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right here, right now! or whenever…
I ain’t gluing myself to Oxford Street or throwing orange paint at the Lamborghini dealership. I’ve got bills to pay.
Remember in the late 2010s when Gen Z was synonymous with social change, a broad catch-all term encapsulating the desire for a more equitable and just world? In 2026, that link has become tenuous at best, and you’re more likely to associate the cohort with being skint, lonely, or bird-watching.
Much of the vim that led to mass protests, classroom strikes, and governments being dragged into a cultural reckoning has been lost. At the generation’s rebellious fever pitch of 2019, some of the buzz was undeniably performative, but in certain instances the societal impact was real.
Brands were clamouring to ensure their messaging reflected youth values like sustainability and diversity, governments were dredging up tired reforms for a progressive overhaul, and employers rewrote their policies to place greater emphasis on employee rights and mental health. The green shoots of ‘wellness’ as a ubiquitous term were sprouting.
More than half a decade on, then, why has an older and wiser Gen Z failed to leverage all of its economic might and online influence to continue shaping the institutions it inherited?
The simple answer is life happened.
In our recent Deep Dive on Thred.com, we delve into all the specifics that saw a post-pandemic generation arrive out of the lockdown cocoon feeling nihilistic, beset by compassion fatigue, suspicious of its own motives, and more concerned with self-preservation.
The upside of toning down the disruptive approach is the activism Gen Z engages in as mid-to-late twenty-somethings is now distinctly more measurable, honest, and pragmatic – though it probably won’t grab headlines quite like sitting on the M25 in a hi-vis.
The idealism of adolescence has gone. The scope for empathy has been eroded, and the pivot to self-care was all but inevitable. We attended a few of the protests ourselves, wrote through both the surge and the comedown, and have watched the mood shift among our kin.
As Gen Z social change writers, we’re fairly confident this is the closest thing to an honest take on what changed. Read more
shut it shanice
Why is Gen Z fixated on frozen yoghurt? – thred
What’s healthier than some 0%-fat frozen Greek yoghurt topped with crushed biscuit and caramel sauce? Our own Charlie has had a look at the boom in frozen yoghurt, driven largely by Gen Zers, and how a bit of clean branding can make sugary dessert feel vaguely medicinal. In the US, servings reportedly rose 26% in the year to March, totalling 87 million, while London’s newer premium spots are leaning hard into the third-space angle and promoting on TikTok. Usually astute at detecting greenwashing, Gen Z is still clearly a sucker for stylish branding and waffle about protein if it takes the guilt away from a moment of indulgence. Read more
Gen Z are speaking fewer words daily. What happened? – the independent
We know that Gen Z likes optimisation and ‘choosing itself’. Basically, don’t invite us anywhere that would provide a shitter experience than lying in bed eating pasta. But beyond viral TikToks of young people cosying up alone in the evening, usually accompanied by melancholy Coldplay music, there are legs to the declaration that Gen Z is the ‘loneliness generation’. New research from the Perspectives on Psychological Science journal squares with this, revealing the cohort is physically speaking far fewer words aloud than those before them. Under-25s lost an average of 451 spoken words a day for each year that passed between 2005 and 2019, compared with 314 for everyone older. If it is all ‘pick me’ or performative, that is some serious dedication. Read more
slop + subscriptions
The AI Slop Backlash Is Actually Having an Impact – wired
We wholeheartedly agree, WIRED… though we did run your article through GPTZero. In its latest piece on AI, the outlet has spoken about people becoming sick of slop online. LinkedIn may as well be ran by bots, Snapchat has made AI videos ineligible for Spotlight, Substack is bringing out an AI detection feature, Google Earth pulled its AI-satellite imaging, and you can’t even make Grok creations on Twitter anymore – unless you pay for the privilege, of course. Aversion to the technology has been growing for a good year now, especially among younger people, and WIRED points to a recent Gallup poll showing that those who became more familiar with AI tended to develop more negative attitudes about it. The amount I swear at Google AI certainly fits that argument. Read more
Why Grand Theft Auto’s Netflix deal is creating controversy – smh
People are so gassed for GTA VI that they’re getting Netflix subscriptions to see a short gameplay overview of the game, and the most amusing part is this Netflix exclusivity only applies for the first six hours after release. Grand Theft Auto is in a league of its own in terms of hype and popularity, but there’s still something precarious about locking previews for an unreleased game behind a paid service. Marketing in gaming has always been about drumming up as much interest as possible, but you’ve now got media giants vying to hoard the excitement for themselves. Again, this is probably a one-off given the nature of the game in question, but it feels like fuel on the fire of those who sense player ownership is drifting further and further from the conversation. Read more
