The current generation “Z”—those now roughly between 13 and 28 years old—is becoming our 21st-century version of the “Lost Generation.” Members of Gen Z are often nicknamed “Zoomers,” a term used to describe young adults who came of age in the era of smartphones, social media, and rapid cultural upheaval.
Males in their teens and 20s are prolonging their adolescence—rarely marrying, not buying a home, not having children, and often not working full-time.
The negative stereotype of a Zoomer is a shiftless man, who plays too many video games. He is too coddled by parents and too afraid to strike out on his own.
Zoomers rarely date supposedly out of fear that they would have to grow up, take charge, and head a household.
Yet the opposite, sympathetic generalization of Gen Z seems more accurate.
All through K-12, young men, particularly white males, have been demonized for their “toxic masculinity” that draws accusations of sexism, racism, and homophobia.
In
college, the majority of students are female. In contrast, white
males—9% to 10% of admittees in recent years at elite schools like
Stanford and the Ivy League—are of no interest to college admission
officers.
So they are tagged not as unique individuals but as superfluous losers of the “wrong” race, gender, or sexual orientation.
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Gen Z men saw themselves scapegoated by professors and society for
the sins of past generations—and on the wrong side of the preposterous
reductionist binary of oppressors and the oppressed.
Traditional
pathways to adulthood—affordable homes, upwardly mobile and secure jobs,
and safe and secure city and suburban living—had mostly vanished amid
overregulation, overtaxation, and underpolicing.
Orthodox and
loud student advocates on campus—climate change, diversity, equity, and
inclusion, the Palestinians—had little to do with getting a job, raising
a family, or buying a house.
During the Joe Biden years, white males mostly stopped enlisting in the military in their accustomed overrepresented numbers.
In
Iraq and Afghanistan, they had died in frontline combat units at twice
their percentages for the demographic. No matter—prior Pentagon DEI
commissars still slandered them as suspects likely to form racist
cabals.
Gen Z males seemed bewildered by women and sex—and often withdrew from dating.
Never
has popular culture so promoted sexually provocative fashions,
semi-nudity, and freewheeling lifestyles, and careers of supposedly
empowered single women.
And never had the rules of dating and sexuality become more retrograde Victorian.
Casual
consensual sex was flashed as cool everywhere on social media. And when
it naturally proved in the real world to be selfish, callous, and
empty, males were almost always exclusively blamed as if they were not
proper Edwardian gentlemen.
Soon, young men feared sexual hookups and promiscuity as avenues to post facto and one-sided charges of harassment—or worse.
For
the half of Generation Z who went to college, tuition had soared,
rising faster than the rate of inflation. Administrators were often more
numerous than faculty. Obsessive fixations with race determined
everything from dorm selections to graduation ceremonies.
Zoomers were mired in enormous student debt.
Yet they soon learned that their gut social science and “studies”
degrees proved nearly worthless. Employers saw such certificates as
neither proof of traditional knowledge nor of any needed specialized
skill set.
Unemployed or half-employed Zoomers then ended up with
unsustainable five-figure student loans, and the insidious interest on
them. Their affluent, left-wing tenured profs, who had once demonized
them as oppressors, could have cared less about their dismal fates.
Add it all up, and Zoomers puzzled their parents. And they found scant guidance from the campus.
Instead,
they sought needed spiritual inspiration from a Jordan Peterson,
entertainment and pragmatic advice from a Joe Rogan, but sometimes toxic
venting from a demagogic, antisemitic Nick Fuentes.
What would shock the lost generation back into the mainstream, barring a war, depression, or natural catastrophe?
One, an end to DEI hectoring and blame-gaming, and a return to class rather than race determining “privilege.”
Two,
some sanity in the war between the sexes. When women represent nearly
60% of undergraduates, why does gender still assure an advantage in
admissions and hiring?
Three, the federal government needs to
stop funding $1.7 trillion in student debt, often for worthless degrees,
and wasting away one’s prime 20s and 30s.
Let universities pledge their endowments to guarantee their own
loans. They should graduate students in four years. And they must slash
the parasitical class of toxic administrative busybodies who cannot
teach but can hector and bully.
Four, society needs to stop granting status on the basis of increasingly meaningless letters and titles after a name.
Skilled
tradesmen like electricians and mechanics are noble professionals. And
their status and compensation should reflect their value to society—far
more so than a bachelor’s degree in a- studies major or years vaporized
in off-and-on college.
Finally, incentivize building homes, rather than overregulating and zoning them into unaffordability.
If the lost Gen Z is not found soon, the result for everyone will not be pretty.
