Gen Z is Quietly Quitting, And why they shouldn’t

There is no shortage of reasons why Gen-Z feel more Lost than any other Generation.

It is easy to blame the election or the economy for disabling an entire generation but this is true across the board, regardless of which generation you were born into. Gen-Z is currently between the ages of 14-29 and they are facing the same challenge that every young adult would – navigating education, choosing a career path and leaving home to discover a world of their own. If this doesn’t sound right… let’s talk about factors real and unique to Gen-Z, not just what you’ve been lead to believe.

Brutal Attack on Free Thought

It is easy to ascribe Gen-Z to lack discipline, religious morals or traditional values. After all, these qualities have so far been the bedrock upon which previous generations built their success. What most don’t realise is that it did not matter if humanity abided by religious ideologies and traditional family values or simply derived a shared sense of meaning and purpose from them, the impact remains the same.

These same traditions have also been the source of the worst crimes committed to humanity. When each generation is born, they are conditioned to the traditional ways and simultaneously confronted with the crimes committed by those very traditions. This creates an internal conflict that forces each generation to choose – to succeed by conforming to tradition and become a Hero, or rebel against a broken and corrupt system and by doing so, become the villain.

You either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain

~ Christopher Nolan

The great irony of our time – villains are now celebrated as heroes. Heroes of previous decades were universally admired such as Muhammad Ali in the 70s, Nelson Mandela in the 80s and Princess Diana in the 90s. This was a time when we celebrated the Greats.

Access to new ways of thinking through books and education meant something.

We are now experiencing the erosion of information, where access to information is controlled, censored and even destroyed. You know this is true when the Freedom of Speech that previous generations so defiantly fought for, is actively reduced to Crime.

Poisoning the Mind

Between the ages of 14-25, the brain is most open and trusting as we leave home and go out to explore the world for ourselves. Far too often this critical window of self-discovery is sabotaged by poisoning the mind with hard drugs, alcohol and excessive partying. Add social media into the mix and you’ve mastered the art of poisoning the mind.

This is also the time when we are most distant from our parents since, most parents are oblivious to the drastic and destabilising changes taking place and the unnoticed thoughts happening inside a young head, that lead to depression, anxiety and substance abuse.

It is no coincidence that the critical window when the brain is most open and trusting is also the time we are the most lost and confused. If you are living reactively and desperately trying to keep it together, it is inevitable that trouble will find you. 

To break free requires a complete reconstruction of the mind to unlock Free Thought. If you want to know how I did it, you can read my book – Hidden World. Unfortunately, despite what anyone will tell you, there is no right way of doing this. You will encounter many false promises but in the end, You must Believe in yourself enough to get out of your own way.

Quite Quitting

When a generation is assaulted with mixed messages, it is only natural to disengage and check out. There are three major ways that messages have been weaponised to render an entire generation obsolete, before they even had a chance to succeed.

1. Doomscroll Paralysis

The internet has become a factory for the manufacture of alarmist messages. Inflation, housing crisis, food shortages, overpopulation, AI driven job loss, climate change, all add up to a generation of mass disengagement.

The internet used to be a place where people went to escape from life’s problems. The evolution of this collective coping strategy, born out of frustration, resentment and pain now exists as the MEME.

The word MEME was initially proposed as cultural transmission of ideas and beliefs as oppose to genetic transmission from parent to offspring. There is no denying the humour and efficiency with which MEMEs communicate. Even short form videos are now derivatives of MEMEs.

By neutralising the shocking state of affairs into jokes, we are disabling any sense of regard, responsibility or action and simply doom scroll to laugh at the absurdity and ease the pain.

Any other generation in the current Gen-Z age bracket would be mortified by this madness and immediately mobilise for social justice. The incoherent resentment in Gen-Z is so great that any mention of world peace is enough to incite the next world war. The “US vs THEM” mentality means that  if Trump were pro-oxygen, people would start suffocating themselves.

Doomscrolling has pioneered a culture that is information poor, reactive and morally underdeveloped. There is no longer a need to develop intelligence when LLMs can do the thinking for you. When we remove intellectual challenges, what need is there to learn, grow and improve, when a choice has been made to not understand?

What is the point when the world Gen-Z was promised – does not exist?

Fortunately, the solution is rather simple. The promised world does indeed exist and has been enjoyed by all generations prior. But this is not where Gen-Z cares to look –  a world outside the internet. If you want to learn more about how to access this rather mythical real world, you can start by watching my video on Digital Minimalism.

2. Collapse of Traditional Roles

The success metrics of previous generations are villainised. Cancel culture will self-combust with outrage at any attempt of even mentioning this, but the demographic that has been hit hardest is Men. There is now a glass ceiling that immobilises Male behaviour, especially in a professional environment.

The best depiction of this is in the Trump-Zelenskyy conversation. Throughout the conversation, Zelenskyy uses manipulation, gaslighting and victimhood tactics, positioning himself as someone who has been wronged. This victimhood culture is glorified and celebrated whereas in previous generations such behaviour was intolerable and immediately shutdown. Trump demonstrates traditional male behaviour simply by cutting through the BS with Righteous Anger. This is how Man traditionally communicate. Regardless of which side you are on, you cannot deny that this is a Masterclass in negotiation. You may not get it now, but a lot of things won’t make sense, at least not until you climb higher up the ranks and are faced with hard decisions.

Direct and decisive communication from Man has been pushed to the fringe to the point where people lose their minds if confronted directly. I experienced this first hand when I spoke directly, without sugarcoating my TEDx talk and got banned for being offensive.

The only way for modern men to survive is to behave like a woman and not upset anyone. This is the unspoken glass ceiling that modern men must navigate. Instead of enjoying the psychological strength that comes from a strong will, modern men have become half breeds –basically women trapped in a men’s bodies.

What’s more concerning is that modern men will fight against masculine qualities as if it were a crime to even exist as a Man. What we are witnessing is a global homogenisation of single-sex behaviour.

The Natural Driver for male motivation was to secure the required resources to qualify for raising a family. Under the current climate, this is no longer true. The dating market is disproportionately skewed towards women and the barrier to entry is so high that it disqualifies 90% of men. What used to be a natural progression of getting a job, getting married, buying a house and having kids has become an impossible task, as each one of these tasks are negatively geared towards Men. This has become the cornerstone of the Doomer Generation that sees little to no reason in engaging in traditional pursuits.

The Extinction of Man, Family and Community has led to the most sinister control mechanism yet – the Erosion of Belonging.

3. Weaponised Belonging

Psychology Today reports a staggering 73% of Gen-Z feeling lonely, with an alarming 30% unsure of how to make friends.

The breakdown of the family unit, instant message instead of in-person connection and making a living online has outcast an entire generation into remote existence. The critical window that defines the formative years of Gen-Z also happened during the height of the stay-at-home crisis. The oldest among Gen-Z was only 23 years old when the world was locked up, leading to an irreversible impact on their social structure.

Cancel culture, in combination with the dilution of Masculinity resulted in digital natives finding unity, support and a sense of belonging in fictitious disorders. The best known example of belonging generated through fictitious disorders was the sudden avalanche of TikTok Tics between 2021-2022, I detail this phenomenon in my TikTok and brain health video linked here.

Blind belonging as a substitute for real connection is nothing new. This duty was initially the domain of religion. The rebellion against religious crusades that defined the colonial era created a monumental gap, sensed simply as the Absence of G0d. The result was an explosion of false religions known more commonly as Woke Culture.

To be clear, religious crusades were the OG of cancel culture and woke culture thrives on the same scare tactics of blind belief through erosion of critical thought. Even traditional institutions who were once the arbiters of truth and reason now actively suppress legitimate points of view. The criminalisation of free speech literally defeats the purpose of “safe spaces”. A soulless, safe and sanitised world where empathy is exploited because people rather keep doing what is wrong than appear to offend anyone.

What we are seeing is psychological warfare at an unprecedented scale. This includes the use of alarmist existential threats to psychologically immobilise, the criminalisation of questioning the authority as a betrayal to group think, using love bombing and hospitality to lure people into a false sense of belonging and the Silent Decent of Man that allows this culture to become self-reinforcing with ZERO pushback.

You have to conform to belong.

Don’t be Afraid.

The only way out is to not be afraid of Truth. Rest assured, there is a movement towards traditional ways. There is a growing interest in older analog technology that is fun and exciting instead of overbearing. There has been a shift on social platforms towards community notes instead of blind censorship. All the lies are being exposed as empty psychological threats that does not warrant your anxiety.

We literally have a meme coin exposing government corruption. How much more ironic does it get? 

Gen-Z is better positioned than any other generation to realise the overcorrection and misgiving of previous generations and how poor morals and standards set us up for failure.

Millennials without a backbone are now paying the price for their mistakes, the good news is it’s not too late for Gen-Z. You have your entire life ahead of you. It’s Your move.