Don't blame Gen Z, blame the internet
On Gen Z's obtuse consumption of SATC and the media's exploitation of it
As many of you may know, Sex and the City recently made its debut on Netflix. Although it has been on HBO’s various streaming services for literal years, for some reason, chronically online Millennials felt a collective dread upon its fateful opening day on The Big N. A dread that is justified for chronically online, OG fans of the series to be honest — in the last couple of years, Gen Z has earned a reputation for being questionably anti-sex. Surely, they’d miss the conceptual relevance of Sex and the City upon first viewing.
And you’d be correct!!!
However, their issues are not necessarily with the sexual aspect of the show. Indeed, all generations can agree that the sex is mostly a device used to explore the show’s pressing themes: womanhood, romance, relationships, gender roles, and (for better or worse) heterosexuality.
No, their issues seem to be with the women at the center of it all, namely their likability. This article featured a 22-year-old author who took issue with the fact that she couldn’t “root for” Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda, or Samantha because they’re terrible people. Now, are they annoying at times? Sure. Selfish? Definitely! Even a little conceited? Well, yes!
Terrible, though? Nah, no chance. A terrible person would have left her friend hanging when she revealed that she dyed her coochie hair bright red. But Carrie was there for Samantha in that moment! (An aside: How can anyone dislike Samantha Jones?? At the very least she delivers some of the best lines of the series.)
Similarly to that piece from The Cut, another publication has taken a young writer with regressive ideas, clearly didn’t challenge their perspective during the editing process, and shoved their editorial to the fore, awaiting those rage clicks. An effective engagement strategy to an extent, but at the cost of future readership I’d argue. The subversiveness of SATC, along with its HBO peer at the time, The Sopranos, was to introduce audiences to the concept of the anti-hero. Beginning with Tony Soprano and Carrie Bradshaw, the years that would follow — considered by many to be the Golden Age of Television — saw countless different shows evolve this character archetype. The point of the anti-hero was to portray the full human experience, to show that people are not wholly good or bad. Some anti-heroes leaned more villainous, like Tony Soprano, while others leaned more likable, like Carrie Bradshaw. Still, they were on opposite ends of the spectrum of gray between “good” and “bad.”
SATC was also progressive for its frank discussions of taboo topics at the time, and the way it exposed the id of so many straight women. This led to various uncomfortable situations depicted throughout the series ranging from funny to serious. Yet, SATC sought to challenge its viewers to sit through the discomfort, untangling the moral questions at the heart of the show. Doing this requires the ability to see ourselves in the characters, even if that means recognizing our own problematic inclinations. If all characters are black and white, there is less to challenge within ourselves; we’d obviously all choose to see ourselves in the heroes.
As much fun as it can be to engage in generational warfare to the tune of dunking on Gen Z, I don’t think I can fault them for opinions like the one this writer shared. I remember my early-, even mid-20s and my perspectives on society and culture back then. I’m able to arrive at the above assessment of SATC because of age and experience in culture criticism. I also value listening to others who are smarter than me, something that people 25 and under are notoriously bad at (no tea, no shade! it’s just true!). I know that Zoomers believe in their loins that they have everything figured out, because I thought I did too. I thought I knew everything there was to know at 25 — and then I got older. I went to therapy (shoutout Misty!!). I hit 30. I had a kid. I made friends with new people. I moved across the country. I experienced more.
Just when I thought I’d reached sociopolitical completion, I unlocked a new level of understanding.
A 1993 baby, I’ve seen most of the internet’s evolution from a fun, bonus hobby to integral part of society. I entered college in 2012, when smartphones and social media were truly taking off as means of social currency. As college went on, more and more of our lives migrated online, but Millennial representation in popular media was lighthearted. We are the BuzzFeed generation: listicles, memes, GIFs, and our favorite quotes from media were about the extent of what we contributed to the internet. In the 2010s, we hadn’t yet arrived at thinkpiece culture, and publications were too busy shaming us for ruining another economy with our brokeness to give a shit about what we thought of the world around us.
We shared our thoughts with each other in siloes of the internet. AO3 and Tumblr were where we wrote our radical political manifestoes and sexual discovery. Our thought exercises were done with each other in low-key online communities, in the privacy of DMs. Society wasn’t asking us what we thought, so we expressed it to small groups and challenged each other on our own. In a strange way, it allowed us to develop our social, political, and moral stances in a way that felt less final.
In the 2020s, there’s so much more emphasis on social media as a profit machine. As a result, everything that happens on these apps is bigger, faster moving, more urgent and important. Publications know this, and also have taken note of the sometimes-playful-sometimes-deadass rivalry between Millennials and Gen Z that has played out for years on TikTok.
These factors, as well as the knowledge that “generation” branded content has garnered rage clicks for years, are leading websites to call upon Gen Z for their hot takes. “Hot,” or underdeveloped, immature, unrefined. Gen Z’s naivete leads them to believe that these pubs actually care about their voices, and their carefree, committed-to-the-bit attitude allows them to fear no consequences of what they put online.
The worst opinions of Gen Z are being purposely broadcasted by our algorithms, leading us to believe they’re more ubiquitous than they may actually be. It’s very easy for issues to seem overblown when it’s all you see on your feed, either in the form of posts or articles expressing those inflammatory ideas. Never before has a generation’s entire coming-of-age been played out online, even accounting for Millennials. Social media matured at the same time we did, and because of that, we were afforded the mercy of not having our youthful, unhinged opinions go viral and be dissected by hundreds of thousands of strangers.
The downside of an algorithmically-driven internet is that we are shown what we are proven to react to, and that leads us into the echo chambers of our own biases. If we believe Gen Z to be obnoxious, neo-traditionalist, borderline-conservative youth, that is what we will be shown, which confirms the belief in our minds. This tendency toward confirmation bias is what leads to the platforming of shocking takes like the SATC one we discussed.
But even if it does turn out a majority of Gen Z feel the way the author of that review does, should we really fault them for it?1 Often, we must carry certain ways of thinking all the way through to come out the other side with a more nuanced take. Maybe Gen Z is hitting the age where they’re trying to form their own generational identity, and feel the best way to do this is to be the opposite of what Millennials became: pro-sex, pro anti-hero, liberal, and generally optimistic2 in spite of it all. There’s a chance that as they age, they outgrow these perspectives and form nuanced ones. Only time will tell. I find it unfortunate, though, that they are the new scapegoats to counter a growing leftist movement in the U.S. because they’re rebelling as every generation has done before. Only this time, more publicly.
Perhaps the most famous Zoomer3, Olivia Rodrigo, said it best: “Who am I, if not exploited?”
This isn’t to say that I don’t think that Zoomers over 18 shouldn’t be held accountable for oppressive takes; there is room for growth in our ideologies, yes, but there is a line crossed when the rhetoric perpetuates -isms and -phobias. Those things should be shamed at every age.
I know us 90s Millennials have seen our optimism about the future sink significantly in the last few years. However, as an entire generation, we approach life with a more glass-half-full mentality. It was Millennial optimism that helped get Obama elected on the slogan of “Hope.” Elder Millennials (born in the 80s) had a more optimistic outlook on the impact of college on our futures, with a job market to match. In the face of never-ending Unprecedented Events, we’ve persevered through memes, college parties, hookups, nostalgia, and pop culture. Our coping mechanisms aren’t as effective for Gen Z.
Next to Billie Eilish.