FILLING UP THE EMPTINESS WITH TRASH
Nick Fuentes, whose podcast had been trending no 1 on Spotify before it got canned for hate speech, has recently said in an interview with Piers Morgan that "Hitler was cool.. because of uniforms and parades" and "women want to be beaten and raped". Nick is an idol influencer. He doesn't seem to be a "bad kid", he is articulate and well-dressed. He is a product of the Gen Z I-phone generation. Judging by how vigorously he was defending his outrageous opinions, he is absolutely clueless and yet somehow extremely confident about them.
Generation Z – the name given to those born between 1997 and 2012 – is a uniquely troubled generation. And while the vast majority of Gen Zers are, of course, law-abiding – not outlaws, assassins or terrorists – they are mightily besieged by the same factors transforming many of their peers into political radicals, and in some cases into criminals. Social analysts break down the various influences that have made Gen Z into what author Jonathan Haidt chose as the title of his #1 New York Times bestseller: "The Anxious Generation."
In fact, an estimated 42% of Gen Zers have been diagnosed with anxiety, depression, ADHD, PTSD or other mental health condition, with a staggering 60% reportedly taking medication to manage their mental health, according to a study on Psychiatrist.com.
There's the disconcerting reality that many Gen Zers are not dating or getting married and having families – partly due to economic pressures, high anxiety and insecurity about the future, disillusionment with marriage due to the high level of divorce in their parents' generation, and widespread reliance on dating apps. But also because they are spending so much time living in a virtual world where they can plug into and commune with every imaginable – and unimaginable – type of individual, cause, "influencer" and community on earth, all recruiting 24/7.
Yet, on a deeper level, there's a powerful underlying truth about all this spelled out eloquently by writer Bethany Mandel in her New York Post article, "How do two privileged New Jersey teens get seduced by ISIS?" which details how and why "two teenagers from one of New Jersey's wealthiest suburbs were arrested for allegedly plotting to join ISIS and carry out mass killings of Jews." The causative factors, Mandel notes, do not start with getting brainwashed and recruited by evil people on the internet.
Mandel sets the stage for probing the underlying causes in her article by simply questioning why "two affluent American teenagers from a picture-perfect town" would end up "embracing one of the most violent ideologies on earth." After all, she notes, one of the two boys reportedly claimed he wanted to "execute 500 Jews" and "mow down" pro-Israel marchers in his hometown, while the other boy "posted photos of himself with knives and said he wanted to behead people."
These boys, Mandel points out, "didn't find ISIS in a mosque. They found it on Discord. A generation raised without a moral grounding is now desperately searching for something to fill the void. And when that search happens in the digital wilderness, without fathers or teachers to guide them, it leads not to purpose, but to poison."
These upper-middle-class "jihadis aren't just a security threat," concludes Mandel. "They're a warning: When a society stops offering its young men meaning, something else will. And what steps in to fill that emptiness may be worse than anything we dare to imagine."
Of course, out of the approximately 69 million Gen Zers in the U.S., only a relative few become actual monsters and murderers. On the other hand, a large number – especially those attending today's colleges and universities – have been jubilantly demonstrating in America's streets their approval for monsters and murderers, in particular the terror group Hamas. (An August 2025 Harvard/Harris poll found that an astonishing 60% of Gen Z voters aged 18 to 24 supported Hamas over Israel).
With all the anxiety, unhappiness, political radicalization, online addiction, widespread depression, dependency on psych meds, financial struggles and other issues plaguing them, it's no wonder the second leading cause of death for Gen Zers is suicide. (The leading cause of death for Gen Z is "firearm-related injuries," which includes suicides as well as homicides and accidental shootings).
Ironically, so called "artificial intelligence", increasingly being adopted by Gen Zers as therapist, friend, counselor, financial adviser and personal helper with everything from school papers to relationships to mental health issues is now helping young people to commit suicide. For real. And of course, the many international "sextortion" groups that target kids are adding to their already stratospheric suicide count.
In a new phone-based childhood, free play, attunement, and local models for social learning are replaced by screen time, asynchronous interaction, and influencers chosen by algorithms. Children are, in a sense, deprived of childhood.
By designing a firehose of addictive content and by displacing physical play and in-person socializing, the Big Tech companies have rewired childhood and changed human development on an almost unimaginable scale.
While the reward-seeking parts of the brain mature earlier, the frontal cortex – essential for self-control, delay of gratification, and resistance to temptation – is not up to full capacity until the mid-20s, and preteens are at a particularly vulnerable point in development.
Gen Z is just another generation brought into a world that is increasingly conflicting, violent, addictive, unstable, and unsuitable for children and adolescents.
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