politics

They grew up with tech without understanding it, which is a big difference from millennials.

they want to “own the libs” no matter the cost. They like seeing the pain they cause

I have a hard time believing this.

When you actually talk to the kind of young, Gen Z men that regularly spout right-leaning propaganda, generally speaking, you don't see people who enjoy suffering.

You see young men who are suffering themselves, but are given no outlet by society to express or fix it, and are heavily propagandized to by fascists who know that by creating arbitrary divides, (the most common one you'll see with these young men being "men vs women," think Andrew Tate type rhetoric) they can redirect the anger of these young men from systems to other individuals and groups that aren't the actual cause of their problems.

When young men are the specific, designated target of right-wing propaganda, which explicitly tries to tell them that "men used to have it better," and actively tries to make them believe that they're not strong enough, not good looking enough, and not rich enough, then of course you'll get young men that feel, in some ways justifiably, shunned.

To put it how Jason Stanley put it in his book, aptly named How Fascism Works, "Misogyny is what faces women when patriarchal expectations are left unfulfilled."

Those expectations never need to have actually been reality, but just the very expectation that they should have those things can make them feel slighted.

But remember, while these young men are angry, sad, and scared, they still don't enjoy causing pain. (I'm talking broadly of course, you'll always be able to find some crazy dudes if you look enough) They just feel like they haven't been given what they deserve.

Just like the rest of Gen Z.

The only thing that makes them different is the fact they believe the source of their suffering is a different group of people.

I'm not excusing any of their behavior or beliefs, far from it. But claiming that young men enjoy inflicting pain on others because they hold beliefs that make them feel slighted by society is just plain wrong in the vast majority of cases.

As a Gen-Xer, we got the benefit of the boomers taking almost all the air out of the room, and their parents thinking our generation was even worse than the boomers. The boomers mostly ignored us, called us slackers, etc....some time goes by and we are getting lumped in with the boomers and the "greatest generation" and getting blamed for all the problems, so that's been fun.

Same. Le sigh 😕