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delete the apps, rebuke the horniness, move back home
The so-called ‘digital natives’ are biting the hand that fed them, because it fed them mostly FOMO, insecurity, and addiction.
Chat about AI is everywhere in the mainstream, but if you broach the topic on any campus other than MIT, it’s likely you’ll be met with the blank stares of hungover folks who wish you’d shut the f*ck up.
Between rinsing the market of entry-level jobs and diluting genuine creativity with slop, AI became that perpetual straw that broke the camel’s back. A growing uprising of Gen Z is now openly fed up with big tech, and the Stockholm syndrome of former years is starting to feel closer to something like pure resentment.
This and never hearing about chatGPT again pic.twitter.com/5Qa93cWz6N
— ꪆৎ (@fairiehaze) July 9, 2026
Craving genuine connection and the sort of engagement that is actually enriching, roughly 300 people – mostly Gen Zers – attended New York’s ‘Summer of Ludd’, a festival that explicitly offers a week full of offline events.
Phones were treated like contraband in prison, and attendees took part in a bunch of IRL dating events, zine fairs, mending workshops, anti-AI talks, drama productions, and community projects designed around getting people out of platform life and back into the physical world.
You won’t have heard about it online, because attention was drawn via actual street posters, and many of the events would have just looked like young people meeting on a beach. If you were within viewing distance of HQ, however, you’d have likely seen sun masks and other paper mâché imagery linked to the original 19th century uprising against tech and automation.
Of course, every movement needs a stolid leader or deity whose presence and cause energises the troops, whether that be Che Guevara or Joan of Arc. In this case that was Gowanus, a nondescript blue puppet made of what looks like old carpet and socks. The mascot of machine resistance did all the talking to the media, so as to keep the organisers’ actual identities under wraps and ensure that attendees weren’t distracted by disciples of the machines / journos from CNN.
As a recent WIRED article pointed out, it’s a layup of an event for anyone wanting new material to take the piss out of Gen Z, but the whole thing is designed to be self-deprecating. They aren’t arsed whether it looks stupid, because curation is the advisory here.
The modern iteration of the internet craves attention and loves to rinse anything that’s a bit cringe, so why not just congregate with like-minded people and fully lean into it?
Gowanus isn’t going to be dragged before Congress, it’s just a way of quietly rebelling and expressing that life online today is mostly shit. I rate that, even if my Twitter addiction still has my brain in a chokehold.
Read the full article here.
nostalgia merchants + lust police
Gen Z Leans Hard into Nostalgia to Spur Music and Movie Spending – variety
Gen Z loving nostalgia for bygone eras they may or may not have been part of isn’t news, the younger among us pine for 2016 for f*ck sake. Music streaming service Vevo has recently clarified that the vast majority of nostalgia-related searches come from Gen Zers who’ve discovered a ‘vintage’ tune in a movie or TV show. This borrowed nostalgia is the same reason MGK can drop a nu-metal tune with Fred Durst and it somehow pop off in 2026. Vevo’s study also suggests Gen Z yearn for the trappings of times before everything else was online, a bit like the New York Ludd clan. Read more
It’s a sin: Why gen Z are turning against ‘lust’ – dazed
If they weren’t already strictly abstinent, Christian Gen Zers would be coming for your ‘lustful’ asses. Dazed has written about our generation’s sudden fondness for the language of sin. The piece points out a growing trend in behaviour being framed through popular phrases like lust, gluttony, greed, and sloth, and says they’re moving from the religious circles into our mainstream vernacular. Love Island USA contestants leant into this behaviour in the last season, using ‘seven deadly sins’ type lingo to frame ordinary behaviour as a moral failing. Posts from fans of the show concurred. Was this the starting point of everyone – including me – saying ‘rebuke’? Read more
@trindalyn_ And yes it is that deep #bingeeatingrecoverytip #gluttony #gymmotivation #fatlosstip #jesus
living arrangements
Record number of Gen Zers living at their family home in America – thred
Disclaimer: shameless self-plug incoming. I recently covered a story describing how more Gen Zers than ever are now living with their parents, or in their family home, in the US. This state of arrested development encompasses almost a fifth of 25-to-34-year-olds, according to John Burns Research and Consulting. Of that 7.5 million, seven in 10 are reportedly employed, suggesting we’re dealing with a housing cost story – not a jobs story. As much as it may seem so, this piece isn’t about dwelling in nihilism and may actually make you feel better about your prospects of leaving your jarring folks or roommates to their own devices. Read more
Is loneliness the latest Gen Z status symbol? – thred
We claim to hate being pressured to optimise everything, and yet we’re optimising loneliness for our TikTok followers (I have none). Our own Flo has written a piece examining the recent rise of singledom, lonely influencers, and the growing backlash against solitude being treated like social failure. She’s even handed and explains the positives, whilst also delving into how loneliness is becoming a content avenue in its own right. The same apps apparently making us feel isolated are now churning out well-lit videos of people moping about and isolated. Is it a stretch to call that progress? Read more
@manocutz love hate type thing
