The revolution will not be live-streamed

By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff

Gen-Z has the kind of energy, passion, anger and morality that lights rebellions, and most have dreamed of overthrowing fascist governments since their first time reading The Hunger Games. Still, for every Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai fighting for the future, there are a thousand young people sitting in front of cameras passively playing revolutionaries.

Social media has manufactured the image of the perfect protester — someone with a full face of makeup listening to “Fascistnista” by Jessilyn and loudly proclaiming they would have hidden Anne Frank. I won’t condemn them — their hearts are, I think, in the right place — but they’re pretending that making political change and human rights into a cutesy aesthetic will combat the racist, homophobic, sexist, transphobic, misanthropic political faction that is currently hollowing out every level of government.

It won’t. But again, the passion is there.

According to most polls by organizations like Pew Research Center, “Zoomers” overwhelmingly support human rights, same-sex marriage, health care, education… you know, the compassion some people call “liberal commie bullshit.”

 (Those statistics get dragged down by straight-white-Joe-Rogan-loving-male Zoomers who voted for Trump, but the point still stands.)

Despite these intrinsic beliefs, Gen-Z has two massive hurdles to overcome to enact any kind of real change: cynicism and Main Character Syndrome.

Most Gen-Z grew up under former-President Barack Obama, benefiting from Obergefell v. Hodges, the Affordable Care Act, and increased representation for women and people of color in government. Still, Gen-Z’s childhoods were also marred by school shootings, 9/11 and most of Bush Jr.’s choices, and so we came of age in a time of relative prosperity with the simultaneous belief that the U.S. government doesn’t care if its citizens live or die. Donald Trump has only solidified that idea.

This combination of prosperity and defeatism has meant that Gen-Z is too far removed from the Freedom Riders and bra-burners of their grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ generations to know how to organize and too convinced that nothing we do makes a difference to try. The Gen-Z understanding of politics comes from The Hunger Games, Divergent and Harry Potter — fantasies that no doubt build on real-world fears, but nonetheless claim that a chosen few are capable of combatting fascism with nothing but morals and a superficial understanding of politics. If only it were that easy.

As inspiring as those books and films are, they aren’t exactly how-to manuals. That hasn’t stopped Zoomers from casting themselves as the main characters and taking to TikTok to chatter mindlessly and invent useless codes, as if fun slogans are enough to stop Nazis.

The Zoomers’ version of the Enigma Machine is tagging posts with the phrase “Cute winter boots” to hide from social media algorithms that might hide or censor anti-Trump posts. If they’re smart, the content creator will then talk about resources people can use to petition the government, organizations they can volunteer with, or ways to hamper U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents attempting to deport friends and neighbors.

That’s why the code exists; after all, “winter boots” protect against I.C.E.

Most people who use the “secret” code make superficial videos, nullifying any potential benefit so they can make vague political statements that signal to their followers they’re on the “right side of history,” and apparently free them from the obligation of actually working toward a better future.

Social media has been used as a tool to spread ideas, organize protests and connect with like-minded people, but Gen-Z needs to learn that the revolution will not be live-streamed. The people filming themselves writing messages on $1 bills are not making meaningful contributions to combat hate and protect human rights — in fact, most of them are inadvertently stripping themselves of the ability to help. Making a post about how they’ll smuggle pregnant people to pro-choice states or hide immigrants in their homes puts anyone who comes to them for help in jeopardy. Like a secret code everyone knows, it does little more than make the person feel included with little to no effort on their part.

That doesn’t mean TikToks of young people singing along to “United Health” by Jesse Welles can’t be useful. Take these showy, half-baked posts as symbols — they have meaning, but only if we give it to them. Gen-Z should use the emotions these posts inspire to incite action. Real change will come from the people who put their phones down to raise up their signs, their voices and their fellow human beings.