Lately, it feels like everyone online is fixated on one of two extremes. Gen Z either parties too much or not at all. But that’s not really how young people are living.
In Tuesday’s newsletter, I linked to a New York Times story, ‘Trading Keggers for Wellness Darties’ about the rise of wellness events on college campuses as an alternative to drinking and traditional frat parties. It’s the latest example of Gen Z balancing wellness with going out.
This discourse is all over my own Instagram feed.
I recently wrote about how I feel like my generation, especially the youngest of us, has finally, finallyyyyyy learned how to have fun again.
But that doesn’t mean that Gen Z’s wellness obsession has gone anywhere.
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Two things can be true at once.
Wearables, GLP-1s, and wellness culture are everywhere (and they have real, proven, and life-changing benefits) — just as Gen Z is coming out on the other side of a loneliness epidemic and embracing in-person everything. As a result, young adults are constantly optimizing their health and bodies — and also going out to have fun. Trying to do both can be exhausting.
Curious to learn more about how this is actually playing out, I asked some of our ambassadors, all high-school and college students. What I heard was less about a choice between wellness and partying than an attempt to do it all. Connection is driving both, but so are new pressures around health, appearance, and what it means to be having it together.
“The shame of partying is really prevalent right now,” one 20-year-old told me.
MAHA culture has certainly played into this. And the “ozempicdemic” is real, even among high schoolers.