Earlier this week, I published a list of summer trend predictions from today’s biggest tastemakers across industries — tech, media, politics, fashion, sports, dating, and culture.

I was struck by how much they agreed that this summer will be spent together, in-person, outside.

READ IRL SUMMER IS HERE

Post Covid, crushed by a loneliness epidemic, exhausted by optimization, and amid an ongoing technological revolution, these predictions speak to a hunger for the real, the human, the communal.

But it’s not just trendsetters feeling this shift. Last night in NYC proves this.

Today, we’re diving into our Gen Z community’s summer trend predictions.

Here’s what they shared about their hunger for humanity, what it signals, and what it means for those trying to reach them.

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Like clockwork every June, predictions about what will become the trend of the summer come flooding in.

I have thoughts about what will be in and out for the next few months: longer lines, packed outdoor concerts, more block parties and a growing desire to “be where the people are.”

But after asking tastemakers across tech, media, politics, fashion, sports, dating, and culture what they think will define the next few months, one thing stood out. The most interesting trend wasn’t any single prediction — it was how many people arrived at the same conclusion from entirely different directions.

Whether they were talking about domestic travel, World Cup watch parties, women’s sports, dating, fashion, or politics, many described some version of the same shift. After years of living online, people are looking for each other again.

Here’s what they have to say about a summer that will be defined by connection.

‘IRL energy’

Lingala, trend forecaster and author of : IRL Energy. We kicked off the year with the “analog life” microtrend on Tiktok, but in reality, most people haven’t logged off. Still, I’m sensing a summer of communal joy, at least in New York. We had a rough winter this year, and people are eager to get outside. Over the past month, when going out to bars and parties, I’ve sensed people actively mingling with strangers again in a way that I haven’t seen since before the pandemic. Plus, the Knicks are energizing the city in a way I’ve honestly never seen before. It feels somewhat similar to joyful vibes in Brooklyn in the days after Zohran won, but sports inherently has a much more unifying spirit than politics. I think this all bodes well for a summer of love in the city.

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL), first Gen Z member of Congress: This summer I’ll be listening to a lot of salsa music and spending as much time as I can playing music with friends. There’s a lot happening in the world right now that feels heavy between the war in Iran, ICE terrorizing our communities and so much more. But for me, salsa music has been a source of joy and grounding through all of it. Which is why a few months ago, I started a salsa band with some of my friends from high school called “La Orquesta Yeya,” named after my late grandmother.

If anyone in Central Florida is looking for a salsa band for an event, DM me at @maxwellfrostfl.

Arvia Few, dating coach and matchmaker: We’re watching a real cultural shift happen in real time, from hot girl summer to village summer. People are exhausted by the isolation of modern dating and they’re turning back to community as the answer. This summer is about getting off the apps and leaning into the people already around you to find love, or to help someone else find it. Dating is becoming a team sport again.

, co-founder of Run For Something: Touching grass. This summer people are going to literally and metaphorically be outside. Between the rise of Bricking and other screentime locks, the increased distaste for AI, and the deeper desire for local community, the hot new (old) trend will be anything that gets people together IRL and off the internet.

Laurence Milstein, co-founder of creative agency : Line culture is going to pop. From Dot Cakes in NYC to Community Goods in LA, the endless line for viral products has become the content itself (and the comments section has strong opinions). This summer, waiting hours just to post “you got it” is starting to feel less aspirational among younger consumers. For Gen Z and Gen Alpha, effortless access and rejecting the overhyped may become the new cultural capital.

, youth culture expert and author of : I think young people are going to be seeking out joy and fun at every possible moment. “Whimsymaxxing” first started showing up at the start of the year, but I think it’s going to really take hold over summer — just look at dotcakes! The world has felt so heavy and dark for Gen Z for too long, and they’re ready for a change.

It’s a party in the U.S.A.

, president at : This is the summer of domestic travel. For the last decade, it’s felt like summer was synonymous with Europe (my feeds are always filled with photos of Mallorca, the South of France, and Copenhagen). But after years of putting international travel on a pedestal, I think people are rediscovering the appeal (and nostalgia) of the American summer. Maybe it’s just me getting older, but between crowded airports, expensive flights, and families now traveling with young kids, there’s luxury in simplicity. I’m personally much more excited about the idea of going to places like Maine, the Hamptons, or Wyoming and avoiding the red-eyes, customs lines, and week of jet lag that can make the juice not worth the squeeze.

, Gen Z historian and author of : More domestic travel because of the increased price of planes and America 250 fervor. An anti-euro summer if you will.

Teen vibecoding

Andrew Zucker, contributing editor at Town and Country: My summer trend prediction is that a growing number of teenagers will launch vibecoded apps and won’t re-enroll in high school in the fall.

Live sports to socialize

, co-host of : The World Cup sparks a relationship boom. Few cultural events bring people together like the World Cup. I know several couples who were brought together by the beautiful game. Expect a romantic boom as young people get together in bars and parks to watch the world cup.

Sara Falkson, founder of Robyn Athletic: Women’s sports fandom isn’t just growing, it’s becoming part of Gen Z’s identity. The 2026 WNBA Draft drew 1.5 million viewers, up 20% year over year, while emerging leagues like LOVB and the PWHL are creating entirely new communities of fans and athletes. We’re seeing a shift from aspirational beauty to aspirational strength, with athletes becoming role models for a generation that values performance, confidence, and authenticity.

John Antonelli, co-founder of Real Sports: The 2026 World Cup will accelerate the trend of live sports becoming a bigger part of social life. From house watch parties to packed sports bars for the World Cup, Wimbledon, the NBA Finals, and the Stanley Cup, live sports will be the anchor of the summer.

Easy breezy style

, founder/CEO of Saie: Glowy bronzed skin thanks to Glowy Super Gel! 90’s inspired fashion with floral dresses and loafers.

Aja Win, content creator: I think being content at home during the summer is extremely under appreciated. You don’t need to chance the high of being where everyone else is. Not smoking cigarettes, I don’t understand how this became a trend. Packing in outfits is always the way to go so you’re always put together even if dressed casually. The French 75 should be the next it drink.

, Founder of : When it comes to the U.S., I think we’re going to be seeing more Nantucket Americana vibes. And we all want to be Dua Lipa this summer: white lace dresses, gold hoops, oversized sunglasses, and falling in love in Sicily. Glamorous but effortless.

Trust, transparency, and consequences

Astead Herndon, host of ‘America, Actually’ and editorial director at Vox News: My summer prediction is Trump hits his lowest ever approval rating. It was about 34% after Jan. 6 and I think he’ll [head] into fall and midterms near the same number. My non politics opinion is Drake’s Shabang is the closest we’ll get to a song of the summer from that album, not Janice STFU 😂

, author of Chaotic Era: As the midterm elections heat up this summer, undisclosed influencer marketing campaigns will keep sparking drama across the political landscape. Expect a wave of stories exposing social media creators (on both sides of the aisle) quietly pocketing checks from campaigns, PACs, nonprofits, and lobbying firms to push pre-packaged talking points. Will something be done about it? I’m highly skeptical.

, founder of Ahmed Baba News: Hot expert summer. After years of anti-intellectualism being marketed as authenticity, I think expertise is making a cultural comeback. The Trump administration’s blend of incompetence and incuriosity is reminding Americans that people who actually know what they’re talking about are underrated. Whether it’s among creators, podcasters, or politicians, ignorance is becoming less cool when it’s ravaging the economy.

, political data at and founder of Split Ticket: I think an emerging political flashpoint will be the job crunch that young people are seeing. We’re increasingly looking at job markets that are eliminating or seriously slashing entry-level roles for professions that used to pay a lot of money with abundant opportunities. How politicians respond could shape the alignment of an entire generation in a way we haven’t seen since 2008.

‘Real’-life reckoning

Ella Katz, host of Taller Toddlers: I feel like we are going to see the fall of the traditional influencer. A disinterest in unrealistic content. And an appetite for people as people. People getting the opportunity to build brands if they are authentic. Less value on “having followers” or being “put together…” Another prediction is brain health being all the rage.

, founder of : Posting more *real* content — historically social media hasn’t been real life, but I think people are tired of perfection online. I think this summer you see more people showing their true and authentic selves online.

, columnist & political pundit: If last month’s viral graduation speeches were any indication, I predict using AI as anything much beyond an enhanced Google will go the way of jeggings, QR code menus, and pterodactyls — at least for those of us outside Palo Alto and FiDi. It’ll increasingly become viewed as perhaps not a scarlet letter, but a Silicon (Valley) one, serving as an embarrassing social stain on those who carry it.

We’ll check back in with them in August to see how they fared…

Noteworthy Reads

• Will Gen Z be the generation to revive moviegoing?, Sarah Witten for CNBC

• Fake it ’til you make out: Gen Z New Yorkers are going on ‘practice dates’ — with people they don’t even like, Marissa Matozzo for The New York Post

• Gen Z rewrites how Americans work, juggling multiple jobs and side hustles, Josyana Joshua for The Los Angeles Times

• ‘I can’t afford to stay’: Gen Z is moving out of Miami, Sophia Hernandez for NBC Miami

• Can California Convince Teens to Work in Construction?, Mimi Dwyer, Yasu Tsuji and Karl Mollohan for The New York Times

Interested in working with The Up and Up? Email hello@theupandup.us

For coffee, for frozen yogurt, for a table at a crowded wine bar. The line itself is part of the appeal.

Last Saturday, I met my friend for drinks at Le Dive’s new West Village location.

I’ve walked by it every day since it opened and noticed the same thing — a crowd spilling onto the sidewalk. Not just a busy restaurant, but a scene.

By 5pm, there was already a line. An hour later, the crowd had grown. Once seated, Le Dive’s allure became crystal clear.

It’s communal.

In the hour and a half we sat there, we saw plenty of people we know — a friend from college, work, from growing up. Both walking by us on the street and on the outdoor patio. It seemed like every table around us (most filled with twenty-something-year-olds) was having the same experience. The attraction wasn’t just the wine or the food, it was the feeling that something was happening.

I went back to earlier this week (on a weekday) to check out the scene. Even at 5:29 pm on a Tuesday, it was packed. And not just normal NYC crowds. It was exceptionally popping.

It’s not just Le Dive.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’m calling our current ‘line culture.’ The phenomenon where everything good has a line: your favorite drinks spot, fro-yo place, coffee shop.

Check out these photos from last weekend at Mimi’s frozen yogurt and Blank Street coffee — dueling lines directly across the street from each other.

What’s happening here? The pendulum swings back.

For years we’ve been talking about the loneliness epidemic, the decline of third spaces, and the growing amount of time young people spend online. Now the pendulum appears to be swinging back.

This also comes amid Gen Z’s push toward optimization. Everyone is looksmaxxing. We’ve all gotten so serious. That takes a mental toll.

READ THE UP AND UP ON SKINNY CULTURE

When it comes to the cost of it all, our line culture is an evolution of the ‘little sweet treat’ culture that permeated for a while. And it marks a shift back from Gen Z’s investment era, where young people were opting for bigger-scale purchases or experiences that would last beyond a singular moment (those have gotten harder and harder to afford).

Community is now the commodity

Here’s what this tells us about how Gen Z is spending their time — and their money.

1. Exclusivity sells.

2. But at the same time, everyone’s craving access to the same things.

3. Optimizing is exhausting.

4. Not everything has to be so serious.

Read more

So he decided to create a “big-tent media organization” as he told me – not so that Americans come together and sing Kumbaya — but rather, to give the intellectually curious and politically homeless space to make sense of the world around them for themselves, without being told how they are supposed to think and feel.

Fast forward, and Tangle has more than half a million subscribers, plus another few hundred thousand followers on Tangle and Saul’s personal accounts across Instagram, X, and YouTube. Saul’s work has also been featured in The Free Press, Persuasion, CNN, Fox News, TIME Magazine, and more.

I sat down with Saul to learn more about Tangle, how it’s evolved since he started it seven years ago, and his POV on where media consumption habits will go from here.

Here’s our conversation, edited lightly for clarity and brevity.

Tangle launched in 2019, before the current wave of newsletter media. Tell us about your mission. Who did you originally imagine your reader to be, and who is that reader today?

IS: Our north star is trying to be a big tent media organization. The problem that we recognize is people are in information silos, everybody knows that they’re kind of trapped in their own algorithm, and we all have news consumption habits that tend to pull us towards people who are saying things we already agree with. The social cost of that arrangement is pretty apparent. If you look around, partisanship is really, really bad right now. It’s not just bad like we’re divided, it’s bad like the actual partisanship is pretty vitriolic. People are very angry at each other, very distrustful of each other. It’s incurring a big social cost on the country as a whole.

When I started Tangle, I understood there was a huge market for this, because distrust in media is at an all-time high. It was true in 2019. It’s only gotten worse now, and also the share of Americans who think of themselves as independents is really high. In fact, it’s larger than liberals or conservatives. Now we know from polling and political science studies that the people who say they’re independent aren’t always independent. Oftentimes, their voting patterns and who they align with are predictable. But there’s actually a lot of importance in the idea that somebody says, ‘I’m a political independent.’ It means they think of themselves as being open-minded, they think of themselves as being somebody whose vote will change depending on how politicians act or how a party acts. I wanted to target those people. I wanted to get those political independents under one roof, and I also wanted, I hoped, to bring in some partisans from each side who were maybe stuck in their own little information silos over time.

The audience has become a lot more partisan than I expected. The number of people who read our newsletter who have strong partisan affiliations is actually a lot higher than I thought it would be. Some reader surveys that we do have the split at like 40% liberal, 30% independent, 30% conservative. So, if you’d asked me seven years ago, I think I would have expected the independent group to be the biggest group of our readership by far. But actually, there’s just a lot of people who have partisan affiliations who are interested in hearing what the other side has to say, which I think is a market that a lot of other news organizations are just totally missing out on.

Young people are increasingly more independent. Gen Z is 56% independent, according to a Gallup poll from earlier this year, which is a higher number than millennials were when they were their age. Is there something specific about your formula at Tangle that is appealing to younger Americans right now?

IS: Even the younger Americans who identify as liberal or conservative have very little party loyalty.

So yes, I definitely think what we’re doing is something that is really appealing to a lot of younger Americans. Obviously, our core product is a newsletter format, which actually isn’t the best place to meet younger Americans. Where we see a lot of them come into our content is through our Instagram channel, our podcast, and our YouTube channel. That’s why those platforms exist for us. It’s why we’re on those platforms. But it’s really clear to me from hearing how they talk about and think about news that they have no reason to trust a Fox News or a New York Times or a Wall Street Journal, or whatever else. They view those kinds of mediums as being for their parents, for a different group of people, and they’re looking for something that has kind of a fresh look, that’s a new brand that they also feel like they have a high degree of trust in.

One of the ways that a lot of younger Americans are getting their information now is through influencers, personalities, things like that, and we sort of have the benefit of doing something that maybe the New York Times or Fox News or the Wall Street Journal can’t do, which is we bring personalities really front and center in our content, but we still have a newsroom behind them. A younger American might have a kind of parasocial relationship with me, because I write a lot of the takes and I host the podcast, and my personality is in the content. It’s present, we’re not talking like an institution, we’re talking like people, but I’m also not an influencer. I’m a journalist, and I have editorial standards, and I have an editorial team behind me, and so the news that we’re putting out is actually really reliable and factually accurate. We’re getting the best of both worlds there, and I think that’s helped us a lot with the younger Americans who come into Tangle as a news source.

You alluded to this, but for those unfamiliar, in your newsletter, you have ‘What the right is saying,’ ‘What the left is saying,’ and then ‘My take,’ what you’re saying. The my take section, as you mentioned, is personality driven, it’s whoever’s writing the piece. The “My take” section is unusual… a founder with an explicit opinion in a newsletter that’s explicitly non-partisan. How do you explain that tension?

IS: We view it as an act of transparency. It’s important for readers to know the biases that the person delivering them the news holds. In our current media ecosystem, and I know this because I’ve seen how the sausage was made, I’ve been in the newsrooms, a lot of journalists end up injecting their own opinion, whether it’s consciously or subconsciously, by the way they structure their stories. I mean something really simple like who’s the first person quoted in a news article, a straight news article, and what does the quote say. That decision is a framework for how people are going to view the piece and view the story that every team has to make, and in my view, there’s no way to make that decision, ‘objectively.’ It’s always a subjective choice about what the author thinks is important, what the readers think are important, what they’re trying to serve their audience as a news organization. That doesn’t mean everybody is subjective and there’s no way to do fair reporting or balanced reporting or nonpartisan reporting. It’s just reporters are people, they have biases, their sources are biased, the rolodex of people they call when a story breaks, there is bias in there. It’s less explicit than an opinion piece, but it exists.

We also have an introduction section of the story that is a totally neutrally written breakdown explanation of the story before we get into the opinion stuff. That’s probably the thing that’s closer to like an Associated Press, or Newswire, Reuters release. But people are interested in the personality element of it, and we tell our audience this particular part of the newsletter is opinion, and we’re doing this as an act of transparency, so you know what the author’s biases are. It’s interesting to hear how somebody personally is examining an issue, and I think it makes the whole kind of balanced nonpartisan viewpoint diversity framework a lot more engaging than it would if we just tried to be robots and summarize arguments from the right and the left without any input from us at all.

What’s the thing traditional news gets most wrong that Tangle is specifically designed to fix?

IS: Viewpoint diversity and the diversity of viewpoints that exist on staff are probably two of the biggest things that are problems right now for the mainstream press.

Viewpoint diversity, I think, ensuring that a story that gets published is not just being told through just a single lens, or even just two lenses, the right and the left. I mean, we fall into this trap too by having what the right saying and what the left saying, but we really do try and collect opinions that are from the center-left out to the far-left and the center-right out to the far-right, and offering dissenting voices that exist on both sides.

There have been a lot of studies that have shown that journalism as a profession is dominated by people with college degrees who tend to have left-leaning politics. That’s a hard thing to solve for, because you need to find conservatives who want to work as reporters, which isn’t easy. I’ve tried, trust me. But we have gone out and created a newsroom that I think actually has a lot of ideological diversity. There’s a lot of push and pull in the content. And I think the product that comes out on the other side is something that speaks to a wider range of Americans than a lot of news organizations might have.

Looking more recently, what’s the single biggest shift you’ve seen in how young people consume news over the past year?

IS: There are more and more young Americans who are realizing that their feed is not the thing that they want it to be, and is not a good way to get news. I mean, 15 years ago we kind of had a revelation as a society that the Facebook algorithm wasn’t good for us, and then leading up to the 2016 election, there was all this talk about the way the feed and liking and angry emojis and reactions and all this stuff changed what was being put into people’s home feed on Facebook, back when that was like the front page where everybody got their news. My generation, I’m 34, came to this realization, like, ‘Oh, this is bad for us.’ We were trapped in this little algorithm, this little information silo. And then Mark Zuckerberg obviously changed the way Facebook delivers news in reaction to the 2016 election, and downgraded news, and it became less of a destination for that. People moved to platforms like Instagram, TikTok, etc.

What I’m hearing more and more, especially over the last year, is them just trying to get out of that trap, get out of the algorithm, doom scrolling. There’s stories everywhere about the upside of phone bands in schools, about how Gen Z is going analog and leaving their phones, going to dumb phones, and buying records again, and you trying to hang out in person, and moving towards this kind of technological backlash that I think is fundamentally about the news feed that people have. That’s a really interesting development.

I talk a lot about my theory of the Two Gen Zs — that our generation was split down the middle by Covid, social media, and now AI. How do media habits differ between older Gen Zers and younger Gen Zers? If you were launching Tangle today, targeting a 21-year-old, what would you do differently?

IS: My personal observance of it, without, you know, I haven’t studied this super closely, but just what I get from interacting with our audience is that the pre-covid generation does a lot more sitting down, listening to long-form podcasts and YouTube channels and things like that. If I could go back and do something differently, I would have launched the YouTube channel or the podcast a lot earlier than I did. Our YouTube channel is only two or three years old. Tangle’s existed for seven years. And the podcast… we didn’t start until I was probably three years into it. We just took a while to get there, and I think it’s been harder to build that audience, whereas if we had been doing it concurrently from the start, it would have been a lot easier. I know from looking at the metrics of who tunes into what that our audience on the YouTube channel and Instagram and the podcast is just a lot younger than the newsletter audience.

Anytime I get an email that’s like, ‘I don’t care what you think, just tell me the news, why is Isaac offering his take’ or something, somebody who’s new in the newsletter, 98% of the time, it’s from somebody over the age of 50 or 60. It’s very rare that we get that kind of feedback from a younger audience member, which is interesting. I do think especially with the rise of AI, having that personality-first, human-first element is something that’s going to help us survive the wave of agentic news that I’m sure is coming.

You recently completed a college campus tour. After, you wrote in a message to America’s college students, that the division in our country is less Democrat vs. Republican and more in your words: “Indecent vs. decent. Fair reporters vs. hacks. Open- minded vs. closed-minded. Curious vs. incurious. Humble vs. arrogant. Nihilists vs. existentialists. Sycophants vs. dissenters.” Tell us about your tour and this takeaway.

IS: The college tour was a little bit spontaneous. I mean, we didn’t actually plan it out in the sense that I didn’t say I want to book a college tour, let’s go hit five campuses. We really got a cluster of invitations from colleges for me to come speak to them about media bias and literacy and the rise of independent media, and then we decided to schedule them in this sort of five or six week span, so we could do them all on a roll, and just pack it in. It ended up being a really powerful experience, because the kinds of students I got to talk to and the geographical makeup of the colleges were really diverse: Rowan University in southern New Jersey, Harvard in Cambridge, Davidson College in North Carolina, BYU in Utah, and then St. Olaf College in Minnesota. So very different parts of the country, very different student bodies, some big huge public schools, some small liberal arts schools, some Ivy League institutions. I was expecting the student bodies themselves to have really different questions and concerns and problems, but there was more similarity than I thought there would have been.

In terms of my thoughts about the divisions, it just came from being really eyes open about the dividing lines that we’re seeing and trying to think about them with a fresh eye. And when I was talking to college students or answering questions about different politicians or different political groups, like TPUSA vs. establishment Republicans, and abundance liberals vs. the Democratic Socialists of America, it occurred to me that a lot of what’s happening is not a policy debate. A lot of what’s happening is people who are really hardline loyalists to their party or figure like President Trump, people who are really open-minded, looking for new solutions to new problems.

We’ve talked a lot about how young people’s media diets. What’s your media diet? What are the go-to sources that you check religiously?

IS: My media diet’s insane.

I open my computer every morning, and it’s New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fox News… Washington Post is in there sometimes too.

My inbox is where I get a lot of my news. I’m a newsletter guy, and I subscribe to a lot of news organizations’ newsletters. Independent media outlets like 1440 are places that I read who are offering quick breakdowns of what the biggest stories are. [For] insider DC stuff, Politico and Axios and Punchbowl. I read those. And then a ton of independent creators or journalists, writers. Everybody from Matt Iglesias to Ryan Girdusky, who does a kind of right-wing, nationalist newsletter.

I really do try and consume as wide a range of views and perspectives as I can, and I think that’s part of what helps me do my job. But it’s also important because we’re in a really fractured time from a media perspective, so what the New York Times is putting on their homepage is not necessarily what people in leftist circles are talking about or interested in. I want to make sure I’m keyed into all those different spaces.

What’s your biggest prediction for where content is going in the next year?

IS: I think the AI hype is overblown. I think tools like Claude and Chat GPT and things like that are basically much more advanced versions of what Google search was a few years ago, and most Americans are going to use them to get quick answers to quick questions, but I’m not sold at all about the idea that these LLMs are going to start replacing newsmakers and newsletters at scale.

So yeah, some AI skepticism and some hope for the places that are really doing good work to become more prominent.

Noteworthy Reads

• This summer’s interns are walking into a very different Wall Street, Alice Tecotzky for Business Insider

• Study says WFH, not AI, is stifling Gen Z job market, Dave Lozo, Morning Brew

• Darkness on the Edge of TV Town, Mary Julia Koch for The Wall Street Journal

• The Making of a Teenage Terror Suspect, Maya Sulkin for The Free Press

And I sat down with BBC’s The Global Story to discuss the biggest misconceptions around Gen Z and AI.

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Earlier this month, we hosted our first in a series of 2026 x Gen Z political focus groups.

The conversation featured 11 young adults ages 19-21, which means they’re all part of Gen Z 2.0, the younger half of this generation.

They flocked from across the country — Massachusetts, North Carolina, Arizona, New York, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Florida, and Indiana — to our little corner of the internet on Google Meet.

Here’s the TL;DR.

The young Americans on the call *many of whom can vote for the first time in 2026* are fed-up by what one described as the “roller-coaster” state of our country, where conflict feels inevitable both at home and abroad. We talked about the war with Iran, artificial intelligence, gun violence, and division within both traditional political parties (which most participants want nothing to do with).

Asked the #1 issue that should decide the 2026 midterms, there was a clear consensus: ECONOMIC ANXIETY.

That phenomenon will shape how young people vote in November. This obviously, isn’t new (helloooo 2024) — but the way it’s manifesting for this cohort is slightly different than how it may be for their parents or grandparents.

While the words affordability, inflation, and cost of living get thrown around on panels of talking heads and in tv ads ahead of the midterms, the young adults we spoke to are coming at it from a slightly different angle.

For them, it’s not just about current prices. It’s how the financial squeeze and pressure of today will impact their life trajectory down the line.

They’re working multiple jobs to try to pay their way through college, spending money to help their parents get by while they should be saving up for their futures, and pulling into savings accounts that are meant to support them throughout the rest of their adult lives. As this cohort tries to kickstart the rest of their adult lives, they’re sacrificing for a future that feels anything but guaranteed.

READ A GENERATION OF LATE BLOOMERS

They’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, a fear that things might not actually get better, but forced to double down regardless, because there’s no other clear path forward.

This boils down to anxiety — about the present and the future.

Nearly every participant shared just how their personal financial situation has deteriorated in the past year especially. That matters.

Here’s some of what we heard.

Read more

Hear me out. Gen Z has an unlikely hero: Pope Leo.

He plays Wordle, loves the Sound of Music, told young people they should be called Gen+ because of what they will contribute to the world. And now, after his official speech on AI, he seems to be speaking to this generation’s fears and frustrations more directly than almost anyone else in power.

At a moment when nearly every institution feels either performative, profit-driven, or absent entirely, *the pope* is offering something young people feel starved for: moral leadership.

In his Monday encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo addressed AI with a level of clarity and nuance that feels notably absent from most political leaders (cough Trump, cough) and even many tech execs themselves.

As Gen Z’s AI anxiety reaches new heights, the pope confronted the issue head on, not with blind optimism or apocalyptic fear mongering, but instead, with a vision centered on humanity.

That matters because Gen Z is the last generation to truly straddle life pre and post-AI, to try to build identities in a world increasingly mediated by algorithms, and left the most vulnerable to its disruption.

Lots of people talk about AI, but not all sound human doing it. Pope Leo toed that line.

READ A CHORUS OF GRADUATION BOOS

Here are the top reasons why:

1. What makes his message resonate is that he’s one of the few people discussing AI who does not appear personally invested in the race to profit from it. This is rare. Young people are deeply skeptical of institutions right now. Especially when those institutions stand to financially benefit from the very disruption they’re promising will augment human potential. The pope, by contrast, feels outside of that system and laser-focused on centering human interest over corporate interest.

2. There was empathy, compassion, and humility in his words. It feels like he’s looking out for his community, for humankind. His speech didn’t sound like it was written by AI. He also acknowledges that he is not offering a “comprehensive treatment of artificial intelligence” and is real about his own capability. That kind of honesty stands out at a time when so many leaders insist they are certain about the technologies they barely seem to understand themselves.

3. This is the most human a leader has sounded in a while. For years, much of the public conversation around AI has revolved around productivity, efficiency, optimization, and scale. The pope instead focused on dignity, meaning, labor, truth, and human connection, which are the exact things many young people fear are being eroded fastest by algorithms.

4. His take was notably nuanced. He didn’t reject AI (far from it… in fact Anthropic exec Christopher Olah was there for the speech). Instead of saying AI is inherently good or evil, the pope argued that innovation should be judged by whether it expands our collective potential and ability to flourish — not replace human purpose. That distinction is important, and it’s one a lot of young people are desperate to hear articulated clearly. Gen Z is exhausted by black and white thinking; they get enough of that on social media. They don’t want leaders who pretend AI will either save civilization or destroy it overnight. They want someone willing to be honest about both the promises and the tradeoffs.

5. The pope also did something few leaders currently do, calling out the question of who should be held responsible. Pope Leo directly challenged the people building it to take seriously its social consequences instead of just assuming it’s an unstoppable force of nature (Spoiler: it’s not. Its future is being decided by a select few who hold power in tech and politics, and Gen Z knows that). The pope is focusing on areas (truth, education, labor, purpose) where many young people increasingly feel institutions have stopped short of protecting them altogether. He’s calling for accountability, safeguards, and ethical standards.

6. He’s also asking the bigger-picture questions, which are at the core of Gen Z’s AI anxiety: “Where are we going? Toward what goal do we wish to orient ourselves? What direction should we choose as a people and as a human community?”

7. His honesty about the situation (that AI marks a tuning point for civilization) wasn’t just lofty rhetoric or something for a quick soundbite. It was rooted in history, data, and recommendations. One of the biggest complaints I hear from young adults is that leaders (in politics, education, the workplace) often talk about a problem without offering a clear solution. There was research that went into the pope’s encyclical, including evidence on the impact of tech on kids, teens, and young adults.

Noteworthy reads

• Gen Z’s preparedness paradox, my latest with for The Boston Globe

• Tinder is betting Gen Z daters would rather be offline, Samantha Kelly for Bloomberg

• Is it just us? Or is everyone wearing swimwear as streetwear?, Jessica Neises for Cosmopolitan

• Gen Z is turning to gig apps like Uber or GoPuff for summer jobs, Alex Bitter for Business Insider

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You’ve probably seen the videos of college grads booing commencement speakers talking about AI this week.

We’ve known for a while that Gen Z is AI anxious — and that their relationship to AI is nuanced. They love to hate it, hate to love it.

In many ways, young adults feel they are once again guinea pigs in a big experiment they didn’t sign up for, but will inevitably deal with the consequences of (smart phones, social media, Covid-19 mark a few other recent examples).

But what’s happening here is new. Unlike with smart phones and social media, Gen Z is being told how they’re supposed to feel about AI and how it’s going to take over their entire lives. And they are sick of it. Condescension is this generation’s least favorite language. And they’ve already heard enough from AI creators about how it will impact them.

Look beyond the boos and you’ll see there’s even more going on here.

Gen Z’s relationship to AI is driven by FOMO.

Time after time, young people tell me that they use AI not because they want to, but because they feel like they have to. These speakers’ AI references are hitting that nerve.

In one of my earliest AI-focused listening sessions at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, a then-college junior shared the following:

This dynamic has surfaced over and over — where young people forgo AI to take the ‘moral high ground’ only to get beat out by their peers who are using AI. And in the case of AI, the moral high ground has all but disappeared. When there are no rules at all, is there really any point in doing ‘the right thing?’ Or does it just make you a sucker?

Back to Gen Z’s AI FOMO, it’s reminiscent of the early social media days, except with one major caveat. Social media, at the get-go, felt fun. In many ways, it became a right of passage. AI doesn’t have that element.

And while Gen Z was socially native and digitally fluent, they are not AI native or fluent — but Gen Alpha will be.

Earlier this spring, we asked a group of young adults to reply to the following: “When I think about AI, the first feeling that comes to mind is…”

Here’s what they shared.

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Mockler never graduated college. Instead he went straight to building his own media empire. It’s designed less for the traditions and entrenchment of cable news and instead built for feeds. Which is why his recent appearance on CNN has been so interesting. At first, it may sound counterintuitive that a YouTuber is sitting on a CNN panel. But as Mockler described it to me earlier this week, he understands that legacy media and content creators need each other to thrive.

That was on full display recently when a CNN exchange between Mockler and conservative commentator Scott Jennings went viral after Jennings snapped at him on live television, telling Mockler to “get your f*cking hand out of my face.” Mockler got the credibility and combat of cable while CNN got a clip that went viral.

Mockler’s cable coup says a lot about the current state of our media. Cable still has institutional power but creators understand what people want and how to distribute it better (and quicker) than most. I asked Mockler about that moment, and more.

Here’s our conversation, edited lightly for clarity and brevity.

Give me your backstory How did you get into this work and what have you built so far?

AM: I run a YouTube channel with a few million followers. I created this YouTube channel when I was nine-years-old. I used to get home from school and create all these dumb Minecraft and Call of Duty videos, but they weren’t dumb, because I was learning how to edit in real time. That’s what I really started to enjoy was the editing and the production part of it. In fifth grade, I was debating my teacher about gay marriage because the Supreme Court was talking about it, and I got kicked out of class because I was probably being a disruptive asshole. I was literally like 10 years old or whatever, but I was really into debating. My family was uniquely political. My dad was Muslim, my mom was more on the Christian side, so I just had exposure to these different beliefs. And then in middle and high school I stopped making the YouTube videos (I privated all of them in high school) because I wanted to get girls and actually not be the Minecraft guy all the time. Then finally I graduated high school, and I just hated the college structure. I started going to college, I did this film class, as a side thing, and I realized how much I loved editing again. I was like, wait a minute, I can actually still edit very intuitively, like I’m decent at this. So then there was this Trump rally two states away. I grew up in Indiana. This Trump rally was in Iowa for the caucuses. I drove over to Iowa and debated some Trump supporters in a very respectful way, like I would talk to people in Indiana, and it went viral across the internet. So then I started hitting rally after rally after rally, and essentially by building my own infrastructure and my own team in the independent space. I’ve been able to build my way up into the more Cable mainstream space, and the cool thing is that the cameraman that filmed with me in that first ever Iowa rally is still my main camera guy, helping me at rallies.

Do you call yourself a journalist? Is that label still the same as what it used to be?

AM: I don’t call myself a journalist. I think the label still does hold a gravity to it. That’s why I personally don’t call myself one. I’m a commentator. I call myself a commentator because I give my opinion, my analysis, I debate, and I’m not digging. I’m not out there interviewing people as primary sources on a daily basis to develop my facts. Now, I do go out to Trump rallies and do debates. That’s the closest thing to journalism that I do.

I don’t like the label ‘creator.’ For me, I feel like that kind of devalues it, like I’m not just a small creator. I’m building a business with a team of six people.

Tell me about the business you’re building. What’s the model? Who is the team around you?

AM: To break down the business model, it’s a digital first rapid response media company. I post multiple videos a day, breaking down the news, and those videos get distributed across every single platform, almost injected straight into your feed on every single platform, for young people, for older people, everyone in between.

The way I think of my business is that it starts off with YouTube at the top of the pyramid, if you can picture here, most important, going back to when I was nine years old. YouTube is what I’ve always been good at. And then YouTube is where I spend all of my most of my time thinking about developing videos, making these news videos and these fake videos, and from there at the top of the funnel, the race is off. Then the video gets distributed onto Facebook by my main editor, and it gets distributed onto Twitter. If you go on Twitter right now, all my videos are on there. Then from there, he cuts up a short that he puts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and then from there he shoots it off on Substack and maybe posted on Bluesky and Threads or LinkedIn or whatever, like we basically want to make sure that every single gap is filled in the social media landscape.

We didn’t have a Facebook a year ago, and now Facebook pulls 150 million views a month, and that’s a lot. So that’s a huge gap that we had that we didn’t realize that we’ve now filled. So we got all of these different social media platforms that we relentlessly post across.

I personally prioritize YouTube the most. That’s where a lot of the revenue comes from. It’s based on revenue, just ads that are built into the platform. We have a subscription model on Substack, and people can support us on YouTube for a few dollars a month, but it’s nowhere near our main source right now.

After dropping out of college, [I had to] learn how to build this business and operate this business with expenditures and revenue and balance and all, and now we have a team of my main editor, Victor, we just hired a secondary editor, Ewan, and he lives in the United Kingdom, and when we go to bed at about midnight. It’s 6am in the United Kingdom, so we’re able to do an overnight handoff where I can just send him some videos. That’s been very helpful. We’ve got Hayden, our 20-year-old college student, who’s like the operation supervisor. He does a lot of distribution, a lot of helping with titles and stuff like that. It’s nice to have a bunch of young scrappy people in the space who really, really get it. [There’s] Amelia, a producer we just hired for our new debate show, she’s brilliant. We’ve got Rachel, our main lawyer, who runs a lot of our contractual stuff. She’s also brilliant. We’ve got Chris, a contributor who’s the same age as me, and he makes videos on my channel, so I can double my eyes, I can network. Basically two young dudes pushing out content, and then boom, boom, boom, I’m probably missing some people, I mean, yeah, we’ve got some others. Mike, my core policy advisor too, he’s a law student who helps me, and he’s got a crazy brain for policy. So after all that yapping is basically a team of seven like-minded individuals all pushing forward.

How do you decide what to cover?

AM: Like everybody else in the news space, we’re kind of beholden to the news cycle and what’s happening through the day. The past few months, I’ve spent a lot of time working on developing frameworks surrounding the Iran war, and at first this was going through a lot of history of the United States and Iranian relationships, like we overthrew their leader back in the 50s with the Shah, and all of this history leading up to this today, and now it’s just kind of narrative breaking with what the Trump admin is doing.

I’ve been investing a lot of time into breaking up that narrative. Back in January of this year, when it was about Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, I was doing a lot of time on that narrative.

I’m often times covering what is in the news, but I am selective with what I want to cover. Lately, I’ve been talking a lot about foreign policy and Iran and Ukraine and democracy and the overall corruption coming from the Trump administration domestically. Those are the frameworks I think of things through.

You mentioned our generation. Would you say your audience is mostly young people? Do you have metrics on who your audience is?

AM: It spans the generational spectrum. I’m gaining more younger viewers as I do more debate. With my news content on YouTube, I’m gonna go by stats, and oftentimes it’s people who watch like MSNow or MSNBC, and they transfer it over to YouTube. So I’ve got an older audience on YouTube. It’s a lot of 25-34, 35-44, 45-54. The 18 to 24 on YouTube isn’t that high. On Instagram, it is predominantly 25-year-olds, 18-year-old, it’s a lot younger on Instagram. TikTok, I don’t really invest in. Substack, is a rather older audience. Twitter (X), I also reach a younger audience. I really, really like that. I’m reaching 25-34. I would like to be reaching the 18-24-year-olds.

Debate style videos have clearly popped off. But more recently, I’ve heard young people skeptical of them because they feel like it’s rage bait. Do you intentionally curate your debate videos? Maybe you’re trying to rage-bait, maybe not? How do you feel about that?

AM: I don’t try to rage bait, but I understand how debate videos can be rage bait. I think it’s the current ecosystem that we live in that incentivizes it. It’s not really the fault of any individual actor on TikTok or anyone else like that. I mean, the president, for the past decade, has been using the style of political rage bait to prove a point and to drive a narrative and to draw attention, and then liberals use this debate format and try to gain attention, and people say that we shouldn’t do that, I think is misunderstanding the moment and misunderstanding the game.

In an ideal reality we would all be having one-hour intellectual debates, but in the current reality we live in, we’re dominated by social media and attention spans and trying to drive a message in the 20 seconds that you have when somebody scrolls past your reel, or whatever.

So, yeah, oftentimes my debate reels will start off with an interesting book, and I have to make my point within 40 seconds. The opponent has to make their point. And I have to finish off with a strong closer. I don’t see it as rage bait, but some people just don’t like to debate content. But I think it’s a good way to drive a narrative. I view debate clips as clever ways to drive narratives.

What’s your biggest tip for driving maximum views, given as you described it, the current ecosystem that we live in? Are you maximizing for views? What’s your standard of performance?

AM: It’s not just views, but it’s views that actually count, people that can change their mind. There’s always going to be a trade off on every single platform that you use, where you have to optimize the algorithm, and you’ll have to remove parts of the perfect ideal video. I’m not going to post five minute debates on Instagram. I would love that, but oftentimes we have to cut them down to 90 seconds or 60 seconds, because that’s just how it works.

If I could title my YouTube videos, like, ‘Trump has economic recession indicator shock him,’ or whatever, that would be great. But it has to be like, ‘Trump stunned by this bad news,’ like I have to sensationalize it a bit. And each platform, you have to play to the strengths of that algorithm in order to maximize your reach. If not, I’ll be trading off hundreds of thousands of potential views.

That’s not to say it’s only about how many views I can get, but while maintaining the core integrity of my videos and really just pushing forward my liberal frameworks that I truly believe in, I sometimes want to lean into algorithm optimizing things. So, for example, when I get a really cool CNN clip that I’m very excited about, it’s not like I want to post it on Instagram and be like, ‘MAGA gets destroyed by young liberal,’ like it’s not my ideal title for it, but it really does grab people’s attention. So I do it. And then my video that I’m proud of gets more and more views, because I optimized for the algorithm. So it’s kind of building the song and dance of staying true to yourself while learning to tweak the algorithm a bit. At times it’ll be cringy, at times it feels hard.

You mentioned CNN. You’ve disrupted the cable space. Tell me about your experience.

AM: Disrupting is a really good word. From my point of view, it’s been more symbiotic. I’m disrupting in the sense that I’m a different type of figure on there, but the way that I’ve been working with these shows has been very symbiotic.

About a year ago, maybe a bit more, I began to really want to double down on doing debates, and I hired this PR firm. They got me on Newsmax, on the right-wing station. I went on there and I debated Brilyn Hollyhand, and he’s like the new Charlie Kirk, and we debated for like 10 minutes, and it was just a really interesting clash. All three of them were trying to talk over me, and like, you know, push me down, and it was crazy. I was trying to push back. I was pushing back on them, and it ended up being three v one live on Newsmax. Then I was like, ‘Okay, this is fun as hell.’ Then I started doing hit after hit after hit, iteration after iteration. I remember I was like, I really want to get onto these shows where they really debate in person.

Then finally I got on Abby’s show [on CNN] about nine months ago, which was Newsnight, and the first video I did there is on my channel, it’s me and Kevin O’Leary, and it immediately went super viral. So, the video of me debating Kevin O’Leary was titled ‘I Left Trump’s Friend Speechless on CNN.’ It got like 2.7 million views. It blew up, and then I sent it back to the producers, and I was like, ‘Oh, dude, my audience really likes seeing a young person debate on TV.’ And then they kept inviting me back. Over and over and over.

I’m so grateful to be able to refine and flex my debate skills at a young age that I hope I’ll be able to carry with me. It’s a good training ground, and then [the clip] is blowing up on my YouTube channel. The reason why I think it’s symbiotic is because I get from them the credibility of CNN, and debating these people I oftentimes wouldn’t have access to, like, who thought Kevin O’Leary would be debating a 22-year-old at the time, and then for them, I’m able to, I hope, draw viewers and basically give them a secondary distribution vehicle where they can pull 2 million views on, like, a video that I posted where they don’t really have to do anything. It’s kind of like building off each other’s backs, and sometimes it blows up and grows crazy. Like the Scott Jennings moment.

Tell me about that.

AM: My analysis is the Iran war is breaking these MAGA people. It’s very hard to go on TV and defend an illegal war day after day after day. Scott Jennings and I were rather affable for a while. I actually learned a lot from him. He doesn’t know that, but as a young dude, going into these CNN studios, or these spaces, as a young person, you’re a sponge, and you learn from the people around you.

I learned a lot from him, and I also learned, like f*ck the rules, basically. That you can play the game how you want. I gave back to him the exact energy he gives other people. I wasn’t even that aggressive, I just tried to pin it down. He immediately snaps on me and can’t handle it.

Most of all, to kind of talk in our lane for a second, there is a generational gap, and that’s where the disrupting comes from. There’s a generational thing that happens when I’m in these rooms, where age is always the first thing people bring up. Probably just because I still have a baby face, but they’re like, ‘How old are you?’ And then there’s oftentimes a dismissal from right wingers who can’t possibly be questioned by a young person. A lot of older right wing men, or just older men in general, you can tell have never really been questioned or pushed back on in a significant way for decades. I’m not even talking about CNN. I’ve been on other shows or panels or doing events, and you push back on a dude, and it’s like, have you never been pushed back on before?

So, there’s a generational divide here, where the angst of young people is going to begin to rapidly push back on older people, and they’re not ready for it, and I hope to continue leading that on.

What does cable news do that you genuinely can’t? And what do you do that they will never do?

AM: What they do that I can’t, is provide this sprawling infrastructure deep, deep legacy, credibility. I hope that someday my name brings a lot of credibility in this deep institutional manner. But right now, they still blow my mind when it’s like I get into the studio, they get me in the makeup room, there’s a set, there’s all of the insane CNN stuff. I mean, it’s wild. I’ve never even been on podcasts that are close to that, except for the Daily Wire on the right. But yeah, I mean, there’s just a lot of legacy and credibility and connections that are existing in corporate media due to largely a lot of donors, the corporate interests.

I’m able to give my opinion in a unique, free way, I’m able to do whatever the hell I want with no strings, nobody pulling the strings behind me. I often joke to my audience, like, I could literally make a video just entirely shirtless, and there’s quite literally nobody that could stop me, other than commenters that would be like, ‘What the hell?,’ there’s nobody above me that is telling me what to do on a daily basis. There is no mechanism by which my work is shot down by higher ups. Now I have people fact checking me, and I have my team making sure I’m factual, but I feel like I move at a pace of the distribution speed and decisiveness. Now that being said, of course, the mainstream anchors who are live reporting news are doing a very good job of that.

The Two Gen Zs in the news

• The Great Gen Z Dividing Line, Faith Hill for The Atlantic

An exceptionally noteworthy read

• Gen Z’s political gender divide is now showing up in schools, Kevin Mahnken for The 74 (I spoke with Mahnken about The Up and Up’s research for his thorough report)

Other noteworthy reads:

• Today’s teens are a more sober, less social generation, Avery Lotz for Axios (I spoke with Avery too)

• Teens Helped Bring Malls Back to Life. Now They’re Getting Banned., Kate King for The Wall Street Journal

• Booing Commencement Speakers Over AI Is Becoming a Trend, Nia Prater for NY Magazine

On the AI commencement speech debacle, my thoughts are largely this: Gen Z uses AI everyday, and it makes them anxious. That paradox is practical.

Our generation’s AI angst boils down to a question about purpose. How do we instill meaning and purpose in young people at a time when that meaning and purpose is becoming increasingly harder to find? This was true post-Covid & social media. AI supercharges it.

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As the college class of 2026 gears up for graduation, I’ve been talking with grads across the country — from California to Arkansas, Ohio to North Carolina, and Louisiana.

Some are going into investment banking, or consulting. Others are joining the nonprofit world. And a lot of them are struggling to find a job.

It’s no surprise: the entry-level job market is bleak. But between the economy, AI, and shifting markers of adulthood, it’s bleak in many different ways.

For the past four years, this class has been put through the ringer. Let’s rewind.

2022. Freshman year starts just post-pandemic. ChatGPT comes out, forever changing education (and the world) as we know it.

2023. Campuses erupt with protests and encampments after October 7. Collegiate life is disrupted, friendships are upended, and debate about campus free speech reignites.

2024. President Donald Trump wins reelection, wages war against higher ed, threatening international students, impacting campus aid and research opportunities for many.

2025. AI accelerates → entry level job market sees immediate impact. Just 30% of college grads land a job in their desired fields, an 11-point drop from 2024. Charlie Kirk is killed at Utah Valley University. Political violence is on the rise.

2026. ICE raids. US at war with Iran.

Graduates are feeling a whole range of emotions. Here’s what they had to say.

🎓 “Not all of us got our degrees because of ChatGPT. Many of us actually worked our butt off” — a GW grad

🎓 “I got a lot more conservative. Too many leftists on university campuses went unchallenged for too long” — UC Berkeley grad

🎓 “I feel like I’m losing my own ability to write well by over-reliance on AI, but when it can be that much faster or people in my job are going to ask me to use it next year, it’s kind of a hard argument to not. [There’s] kind of a moral anxiety between what to do and how much to use it” — a Duke grad

‼️ The trends and moments that defined their college experience: ChatGPT, October 7 and the pro-Palestine encampments, realizing that “friend breakups” were more typical in college than they seemed.

😰 Their post-grad fears: Not being happy in work, feeling stagnant, having a “terrible year” at home with parents, not leveraging a job into long-term role, not finding community or living near friends, that loans taken out won’t be worth it.

🤞🏻 Their post-grad hopes: New routine, discovering new friendships

🫠 The things they wished they were more prepared for: The transition from school to work, networking, handling personal finances

🧑‍🧑‍🧒 The coolest roommates in 2026? Their parents. “I plan to move back home and live at home for a little. I feel very lucky because most of my friends who don’t live in the city are trying to move there,” said a Syracuse grad from New York City.

Here’s how the media is celebrating graduation season:

• The Cursed Generation, Ryu Spaeth for New York Magazine

• The Class of 2026 Enters a Tough Job Market, Bloomberg

• Graduates Reset Ambitions in Pursuit of First Jobs, Sydney Ember for The New York Times

• Why the U.S. job market is so hard, especially for recent college graduates, Federica Cocco and Taylor Telford for The Washington Post

• Where new grads are finding jobs, Sami Sparber for Axios

We’re digging a layer deeper with everything you need to know.

Hear the #1 thing 2026 grads want employers to know and how AI changed their college days ⤵️

Read more

If you ask them, young adults will often tell you they feel stuck somewhere between childhood and adulthood. For example ⤵️

As the class of 2026 prepares to enter the real world, I’ve heard from many of them that they’re moving back in with their parents post-grad. Not because they don’t have jobs, but because they want to save up some money. There’s more “social acceptance” around moving back in with your parents post-grad, a 2026 graduate from the University of Arkansas told me.

By the numbers:

• 🏠 Living at home has lost its stigma. Almost half of young adults under 30 are living at home with their parents (the highest rate in modern history).

• 💲Student debt is crippling. More than two thirds (67%) of Gen Z has delayed a life milestone thanks to student loans.

• 📉 Job prospects are bleak. Young Americans are the least likely to say now is a good time to find a job.

• ⚖️ The promise of meritocracy has fallen flat. Just 41% of 18-34-year-olds say you can be successful if you’re willing to work hard (a 28-point drop in the past decade).

• ❤️‍🩹 There’s a dating deficit. More than half of Gen Z is spending $0 a month on dates. Strapped for cash, young adults say part of their decision to opt out of dates is because they can’t afford it, and dating’s not as big of a priority as self improvement or time with friends.

But it’s not just the economy, stupid. Gen Z’s delayed adulthood isn’t solely financial. There are social and emotional factors at play here, too.

One big one: minimal social resiliency.

“There used to be a lot more opportunities to network, build relationships, etc. The people I know that have been able to get ahead had a lot of opportunities to mingle with others, where I think anyone who either started high school or college in 2020 wasn’t given the same chance. In my case, I actually went to grad school during that time, so I got a sense of what anyone getting their bachelor’s was dealing with (when I was there in person),” he said.

Since 2020, there’s been a shift in how we hang out. In a post-Covid world, it simply takes more effort. People are habitually flakier. And a now-engrained social friction that comes with getting a matcha or fro-yo or, better yet, meeting for dinner has coincided with the rise of “day in my life” content plastered across social media. Normal day-to-day interactions are now more curated, less organic, less spontaneous.

Then there’s the optimization of everything. That lack of spontaneity is, in part, driven by Gen Z’s optimization era. These days, amid a surge in health consciousness, wearable tech, GLP-1’s, peptides, looksmaxxing, and more, having a social life comes with side effects. It’s no wonder Gen Z is drinking and partying less if they’re more focused on health and wellness, how many hours of sleep they get, and their macros.

Today, social media is its own right of passage, and teens and tweens are taught to curate their own personal brands from the time they get their own social media profiles. This has bred a culture of individuality, which disincentivizes doing things as part of a pack.

In many ways, Covid-19 stole Gen-Z’s confidence. We’ve yet to grapple with the long-term impacts of the pandemic’s interruption of adolescent life — when it comes to this generation (and the next) and their education, their relationships, and, most importantly, their own self confidence.

Like it or not, for Gen Z 2.0, modern life milestones — first iPhone, first Instagram account, first dating app date — are filling the gaps for the seemingly impossible-to-reach traditional ones.

I’ll never forget the 21-year-old student in Arkansas who told me she never learned to flirt with boys because of Covid and feels romantically impaired as a result:

That’s a confidence thing. When we continue to tell young adults that they’re behind, and that they should be where their parents were at their age — without accounting for the fact that the world looks really different — we’re gaslighting them with expectations that are impossible to meet.

There’s this *feeling* that Gen Z is falling behind because when you look at prior generations of young adults, they reached traditional markers of adulthood earlier. But when young adults today compare themselves to their peers, they’re all in the same boat. Instead of blaming young adults for falling behind, it’s worth reconsidering what “success” looks like for their generation.

Noteworthy Reads

• How college students are learning to socialize without cellphones, Susan Svrluga for The Washington Post

• Teen takeovers: The chaotic gatherings that are spurring curfews and crackdowns, Eric Levenson for CNN

• Bumble plans a reset to lure Gen Z back, Sara Fischer for Axios

• Ella Devi is the 18-year-old fashion intern pissing off Trump’s America, Elliot Hoste for Dazed

• The celebrity Gen Z wants to emulate the most? It’s not Taylor Swift, Lebron James, or Mr. Beast., Kelsey Weekman for Yahoo (featuring quotes from moi!)

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As always, I asked about the biggest trends or most talked about topics between their friends these days. As if on cue, they started describing how it feels like everyone is looksmaxxing, i.e. doing whatever it takes to optimize for physical attractiveness — getting thinner, fitter, leaner, more sculpted, more conventionally attractive.

TL;DR everyone is chasing some version of a body they feel they don’t currently have.

This is, obviously, not new. But the version of skinny culture young people are describing right now feels different from the overt dieting culture of the 2000s. Back then, the messaging was often explicit — just be skinny. Today, thinness is wrapped up in the language of wellness, discipline, optimization, self-care, longevity, and self-improvement. In fact, the ideal body isn’t just supposed to be attractive, it’s now evidence that you have your life together.

These dynamics have been supercharged by algorithms that feed girls and boys content glorifying ultra-thin bodies by the minute, while simultaneously peppering them with content about food. And these norms have been co-opted by controversial content creators like Clavicular, the controversial social media creator infamous for bone smashing and promoting a new brand of toxic masculinity (you can learn about him here). They’re only more prominent in an era dominated by the rise of GLP-1s (which, obviously, are miracle drugs working wonders for millions of people who need them) and other peptides — which everyone loves to talk about even if they don’t really know what they are.

To be clear, GLP-1s are benefitting millions of people and can absolutely be life changing. But culturally their rise has also intensified online conversations around appetite, restraint, thinness, and bodily control. The food noise they may quiet for some can unintentionally amplify body image noise for others already struggling with comparison or insecurity.

The body image conversation historically has focused on young women. But these days, that’s not the full story. Young men increasingly face their own version of appearance pressure, too, whether it’s through an obsession with gym culture, protein fixation, bulking — or the fact that Clavicular chisels his jaw with a hammer. They all think it’s gone too far.

The reality, though, is that young women are far more prone to openly talk about their relationship with their bodies. The conversation may slowly be starting to shift among young men, though. Look no further than the Noah Kahan documentary on Netflix, in which the Gen Z pop-folk musician talks honestly about his own struggle with body dysmorphia. That kind of vulnerability from male public figures is still relatively rare, which is precisely why it resonates.

Zooming out, young adults these days are feeling whiplash from pop-culture and left-leaning media’s quick flirtation with body positivity during the Covid era — and the rapid shift away from it. The pendulum has swung hard and fast, all playing out visibly online and moving even faster than usual thanks to the speed of the internet. What once evolved over decades now seems to fully cycle every few years. It’s overwhelming.

So I decided to dig deeper into these dynamics, asking The Up and Up’s ambassadors and community members what they’re seeing and feeling when it comes to body image and the “skinny culture” they say increasingly defines online life right now.

A few standout observations:

• “Growing up as a Gen Z woman, body dysmorphia feels basically inevitable”

• “This has gotten so much worse because of COVID”

• “I’ve seen a lot of influencers post ‘what I eat in a day’ videos, which essentially sends the message that if you eat like me, you will look like me”

• “There’s this weird contradiction where culture is obsessed with food visually, beauty campaigns with cakes, desserts, sugary perfumes, ‘girl dinner,’ cute matchas, baking content all while simultaneously glorifying shrinking yourself”

• “Men, particularly teens/young adults, dislike the way they look due to comparing themselves to practically impossible to achieve unnatural body types”

• “Looksmaxxing is essentially the degradation of the average male body presented to viewers as body improvement”

• “In my gym everyone is wearing headphones and rarely talks to anyone else. So, many guys work out to look better for other people, but then no one talks with anyone else and is soloing their workouts”

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It shows that according to Gallup data, for the past 25 years, young women’s political ideology has shifted dramatically to the left, while young men’s political ideology has stayed consistently moderate.

Let’s be clear. This is not new information. The Gallup data is actually 2 years old. Gallup itself did a deep dive on “young women’s leftward expansion” at the time. I’ve written about it A LOT.

Read my latest piece on what happens when ‘The Girl Power Generation Reaches Adolescence.’

But there’s a reason that this chart’s hitting a nerve online right now.

*It’s worth noting, the chart doesn’t exactly line up with Gallup’s data. At the peak of young women’s liberalness in 2020, there was a +28 point gap between liberal and conservative shares of young women. In 2023, there was a +19 point gap*

Everyone has a take. Here some of the hottest ones:

Full posts can be found here, here, and here.

And here’s mine: The first major peak in young women leaning left is in 2017 (when Trump was inaugurated and we had the women’s march). The second is between Covid and the fall of Roe v. Wade. This generation of young women is growing up with fewer rights than their mothers & grandmothers. That has a profound impact.

So what: Headline after headline after headline has zoomed in on young men since 2024. But that’s only half the story.

Life has changed dramatically for young women in the past 25 years:

• Young women are outpacing young men in college completion rates

• Women in their 20s and 30s are working more than prior generations of young women

• And they’re also having fewer babies in their twenties and more in their late 30s and 40s

The Expectation Gap. And while the expectations on young men have mostly stayed the same (hence, why, for the most part, they still prioritize traditional values like getting married and having kids), the expectations on young women have multiplied. That’s left young women more anxious and, according to NBC data from the fall, more focused on life milestones such as having emotional stability and being spiritually grounded than young men their age.

The blame game isn’t working. It’s definitely worth exploring where and how young men and women differ and what got us to this point. But it only adds fuel to an already raging fire when we place blame on one or the other for how they drifted so far apart.

Instead of complaining about the gender wars, what if:

• Manosphere podcasters, like a Joe Rogan, brought ‘femosphere’ content creators, like an Alix Earle, on as guests to bridge that gap

• Algorithms stopped feeding content by gender

• The GOP embraced paid family leave and child tax credit policies that get at the root of economic anxiety around having kids, rather than just rhetoric around women having babies

• Democrats stopped pandering to young men with kitschy attention grabbing initiatives (like collabs with athletes) and instead focused on actually addressing the issues all young people are facing, like how hard it is to get a job or afford a college degree that might not pay off

Noteworthy reads

• Young Men Are Going to Extremes to Feel Like They Measure Up, Sumathi Reddy for The Wall Street Journal

• I’m a teacher. ‘Edutainment’ won’t solve the deeper problem., Diane B. Norton, Letter to the Editor, The Washington Post

• Meet the Young Superfans Camping Outside the Met Gala, Laura Pitcher for Dazed

• These Are the Hiring Spots Where College Grads Are Landing Good Jobs, Ray A. Smith for The Wall Street Journal

A couple other things I saw while scrolling…

Kalshi is hiring a politics intern:

And Dems are *finally* leaning into YouTube

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If nothing else, teens today are hyper self aware.

When looking at social media, our generation has a problem, and we know it.

Take a new Pew Research report on teens and social media, for example, released just last week.

According to the survey:

• Nearly half (48%) of teens today say social media is bad for people their age — a 16-point jump from those who said the same just a few years ago.

• Meanwhile, 45% of teens say they spend too much time on social media – a 9-point jump from 2022.

• And one in five teens says social media hurts their mental health, with teen girls far more likely than teen boys to share this feeling.

But there’s more to these dynamics than just that.

A recent listening session with a dozen Gen Zers ages 18-26 (from seven states and Washington, D.C.) revealed a trend I’ve been picking up on since I was in high school: digital natives are quick to log offline when they feel they’ve had enough — but they almost always log back on.

Clear-sighted about just how toxic social media is for our mental wellbeing, social media detoxes are extremely common among Gen Z. But they rarely last.

Let me explain.

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But now there’s data showing just how pervasive this feeling really is: according to an NBC News Decision Desk Poll, almost half (yes — HALF) of Gen Z adults want to live in the past. This isn’t so much about aesthetics, though, as it is about emotions.

I joined NBC News Now with Morgan Radford and Vicky Nguyen today to talk about it. You can watch it here:

By the numbers, NBC poll:

• 47% of adults 18-29 said they’d live in the past if they had the option

• One-third would go back less than 50 years; 14% would go back more than 50

• 62% said they expect life for their generation to be “worse than previous generations” 🤯

This tracks with the latest Harvard IOP youth poll which shows a generation weighed down by economic anxiety — and increasingly convinced the future will offer less than the past did.

By the numbers, Harvard IOP poll:

• Just 13% of young Americans say the country’s on the right track

• Half of of young adults say they are personally affected “a lot” by inflation

• 45% are “struggling to make ends meet” or “getting by with little financial security”

• And in the past five years, young adults’ belief that they’ll be “better off” than their parents has shrunk

• In 2021, there was a “+21-point gap between those who expected to be better off (38%) and worse off (17%),” but that’s now narrowed to “just +3 points, with 29% saying they will be better off and 26% expecting to be worse off”

Young Americans are supposed to be more optimistic, idealistic, angsty but hopeful. Not anymore.

When it comes to the future 🔮, both the NBC and Harvard IOP polls asked young adults what they’re looking for from national leaders. The findings offer insight into how to turn generational anxiety about the present around.

What they’re looking for…

• 37% in the Harvard IOP poll want a congressional “candidate who shares their values”

• 33% in the NBC news poll are looking for a 2028 presidential candidate who “will bring needed change”

The Up and Up’s take: Gen Z’s longing for the past is a critique of the present. A life lived in chaos — political and economic — and live-streamed in real-time has left our generation yearning for a time before that felt more calm, less toxic, and perhaps, even more kind.

Noteworthy reads:

• Why Are So Many Influencers Speaking at Harvard Business School?, Madeline Schulz for Vogue Business

• There’s Another Reason Gen Z Can’t Find Work, Jessica Grose for The New York Times

• The internet made us archive our lives – now we want out, Laura Pitcher for Dazed

• Gen Z Men Stress About Fertility Way More Than You’d Expect, Nicole Pasulka for Cosmo

I was in DC for events around the White House Correspondents Dinner, which took a terrifying and surreal turn when a shooting occurred at the dinner, and later, charges were brought against the suspect for trying to assassinate the president.

In the aftermath, wrote a powerful piece on the cognitive dissonance that occurred after the shooting. I encourage you to read it, and watch my friend Dylan Wells behind the scenes report of covering the night from outside the dinner. I watched Dylan spring into action from the Substack party just across the street from the White House, focused and fully in reporter mode. I couldn’t be more proud of her.

Tune in

On Thursday at 7pm ET, I’m moderating a conversation with former White House Chief of Staff and US ambassador Rahm Emanuel for Big Tent USA. You can RSVP here. Hope to see you there. Send any questions for him my way!

We know that Gen Z is AI-anxious. Early career job openings are dwindling. In 2025, just 30% of college graduates landed a job in the field they hoped for — an 11-point drop from the share who did the same in 2024.

Understanding these dynamics, I teamed up with of Visible Ventures — an early-stage venture fund focused on health, wealth, and upward mobility — to unpack what the transition to adulthood looks like today for young adults. The result is a report on “Generation F*ck It,” which you can read here.

Read our report

(You may remember last year, when Lori and I worked together to grasp how young adults were spending, saving, and investing.)

This time around, we were squarely focused on life preparedness and the future of work. We spoke with more than 50 students and early career professionals from Ignite Bentonville, a pre-professional high school in Arkansas, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston, Mesa Community College, Miami Dade College, and a range of four-year universities.

The problem with preparation

What we found was that despite *plenty* of discourse about how “unprepared” today’s young adults are for our changing world, that’s not actually painting a full picture.

Truth is, young adults today are preparing more than ever before — stacking their resumes, applying to dozens of jobs, and building their own “brand” in hopes of standing out from the pack.

Many of them are following a carefully prescribed pathway — taking pre-requisite courses, applying to internships they feel they’re supposed to have, rather than embracing the everyday jobs they already have (most students are working their way through college), and climbing the rungs of a ladder that no longer leads where it used to. In fact, they’re preparing too much, and experimenting far too little.

We’re calling this Gen Z’s preparedness paradox — the challenge of gearing up for a future that’s changing in-real-time with little incentive from institutions and stakeholders to take a risk, stop preparing, and start living.

Thinking about the macroeconomic impact here, failing to foster risk-taking is not only a disservice to a cohort of very creative young people — it’s also undermining the possibility of a strong and thriving future workforce ahead of a massive generational wealth transfer that will fall squarely into the hands of Gen Z.

Our research shows that the answer to Gen Z’s preparedness paradox is, ironically, to stop preparing in the traditional sense, and to just get started. The young adults we spoke to made clear that the key to building confidence is starting before there’s a roadmap to justify the best path forward.

When we asked the young adults in our listening sessions what they felt helped push their futures forward most, an 18-year-old student at the University of Nevada Las Vegas put it bluntly:

He mentioned helping with digital marketing for a local music festival.

“That was so out of my view... and I’ve learned so much from that, [rather] than sitting in my lecture.”

There are clear, existing examples for how to foster this attitude and mindset amongst young adults who will benefit from it. And the responsibility to do so falls on young adults themselves, as well as their mentors, institutions, and employers.

That looks like leaning into pre-professional programs, celebrating extracurricular jobs (not highly curated or fancy ones that align with one’s degree, but real ones, like babysitting, being a summer camp counselor, scooping ice cream — that don’t require any credential), and encouraging that young adults take on work that might deviate from a young adults “brand.”

All of this encourages students to push back against their anxiety — AI and otherwise — by learning to be adaptable, to work with their hands, and to embrace the fact that the real world is often a little bit messy. And sometimes, they’re going to need to just say “f*ck it.”

Gen Z voters are ‘swingy,’ and they’re protesting less. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t paying attention to current events or interested in what’s going on politically.

In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

Their “political interest” throughout President Donald Trump’s second term has jumped since President Joe Biden was in office, according to a Morning Consult report from earlier this month.

Both when looking at the share of Gen Z who are “not at all interested” in politics and those who are “extremely” or “very” interested, the data points in the same direction ➡️ young adults are getting MORE interested.

The report, based on Morning Consult Intelligence, compared respondents’ replies from March 2021-2022 to March 2025-2026. They label Gen Z as anyone born from 1997-2012.

According to Morning Consult:

“The share saying they are ‘not at all interested’ in politics fell from 27% to 20%, and those who are ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ interested grew from 24% to 33%.”

Beyond a spike in political interest, the issues they’re prioritizing have shifted.

• Morning Consult found a six-point jump in Gen Zers focus on economic concerns over the same time period, from 32% to 38% 💸

So what? We know that Gen Z 1.0 and 2.0 have a distinct relationship to politics — and that Gen Z 2.0’s activism looks markedly different than their older siblings. There’s less of it.

(I also joined The Bulwark’s Lauren Egan last week to discuss her reporting on a recent dip in campus protest culture).

But to make it more clear, just because young adults aren’t showing up in the streets like they did for gun safety, the climate, or racial justice — it doesn’t mean they’re disengaged. They haven’t stopped caring about politics. They just stopped performing it. And they’re tuned in, they’re just expressing themselves differently. Part of that’s because when life feels increasingly hard to afford year after year once you hit adulthood, it’s hard to focus on anything but that.

Noteworthy reads

• New poll reveals how Trump’s support among young Americans is significantly changing, Stephanie Perry and Marc Trussler for NBC News

• Gen Z Is Trading the Neighborhood Bar for the Spin Studio, Oyin Adeoyin for The Wall Street Journal

• The new age of performance anxiety, Megan Garber for The Atlantic

I heard how these young women really feel about everything that’s been in the news this week.

In many ways, young women have more opportunities (and choice) today than ever before. But by no means do things feel equal, or easy.

You might be thinking that this sounds familiar, such has been the plight for women since the beginning of time. That’s fair.

But what’s unique about growing up as a Gen Z woman is the way that social media algorithms have sorted them by their gender in an unrelenting virtual world that mimics — but doesn’t mirror — the real one.

And when it comes to politics, they only know an ecosystem dominated by a president who was elected for the first time just weeks after the release of an Access Hollywood tape that would have ended anyone else’s political career — and elected a second time after being found liable for sexual abuse. And in some major ways, they have fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers years ago — after all, this is the first generation in more than 50 years to reach adulthood without the federally protected right to an abortion. Even six years post-Me Too, just this week, two members of Congress resigned following allegations of sexual misconduct.

For these young women, at the core of their gender identity is the fact that they were raised to expect freedom and equality as a given, yet have come of age in a culture that still imposes expectations that say otherwise.

They were raised in the early 2000s, when “girl power” (as one young woman put it last night) was all the rage (think Princess Diaries, Kim Possible, Legally Blonde, even Hannah Montana). Many of them came of age during the peak of the girlboss movement in the late 2010s, amidst a cultural backdrop that included the Women’s March and the Me Too movement. Over and over, they were told that they could do anything they set their mind to.

Yet a lot of this was just vibes — cultural trends around empowerment that did little to actually change the systems that hold women back from equal pay, fair treatment in the workplace, and balanced partnerships. Like their mothers before them, today’s young women seem to be damned if they do and damned if they don’t — feeling judged or penalized for either starting a family or prioritizing their career, or exhausted by trying to do both.

Meanwhile, the dynamics of dating haven’t kept pace with cultural change.

As one young woman put it last night:

All of this happens against a backdrop of constant noise about the gender gap. This week alone, there were dozens of headlines about Gen Z women:

• Yale youth poll data showing Gen Z women are still so far away from Gen Z men politically

• The ‘stay-at-home-boyfriend’ discourse

• A deep-dive cover-story from the UK’s New Statesman on ‘Angry Young Women’ in the UK (who are politically, socially, and emotionally far apart from young men and increasingly alienated in the “femosphere”) showing that the Gen Z gender gap is not solely an American phenomenon

• A WSJ article on how ‘The Family Will Survive Girlboss Feminism,’ breaking down why birth rates are falling… writes it’s not that women don’t want to have kids (I agree) but that it’s the result of a “mismatch in standards” between men and women more than anything else

So what? Raised with a phone in their hand and a social media profile to curate amid crippling economic anxiety, Gen Z is an inherently individualistic generation. This is even more pronounced for the youngest half, who are keenly focused on themselves. That impacts how they feel about the opposite gender.

This plays into how they think about their futures — when it comes to their careers, their partners, and themselves.

At the same time, the prevailing narrative that Gen Z women don’t want to get married or have kids isn’t true. For many young women, they just aren’t ready to do that yet. If paid leave felt more accessible or child tax credits were more pronounced, that might help — but many young women struggling financially don’t trust there are adequate systems in place to support starting a family right now.

And as the dialogue around what it means to be a young woman continues to shift, they’re weighing the pressure of the expectations placed upon them and trying to keep up in real time.

Hear more of what they had to say….

Inside today’s full report

• The “acceptable” age to get engaged

• Why tradwife culture is a myth

• The dual income dichotomy

Read more

ICYMI, in November 2024, I wrote the following:

In all of my work researching and analyzing Gen Z, I consistently see two distinct factions of the generation: those who graduated high school pre-Covid and those who really grew up during Covid. Surely, for anyone whose adolescence was impacted by a once-in-a-century global pandemic there are extreme social and emotional ramifications. Whether that meant entering a workforce disrupted by the pandemic, years of college Zoom classes and campus social distancing, or having high school and middle school defined by a year without much socializing at all, it’s had a massive impact on how we see the world.

But it hasn’t changed everyone in the same ways, and I’d argue that those members of Gen Z, who were younger at the peak of the pandemic, had a very different — and frankly harder — experience than those a bit older.

But Covid isn’t the only thing that has fragmented the experiences of Gen Z.

What might seem like subtle differences in age are exacerbated by the rapid speed by which social media has changed over the last decade. The habits of the older members of Gen Z (where I fall) vs. the younger members of Gen Z are distinct. Older members of Gen Z might have had a flip phone before an iPhone. Instagram and Snapchat didn’t exist until our time in late middle school. In high school (and most of college) there was no TikTok. But younger members of Gen Z have had an entirely different experience online. They only ever knew phones to be smartphones, with all the apps that exist today. They may be more prone to message on Snapchat than iMessage. And they are so acutely familiar with TikTok that they may not appreciate the way it’s transformed our culture.

Fast forward, and the case for the two Gen Zs keeps getting stronger.

A new Yale youth poll offers fresh evidence of a split within Gen Z — specifically when it comes to young men.

The data shows that young men are souring on President Donald Trump (according to the poll, “compared to the fall 2025 poll, Trump has lost the most ground with women under 35 and men under 30”).

‼️ But the poll also shows those young men aren’t necessarily moving toward Democrats ahead of the 2026 midterms.

And there’s a big difference in support for Democrats amongst young men ages 18-22 (i.e. those in Gen Z 2.0) and young men ages 23-29 (i.e. those in Gen Z 1.0).

• Among men ages 18-22 – Gen Z 2.0 – Democrats hold a narrow +3 advantage in a hypothetical general ballot.

• Among men ages 23-29 – Gen Z 1.0 – that advantage is +20.

🚨 That’s a 17-point gap within the same generation.

The bottom line: When it comes to young men, Gen Z is not one political cohort. The men who came of age before Covid and before TikTok reshaped culture are politically distinct from those whose adolescence was defined by both of those factors.

Zooming out: The data also shed light on the pronounced and well established gender gap within Gen Z.

• Young men ages 18-22 (Gen Z 2.0) lean just +3 points toward Democrats

• While young women ages 18-22 (also Gen Z 2.0) lean +44 points toward Democrats

🤯 That’s a 41-point gap, one of the biggest we’ve seen to date.

So what? Gen Z is not behaving like a traditional generation of young voters when it comes to politics (nor are they really behaving traditionally in any aspect of our culture or society, fwiw). This cohort was shaped by the Trump-era, Covid, social media, and now AI. That combination has made their politics more fragmented, more reactive, and more shaped by culture in real time. It also helps explain why the divides within Gen Z, especially by age and gender, can be so stark.

On the whole, these young voters are less driven by partisanship and more driven by whether something feels like it’s working. They’re wired by instant gratification, and move at the speed of the internet. That has consequences.

They see everything happening in real time for them — what’s working, what’s failing, what’s happening, who is breaking through, who is losing ground. They want responsiveness and proof of action. This helps explain why this group can appear so swingy (and 56% identify as a political independent, according to Gallup).

They moved toward Trump in 2024 because they wanted results. And they’re moving away from him for that very same reason. They expected results they’re not getting.

Noteworthy reads

• Top Influencers’ Secret Weapon for Engagement Might Be Replaced by AI, Andrew Zucker for The Hollywood Reporter

• Relatedly, The Clip Economy, for

• The Campus Protest Culture That Targeted Biden Goes Silent for Trump, for

• Relatedly, Why Aren’t The Kids Out Protesting Trump?, Thomas B. Edsall for The New York Times

• Women in Their 20s May Not Be Having Babies, but by 45 Most Probably Will, Claire Cain Miller for The New York Times

The more pervasive AI gets, the more anxious teens and young adults feel about it.

That’s based on data from a new Gallup, Walton Family Foundation, and GSV Ventures study released today, which shows that Gen Z is souring on AI.

It also confirms that the two Gen Zs are experiencing AI differently, a trend we started to see surface last year. This makes sense, given that students in Gen Z 1.0 had no exposure to AI in high school (or even college, for some Zillennials like me), while students in Gen Z 2.0 have already experienced the rise of AI in school.

How they are using it:

• More than half of Gen Z uses AI at least weekly

• Gen Z 2.0 (14-21-year-olds) are using AI more regularly than Gen Z 1.0 (22-years-old and up), they’re also less anxious about it than their older peers

How they feel about it:

• Only 22% of Gen Z is excited about AI

• Only 18% are hopeful about AI

• Nearly a third of Gen Z feeling angry about AI

• Yet, more than half of Gen Z students believe they’ll need to know how to use AI in education after high school

There’s a racial divide: Black and Asian Gen Zers are the most likely to use AI regularly.

Workplace worries: About half of Gen Z employees see more downside than upside to AI at work, while just 15% see the tech as a “net-positive.” Men and college-educated employees are the most likely to use AI at work.

But growing educational impact: Broadly, schools’ relationship to AI has changed over the past year, with more access to and also more school policies around AI.

Parental permission: As AI’s impact increases, conversations between parents and children are changing too. Nearly 60% of Gen Z K-12 students have talked to their parents about AI.

This survey data comes alongside the ongoing ‘Voices of Gen Z’ Study with Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation. Data from this series has been important for making sense of how Gen Z feels about their futures and present, especially when it comes to school and work, and shed light on Gen Z’s rightward shift well before the 2024 election. The Walton Family Foundation also supports my work on these topics.

AI is the biggest storyline for our generation right now. At The Up and Up, we’ve been tracking how both students and young adults feel about AI for quite some time — in fact, it’s been one of our biggest priorities over the past year.

My other Gen Z AI-focused writing:

• Gen Z Uses AI But It Makes Them Anxious, The Up and Up, April 2025

• Gen Z & AI in the Heartland, The Up and Up, May 2025

• Opinion: The AI cheating panic misses the point, Washington Post, August 2025

• The AI Policy Craze, The Up and Up, January 2026

• Good Luck Banning AI, The Up and Up, February 2026

• Gen Z’s Gut Reaction to AI, The up and Up, February 2026

• Gen Z Has a Love/Hate Relationship With AI, The Bulwark, March 2026

Just last night, on our April ambassador call, high school and college students stressed what they’re calling the “death of the dream job” as a result of AI anxiety — and how they’re preparing for workforce changes amid the new tech. They also touched on what they called ‘AI etiquette’ concerns in education i.e. when teachers and students respectively should use it vs. how they are currently using it.

I’ve written a lot about Gen Z and AI, but today’s findings gives us the most recent snapshot of how young people feel about how dramatically the quickly evolving technology is impacting all parts of their lives. It complements our qualitative research in recent Reality Checks, listening sessions, and community calls.

Let’s hear what our community has had to say firsthand…

In our latest Reality Check with our Gen Z community, we asked respondents to tell us the biggest thing older generations don’t understand about their experience with AI.

Here’s some of what they told us:

• “I/we as a generation have to learn to use it in order to survive (in the workforce) in the coming years. They think it’s us being lazy, but in reality, we need to know how to use it so that we don’t loose our jobs to it.”

• “I don’t use it to cheat or anything, but I use it to help make practice problems for me for Physics or Calc AB. It can also show how to solve various questions that I might need to know before my test. I try to limit the amount I do use it because I understand the amount of water it uses.”

• “It’s really infiltrating every segment of society from school to work to fitness to dating advice to being a therapist. It can do almost anything better than humans.”

• “I don’t think they understand that I don’t use it very often (but I think I am in the minority).”

• “AI is not magic. It is still developing and makes mistakes. And my enthusiasm for it is not high.”

• “How AI can be super useful for research. I feel my older professors are still wary of its use entirely.”

• “I think it’s a lot harder to figure out what’s ours now. With AI, the line between what are my ideas, my writing, my thinking and its ideas, writing, and thinking is much harder to distinguish.”

• “That I fear not having time to work in a meaningful career and make the progress towards a worth while future due to Al.”

• “They don’t fully get how integrated it is into everyday work and learning. It’s not just a shortcut, it’s becoming a tool you need to know how to use well.”

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The Up and Up’s take

A few things stand out in these comments about AI:

• It’s being politicized.

• They’re incredibly wary of the environmental toll.

• It’s fueling economic anxiety across the entire generation.

The quiet drumbeat about Gen Z’s economic anxiety has been present since 2024. A few years ago, I wrote that despite headlines leaning into Gen Z’s embrace of social and culture war issues — or the manosphere — the economy was their number one concern. That’s obviously still true — and in many ways it’s driving the gender divide I often talk about. Young adults’ economic anxiety has been the cornerstone of any successful campaign that’s reached young people in the past few years (Donald Trump, Zohran Mamdani, etc). It’s the biggest issue facing Gen Z today and is the most important storyline of our generation. And it’s heavily interwoven with how they feel about AI.

But Gen Z’s feelings about AI are more than just their fears of what the technology is doing to the economy and the job market. They’re worried about what it’s doing to the climate — and its human toll.

The irony of having grown up lonely, online, and amid Covid, is that Gen Z, and Gen Z 2.0 especially is hungry for everything IRL.

So when young adults talk about AI, and say they worry as much about what it’s doing to humanity as how it will affect their education and careers, it’s all part of the same puzzle — about their social and emotional wellbeing, and their calculus on how stable they will feel, as employees yes, but also as human beings.

That dynamic is not only effecting their educational and professional experiences and choices, but also their relationships — and their politics.

“A successful campaign in 2026 must operate like a full-time production studio.”

That’s the argument at the center of a recent New York Times op-ed from Democratic strategist David Plouffe — the architect of Barack Obama’s campaign and a senior adviser to Kamala Harris’ — who argues Democrats need to act more like influencers, turning their message into constant, made-for-social content.

The piece poured fuel on an already lit fire among Democrats still trying to figure out what went wrong in the 2024 election — a result that surprised many even though it probably shouldn’t have, given there were plenty of warning signs.

Plouffe has a point (even if making the case for influencer politics through the New York Times opinion page is, in itself, a very old-media move). But there’s more to winning in 2026 (and 2028) than turning every campaign headquarters into Barstool. Not every candidate has the personality to pull that off — and when they don’t, voters can tell. More importantly, Democrats risk misreading a strategic, political problem as a tactical, media one.

Here’s my view, informed by conversations and listening sessions with thousands of voters, mostly young ones:

In 2026, the most successful politicians will do two things well.

1. They will listen closely enough to understand what their constituents are actually dealing with.

2. They will be everywhere, always, all at once — without seeming robotic or fake.

Operating like a content studio can help with both of these things. But it’s not the strategy itself. It’s the vehicle. And there are plenty of slick content operations deploying the right tactics, but with the wrong message.

To win on the internet, you have to have to understand it. The savviest digital operatives are the ones who actually know how the world online works — which means they’re always scrolling. They don’t post in overly produced paragraphs (or form-template reels) or stale talking points or yesterday’s memes. They post like real people talking to other people. They know when to take risks and also that any imperfect post or faux pas will be irrelevant by the next time they post.

*Remember when Senate Democrats flooded Instagram feeds with a scripted video last year?*

But this is more than just being too online — digital culture is often a reaction to real-life frustrations, needs, and experiences.

And at the end of the day, it comes down to cultural fluency. Like it or not, this is why our reality-tv-star president is president again. For a time, maybe better than anyone else, President Donald Trump had a feel for what people wanted to hear — and how to make them feel seen. I’ve written before about the similarities between Trump’s 2024 campaign and Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s style in New York City. What they share (or shared, because I honestly think Trump lost this touch) is definitely not ideology, it’s instinct. They have an ability to sense what resonates and deliver it in a way that feels natural. They’re not tacking to trends. They’re operating in a voice that feels completely their own.

Media matters enormously but it is not everything. The notion that politicians should communicate directly to voters through their phone screens isn’t some great revelation. In a different era, that would have meant newspapers or cable. Important, of course. But no medium can compensate for a weak message.

You should only say something if you have something worth saying. And that’s where Democrats still seem stuck. In my listening sessions with young Americans, the complaint I hear over and over is that Democrats don’t have a clear message. That was true in 2024, and it may be even truer now.

I think of a young woman who told me, “the last time I heard about Democrats rallying together was during the shutdown,” meaning only when they were playing defense. Or the young man who described the party as “a chicken running without its head.”

Young Americanas are not demanding purity politics or litmus tests but they are asking for some glue — a unifying vision, a sense of direction, and a reason to believe the party stands for something beyond opposition.

Personality matters but a bunch of personalities online alone can’t carry a party without a coherent vision for what comes next. (That challenge is compounded by the fact that many young voters no longer feel particularly attached to party labels or drawn to today’s political candidates at all.)

Which leads me to my final and most important point.

The core job of a candidate is to listen. It’s not to produce content. If clips from real conversations help show understanding and reach more people, great, but the human element has to come first. Otherwise, voters will feel the difference.

One of the clearest social trends of the past few years has been Gen Z 2.0’s so-called analog revival. Yes, younger audiences are online. But they also crave a life lived in person.

One of the biggest critiques I hear from young people is that, when it comes to politics, they feel like an afterthought, or like candidates only show up to talk to them just before an election. One of the biggest compliments I heard in 2024 (and this was true of Trump, even if his actions were performative), was that he showed up, on campuses, at frats, at McDonalds, at UFC fights.

Politicians should take that seriously. Actually go to where people are.

Go to community hot spots. Show up in places where culture is being formed and lived. And while you’re there, listen. Have a conversation. Ask them what’s going on in their lives. Really engage, one-on-one.

Some of those moments may later make for strong political content. Maybe that looks like Mamdani’s viral walk across Manhattan, or Texas Senate candidate James Talarico giving an Easter Sunday sermon.

But if the main goal is capturing the moment instead of actually living it, people will feel that too. There is a time and a place for cameras and memes. But if politicians become too fixated on turning every interaction into content, content itself can become their Achilles heel.

Noteworthy reads

• What Teens Are Doing With Those Role-Playing Chatbots, Kashmir Hill for The New York Times

• The Real Religious ‘Renewal’ Happening in Gen Z, Luis Parrales for The Atlantic

• Inside the Gen Z Shark Tank where influencers are becoming venture investors, Leo Schwartz for Fortune

• Nearly half of young Jewish American women are dating less over antisemitism fears, Danielle Cohen-Kanik for Jewish Insider

• AI ‘Slop’ Is Flooding Children’s Media. Parents Should Be Very Alarmed., Emily Tate Sullivan for The 74