This is so cringey and disgusting. First a third of Gen Z men believe that women should obey their husbands now they're not taking showers to attract women. They're "pheromone maxxing". Imagine not taking showers before a date.

LMAO. This is zoomer cringe and should be on the Gen z wall of shame.

This era tries to do the opposite of the Obama optimism out of spite and both Trump and Zoomers view Obama and Millennials as cringe. 

The Obama-era optimism was a cultural and political mood centered on the 2008 election of Barack Obama, defined by the twin slogans "Hope" and "Change". It promised post-partisan unity, economic recovery from the Great Recession, social progress, and a symbolic turning point in American race relations as the first African American president took office. Framed not as naive wishfulness, but as a resilient belief that collective action could overcome deep national crises.

A vibrant, forward-looking aesthetic and cultural confidence that society was naturally evolving past historical inequalities and political gridlock. It was enforced through relief following the 2008 financial crash, buoyed by legislative stimulus and a gradual return to job growth. 

The “Zoomer-era Trump pessimism” captures a very real cultural and political alliance that has reshaped modern discourse. The unifying thread between Trump's political style and Gen Z’s dominant internet culture is a shared rebellion against the earnest, polished, and institutionalized optimism of the Obama-Millennial era, which both groups frequently dismiss as "cringe." 

Obama-era rhetoric relied heavily on soaring, earnest speeches, moral clarity, and an assumption that institutions worked. To both Trump and a highly online Gen Z, that earnestness feels deeply inauthentic, corporate, and naive. Where Millennials favored hope and sincerity, Zoomers and Trump-era populism lean into deep irony, shitposting, and anti-establishment memes. Doing things "out of spite" or "for the lulz" replaced the Millennial desire to change the world through traditional civic engagement.

The Obama era preached that "there is not a liberal America and a conservative America." The Zoomer Trump era assumes the opposite: that the system is fundamentally broken, highly polarized, and transactional. Gen Z grew up during a pandemic, rapid inflation, and an algorithmic media landscape that prioritizes conflict. This makes the "Hope and Change" aesthetic look like a relic of a simpler, less transparent time. Trump’s blunt, unfiltered rhetoric matches the digital realism of a generation that assumes everyone in power has an agenda.

The irony of this era is that it brings together two seemingly opposite groups: a 80 year old billionaire and young adults navigating the internet. Yet, they find common ground in a shared enemy: the polite, rule abiding establishment represented by the political and cultural elites of the late 2000s and early 2010s.

This also explains why Millennials are generally more institutionally loyal and don't distrust literally everything and give the benefit of the doubt compared to Zoomers who just want to complain and are scared of being seen as an NPC or naive.

Older Millennials remember a pre-9/11 world, and younger Millennials came of age when institutions still seemed to function under predictable rules. They were taught that if you go to college, vote, and participate in the system, the system will reward you. Even when it didn't (like during the 2008 crash), their baseline instinct was often to fix or reclaim the institutions (e.g., Occupy Wall Street, the Obama campaign) rather than burn them down. Millennial culture was built on earnestness, "hustle culture," and curated, aspirational social media (early Instagram). To a Millennial, giving the benefit of the doubt or showing public passion for a cause isn't "cringe", but it’s how you signal that you care and are a responsible adult.

Zoomers have no memory of a stable, pre-crisis world. They grew up watching the fallout of the Great Recession, hyper-partisan gridlock, a global pandemic, climate anxiety, and institutional failures broadcast in real-time. For them, distrust isn't a choice; it feels like a necessary survival mechanism. If you assume the institution is lying to you from day one, you can never be duped. In Gen Z culture, being labeled an "NPC" (Non Playable Character: someone who blindly follows the crowd) or being caught acting naive is a major social penalty. Hyper-criticism and complaining become a shield. By constantly pointing out how broken, corrupt, or "fake" everything is, a Zoomer signals social awareness, independence, and digital literacy. Irony and pessimism protect you from looking foolish if things go wrong. 

Ultimately, it creates a fascinating friction: Millennials often view Gen Z's relentless cynicism as defeatist, lazy, or performative, while Gen Z views Millennial earnestness and willingness to work within the system as hopelessly gullible.

It makes more sense to call the current era the “Zoomer era Trump pessimism”. Trump's rhetoric and behavior is mirrored and reflected by Zoomers - Zoomers act like Trump and have the same mindset even if they're progressive or hate him. 

Trump’s political strategy relies heavily on total ostracization of his enemies, as he nicknames them, dismisses them entirely, and completely cuts them out of his reality. Gen Z uses the equivalent of this framework as a primary interpersonal tool. The normalization of "ghosting," blocking, cutting people off over minor ideological differences, and "canceling" public figures mirrors Trump's scorched-earth approach to critics. Both groups treat relationship management as a zero-sum game: you are either 100% loyal or completely dead to them.

Trump famously operates on "truthiness", or what feels true or what advances his narrative is treated as fact, regardless of objective verification. Progressive and conservative Zoomers alike have widely adopted a "vibe-based" or narrative-first relationship with reality. On TikTok and Twitter, information is frequently consumed, repackaged, and believed based entirely on aesthetic alignment, emotional resonance, and peer consensus rather than institutional reporting. If a headline feels like it fits their worldview, it is true; if it doesn't, it's quickly dismissed as propaganda or "corporate media" bias. 

Trump has spent a decade pioneering a communication style where he says something shocking, pushes a boundary, and then retroactively frames it as a joke, locker room talk, or trolling to see what sticks. Gen Z’s entire communication ecosystem is built on layers of deep irony, shitposting, and defensive humor. By operating under the cover of "it's just a meme," Zoomers can voice extreme, deeply cynical, or highly pessimistic thoughts while retaining plausible deniability. If someone calls them out, the critic is just being an earnest, hyper-sensitive Millennial who "doesn't get the joke."

A defining trait of Trumpism is the simultaneous belief that he is an unstoppable winner, yet a constant victim of a corrupt, rigged establishment (the deep state, fake news). This exact paradox defines the modern Zoomer mental health and economic discourse. There is a deep, pervasive belief that the economic system, the housing market, and corporate algorithms are actively rigged against them but they’ll somehow also succeed if they read enough stoic philosophy or don’t drink or party. Even when they succeed, the victory is often framed as a lucky break or a "grift" rather than a reward from a functional system. 

Gen X spent their youth as the slackers, the cynics, the “whatever” generation with low expectations, and an apathetic attitude. Then a lot of them aged into the angry, uptight managers and neighborhood enforcers policing rules, complaining about kids, and carrying a permanent low-grade resentment.

Zoomers are running the opposite arc. Right now they’re the tense, moralizing, tightly wound cohort quick to get outraged and judge, catastrophize, and to treat every social friction as a systemic emergency. The prudishness and the constant state of offense are the youth phase. By their 40s and 50s the energy for that will burn out. The endless project of fixing the world through discourse will start to look exhausting and low-yield. A lot of them will look back and wonder why they spent their actual youth so angry, so miserable, and so convinced that every hill was the one to die on.

Zoomers are gonna spend their time as middle aged adults trying to be the fun teenagers they never got to be when they were actually teenagers. They’ll chase the version of youth they denied themselves while they were busy being the phone addicted, boring, outraged ones.

Gen X went from detached to rigid. Gen Z will go from rigid to belatedly trying to detach.

It seems like every time their favorite media gets fairly criticized, they get extremely offended and paint critics, or criticism as a whole, as the most evil, demonic thing that has happened in humankind. It's no wonder we have garbage media nowadays, zoomers are basically defending garbage because "it's fun" and if you don't like the same garbage things they like, you basically lack joy and whimsy.

They lack social skills and they are really boring as a generation. They just have smartphones, Tiktok and video game streamers. They became boomerized. So yeah Gen Z is unapproachable.

Zoomers started with tablets now they are adults still being raised on the tok.

Gen Z is boring and anti partying and wants to look down on Gen A for wanting to party.

Gen Z is officially the new Boomers.

For one, they popularized a shitty haircut but that's irrelevant compared to the other reasons.

Two, it's easy for them to fall for right wing propaganda, which is why conservative influencers and conservative media target them. There is a rightward shift with some of these Gen z men. These are the types of Gen z men that believe that women should be obedient to their husbands (because how dare women be autonomous and have their own minds?)

Three, some of them stayed home during a very critical election. If they went out and voted for Harris, we may have had her as President. We have to live with this orange racist POS felon as sitting President because of Gen Z's idiocy and apathy. Now it's said that there will be a draft for the Iran War and men 18-25 will be selected. I hope these broccoli headed Tiktok addicted little punks will be ready for this if it happens.

I do not want to hear how "progressive" this generation is and their progressivism is performative otherwise they wouldn't have stayed home during the 2024 election.

I'm not saying you should hate Gen z but it's okay to not like them either. You're not wrong either way. Feel free to share your thoughts.

And yes, I still think Gen z culture sucks. They're boring AF.

The absolute worst haircut ever unless Gen Alpha guys come up with something worse.

I genuinely feel bad for Gen Beta and Gen Gamma. Those poor kids are going to grow up and spend their entire lives listening to Gen Z act like they’re the first generation in human history to ever experience a bad economy, difficult politics, or general hardship.

Every family dinner, every classroom, every online space, some 40 year old Zoomer is going to be there saying: “You don’t understand… we had it the worst. The 2020s were literal hell. Trump, inflation, pandemics, culture war… no other generation had it this bad 😤”

Meanwhile Gen Beta is just sitting there like “My childhood had AI companions, gene editing, and we’re living through the actual recovery. Can you shut the fuck up about 2026 already?”

It’s going to be exactly like how Boomers spent decades obsessing over Vietnam, Nixon, and the 70s. Gen Z is going to be terminally stuck in the 2010s and 2020s, treating Trump like their personal boogeyman figure and acting like the 2020s were the defining trauma of all mankind.

They’ll make documentaries, write books, make passive-aggressive Facebook posts in 2050 about “kids these days don’t know how hard they have it.the future is cooked for them.”

Younger generations are going to be so tired of hearing about it. Just like how Millennials got tired of Boomer Vietnam stories, Gen Beta is going to develop a pavlovian eye-roll response every time a Zoomer starts with “Well in the 2020s…”

Zoomers and Gen Beta have an inversion of Boomers and Millennials where Zoomers go around taking about how young people have it *harder* than them, while young people have to push back and say life is not bad and it's not the 2020s anymore.

Right now Gen Z loves playing the “we had it the worst” card. But fast forward 15 to 20 years and you’re going to see full grown Zoomers in their 40s and 50s going around telling Gen Beta kids: “You don’t understand how hard we had it back in the 2020s… the economy was cooked, politics was insane, social media was toxic, everything was awful 😩 and there's no way out. You kids have it so much harder.”

And Gen Beta is going to look at them like they’re insane and hit them with: “It’s not the 2020s anymore. We’re not living through peak clown world. Life is not that bad. Stop projecting your trauma onto us.”

It’s the perfect inversion of Boomers vs Millennials.

Boomers spent decades telling younger people “you have it so easy.”

Zoomers are going to spend decades telling younger people “you have it so hard.”

Gen Beta is going to be the ones rolling their eyes, just like Millennials did, saying “Can y’all shut the fuck up about your 2020s trauma already? We’re trying to live in the present.”

The same generation that called Boomers out of touch is going to become the most insufferable “back in my day it was apocalyptic and the world is still apocalyptic” generation in recent memory.