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Gen Z is gonna be the one to do it. Or at least to start it. Millennials are too afraid because of 2008. Word. I fucking get that. I would be freaked out too if when I graduated high school or college the economy collapsed and I couldn’t get a job. And like the last time it happened was the 1930s. The generation below us – screenbabies – who knows. They’re so little right now and I have no idea how they’re going to react when they find out about how capitalism has ruined the world they inherited. But when I see those suckers at a CPK with their eyes crossed in front of an iPad, goo all over their fingers, don’t even know their own fucking name – I’m not too impressed.

Gen Z is the last generation with some sort of comparison point. Some ‘before’ time prior to individual digital devices and the modern internet and all their complements – social media, advanced algorithms, mass surveillance, etc.

I remember when I saw my first iPhone. My friend’s mom had one and she took it out at a community pool to take a photo of us. I was 10 and I slayed.

I also remember when I first downloaded Instagram. I was a second-semester freshman in high school and a late bloomer compared to all my friends who had downloaded it in eighth grade. After making an account, I spent the remainder of the day (which I distinctly recall as a family excursion in Palos Verdes) refreshing my feed to see who had requested to follow me. Head down. Heart racing. Mom’s spaghetti. Foreshadowing baby. That shit sprinkled with some hormones wrought havoc on my mental health for the years that followed. 

I’m not trying to be facetious. Even though I am trying to use the word ‘facetious’ more because I like what it does for my brand. Anyways. That’s one reason I think Gen Z is gonna lead the revolution – we have something to mourn: the ‘before’ times.

Another reason is because of the internet itself. Gen Z has created its own global community, one of shared information, ideas, stories, cultures, etc. via social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Youtube, and Reddit. These forums facilitate exchanges about grappling with the challenges that feel particularly pertinent to a forcefully-matured Gen Z – environmentalism, political activism, inequality, mental health, etc. Trends like thrifting and wearing pimple patches in public may seem trivial but I believe they speak to something larger: a defiance of cultural norms that dictate value, approval, and belonging. 

Gen Z is a generation who acutely feels what has been taken from them: the innocence and carelessness of youth; the promise of increased intergenerational wealth and stability; the well-being of the planet and of themselves; the democracies meant to protect them.

I don’t know enough about Marx (yet) to definitively argue that a Marxist revolution is the only way to overthrow capitalism. To be honest, I can’t really imagine how this is about to go down. Still, I am confident that the time is ripe. Why? Because I know that capitalism – a system of injustice, exploitation, and corruption – serves only a few at the expense of the many and that time is running out. The many have no choice but to fight back. And soon.