It’s A Trend For Older People To Hate Gen Z When They Complain About Not Being Able To Afford Anything

Months ago, a young woman named Brielle (@brielleybelly123) on TikTok went insanely viral for crying about her 9-to-5 job.

To summarize, Brielle said that it takes forever to get to her job and that she can't afford to live in the city, so she wakes up early to head to work and gets home at "6:15 pm earliest." By the time she's off work, she's tired and out of time. She says, "I don't have time to do anything. I don't. I want to shower, eat my dinner, and go to sleep. I don't have energy to work out."

"I don't have time for anything," she adds. "I'm so stressed out."

Social media personalities, mostly right-wing pundits, called her a lazy, entitled "snowflake." Her video became a sensation, and suddenly, it was acceptable to hate Brielle.

Similarly, another young woman complained on TikTok about working and being unable to afford rent, adding that she's "exhausted all the time for being overworked and underpaid." The comments state that this injustice could be credited to who she "probably voted for," yet in 2020, these same individuals also believed that voter fraud took place. I'm sure they still think that, so I'm not sure why they're isolating economic struggles as an individual failure rather than a systemic issue. There is often zero compassion in these types of criticisms and only finger-pointing.

At least others have defended the cries of Gen Z, like one of my favorite YouTubers, PhilosophiCat. "Gen Z (and many Millennials) have been utterly failed at every turn by the adults in their lives to the point that they have little hope of being able to build a life for themselves, and all conservatives can do is laugh and tell them to get roommates," she wrote on X. "Easier to feel smug than to come up with any solutions, I suppose. Easier to blame these kids for 'voting' for policies that long predate them. The only thing conservatives seem to care about is fighting wars for Israel. They seem actually quite giddy to watch their own country fall into ruin and their fellow citizens suffer. They are so high on the smell of their own farts that they can’t even figure out why the left continues to be popular. The left doesn’t have solutions, either, but they do very frequently acknowledge the problem, which is a lot more enticing than the self-righteous laughter of conservatives."

What's most interesting is that some of the media personalities that slam Gen Z and younger millennials for opening up about their concerns are wealthy. While young people open up about having little to no time to live or about struggling paycheck to paycheck, hoping that they'll be heard, older people laugh at them in the comfort of their own homes. These are the same pundits who generate passive income in their sleep. Meanwhile, members of Gen Z may never be able to afford a house.

Let’s Put the Bullying To Rest

Besides the fact that bullying gets you engagement on social media, there's a reason behind the cyber mobbing. People who spend time online find themselves in a clique. Anyone who doesn't fit into that group or their ideology is automatically an outcast. This often results in members reinforcing their group identity through circle-jerking; that way, they can repeatedly validate each other's opinions and ridicule outsiders "on the wrong side of history." They get a sense of belonging out of it.

In the process, they also diffuse responsibility onto the younger generation. It's Gen Z's fault that the state of the country is this way (the oldest Gen Z has only been an adult for nine years). Again, the blame is shifted on the individual, so young people are given useless advice: Find a better job, stop eating avocado toast, get over it. This is the way life is.

I suppose life means paying tens of thousands of dollars on education, studying, and working hard for a degree only to land a 9-to-5 that doesn't cover living expenses, allowing the government to fund wars while ignoring your needs. Why would anyone want part of that?

Might I add that Gen Z isn't the only one struggling in this economy, but they get the most hate for whatever reason. There are countless videos on TikToks of millennials stating the same thing. Gen Z isn't lazy or entitled; it's just that they have no incentive to work when it only pays for basic necessities, if that.

And they're not asking for unrealistic reformations like 20-hour work weeks, 30 vacation days per year (the average in Europe, but not in America), or never laboring again. They just simply want to be able to afford things with one salary and to at least have time to take care of themselves. They shouldn't have to pinch pennies as post-graduates or deliver Uber Eats on the weekends. However, by scapegoating them and dismissing their concerns, society overlooks the opportunity to address these underlying structural problems and work toward meaningful change that benefits Americans.

To me, it's a wonderful sign that people are releasing their frustrations about the system that has failed them. It's far better than accepting to be a mere cog in a machine.

Lastly, those who have accepted that this is just how society is reminds me of a quote by Aldous Huxley: “The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does. They are normal, not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.”

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