The Real Reason Gen Z Isn’t Growing Up

A couple of years ago, epidemiologists

at Washington University in St. Louis

noticed something strange. They were

seeing far more cancer patients,

especially lung, digestive, and uterine

cancer patients, than ever before. And

they weren't seeing these cancer cases

in older populations. They were seeing

it in young adults, sometimes as young

as 25. The researchers knew that cancer

occurs when critical genetic damage has

accumulated in cells. So, they were

shocked to be diagnosing members of Gen

Z with cancer. Are young people really

accumulating genetic damage faster? Is

Gen Z aging more quickly? Well, they

wanted to find out. They sampled blood

markers from over 150,000 adults born

between the 1950s and 1990s. The

researchers found that millennials and

zoomers born between 1990 and 1999 had a

92% higher biological age gap compared

to their real chronological age than did

Gen X born in the late 1960s. This means

that Gen Z is genetically aging faster

than previous generations. Researchers

said this is why so many of them are

developing cancers that a few

generations ago were completely unheard

of in young people. Even after for

controlling for factors like smoking,

Gen Z had more than a 57% higher risk of

developing lung cancer. Why the hell is

this happening? Gen Z smokes less, puts

on more sunscreen, and has less lead

paint in their walls than any

generation. There's only one answer.

Stress. Stress is so bad for you. I'm

stressed thinking about it. It's like

worse than all the drugs put together.

It causes heart disease, cancer, stroke,

and like just straight up death. So,

when we see that Gen Z does not want to

grow up and cannot get a job, the stress

is affecting them at the genetic level.

>> Apparently, Gen Z is like aging really

rapidly.

>> It is mainly because of the stress. Come

here. We live in a time nowadays where

millennials look way younger for their

age while Gen Z looks way older for

their age. If you don't believe me, I'm

Gen Z.

Get closer. I am Gen Z and nobody ever

believes me. When my mom and I walk out

in public, people think that my mom is

my younger sister. Right? When I tell

people I'm going to go hang out with my

family, they think I'm talking about my

children. I don't have kids. Right? I'm

talking about my parents. I'm still the

child. Does that make sense? I I'll put

it to you like this. Zenaia is older

than me.

Tom Holland is older than me. That's You

know what I'm saying right now? There's

one time I wanted an autograph from

Dwayne the Rock Johnson, right? I was

standing for hours for this autograph

and when he walked up to me, I said,

"Can you please sign this poster? It's

for Jordan." Right? He then took it and

put, "Dear Jordan, your dad is a great

guy." He stood out here for hours and

then gave it back to me. And before I

can correct him, he looked at me and

said, "Times were way more difficult

back when we were kids. Am I right?" And

then he tapped my shoulder and left.

Dwayne is 52.

I am 26. What What I'm saying is, so

Jenz definitely looks older. I'm not

going to lie to you.

>> That is hilarious. Someone commented,

"When you said Zenaia is older than me,

I screamed. [music]

I'm 25. [clears throat]

I'm not even going to pretend like I

look like what a 25-year-old should look

like.

>> I have the opposite experience. When I

was in college, this guy asked me for

directions and I gave it to them and he

was like, "How do you know?" I was like,

"I go here?" He said, "You just look

like you came out of your sixth grade

choir performance." Okay, buddy. That's

[snorts]

okay. No need to be mean.

and bright

and the time.

>> And because Jenzie is facing the slowest

hiring market since the Great Recession,

they are stressed. They feel like

they're behind where their parents are,

that they're supposed to have a good job

at this age.

>> I graduated from college May of 2024, so

a little over two years ago, with a

bachelor's degree in data science. And

despite having glowing reviews from

my internship that I did postgrad from

the director of the division that I

worked in,

I still do not have a full-time job in

data science or anything in that general

ballpark.

And I'm about to go walk in

to do a job interview.

for retail.

>> And a lot of people are feeling just

like Larry Bird and Ron Weasley's love

child over there. Someone commented,

"I'm on my fourth internship after

graduating from a top 10 university." My

grandfather worked as a chemist, but he

told me they hired him as a chemist

before he even went to school. Like, he

started working as a chemist and then he

went to college. That's how much things

have changed. Now we have degrees and

they won't hire us. I'm sorry. I'm just

I'm just picturing it. Hey, excuse me.

I'm here to be a chemist. Oh, have you

ever done chemistry before? Never a day

in my life. Well, here's some [ __ ]

isotopes. Get in there. [laughter] It

reminds me of this Onion article that

95% of grandfathers got their job by

walking right up and asking with a firm

handshake. Jenzie also feels behind

because they can't save any money. I

think [music] I'm flying.

I'm in the eye of a hurricane, [music]

but it's okay.

>> Brother, if you're already 20 years old

and you don't have $20,000 in your

savings account, that is 100% on you for

not applying to a chemistry job with a

firm handshake. If you have zero

dollars, you might be ahead of a lot of

people who have like $30,000 in debt.

Can someone tell me what a normal amount

of money for a 23year-old in their

savings account should be?

I'm just asking because I'm just a

little curious because some of my

friends say that they have like they're

like, "OH MY GOD, I'M SO BROKE. I JUST

HAVE $15,000 in my bank account."

You just You just said you have You can

put a put a [ __ ] DOWN PAYMENT ON A

CAR. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU JUST I JUST

HAVE ENOUGH NICKELS TO SCRGE UP to get

me a little McDouble?

What? WHAT'S HAPPENING?

SOME PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT HOW THEY

have negative and THEY'RE IN SO MUCH

DEBT. THEY'RE IN $2,000 OF DEBT IN THEIR

CREDIT CARD. I'M TOO SCARED TO GET A

DEBIT IN THEIR CREDIT CARD BECAUSE I I

DON'T TRUST MYSELF. I DO NOT TRUST

MYSELF. I DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH A NORMAL

AMOUNT IS. Someone commented, "I have $3

in my bank account and $1 in my

savings." Someone else said, "I have

$160 in my savings account and I'm going

to transfer it tomorrow to get a bagel."

And someone noticed this comment section

feels like a really disorganized group

message. It does. So why is Gen Z so

stressed out and aging so quickly? I'll

tell you my opinion. But first, this

guy's is going viral.

>> Gen Z is aging like [ __ ] And here's

why. It's the stress, guys. You were too

stressed growing up. It's the same

reason presidents age exponentially

faster when they're in office. Your

environment was too stressful. It causes

organisms to develop faster. When

millennials were in school, uh when we

were little kids, we were in peak

society. Late 80s, the entirety of the

'9s, early 2000s, that's that was the

peak of Western society. And in this

peak, very safe, very safe time to be a

little kid. Um the greatest trauma of

our childhoods was 9/11. Um and that was

over there. That was a distant far-off

thing, unless you were in New York City,

uh in which case it was closer, but the

war itself was over there. And then the

financial crisis happened as we were all

graduating. Like we grew up in a very

very relaxed time. Gen Z didn't have

that advantage. You guys grew up uh 911

had already happened. Your country is

already at permanent war. Uh you then uh

are going through a financial crisis. So

your parents are stressed out. They're

stressing over money, stressing over

keeping the house. They then pass this

stress on to you. And then you go to

school where you might get shot. And

instead of having a childhood where your

body could relax and develop normally,

you had an expressed puberty because you

were going in a fight orflight state

constantly when you should be relaxed

and that ages you. That ages you fast as

[ __ ] You essentially are a bunch of

rabbits. You are in a constant high

anxiety state and that makes an animal

develop faster because it's telling the

body it lives in in a world where it's

not likely to live particularly long.

So, it needs to grow up faster so it can

reproduce faster. and then they can

spread its genes.

>> There's something to that, but I think

it more has to do with Gen Z being given

way less responsibility at way later

ages than previous generations. So,

smaller things become much more

important to them. You know, how people

get a terminal diagnosis or someone

close to them dies and they start living

the way they really wanted to for a

couple of months.

>> I went skydiving. [music]

Or you know how you can be a reckless

driver, but then you see a police car

turn on their sirens and even though it

wasn't for you, you're spooked enough to

drive really responsibly for the next 10

minutes. That's what happens when you

have responsibility for things. You have

profit and loss. You feel like what

you're doing has weight, has

consequence. Previous generations, like

the Latchki kids, they had to figure out

things on their own. Their parents

weren't around. They had to work out

their own fights. They had to remember

how to get back home without a cell

phone. They dealt with higher stress

situations at much younger ages. A lot

of Gen Z wasn't even allowed to walk a

few blocks to a friend's house until

they were 13. Someone said, "My mom

never let me out of the house to play

with my friends until I was too old to

be interested in that. I missed that

whole developmental phase, you know,

playing outside." But another important

factor about why Gen Z can't handle

stress so much so that they're literally

aging faster and getting cancer, is how

different Gen Z's economy looks. Gen Z

is the hardest working generation in

American history. And if they were born

in the 1950s, about onethird of them

would be multi-millionaires and retired

by the age of 40. And this is not just

my opinion. This is what the raw numbers

say. Based on Federal Reserve numbers,

no generation has worked more than Gen

Z. In the 1960s, households worked on

average about 38.5 total hours per week.

Compared to Gen Z two-income households

that are working 85 to 90 hours per

week. And in addition to that, 55% of

them have reported working some kind of

side hustle or second job. And

[clears throat] so the question is, if

they work so hard, why are they so poor?

And it comes down to four main factors.

Real estate prices, student loans,

health care costs, and transportation

costs. Let's talk about real estate. In

the 1960s, a typical single family house

would cost between 1.5 and two times the

median household income. But that was

only one person working. Now, with two

people working, it's over five times

that household income. Meaning, if we

put a typical Gen Z family with two

incomes into a time machine back to the

1960s, they would be able to pay off a

median single family house by the time

they turned 25. They also wouldn't have

student loans. There would be negligible

health care costs, and cars would have

been cheaper, so would gas. And so, they

would be able to save an additional

$4,000 a month that they would be able

to put towards retirement. compounded

over 15 years from ages 25 to 40 with 8%

annual return. This would mean that the

typical Gen Z household would be at

about $1.4 million in net worth by the

age of 40 and have a paidoff house at

the same exact time, meaning they could

probably retire in their 40s.

>> Baby boomers expected only one person in

the household to make enough to support

the whole family. So, they could buy a

house on one income. Now, Gen Z needs

two incomes to even consider buying a

house like 15 years from now because

we've doubled the workforce. And because

the very same boomers that bought a

house on one income put up a bunch of

zoning regulations that make it

impossible to build any new houses for

the next generation. And another

important factor is how Gen Z is the

first generation to grow up on short

form content. Think about it. Every

previous generation, whether they grew

up on books or movies or Disney Channel,

watched an actual story with an actual

plot for at least 30 minutes of runtime.

In the same 30 minutes, a zoomer will

have like scrolled through like 80 Tik

Toks, none of which they'll remember the

next day. So, their brain is just

getting used to recycling information

that they don't care about. It trains

your mind that nothing you're watching

is meaningful because it'll only last

for 10 seconds. So, it trains you to

lose direction, to lose focus, which is

what so many Jenzers feel now.

>> [music]

>> I added eggs to bananas. Look at how

delicious it is.

>> But there's one factor I haven't

mentioned. I think we totally screwed up

how we handled co and it's permanently

debilitated a generation. Time since

lockdown has felt like this amorphic

blob to the point where Jenzie still

feels the age they were in March of

2020. You have so many posts saying,

"How am I 24? Like I'm still a teenager.

I can't be 25. I just turned 19.

[music]

>> And they don't realize it, but they're

all referencing the exact age they were

when lockdown started. And so now I want

you to watch this video that gives the

five indications that someone hasn't

grown up. And tell me you don't see this

everywhere in Gen Z.

>> Number one, you wait for people to tell

you what to do. Mature people take

initiative. They don't procrastinate.

They don't depend on others to make

things happen. They set their own

freedom. They set their own goals. They

make their decisions and they hold the

steering wheel of their own life. But

people who haven't grown up, they're

like a baby bird waiting to be fed. If

nobody feeds them, they just sit there

hungry.

>> Oh my gosh, do I see this everywhere. My

friend did a group project in college.

They had to pick a topic. And it was

like 2 hours into theiring brainstorming

session. They were still like, "Oh, you

know, well, this says a good idea. Oh,

well, what do you think about that,

Billy? Do you like that idea?" It's

like, can we just kill ourselves at this

point? Finally, my friend stands up and

he's like, "All right, guys. We're going

to do the establishment of Acadia

National Park." And they were all like

so surprised. No one objected because no

one really cared what they did. This is

like a group project that's going to

take 2 days of their lives. But they're

just so not used to making decisions

that they don't want to get it wrong

even when there's like no consequence.

I'll give you a more intense example.

This one is so bad. I was in an Israel

Palestine class in college and the

professors were always worried that they

were being imbalanced. So they'd be

like, "Okay, we got a Jewish speaker to

speak on behalf of Israel. Okay, we got

a Palestinian speaker. Does everyone

feel balanced right now? And [laughter]

they kept asking like, "Who do you guys

want to see as a speaker? Does everyone

feel okay?" But what they never cared

about was actually getting good,

interesting speakers. I could tell

everybody was falling asleep no matter

who was talking. So some of the Jewish

students were like, "We need more

Israelis." And some other students were

like, "No, we need more Palestinians."

And my friend, bless his heart, oh my

gosh, he literally [laughter] stands up

and says, [snorts] "Can we have no more

guest speakers today? THEY ALL SUCK. CAN

WE JUST TALK? CAN WE ACTUALLY say

anything even one time? Cuz that was the

thing. We were supposed to like all have

a dialogue and bridge building sessions,

but we never like said one thing to

anyone ever like at all. It was just

these like terrible speakers who got

like thousands of dollars and no one

learned anything. And the class was

enabled by all these zoomers who didn't

want to say that all the speakers

sucked. They had like no agency. And the

professor is like, "What is your

feedback?" And still THE ZOOMERS

WOULDN'T SAY A WORD.

>> WHATEVER you want. You decide. You pick.

You choose. Do not do that to me. I

can't choose and I can never choose.

>> Think about how many zoomers can't pick

a movie. They'll spend more time like

trying to choose a movie than actually

watching one and just end up scrolling

on Tik Tok. And why do they go on Tik

Tok? Think about it. Because there they

don't have to decide anything. The

algorithm chooses for them. They don't

have to pick what video to watch like

they have to on Netflix. And Netflix has

taken note. They're trying to cater to

the Zoomer's lack of attention span.

That's why now if you sign into Netflix,

they will start playing movies

automatically.

>> Number three, Big Dreams, Zero Action.

And in our native language, we call it

talk singong dingdong lingong ching

jong.

>> Is it just me or did that seem really

racist?

>> But people who haven't grown up, they

plan their future every single day and

they do nothing about it. They want to

make big money, but they refuse to eat

bitter, refuse to stay consistent. One

hand complaining about life, the other

hand continuing to do nothing. Having so

many actor friends, I know so many have

told me about the short film they're

going to make or the TV show they're

going to produce. Or I also know so many

people who want to start a YouTube

channel and I check back a year later

and they haven't even like posted one

thing and then they're a year older and

just so much less likely to ever start

it. And that causes a lot of

unhappiness. They know they're not who

they pretend to be, who they think they

are, a filmmaker, a YouTuber, and

presumably they can't shave with their

eyes closed, so they have to look

themselves in the mirror and face that

every day. Number five, you depend on

other people way too much. They don't

expect someone else to save them. Even

small decisions, they need to ask

someone else because they can't decide

for themselves.

>> I've seen this so many times. I would

text someone like, "Hey, can you talk

later?" And they're like, "Please don't

text me that I get too anxious and THEN

I CAN'T FOCUS ON ANYTHING." WHAT? What

happens when your boss emails you that

you have a meeting tomorrow? Are you

just not going to sleep? I've seen so

many Zoomers post that when they have an

appointment in the late afternoon, their

whole day is a wash. They can't do

anything in the first half of the day

because they're just constantly thinking

about how anxious they are about their

four o'clock appointment.

>> On the corner,

>> even if it's just like for their like

jalpha skibity party, if we make plans

for the evening, I can't do anything for

the entire day leading up to those

plans. It could be hours away. I will

sit here and wait and rot just waiting

for the moment that I could start

getting ready. Like, how could I commit

to anything knowing that I have

something going on later? There's like a

countdown going on in my mind. I don't

feel like I have enough time for

anything. And like, frankly, it makes me

regret even saying yes to the plans to

begin with.

So excited to see you, though. So, you

combine Jenz's refusal to grow up and

inability to tolerate any stress with a

job market extremely hostile to

newcomers, and you get the most

depressed generation since the Great

Depression.

>> Can't stand it when people say,

>> "Oh, Jenz, you're so lazy. No one wants

to work anymore." or what is it with

this generation?

>> [ __ ] I would work if I could [ __ ]

get a job.

You try being Gen Z and [music] try

getting a job. See how long it takes

you. My generation is entering the most

cooked job market of all time. It's so

bad that for the first time, the new

grad unemployment rate is higher than

the unemployment rate overall. Our jobs

are all replaced by AI. Reviewing

resumes, the whole hiring process is

replaced by AI. No one even looks at

your [ __ ] resume anymore. You don't

even get rejected from jobs anymore. You

just don't get a response. The job

market is so cooked that more than 50%

of Gen Z has a side hustle just to stay

financially afloat. And a lot of us are

freelancers. I'm a freelancer. [music]

Believe me, our generation is not lazy

because we're the generation who has to

actually pull ourselves up by our

bootstraps and constantly find different

[music] freelance gigs, different side

hustle gigs to keep us floating above

the water. Boomers who got a full-time

job would benefit straight out of

college and probably stayed at that job

for 40 years. Kids aren't even going out

anymore, which I'm actually a big fan of

because I think it's more fun to play

Zingo with your closest friends in your

living room than like drink with

strangers at a bar.

>> Zingo.

>> But it's because they can't afford it.

Jinzy just don't really do much of

anything.

>> I've been down [music] for so long.

And this is a problem because I don't

care who you are, where you're from,

where you're going, or where you've

been,

>> or where you are going, or

or where you've been.

>> Everybody watching this video, the worst

person in the world, your worst enemy,

your mom, your dog, your one sneaky link

from that vacation in Cancun, all want

to be happy. And so because me and my

fellow Zoomers grew up so shielded from

the realities of life of things going

right or going wrong, when we are

willing to work hard at a job and

nobody's hiring us, it's devastating. So

we're like these dysfunctional like

overgrown kids with adult

responsibilities, but we often don't

even have the responsibilities cuz we

can't get a job. So we end up just like

staying home all the time or partying

too much or starting to do cocaine just

so we can feel good again, so we can

feel happy again. Our minds are

completely scattered like flittering

trying to find some semblance of meaning

because we are lost. After the

destruction of World War I, Gertude

Stein looked at like Hemingway and John

Dos Pasos and said, "You were all a lost

generation."

And I think she was wrong. I think she

was a century too early. I think it's

the Zoomers. Like in a sense, Gen Alpha,

yeah, they're brain rotted. Yeah, their

brains are turning to goo. But at least

they're like doing that together and

they know what they're about. They know

they're about brain rot. like Gen Z is

on the border. We don't know who or what

we are. We're just looking for anything.

And that's why so many Zoomers are

joining religion and so many Zoomers are

becoming communists and so many Zoomers

are dropping out of college and becoming

radical gender theorists in college.

We're just trying to find something to

hold on to. In the movie City Slickers,

Billy Crystal works a job he hates that

he's constantly stressed about. And then

his wife leaves him. So, he goes to a

ranch with this mysterious cowboy, Jack

Palance. And Jack tells Billy, "The

secret to life is one thing."

>> Do you know what the secret of life is?

>> No. What?

>> This

>> your finger.

>> One thing. Just one thing.

You stick [music] to that and everything

else don't mean [ __ ]

>> That's great. But what's the one thing?

>> That's what you got to figure out. What

he means is that it's great to try new

things, but it's great to try new things

so you can see if you like them. If

you're constantly throwing out your

friends and getting new ones and

constantly switching careers and getting

new hobbies, hoping that this will

finally make you happy, you'll never

make any progress and you'll feel like a

perpetual infant. You'll look back at

the last 20 years and wonder what you

did during any of them. GK Chesterton

said, "The object of opening your mind

to think is the same as opening your

mouth to eat. It's to shut it again on

something solid, not to leave it a gape.

Imagine going up to GK Chesterton and

he's like, you know, you should close

your mouth, young man, AND YOU'RE JUST

LIKE,

[laughter] because here's a little

secret.

Remember what I told you in the

beginning that people under chronic

stress are more likely to get basically

every disease and like die super early,

if not completely suddenly. That's not

true. It is true, but it's only half

true. The researchers found something

remarkable. It literally might be the

most important study anyone has ever

done. Like I I like outside of like the

study of evolution. I don't know what's

more important than this. They found

that if you're under chronic stress, but

you think it's a good thing, you think

you're learning from it, growing from

it, that it's empowering you to do hard

things, not only do you erase the

negative health impacts of stress, you

[ __ ] reverse them. you become less

likely to die than the people who didn't

even HAVE EXPERIENCED THE STRESS AT ALL.

>> THERE WAS A STUDY that looked at 30,000

people across 8 [music] years time. And

they looked at the mortality rate of

people who had very high levels of

stress. And here's the bad news for the

bad news is that people who have very

high levels of stress and believe that

their stress [music] is bad for them die

at about 43% higher mortality rates.

Okay, so not great. People with that

same high level of stress [music] who

believed that stress was good for them

or enhancing or helpful in some manner

actually had the lowest rate of [music]

mortality of the entire study. And I'm

talking lower than the people who had

very little [music] or no stress in

their lives. So the finding of that

study was that 182,000 people died that

year [music] not from stress but from

the belief that stress was bad for them.

That is [ __ ] transformative. If you

realize that the stress you feel can

build you up and not break you down, you

will literally extend your life. This is

like magneto level superpower. Think

about your own experience. If you don't

feel in charge of your life, if you feel

like you're the hapless foam on other

people's title waves, you can't really

feel happy. And I love classic kids

shows and kids movies, but it's a little

worrying how much my generation is

re-watching them. A huge reason is that

we're not making good shows and movies

anymore. That's totally true. But

another one might be that it reminds us

of our childhood when everything was

taken care of for us and we want to go

back there again.

>> Now we see tweets like this, all this

dress isn't good for the baby. Me.

There's the adulting Reddit and if

you're too young, adulting comes from

like Buzzfeed millennial culture and

like Tumblr where people would say they

were adulting whenever they like paid

their taxes or whatever.

>> I know one kid in college between every

class he would watch Phineas and Ferb

and another kid came up to me and said

he would watch me between class as

Ricky. thinking about one of the first

bands Gen Z ever really got into, 21

Pilots. And what did they sing?

>> Wish we could turn back time. [music]

>> I don't know if this is an unpopular

opinion. Maybe it is among Gen Z, but

like despite all of its problems and

stresses, I like being an adult. I like

being responsible for myself because for

one, I don't have to listen to stupid

rules from stupid people. And it's

definitely more scary, but so is riding

a bike without training reels. Or

surfing instead of boogie boarding.

>> I really said surfing instead of boogie

boarding.

>> or surfing instead of

>> boogie boarding.

>> But I think Bethany Hamilton and Eddie

Mks are glad they tried surfing and

biking. Sometimes I think to myself, you

know, what do I want to do for work when

I'm older? What do I want to do? And

then I realize I'm already older.

>> Do you know what I mean? Like this was

supposed to be figured out by now.

>> I'm 22 years old and I don't know what

the [ __ ] I want to do with my life. I

graduate uni this year, don't have a job

lined up, and I still live with my

parents.

>> Is it just me [music] or does it feel

like Gen Z is like one of the most

unhappy generations right now? Like, I'm

personally Gen Z, and I feel that no

matter what I've already achieved

[music] in my life, I'm still not happy.

>> I am terrified of making decisions I'll

regret in the future. Cannot make good

decisions.

>> Kids are not resilient. They're not

resilient. If they were, we would have

less people with anxiety, depression,

general unhappiness. Are we all feeling

this universal feeling that we just

don't care because at the end of the day

nothing really matters truly? Like what

are we doing with our lives?

>> I'm seeing that with every Gen Z I know.

Business Insider has a new article about

how 25 is the new 21. How today's

25-year-olds are 50% more likely to have

mom and dad pay for their lifestyle than

previous generations. I know this

28-year-old whose parents did really

well, but they did a little too well.

And now he's pushing 30 smoking weed in

his bedroom with no plans to not do that

because he never had to grow up. He

[snorts] knew no matter what he did, he

would be living in the same room,

treated the same way. It's not just that

he was coddled. It's that he knew his

decisions didn't have weight, so he

didn't feel any any actual motive to

make good decisions. I saw him recently

and he was like, "Casey, what are you in

college? A sophomore now?" I was like,

"No, I finished school." He's like,

"What?" Because time has blended

together for him. He's had no milestones

cuz he's not doing anything different

each day. And so, he's going to look

back on so many of his 20s and be like,

"Where did it go?" Oh, I'm of course

very against divorce, but I know one

camp counselor told me that he noticed

the kids of divorced parents were more

mature because they had to deal with the

real world quicker. It sucks what they

went through, but they knew from a young

age, gosh, what I do around mom or dad,

like it's going to have an impact. What

I do matters.

>> Many Gen Xers, for example, grew up with

a lot of trauma. We had a lot of hustle.

We had a lot of desire to get out of the

house. We had a lot of desire to get a

job and pay for things for ourselves cuz

our parents weren't going to buy them

for us. This generation is so used to

just uh getting what they want that they

completely avoid situations they might

be in that cause rejection.

>> So this almost 30-year-old I know in his

bedroom, what happens when he turns 30?

That's when he'll start his career.

What's he's going to have kids at 45 and

never know his grandchildren. He'll

train his brain during his most

formative years that he's a loser who

lives with his parents who doesn't live

the life he wants. That's what he's

training himself to think every day from

20 to 30. And that's of course going to

stick. I am not saying financial help

from your parents is bad. The job market

is crazy right now. And I am not with

those parents who kick their kids to the

street at 18 years old and say sink or

swim. But what I am saying is this.

There has been some fantastic research

about the kids who always follow school

rules and the kids who never do. The

kids who never do, as you could easily

predict, usually ended up in jail or

dead or best case scenario, broke and

always screaming at everyone in their

lives. But the kids who always followed

the rules, who were always early to

class, never took a sip of alcohol

before their 21st birthday, the hall

monitors in elementary school, they

ended up almost as bad. They could never

decide anything for themselves. They

could never choose a career if it wasn't

handed to them. Their lives were just a

prison of their own making. So while the

kids who always said no were thrown in

jail, the kids who could never say no

built their own. But the kids who picked

their battles, who knew when to hold

them, knew when to fold them, knew when

to walk away, and knew when to run, had

the best lives by far. It's not bad if

you're getting financial assistance from

your parents or even if you're still

living with them. But it is bad if

you're not trying to live your own life

at all. If you're not setting your own

course, because it won't get easier.

Your mind will never be as moldable as

it is today. And you need to start

molding it because if you start thinking

bad thoughts about yourself, it'll kill

you, literally. And one of the best ways

to think well of yourself is to start

doing the things you've always wanted to

do and not say you'll do them one day.

Because once you do start doing the

things you claimed you always wanted to

do, you start trusting yourself and you

can start handling stress better because

even if your life goes every which way

but loose, you'll know that you are

becoming who you want to be and doing

the things you always wanted to do.

You're not a fraud who says there'll be

one way but is a complete different way.

You have that integrity. But Jenzi isn't

listening right now. They're not getting

their driver's license. They're not

drinking alcohol. They're not getting

part-time jobs as teenagers. They're not

even hooking up. Some of these things

may be good. Some of them may be bad.

But they're all indicative of a

generation that's lost its way that

doesn't want to grow up because it's

more comfortable in the nest. It's not

so much that they're stuck in

adolescence as we're stuck in this in in

in pre-adolescence. Our parents let us

overgrow our childhood by not letting us

cross the street until we turn 13 years

old. And because your brain is so

formative at that time, a lot of kids

never stepped out of that mindset of

needing to ask mom if it's safe, if

you're too anxious to cross the street.

And so Gen Z is so indecisive. They

don't know what career they should

start. We don't know what careers will

even be around in 10 years thanks to AI.

But here's the problem. Potential is

nothing. You can say, "I don't want to

pursue one career, Casey, cuz then I'll

lose the ability to pursue every other

career." But when you don't commit to

anything, you end up with nothing. When

you commit to one career or to one

spouse or to one city, you don't lose

out on all the other potential careers

or wives or experiences because they

were never real. Potential isn't real.

So when you make a concrete choice when

you pursue one job in particular, you

don't lose out on all the other jobs.

You actually get an infinite gain

because you took the potential of zero

and turned it into something actual. So

it's better to make the wrong choice

than to make no choice at all. It's so

much better to have a bad job than no

job. Because if you have a bad job, you

know what you don't like. You might meet

a couple people who can help you get a

good job. You learned what it's like to

have a job. Maybe you learned how to

negotiate a higher salary. And what I'm

telling you now that it's better to have

a bad one than none at all. You have to

believe it all the way down. Not just in

jobs, but in everything. And I mean

everything. Like I think having a bad

life is better than having no life. And

some of you might think you disagree

with me, but I don't think you do. I

think we'd all agree that a lot of the

kids in Equatorial Guinea or Ukraine or

Palestine or Appalachia are leading poor

lives, but we fight for those kids and

we're horrified when they're killed or

they overdose because their lives are

worth living. If you have a bad life, it

can eventually become a good one. One of

the best pieces of advice professors can

give to undergrads is if they don't know

how to write their thesis statement,

write it badly. Once you have a first

draft, you have a place to start and

then you have a place to go. That's how

I make these videos. I have an idea, I

start thinking about and I just start

writing and then I adjust. I don't

consult with like 30 YouTube experts and

draw out like a huge ven diagram. I

speak raw. I speak earnestly what I

think and then I maybe clean up some of

the edges. Maybe I don't. I've noticed

stunted growth of this generation,

specifically men on a wide scale. You

could point to many things that

demonstrate the arrested development of

this generation. [music] men dropping

out of the labor force, the college

entrance rates being 60% women, 40% men,

and the graduation rates being even more

skewed at 7030. Some people say these

men are avoiding college or dropping out

to pursue some greater ambition like

starting a business. And while that may

be the case for some, it was probably

the idea for most of them, let's just be

honest, a lot of these guys are just

[ __ ] off. You could point to the rate

of single men and lonely men with no

brotherhood. This arrested development

is also demonstrated by Ginz's obsession

with escapism and fantasy. And it's cool

if you like these sort of things, but

the amount of people I see make it damn

near their whole personality is crazy.

And this is because community is dying

and culture alongside it. Nobody has a

real sense of self anymore. When I look

around at young people my age, a lot of

them are submerged in this escapism.

Whether it be anime, video games, the

hub, weed, and other drugs, usually a

combination of most of these things,

it's what they spend [music] most of

their time doing. And in a way, it's

kind of what they live for. And a lot of

these guys who live this sort of

lifestyle, they're [music] they're

really smart, too. like they had a lot

of potential, but it's [music] just

uh you know, it's over now.

>> On that guy's point about how at the

same time that Jenzi isn't growing up,

we see Jenzie get really involved in

liveaction roleplay or fries or fandoms

more than ever before. I'm reminded of

what Roger Eert said. Roger Eert, the

most famous film critic of all time, who

knew every fandom better than like

anyone in the industry, said this. The

extreme fandom may serve as a security

blanket for the socially inept, who use

its extreme structure as a substitute

for social skills. If you are Luke

Skywalker and she is Princess Leia, you

already know what to say to each other,

which is so much safer than having to ad

liib it. Your Spanish obsession is your

beard. If you know absolutely all the

trivia about your cubbyhole of pop

culture, it saves you from having to

know about anything else. That's why

it's excruciatingly boring to talk to

such people. They're always asking you

questions they know the answer to. Of

course, that's not true for everyone.

You guys know I dressed up as Doctor Who

for a week for the 50th anniversary, but

there's definitely something to what

he's saying. Jenz doesn't feel grown up,

so we identify with characters who are.

It reminds me of James Dean. James Dean

was rejected by his father. He told him

he could never be an actor. And so, he

spent his very short life trying to find

a surrogate father figure in every older

actor he met, especially Marlon Brando.

But he never could. And so we tried to

find excitement elsewhere and he started

racing and eventually he famously drove

off of a canyon. Jenz doesn't feel grown

up or in charge of our lives. So we look

to brave pop culture figures who don't

only control their lives but control

whole movements like Harry Potter or

Tyler Deran because they're powerful and

we're not. But if we're just like them,

then maybe we can feel a little power.

I'm going to read you one of my favorite

poems now. It matters not how straight

the gate, how charged with punishments

the scroll. I am the master of my fate.

I am the captain of my soul. Do you

think Gen Z is captaining their souls?

I'll respond to as many comments as I

can. And if you're a Gen Z, I hope you

do. Thank you to our patrons. [laughter]

Thank you to our patrons. Bob Eric.

Okay,

[laughter] you guys. You guys are

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