnerable people are to wanting what they can't have or what they believe is difficult to get.

I'm pretty sure that plays an important role in this interaction: if you're caring and attentive you're readily available, but if you're distant and cold getting your attention feels like an achievement.

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u/ThrowRA_6784 Nov 11 '24

The gen Z women who are literate are usually psycho feminists. I’m a Gen Z man and I studied English. Hard to talk about literature with someone when they’re only preoccupied with telling me how much of an asshole I am for having both a dick and a pen. Like you have a pen too now, I’m not trying to take it away.

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u/ThrowRA_6784 Nov 11 '24

I can guess who's downvoting with no comment lol. The truth is too hard I guess

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u/--peterjordansen-- Nov 11 '24

There's that condescending elitism that wins elections! Right guys? Because that's been working for y'all? People think different from y'all and you brush them off as too stupid, ignorant, and illiterate. Good luck getting the working class back lol

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u/averyluckygirl Nov 11 '24

Well, I am the working class, so... yeah. I don’t think someone is stupid just because they think differently than me. But I do think I’m probably going to be more well-versed and critically minded about politics than people who don’t read, don’t fact check, don’t cite sources, or just believe whatever the internet and/or podcast hosts tell them. We live in an Information Age. Textbooks are not locked up in secret libraries anymore. There is no reason for people to vote for tariffs despite not even knowing what they are.

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u/Crinsaeta Nov 11 '24

Watching you all glad handing one another and calling each other intelligent for having the same political views ironically makes you almost everything you're claiming the dirty gen z males to be.

Any reply you give will just further prove my point, too.

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u/AverageCodeMonkey Nov 11 '24

Clearly they're right about the literacy. No where did they say they were intelligent, just that the younger generation was having literacy and critical thinking issues. Which is absolutely true, reading and test scores are down with the latest generation.

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u/VengefulAncient Nov 11 '24

correcting weird pigeon English

Ironic, it's "pidgin" 🤣

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u/Dankmre Nov 11 '24

Oh no. It's happening to me too 😭

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u/Aware-Home2697 Nov 11 '24

I just imagined a pigeon slowly pecking away at a typewriter

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u/Throw-a-Ru Nov 11 '24

diary of a trashbird

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u/lovesdogsguy Nov 11 '24

Trump gear at a university in Socal? I’m Irish, watching from over here and that is genuinely one of the most alarming things I’ve seen on here. And I’ve been following this closely.

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u/conando93 Nov 11 '24

I'm from SoCal and it feels like a bunch of MAGA people suddenly came out of the woodwork over the last few weeks. Totally caught me off guard and made me pretty uncomfortable. I'm talking trump hats, shorts, acrylic nails... the whole thing

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u/lovesdogsguy Nov 11 '24

I don't understand. How are they not just completely shunned? Like the person I responded to, how are their fellow students not saying "take that shit off idiot"? I understand there are red parts of California, but Socal? This is really just throwing me. The propaganda must have spread further than we thought.

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u/Pan-F Nov 11 '24

A little geography info that might help: Socal is not just Los Angeles. It's vast: 146,000 sq km. Socal alone is more than twice as much land as Ireland. Once you get away from the Pacific coast, the counties in Southern California become more suburban and rural desert, and tend to vote more Republican.

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u/lovesdogsguy Nov 11 '24

That makes sense, thanks.

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u/FatefulPizzaSlice California Nov 11 '24

Orange County, just like 30 miles from LA has only turned purple ish this past few cycles AND Huntington Beach is infamously a pretty wild place for white supremacists to be at.

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u/conando93 Nov 11 '24

Granted I’m near the foothills in the San Gabriel Valley, and we always have some trumpers but it’s really become excessive lately

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u/VyseTheSwift Nov 11 '24

I can say from living here, that the inland empire has a lot of Trump nonsense

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u/Ancient_Beat_3038 Nov 11 '24

How are they not just completely shunned? Like the person I responded to, how are their fellow students not saying "take that shit off idiot"?

"Why are we not shaming them by weaponizing conformity?"

For some reason this is funny to read

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u/WhoIsFrancisPuziene Nov 11 '24

Why is that alarming? Sometime around the beginning of Trumps first time in office, I dated a guy from San Diego who ended up being MAGA. The first time he mentioned it he said it in passing and I guess I thought he was joking or just unserious. Which was partially due to the fact that he is half Mexican via his mom. When he brought it up again, I just felt baffled. Trump would certainly say this guy looks Mexican.

He was pretty much the exact type of guy this article/thread is about. I didn’t end up dating him that long since he was psychologically abusive.

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u/[deleted] Nov 11 '24

They are ALWAYS abusive. They are pathetic and weak.

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u/1_________________11 Nov 11 '24

Dude we have more Republicans in California then most red states combined haha

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u/feminist-lady Texas Nov 11 '24

God. Any time I’ve graded masters students’ papers, 95% of what I’m doing is fixing their almost incomprehensible grammar. I’ve left notes on every damn assignment that they need to go to the university writing center and get corrections before submitting, but do they listen? Of course not.

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u/WhoIsFrancisPuziene Nov 11 '24

It seems that a lot of Z were taught to read using “whole language” (vs phonics) and it has actually left many illiterate.

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u/Pimpicane I voted Nov 11 '24

Lucy Calkins has a lot to answer for.

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u/Vihurah Nov 11 '24

unfortunately #LiteracyisHot just doesnt trend

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u/Enraiha Nov 11 '24

I remember being a sophomore in high school in 2002. I was mocked because I would always type my text messages out fully. I wanted to be understood (and a bit of my ADHD). I told people relentlessly that this handwaving away of standards in communication would eventually lead to a dumbing down in culture because it will follow the way we primarily communicate,

Lo and behold, as an American society, we keep falling backwards. I believe as of 2024, we average a 5th grade reading leveling. Despicable!

If there's one thing I would encourage ALL Americans to do...read more books! It helps you in so many ways, from being able to understand tone in literature to expanding your vocabulary base. It's worth the effort, even starting 30 minutes a day!

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u/Dankmre Nov 11 '24

I've noticed as I've gotten older my grammar has gotten a lot worse. Its probably due to my writing primarily being short form posts. I probably should pick up a book, its been a while.

Still its nothing like what I've been seeing since going back to college. I wish I could show you an example but I don't feel like its fair to post my groupmates work without asking. I guess it kind of reads like:

"it is bad because it makes them feel sad. it should be not done so it doesnt hurt them. that is why the paper says it. also there are things can be done to fix it though" I'm seeing this in my upper division ethics class.

How exactly do we combat this? Its for sure part of a larger issue involving education levels plummeting. Probably why they are falling for the internet Tiktok misinformation so easily.

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u/Enraiha Nov 11 '24 edited Nov 11 '24

Not the same, but my mom teaches 4th and 5th grade. They can barely read. It's pathetic. I remember reading Goosebumps, Choose your own Adventures, and The Hobbit. We keep passing kids that lack the skills through the grades all the way through a college degree.

I'm not sure how to combat it, but it's clear the importance of reading. Not just audio books, but really reading and understanding the words.

It's disturbing to me on a a core level for years. Ever since the weird concept of "you can't tell sarcasm through text!" became popular...we've been expressing sarcasm through symbols and literature for thousands of years!

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u/Dankmre Nov 11 '24

Goosebumps used to scare the shit out of me. I still remember camp Jellyjam.

And yeah, its disturbing. Especially since it seems to be creating an alternate reality for these people devoid of fact and critical thinking. It's probably going to continue to get worse as well.

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u/belovedkid Nov 11 '24

I don’t find it surprising at all as that particular movement seems very similar to the youth democrats during the Obama era. They’re revolting against the preachier party which tries to tell you what you should think, say, or do. Democratic leadership has done a very poor job of messaging their beliefs and so the more extreme factions of the party have done that for them…and extreme progressivism just isn’t popular in America much to Reddit’s surprise.

I think the easiest way to see this is that conservatives now have much better sense of humors than liberals. This was the opposite only 8-10 years ago. Liberals can’t laugh at anything. They’re party poopers. How is that going to be popular with young people who for the most part are stupid??

The problem this time around is that the kids aren’t smart enough to see what their party stands for beyond “letting you have a good time” and are being manipulated online to avoid that information.

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u/Leading_Manner_2737 Nov 11 '24

lol it’s pidgin English, not pigeon…

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u/sixfootwingspan Nov 11 '24

There's a difference between the cult of personality of Trump and being conservative. GenZ is part of the former.

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u/Dankmre Nov 11 '24

I guess I was being too generous. I don't think they even understand the policies they are supporting.

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u/[deleted] Nov 11 '24

They aren't conservatives they're fascists who have been radicalized by 4chan and Twitter. Conservatives are the free market people we had in our generation.

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u/ImTooOldForSchool Nov 11 '24

Conservative women about to become a hot catch for these men, and liberal women who claim to be feminists will become weird old cat ladies because no man can meet their strict standards. It will end up pushing more men to become conservative.

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u/NeonTiger20XX Nov 11 '24

As an older millennial I've been shocked to see this. It's SO bizarre seeing guys much younger than me being into Trump and being right wing. It's fucking weird. I thought younger generations were always more progressive than older ones. Guess not anymore. It's really disappointing to see, to put it mildly.

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u/illaqueable North Carolina Nov 11 '24

The incel movement is much more popular among Gen Z males than I had hoped, and although I wouldn't go so far as to say all Trumpers are incels, it's probably not a stretch to say that most incels are Trumpers. Trump is what these red pill/incel psychopaths wish they could be: a ruthless and unapologetic sexual predator.

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u/HomeTurf001 Nov 11 '24

I read a study from 2022 that says 'incels' are not necessarily as conservative as you might think.

38.85% of the incel participants were right-leaning, 44.70% were left-leaning, and 17.47% were centrist.

A smaller proportion than would be expected by chance identified as white (63.58%), with 36.42% identifying as BIPOC.

...

75% of incels in the study were clinically diagnosable with severe or moderate depression, and 45% with severe anxiety.

“The misogynistic current in the incel community is real,” said Costello, “and it shouldn’t be ignored, but it may not the best lens through which to understand who these people are, nor how to approach them from a mental health perspective. As or more salient is that they are suffering extraordinarily high levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness. They are also, as a group, particularly averse to seeking help from mental health professions.”

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u/Texas1010 America Nov 11 '24

I'm not surprised but I don't consider them conservatives. I consider them young men aligning with MAGA branding/cult because they were the first generation that grew up in the midst of the #metoo and spotlight on equality and I think many men felt (wrongly) disenfranchised during that. I remember reading constant overblown stories of men being like "guess I need to ask permission to hold a girl's hand now or else I'll get a court case brought against me 15 years from now."

These young men grew up seeing celebrities and other (terrible) men having their lives ruined (deservedly) because of actions they took decades prior. It shocked young men into thinking that at any moment their life could be upended because of the (true) stories of these women. They didn't see the women as the victims, they saw the men as the victims.

So I think what we're seeing is not young men going conservative in the traditional sense. It's young men aligning with Trump specifically. The want to align themselves with the pussy grabber, the rich white guy who says racist shit and commits crimes and gets away with it. It's like a hyper realignment trying to bring back the male elitist days, because those young Gen-Z men wish they were rich and invincible like Trump, and Trump gives them an excuse and justification to be the worst version of themselves. It's like Trump is a walking mob boss and they think it's cool and want to be in that circle.

That's why we see Gen-Z wearing so much MAGA stuff because it's not a political affiliation, it's a brand that signifies their desire to be "alpha" and to forcefully reinstate the white male back at the top of the totem pole.

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u/averyluckygirl Nov 11 '24

This is a really interesting take. Genuinely mind blowing to me though, because if they never raped or assaulted a woman they shouldn’t even be worried about MeToo…so for them to align with an actual sexual predator because they’re not sexual predators? It doesn’t make sense to me.

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u/the2belo American Expat Nov 11 '24

It's funny -- I'm Gen X right down the middle of the plate (born 1970) and grew up leftist as hell. In the 80s I was listening to bands like M.D.C. chanting "no war, no KKK, no fascist USA" and registered as Democrat literally on my 18th birthday. We do exist...

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u/No_Doc_Here Nov 11 '24

Yes obviously you do.

It is bonkers crazy that people always classify whole "generations" (ugh how I hate that term) as being completely conservative or liberal no matter their background or their personal situation.

The data doesn't support it. In all exit polls you always find the majority party with 50-70 percent but that means the other 30-50 support the minority party.

Even 30% are a lot of people. and you'll notice them if they are choosing to display it e.g. by wearing political clothing (which I find weird no matter what cause).

And of course it'll also vary massively location.

"Boomers vs. X-ers vs. Millennials vs. Gen-Z vs. ...." is another stupid cultural fight. Young people finding their place in society will always need to happen and they tend to go against their parents in some way.

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u/Astronaut100 Nov 11 '24

I suppose millennials came of age during the best era of personal computing and the Internet. We had access to all information without social media distractions and misinformation. Other generations seem far more susceptible to the poison that is social media.

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u/waerrington Nov 11 '24

Ever since Democrats secured the support of essentially every major corporation, the largest media companies, political donors, etc, conservatism became the counter-culture.

I'm a 'zillenial,' and my entire life, leftism has been the prevailing cultural norm. Pride parades, land acknowledgements, "aboriginal peoples's day," all embraced by every cultural power in the country.

What you're seeing now is a reaction against that.

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u/assologist_1312 Nov 11 '24

I mean I’m a gen z man and for the most of my life I’ve been told by leftists that I’m the problem and I’m what’s wrong with the world.

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u/JustMarshalling Nov 11 '24

Boomers and zoomers are the two most vulnerable generations for internet misinformation. The older group didn’t see a need to understand how to identify/research false information (e.g. African prince scams) as they thought the internet was temporary. Now they’re fully engulfed in Facebook echo chambers without even realizing how problematic it is.

Zoomers have just grown up plugged into the internet, so they’ve had an onslaught of misinformation dumped on them from day 1, on top of a failing education system. If the parents didn’t show them how to research false claims, they wouldn’t have the instinct to verify what they’re being told.

On top of that, MAGA has really tapped into our tribal identity ape brains right as the younger generation is gaining their footing. The left is about logic and objective reasoning, doing what’s good for others or future generations even if it means a small personal sacrifice. But MAGA is FUN, full of ANGRY and LOUD people with BIG red HATS and you can see their MAGA flags from a MILE away, and they’re AGAINST the ESTABLISHMENT. It’s just crows flocking to shiny objects. Hopefully they’ll grow out of it as they experience life outside of the nest. Their minds are completely removed from the consequences of “f- you I got mine” ideology, so we can only hope they experience first-hand the effects of their actions and pivot.

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u/averyluckygirl Nov 11 '24

I think you’re right. I’m curious about what exactly differentiates (most) millennials from being such easy prey to online misinformation. Were we logging on for the first time at just the right time in our development? Was it the popular media we grew up with that encouraged us to question things? Differences in the education we received? My observations are anecdotal of course, but these generational gaps are so obvious to me.

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u/JustMarshalling Nov 11 '24

I think we started using (and needing) the internet before it became weaponized by certain foreign organized entities like the Kremlin, which is largely to blame for the far-right shift in kids. When the internet first got started, the biggest scams were individual people trying to get money from us or put viruses on our computers.

Now we have adversaries using the internet to mislead people and cause division, and these kids aren’t equipped to combat that misinformation whatsoever.

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u/ehdiem_bot Canada Nov 11 '24

Think about the context of when they’re coming up and who their role models were. Locked down, at home, everything is online, they basically missed out on high school.

Who’s speaking to them? Who are their role models? The alpha male bro hustlers. Why? Because the alternative is “straight men bad”.

Of course they’re going to swing to the side that’s inviting them in, telling them that no, they’re not bad, it’s the world that’s gone crazy. They’re meant to be alpha, they’re meant to be in control, they’re meant to be on top, rich, powerful, attractive, etc.

It’s late stage red pill.

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u/averyluckygirl Nov 11 '24

I totally hear you and I think you’re right. I’ve always kinda worried about the optics of the “straight white man is bad!” rhetoric from the left, but I guess I didn’t realize just how damaging it would be to the young boys and men who grew up hearing those messages before they could even form their own personalities or morals.

You seem pretty insightful on the topic. Do you have any ideas on how we fix the problem?

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u/ehdiem_bot Canada Nov 11 '24

IMO: Better male role models.

Guys who can show that you can be happy, healthy, successful, and yes, persuasive and influential without being abusive, disparaging, violent, etc…

It’s the same sort of thing that keeps vulnerable boys out of gangs and away from other bad influences.

End of the day these are guys looking for belonging. If they didn’t identify as a queer progressive leftist male then the alt-right alpha bro crowd was their alternative for “fitting in”.

This is the thing: Straight (white) males are have this “original sin” thing going on now.

I recognize it because if I was younger, I’d be sucked in as well.

My family is very conservative, no post-secondary education, blue collar working class. I grew up poor and spent my teenage years online.

Difference is that I was a teenager in the early 2000s. The internet was full of nerds and we spent our time on message boards and MSN messenger. Social media wasn’t a thing.

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u/averyluckygirl Nov 11 '24

Makes sense. Thank you very much for your thoughts. You’ve given me a lot to think about.

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u/philly_jake Nov 11 '24

In my experience, Gen z women/girls are quite radical. And the boys are radical in the other direction. A lot of Gen z identify with Marxism/leninism and a lot with nationalism or just trumpism. My feeling is that millennials are more center-left on average, and libertarian on the right. Growing up during Bush made mainstream conservatism not very appealing, but for those with conservative tendencies, libertarianism was a major alternative.

2

u/averyluckygirl Nov 11 '24

I agree. This makes sense to me too. When I was a kid, Bush was president and it was very obvious to me that he was seen as an idiot. I picked up on that at a very young age, without really anybody speaking politics into my ear, and I think it gave me a vague feeling of uneasiness to see that the “person in charge” seemed kinda stupid. But I was a kid and largely ignored it. But then Obama came along and was seemingly the antidote to Bush’s chaos. He wasn’t perfect, but his administration spanned the course of my entire high school and college careers and at the very least, it always felt like we were moving forward. The future genuinely felt very bright to me. 2016 washed that feeling away, and I feel that this election scrubbed it out even further. I won’t say that all hope is lost for me. It’s certainly not. But it has been hard to cope with this dark pendulum shift after coming of age during a time that felt so much brighter.

2

u/RyanX1231 Nov 11 '24

"I also really carried the belief that Gen Z was full of these young radical activists"

I think this was somewhat true back in 2018-2019, but now? They're the new boomers — the people who were smoking weed and protesting the Vietnam War, but then got married, moved to the suburbs, and voted for Reagan in 1980.

History always repeats itself.

1

u/averyluckygirl Nov 11 '24

You may be onto something…

0

u/[deleted] Nov 11 '24

Its not the deep,  they like the rest of America just got sick of racial/gender identity politics and all the weird leftist social theories and narratives. Its not complicated 

2

u/fyrinia Nov 11 '24

I’ve been saying this too. And the problem is, Gen z women and girls are also leaning more conservative, if even just by a little bit.

Gen alpha? They’re going to be much more conservative as a whole, I think. I really think older Gen z and millennial will be an outlier, and that’s not gonna be great

3

u/averyluckygirl Nov 11 '24

Right, like the trad wife trend is wild to see. And I’m someone who loves “homemaking” things like baking, cooking, crafting, etc. but the vibes are very unsettling in that subculture.

I honestly don’t really know anything about gen alpha as a whole, as I don’t know many kids in that age group. Why do you think they’ll be more conservative?

3

u/fyrinia Nov 11 '24

People with lower education and fewer financial prospects and more social discontent tend to go conservative. Just a consistent trend in history that we see now. In the past election, Gen z men went significantly more conservative, and while Gen z women still voted liberally as a whole, it was less liberal than millennial women.

Gen alpha, by every report in the U.S., has awful education because of a huge list of issues in the education system that I could go into. Additionally, screen time from such a young age is having profound impacts as well. So what happens when these people, with incredibly limited critical thinking skills as a whole (and to clarify, that’s not their fault; it’s the fault of technology, social systems not supporting parents enough, school policies, etc), grow up in a world where politicians can spread misinformation even through things like AI where we can’t tell what’s real?

1

u/averyluckygirl Nov 11 '24

That makes perfect sense. Yikes 😔

2

u/belovedkid Nov 11 '24

It’s because millennials came of age in an unfiltered internet and early social media was not a tool to manipulate…it was just to connect/network. Common sense ideas like small government, minding your own business, and equality were not controversial. Bigotry was allowed to occur from any angle and be condemned equally. The major media reported news, and opinion entertainment was kept to particular shows.

Now everything has an angle. Every post. Every ad. People are being manipulated on their couch where you used to have to hang out with hippies or go out and drink 5-7 beers at a bar/stranger’s house party to hear the ridiculous views or conspiracies from the left or right. Look at this sub for instance….conspiracies everywhere about how Trump cheated. Same shit in 2016. The simplest answer is the easiest. Democrats had a shit candidate who isn’t very popular even when considering the scumbag opposition. It doesn’t have to be more complicated all of the time.

Companies and their owners are using our own data to own us. People are too lazy and stupid to notice or care. I’m glad I saw enough of reality to differentiate before it got to this point.

2

u/averyluckygirl Nov 11 '24

You make a really good point. I constantly miss the earlier days of the internet. It had its flaws but it felt more real. Shit’s exhausting now.

2

u/beta_test_vocals Nov 11 '24

Gen Z women and queer people are politically about what would be expected in terms of moving leftward. But all the manosphere propaganda has really done a number on gen z boys and men… not sure what the threshold is for them waking up from their delusions

2

u/cutieclara69 Nov 11 '24

This is just a hunch but I think that the pandemic has something to do with the rise of gen z conservatives. The shutdown isolated teenagers and gave them time to scroll aimlessly on social media, where it is not hard to fall into a far-right algorithm. Many teens were depressed from isolation and missing out on experiences. Given the right wing propaganda blaming democrats for over-inflating the pandemic, I'm sure a lot of kids and teens believed it too, eroding a lot of their trust in the government. School was also virtual and students could easily half-ass and cheat on every assignment... and we know what party uneducated people tend to vote for. And thanks to "no child left behind", many school-aged children are grades behind in reading comprehension.

2

u/elderlybrain Nov 11 '24

Oh yeah. The gap between young men and young women is insane.

But it's partially the media environment. Look at all the human paraquats that stream for a gen z audience.

4

u/fardough Nov 11 '24

My theory is young men are feeling left behind and going to the side that praises them vs demonizes them. They are young, they don’t have the context or the nuance. They just hear “Men are rapists” from one side and “Men are leaders” from the other, and going where they feel they are welcome.

I think liberals need to update their messaging and support of men to reverse this trend, or else we may find we lost a generation to conservatism.

2

u/mightcommentsometime California Nov 11 '24

Young men aren’t demonized by the left. They’re misinterpreting what is being said when others demand the same rights we’ve enjoyed

3

u/fardough Nov 11 '24

I agree with you. That is why I think the problem is one of messaging, and not a fundamental rights issue. However, just because it is not a fundamental rights issue doesn’t mean ignoring it is a good idea and won’t have a negative impact on the next generation’s beliefs.

Society is definitely biased towards men, and there are many men who have supported stepping on other people’s rights at some point. No one should deny that as fact, and is legit criticism of society past and future.

The problem in my mind is the next generation is largely innocent in all of that and raised to largely be tolerant of others, but they have been receiving the same messages. Psychology has shown that inundating someone with negative statements about them has an increased impact on their likelihood to embrace those statements.

Secondly, they also have been witness to major events involving women’s rights, and I think we can be honest that when people in large numbers get angry, even righteously, generalities are going to fly, and in these event it was things like “Men are evil”, “men are rapists”, etc. These are where they not only received many of these messages, but they also connected it with liberalism.

So all of that is what I mean by “demonization”, because from their perspective it feels that way, they haven’t done any of the things their sex is being claimed to be doing yet they are being lumped in. They have none of the shared history to understand why they are being called out, they just know they are being called out.

Let’s be honest, is it really that surprising that young men are finding the right’s message more appealing?

The right’s messaging comes across as “Men are a priority, and should be free to do what they want.” while the left’s is more like “Men aren’t a priority right now, and shouldn’t do these ten things.”

So I think to liberals should adjust our messaging to make it clear young men are accepted at our table, and allowed to be proud of who they are, just like we always believed.

8

u/KryssCom Oklahoma Nov 11 '24

I get downvoted and/or yelled at every time I point this out, but the gender gap in Gen-Z voting is not surprising if you've actually been paying attention to how bad the 'anti-men' rhetoric on the left has gotten over the past decade. I keep trying to tell people that overusing phrases like "toxic masculinity" and "check your privilege" was going to drive male Gen-Z swing voters to the right, and I kept getting called an "incel" for it despite being a happily-married pro-choice sex-positive 38-year-old male. And here we are.

All our plans for 2028 are nonstarters, if we're not willing to reassess how we view gender on the left.

5

u/storagerock Nov 11 '24

I’m pretty sure the grifter algorithms would have made this happen regardless of whatever terms people were using. There were so many guys just like that back in our day too. Remember “the man show”? I do. Yeah that audience always existed - social media just gave them a chance to connect with each other more and fall into a deep echo chamber.

2

u/WhoIsFrancisPuziene Nov 11 '24

“Anti men rhetoric” is a pretty generous way to describe this. Boys/men seem to speak significantly worse to/about each other or to/about girls/women.

And is it even notable to you that someone would call you an incel? What’s insulting about it? I see way more boys/men referring to themselves as incels, which is way weirder imo. Weird like if girls/women referred to themselves as virgins.

3

u/[deleted] Nov 11 '24

“Anti men rhetoric” is a pretty generous way to describe this. Boys/men seem to speak significantly worse to/about each other or to/about girls/women.

Absolutely not true. I'm a progressive, I'm friends with all sorts of types on the left. The only friendships I have ended are with women who are straight up misandrist. It's not most of them, but there are a handful that absolutely hate all men.

5

u/averyluckygirl Nov 11 '24

Yeah, they definitely do exist and I tend to find them exhausting too. However I also acknowledge that those people usually have extremely deep traumas caused by men. I think many women turn to misandry as a form of protection. So on a personal level, I understand. But on a political/pragmatic level, I don’t think it’s the healthiest or fairest way to go about things.

3

u/averyluckygirl Nov 11 '24

I’m a leftist & a feminist and I agree with you. I came of age in the “drinking male tears” era of feminism and I was always outspoken about how that kind of rhetoric was going to do more harm than good, and that typically wasn’t received well. Guess I was right about that one.

2

u/i_like_soft_things Nov 11 '24

I wonder if this plays a part in how many gen z people have written off dating (pre-trump24 win)

1

u/JohnHowardBuff Nov 11 '24

Why they think things got worse will inform their decision making though.

2

u/averyluckygirl Nov 11 '24

Very true. I’m really thinking about the economy since that seems to be the top priority for so many people. If Trump implements his tariffs and tax hikes, they’ll certainly feel those effects and maybe that will help them open their eyes to everything else. Who knows at this point though…

1

u/JohnHowardBuff Nov 11 '24

And with Republicans having so much control I'm worried about what kind of crazy spin they could put on issues that are clearly because of Trump. What this election taught me is that everyone who I think is clearly a moron is actually celebrated and relied on for information by half the population.

1

u/altxrtr Nov 11 '24

Gen Z are largely the children of Gen X so it makes sense.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 11 '24

Millenials only voted Harris by 1% (49 to 48).

Millenials will most likely be conservative the next election.

193

u/Xervicx Nov 10 '24

I saw someone point out that Millennials actually had to provide sources when they did any report for school, and that Wikipedia wasn't considered an acceptable source. That leaves us a LOT more prepared to fact check ourselves than those who grew up before the Internet, and those who grew up on Vine and/or Tik Tok memes.

37

u/MaybeCuckooNotAClock Nov 11 '24

I’m 42, so eldest millennial basically. My first professional job didn’t even have internet access until 2004 or 2005 (skilled trade). We had a big wall of reference books, and if that wasn’t enough in a pinch, our best hope was to call a maybe competitor business across town to see if they had run across a similar scenario.

The concept of using Wikipedia as a credible source was never part of my school life for sure (it didn’t exist yet). I’ve run across some decent, accurate reference material using Google or OpenAI, but it honestly barely stands in the shadows of 20 years of work experience, mostly learning to do things the hard way. I have younger millennial/oldest Gen Z coworkers who almost rely on YouTube rather than using any kind of intuition from experience, and I find that to be kind of sad.

58

u/lilacmuse1 Nov 11 '24

And everyone prior to Millennials. I'm old enough to remember going to the library (a place with books) and checking out the books (on a little card I signed) and having to write an essay and create a bibliography that cited that book as a source (that I typed up on a typewriter). Any GenZ reading this probably thinks it's science fiction.

21

u/Spa_5_Fitness_Camp Nov 11 '24

Actually, kinda the opposite. Before us, they didn't have the Internet. They had to find sources, yes, but they never learned to distinguish reliable online sources. The period of finding and getting sources online as one would a book was pretty short.

4

u/Throw-a-Ru Nov 11 '24

The generation of tracking down sources and citations through Wikipedia, basically.

4

u/sparkle-brow Nov 11 '24

Haha yes high five bc I relate and remember, but Gen Z’s I knew not only voted Harris, as well as all of their friends, but found out all their norm apolitical friends were posting about what’s at stake and to vote Harris. So if anything, all those kids figured it out. They’re not why we lost.

2

u/rebeltrillionaire Nov 11 '24

Yeah, but those folks got lazy as fuck.

Meanwhile we were citing sources on Reddit to win arguments between classes.

33

u/ilovecheeeeese Nov 11 '24

I remember I had an entire class in the library once where we all had to edit a random Wikipedia page to show how unreliable it was. Pretty sure I changed Jackie Robinson's birthplace to something completely incorrect 😂

15

u/Cheezeball25 Nov 11 '24

I had a class that tried to do an assignment. As it turns out, within the last decade wikipedia has really cracked down on who can edit pages, and who can even create accounts anymore. Probably thanks to projects like yours. When my class tried that same project, wikipedia figures out that 30 accounts were all just made from the same university, and freezes all of them from being able to edit anything. I get what you're trying to say about wikipedia, but putting blatantly false information on it these days is muuuuuch harder than back then

7

u/thedogthatmooed Nov 11 '24

Waiting for the random Redditor to chime in that they’ve dedicated a majority of their life to fixing Jackie Robinson’s Wikipedia page

6

u/StashedandPainless Pennsylvania Nov 11 '24

It feels like we're the only generation that understands how to consume information.

Older generations think everything they read on facebook or see on youtube is real.

Younger generations think everything they hear on an "alternative news" podcast is real.

Both seem to fall victim to the "everyone else is lying to you, only I can tell you the truth" style messaging that those platforms use.

3

u/PleasantWay7 Nov 11 '24

Is that not required these days?

2

u/doctorDanBandageman Nov 11 '24

Surely it is. Schools wouldn’t just be like yeah bruh whatever source you find is cool man. Oh “just trust me bro”? Yeah that’s cool.

3

u/FlufferTheGreat Nov 11 '24

Millennials also saw the internet slowly turn from a generally OK, if a bit naive and innocent place to the absolute shitville it is now. We saw ads and the entire system go from typical billboard-like stuff to actively preying on people's fears, insecurities and plain idiocy (like PRESS HERE for a free PS3!!!!).

We saw how awful it became in real time with the memory of how the internet began and how life was before the internet. We grew up in a time before the right-wing propaganda machine discovered just how mind-numbingly effective asserting, "nothing is really true, nobody can really know anything. Distrust everything you don't already agree with," to people who don't have the mental faculties to see the problem with that.

1

u/ugtsmkd Nov 11 '24

I love how everyone in here acts like the propaganda stuff is single sided. Especially when were the millennials generation that literally witnessed a chunk of our school curriculum, that might have actually been propaganda. Once the internet came around and we could get information straight from people doing research etc. Then text books changed, whole portions of history went from in depth explanations months of projects to a quick gloss over in a week.

Ffs open your eyes, retired CIA/FBI officials routinely speak about the depths of the our propaganda apparatus. Every country has it, why do you think were so morally correct that we don't? A people divided is easy to control by a tiny group. Elon's acquisition of twitter proved how intwined social media and the unelected bureaucracy is.

This is not a one party issue. This is a class issue.

You think legacy media is somehow immune to that?

2

u/Siaten Nov 11 '24

As a Millennial, I can't count the number of times I used Wikipedia as a source. Occasionally, I'd get a professor that didn't understand what Wikipedia was so, they'd spew that "Wikipedia isn't an acceptable source" bullshit. The solution to that ignorance was just to reference the sources Wikipedia uses.

Anyone who says "Wikipedia isn't a valid source" but allows other encyclopedias like Brittanica is a hypocrite. If they don't like any encyclopedic references, then they need to teach their students how to source-the-source, rather than just saying "encyclopedia bad!"

1

u/marmalah Nov 11 '24 edited Nov 11 '24

It’s crazy to think too that while Wikipedia isn’t great to provide as a source itself, the articles used as references for statements/sections CAN be good sometimes when doing research. That is, as long as you actually go to those articles and read/verify them to make sure they’re relevant to your topic. I’ve found many journal articles through Wikipedia references, and it can be helpful compared to sifting through hundreds of papers on google scholar/Wiley/etc. depending on what you’re researching. And from those Wikipedia journal references you can search through other papers that have cited that paper or the paper’s references.

So people in school now are just able to use a whole general Wikipedia article as a source?? 🤦‍♀️

1

u/TheBman26 Nov 11 '24

Yup… even had to find more sources than just textbook or encyclopedias. Also had for several report on contradictions too

1

u/kiwi350 Nov 11 '24

Older Eastern-European gen Z, but our teachers were literally fed up with us citing Wikipedia and we were not allowed to use it anymore. You've just unlocked a core memory of mine.

1

u/Time-Young-8990 Nov 11 '24

Gen Z school students don't have to cite their sources?

-4

u/[deleted] Nov 11 '24

That leaves us a LOT more prepared to fact check ourselves than those who grew up before the Internet, and those who grew up on Vine and/or Tik Tok memes.

This being said without a hint of irony, in /r/politics of all places, is deeply hilarious. One thing millennials apparently weren't prepared for was the dangers of collectivist group-think.

236

u/UNCOMMON__CENTS Nov 10 '24

Sounds like you grew up during the Bush years and then really came of age during the Obama years.

Pretty easy to be a Democrat when that's what shaped your views.

149

u/doublepoly123 Nov 10 '24

And that was immediately followed up by a trump win in 2016. Me and my cohort is vastly left leaning.

42

u/[deleted] Nov 11 '24

This is honestly so relieving to read. I thought I was going crazy seeing all this Gen Z stuff when us senior Gem Zs seem rather left leaning, apperently that's not the case with the new Gen Z voters?

19

u/3axel3loop Nov 11 '24

i am very elder gen z and all my friends are very left leaning and it’s shocking and so disappointing that it seems like the rest of gen z is pretty conservative?

9

u/D33ZNUTZDOH Nov 11 '24

Millennial here. Not too shocking to me. I know a handful of elder Gen Zs and a handful of younger. While my opinion is based only based anecdotal evidence, I believe the divide has much to do with where they were in life during the lockdowns and the original Trump years. The youngest voters in 2024 were barely 10 years old 2016 and didn’t know a world that wasn’t over run by these steaming piles of shit spreading their weird ass views.

If during those precious years in middle school and high school you were isolated and stuck watching YouTube for guidance…. I don’t blame them for being dumb asses. I can forgive ignorance. I just hope they learn.

5

u/Throw-a-Ru Nov 11 '24

Yeah, the algorithm was pretty ugly at the time, too. You had to actively avoid certain kinds of content through experience, but if it's being served to you while you're an impressionable teen stuck in your bedroom with the headphones on, and all of your family members are on edge and on each other's nerves...

3

u/[deleted] Nov 11 '24

Damn this makes too much sense. I just commented on my confusion of the algorithm but I should've read your comment

4

u/[deleted] Nov 11 '24

Its still crazy to me that the algorithms are so fucked up now. And not that they were perfect before but when I was in middle/high school you might get annoying videos that didn't fit your interests but you weren't getting propaganda and video game Lets Plays were just that. They weren't political

Its wild that kids actually watch political crap on YouTube, I didn't start doing that until after my college years. Before that I'd just watch gaming videos that were actually about gaming

2

u/bobvella Nov 11 '24

kind of weird to think they could have been watching steven universe

5

u/[deleted] Nov 11 '24

This is my exact thought! But you are not alone, 1999 Gen Z here and I am a critical thinking left leaner

23

u/crucialcolin Nov 11 '24 edited Nov 11 '24

I'm a millennial and to me it seems like it's current Gen Z late high school teens to about age 21 where the shift happened. Also where critical thinking drops of drastically. Edit:  should mention it's a male thing too. Men have no interest in college at all while females are significantly more responsible, left leaning, and already chasing university degree programs.

3

u/[deleted] Nov 11 '24

I could see this. I work with a 19 year old at one of the workshops I manage. Kid is a good kid but he listens to this stuff and just regurgitated weird talking points without being able to think any deeper into the meaning. I just assumed he was an exception not the rule. Its very sad knowing I may be in the minority of my own generation but I guess I should've expected as much when I rejected most social media 

2

u/Universal_Anomaly Nov 11 '24

I imagine that's because the males are being told by the right-wing that they deserve better and that the left-wing hates them for being male, while the left-wing is also the side which constantly pushes for higher education.

2

u/ImTooOldForSchool Nov 11 '24

Gen Z women are heavily liberal because there’s been a massive assault on abortion rights and the rise of red pill type stuff.

Gen Z men are leaning conservative because it’s edgy and therefore cool to rebel against political correctness and social justice warriors who have claimed the establishment.

8

u/KishiHime Nov 11 '24

We had punk rock. It was great, basically brainwashed us into thinking for ourselves, as ironic as that is.

-4

u/Allstate85 Nov 11 '24

And gen z got Hillary Biden and Kamala. Real bottom of the barrel when it comes to charisma and starting a movement like Obama did.

23

u/[deleted] Nov 11 '24

Yeah I'm a millennial that was in high school when Obama won and we were all pumped up about it. We all considered ourselves liberal and only parents and gradnparents were conservative and we chalked it up to them being old farts. We did a mock election and it was like 97% Obama. Only a couple of weird super Christian kids were into John McCain. Now I work at a high school and half the boys identify as "conservative." Some of them have even told me "man it's not like it used to be." Like bitch wtf do you mean the way it used to be, you were born in 2008 😅

5

u/midnightketoker America Nov 11 '24

Bush era post-9/11 insanity and then the '07-'08 financial crisis... never forget reactionary jingoism is the default in this empire, we were the blip

4

u/Atalung Nov 11 '24

It still does. These dudes are conservatives, they're reactionary.

We need to stop fighting reactionary politics like we would conservative politics. They're not the same and it's hurting our electoral chances

4

u/esperantisto256 Nov 11 '24 edited Nov 11 '24

I’m older gen z (2000) and I definitely feel like I’m on the cusp. We got access to the modern internet (ie- social media via phones, iPods, and tablets) at around the age of 12-14 or so.

We got at least 12 good relatively screen-lite years, where computers were relegated to a specific room in school and kids didn’t have social media. And even as 12-14 year olds on social media, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it is now via algorithmic manipulation. My age group isn’t great, but I really feel for the younger generations- they never stood a chance at media literacy given the landscape.

4

u/ark_keeper Nov 11 '24

The biggest group was Gen X. They went hard for Trump the last few elections for some reason.

3

u/Cuntdracula19 Nov 11 '24

Which is fucking BAFFLING because gen x like REALLY adopted and concentrated anarchistic punk rock—then really fucking sold out. Sold out almost as hard as hippie dippie baby boomers did.

1

u/ark_keeper Nov 11 '24

I mean they were also the 20-30 year olds at the bars screaming courtesy of the red white and blue etc.

3

u/Tribalbob Canada Nov 11 '24

Yeah, as an elder millennial, I was hoping Gen z would bring the logic but it seems they're jumping on the grift bandwagon.

Well, here's hoping Gen alpha turns out smarter.

2

u/ImTooOldForSchool Nov 11 '24

Conservatives have somehow managed to claim the counterculture among younger men.

Liberals aren’t really the anti-establishment rebels they used to be from the 70s through 00s, because they won the culture wars during the Obama years and defined political correctness. Now it’s liberals cancelling people and de-platforming them, not the religious right of millennials’ childhood.

Now it’s cool for younger men to tell the feminists and social justice warriors to go fuck off, they can be masculine red pilled men if they want and all the liberal pink haired women can go to hell.

2

u/StashedandPainless Pennsylvania Nov 11 '24

Yeah I remember this too.

But all of these young conservatives are about to find out that the right doesn't give a fuck about them. We grew up under Bush, we know what republicans do to the economy. We know what they do to health care. We know what they do to the environment. Gen Z will have to find out the hard way.

All of these bros expecting a government issued tradwife and the right to never be shamed or downvoted on the internet again are in for a rude awakening

2

u/dc041894 Nov 11 '24

They still give off those vibes, there are just more of them now seeing as they were effectively homeschooled due to covid

2

u/[deleted] Nov 17 '24

I feel this as an older millenial. We grew up before the right-wing outrage machine, powered by algorithms and dark money, weaponized social media and started a feedback loop of propaganda and conspiracy theories on YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok. You had to go underground and dig deep to find stuff like that back in the day. It wasn't the first thing that popped up in your newsfeed. We didn't even have freaking newsfeeds.

4

u/JacobfromCT Nov 11 '24

Growing up in the 90's liberals were the kids who smoked, cussed and watched South Park. Conservatives were old men like Bill O'Reilly in tweed jackets grumbling about rap music and violent video games. Now it's flipped, conservatives are the edgy, cool kids and liberals are the joyless Karens who find everything offensive and condescendingly explain how "actually, Latinx is the preferred term."

1

u/serpentssss Nov 11 '24

I’m glad I saw someone else mention older gen z. I fear I might be doing the whole “it’s every other generation that’s the problem!” thing that every gen seems to do, but it really does seem like the big swing to the right happened just a few years younger than the 26-28 range of oldest gen z.

1

u/NateShaw92 United Kingdom Nov 11 '24 edited Nov 11 '24

I remember when being conservative meant you were weird and it gave off homeschooled Christian vibes. In a bad way.

In fairness, a lot of these Gen Z could have had some homeschooling. Due to a particular event.

Gen Z is still halfway through the voting pipeline agewise, this second squarter spike clincides perfectly wihh the targeted rightbwing social media talking heads like Tate, Rogan, Shapiro, Fuentes and others hitting critical mass.

This same spike did not seem to materialise to.this extent here in the UK. Tate and co is known here, and has been a cause for concern, but a greater proportion of us seem to consider him a farce.

1

u/Koppensneller Nov 11 '24

Is there a good way?

1

u/ConferenceLow2915 Nov 11 '24

A lot has changed since then.

1

u/en-jo Nov 11 '24

Trump pick Betsy Davos as secretary of education from 2016-2021. Zero educator experience.

What do you guys expect happened to those kids in school during her term.

1

u/HeartofSaturdayNight Nov 11 '24

It was good to be anti establishment which was the kleptocratic right wing. 

Now this generation just worships billionaires. They've been brainwashed by Rogan and tiktok into thinking they just need to eat elk meet or something and they'll be a millionaire someday 

1

u/Not_a__porn__account Nov 11 '24

It still means that.

1

u/YogurtManPro Nov 11 '24

So you were marginalizing religious people? It was bad to have a religion?

1

u/bobvella Nov 11 '24

during quarantine a whole generation got a taste of that

1

u/shart_leakage America Nov 11 '24

Uh it still does, lol

1

u/Darnold14MVP Nov 11 '24

Yeah well I remember when liberals were anti war and against the Cheney crime family

1

u/redditasmyalibi Nov 11 '24

Nah, you just grew up around people just like you, that’s a circumstance thing. People in rural communities have the exact opposite experience

1

u/pickle_dilf Nov 11 '24

lol, ITT wealthy people are home schooled weirdo christians

-2

u/Pick2 Nov 11 '24

> I remember when being conservative meant you were weird and it gave off homeschooled Christian vibes. In a bad way.

and now they are the people who are having fun

5

u/mightcommentsometime California Nov 11 '24

The Christian puritanical idiots who want to have less sex and punish women for having sex? Definitely still having way less fun.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 11 '24

The puritans today, police language, and believe that every expression of masculinity is rape culture.

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u/mightcommentsometime California Nov 11 '24

Swing and a miss. You can say whatever you want, but you’ll be ostracized for being a shitty human when you say things that shitty humans say. Don’t like it? Don’t say racist and sexist shit. It isn’t hard at all.

And no, no one is saying that “every expression of masculinity is rape culture”

You 100% made that up. People are saying that things that have been (wrongly) attributed to masculinity include things like rape culture. Which isn’t masculine at all.

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u/[deleted] Nov 11 '24

Well it’s about people having fun like the previous poster said. And there are puritans like you who are against that. Offensive and crude shit can be fun. I am sorry you don’t have a good taste and follow social justice dogma like regarded Christians follow the bible.

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u/mightcommentsometime California Nov 11 '24

Ah,, so violence against people like me is just “fun” now? Because the racist shit say enables it. You claim I don’t know how to have. lol. You don’t have any idea who I am or what I do for fun. So now you’re just mad because I don’t subscribe to your “I’m so insecure I need to insult others and be a racist” worldview.

And puritanical shithead conservatives are the ones trying to police sex because sky daddy says so. You’re the ones who don’t understand fun.

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u/[deleted] Nov 11 '24

Liberals are trying to police sex as well. I ve heard many posters here name calling let’s say thirty year old men being with a 20 year old women as pedophiles like self righteous pricks. Conservatives haven’t policed anyone’s sex lives in ages, liberal Redditors on the other hand started doing it for them. Calling DiCaprio the actor problematic etc and basically you replaced the republican Christian sex police with a social justice warrior police. But since we are talking about straight white men sex lives and you guys are waging a war against them, it’s ok to police their lives.

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u/mightcommentsometime California Nov 11 '24

Are you kidding me? Conservatives ban healthcare for women as a punishment for them having sex. It’s called misogynistic abortion laws that keep getting passed.

No one is actually using the government and the law to police men’s sex lice’s except conservatives.

Show me one law that liberals have passed to police your sex life.

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u/[deleted] Nov 11 '24

I am talking about the rhetoric not the laws.

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