Generation Z’s politics are difficult to categorize – and a harbinger of a new political order Ross Barkan

WAt first glance, we live under the absolute rule of celebrity. The former and future President of the United States spent more than a decade as a reality television star. Taylor Swift just completed the biggest and most lucrative pop music tour in world history. Mass entertainment vehicles are still powered by stars — just ask anyone who wants to see “Wicked” (Ariana Grande) or “Gladiator II” (Pedro Pascal, Denzel Washington) this holiday season. And not to mention all the little dramas of the beautiful and famous that still keep us gossiping.

It might be strange, then, to make a completely counterintuitive claim: that we are emerging from the age of traditional mass celebrity. And it’s not just us leave But we are drifting into a new, uncertain era in which new hostilities are emerging against those who, just a few years ago, would have received blind adoration and little else.

Much of this comes from the youngest generation of adults, called Generation Z, and the under-40 millennial cohort. Generation Z is perhaps the most misunderstood because they are the first to come of age when the old monocultures were crumbling. Many of them are too young to remember the dominance of cable television, the heyday of A-list movie stars from Julia Roberts to Brad Pitt, or even the wild adulation that certain tech moguls like Steve Jobs once enjoyed.

The mainstream media has played out various contradictory narratives about Generation Z over the past five years. Either they were too liberal, too “woke”, liberal enough to vote for Democrats to save democracy, or they were poisoned by the internet and the boys were incurably right-wing. They were so into podcasts that they voted for Donald en masse voted for Trump.

The reality is more complicated because all generations are complicated. It’s not like all baby boomers were popping acid and hanging out in Golden Gate Park. But Generation Z and younger Millennials are particularly difficult to generalize because they live in a time of divided culture. Tens of millions of Americans no longer crowd around individual television shows that air at a specific time on a weekday, as Seinfeld and friends once did. They no longer rely on late night TV shows like The Daily Show. Linear television has collapsed, and networks like MSNBC and CNN have suffered audience losses since the end of the presidential election. Hollywood no longer enjoys a central position in culture.

This is partly because there is no center – or because it is drastically weakening. Even the celebrities who have become famous through new platforms, including TikTok, are facing backlash. A recent viral trend encouraged TikTok users to actively ignore various celebrities and influencers in order to prove how much power they have She had about the celebrities in question. Her first target was singer and dancer JoJo Siwa, who has a huge following on social media. She saw her likes on certain videos plummet. Siwa is too rich to be affected, but the trend itself is remarkable and would have been unthinkable just five years ago. Others like her should be careful.

Author Mo Diggs has called this “personality fatigue”—the idea that average people, especially on the Internet, are tired of the rich and famous. From a political perspective, people are suspicious of leaders or anyone who might tell them exactly what to do. As popular as Swift and Beyoncé remain, despite their enthusiastic support, they failed to draw younger voters into Kamala Harris’ camp. Gen Z voters, who leaned left, were particularly angry at celebrities who did not take an outspoken stand against Israel’s behavior in Gaza. This mistrust of the elites continues.

Into this gap steps the ultimate anti-influencer, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione. Mangione, the alleged killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, enjoys an online following unlike any in recent history. His alleged murder of a health care executive who earned $10.2 million in 2023 was purely political in nature but crossed party lines.

As right-wing pundits like Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh denounced the killing, their comment sections were flooded with outbursts of anger against the health care industry and even support for the killing before Mangione was identified as a suspect.

The liberals who condemned Thompson’s murder didn’t fare much better. While the media and political establishment generally agree in disgust at the way Mangione is idolized with his conventional good looks and Ivy League pedigree, the online masses feel very differently. Merchandise for the video game character Luigi is a top seller on Amazon, and some have purchased votive candles with Mangione’s face on them.

The message is clear enough: If there is going to be a new idol, someone with whom to form a parasocial bond, it won’t be another singer, dancer or neo-Kardashian. At least young people are increasingly doing this. You can’t tell them to stop with their Luigi memes while anger against institutions continues to grow. Even Trump, the great troublemaker, will not be immune to these dynamics when he becomes president again.

Over the next decade, the major clashes may not be between left and right, but between inside and outside – those who openly express their contempt for existing institutions and those who seek a new order. Veneration of Mangione is less about Mangione himself and more about an indication of where we are going. The resentment will not subside.