Gen Z Isn’t Just Online — They’re Living in Parallel Realities

The American Spectator ^ | July 1, 2025, 10:04 PM | Julianna Frieman

[E. Pluribus Unum]

It is time to build a new common culture — in the real world.

There was a time, not long ago, when Americans — regardless of region, class, or politics — shared a common cultural foundation. From the Saturday morning cartoons children watched to the nightly news programs adults relied on, mainstream culture was both a mirror and a glue: it reflected our values while keeping us tethered to the same national experience. That era is over.

We have entered the Age of Alternative Culture, an era defined by fragmentation, algorithmic echo chambers, and cultural isolation masquerading as global connection.

The culprit is not a single villain but a confluence of forces, chief among them the rise of the Internet and the omnipresence of algorithmically curated content. Social media platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram don’t just reflect our preferences; they shape them, refining our tastes and beliefs into niche categories optimized for engagement. Every scroll reinforces what the algorithm thinks you want, narrowing your worldview under the guise of preference. (RELATED: Loneliness Is the New Oil)

We are becoming numbers on a screen in an illusion of mass connectivity, our eyes more valuable than our minds. The consequence is a culture atomized into digital micro-nations, where people live in parallel realities consuming different music, news, humor, and values. There is no longer a mainstream — there are now only streams, and each of us is drowning in our own. (RELATED: Why Gen Z Is Giving Up on Sex, Love, and Each Other)

This isn’t just a shift in entertainment or media. It’s a foundational change in how we form identity and community. The old model of regional culture is quickly dissolving. No longer anchored to geography or tradition, young people today derive culture from hyper-specific online communities: fandoms, meme subcultures, or...

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TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS:

[T.B. Yoits]

From the article: From the Saturday morning cartoons children watched to the nightly news programs adults relied on, mainstream culture was both a mirror and a glue: it reflected our values while keeping us tethered to the same national experience. That era is over.

Television was the "parallel reality". It was all a fiction. They were not our values. They didn't mirror us. They didn't keep us tethered to the same "national experience". A small number of power brokers told people what to think and how to feel.

While some online experiences are not reality, many of them are. It's an overdue change.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I have been saying for a long time that my Liberal ex-friends graduated from watching Saturday morning cartoons to Sunday morning cartoon news.

[Tell It Right]

IMHO at the core of the problem is the left's heavy push for identity politics. For example, I, a white man, am not interested in media content that routinely denigrates whites, or denigrates men.

But before the left's identity politics so brazenly vilified all of the groups they they put me in (Christians, Americans, successful, whites, men, heterosexuals) I'd be more inclined to every now and then watch or attend sports or music events or comics that tended to be more popular among blacks than whites, or more popular among other age groups, or more popular among women, etc. But for whatever reason, so much of the media or "news" that caters to those groups have decided to let me know that in no uncertain terms that I'm to be hated. So I tune them out, thus participate in the separating of media silos this article is about.

[lee martell]

Until, perhaps 25 years ago, most Americans shared an awareness and appreciation of popular music. Some of that still exists, but only about 18% of how it used to be.

The ‘sharing’ was largely based on just a few TV channels or a finite number of radio stations being powerful enough to reach across the land. Generational preference is also a factor in shared culture, as it has always been, but accessibility is an even greater factor to explain the changes.

[T.B. Yoits]

From the article: "It is time to build a new common culture — in the real world."

No. We have a real culture. It's time to shed the propaganda version of it. For example, people can watch a video of Charlie Kirk showing students on a college campus just how much they don't know about the Constitution because they've been propagandized, not educated. The Leftist Propanda Media spread falsehoods, intentionally lying about the Bill Rights and the Constitution.

Julianna Frieman, the author, got her marching orders to attack the technology that exposes the propaganda.

[dljordan]

Look up Chat GPT psychosis.

[reasonisfaith]

It doesn’t take a genius to see this has been caused by the effects of electronic devices and the widespread practice of withholding discipline.

And we can’t overlook the effect of banning prayer and Bible reading in government schools in the early 60s.

[9YearLurker]

To imagine there was a time before mass media at all...

[Gasshog]

My reality today was mowing the back yard and then sitting on the porch watching the clouds for half and hour.

I enjoyed myself.

[faithhopecharity]

AND even in the rare case when an internet user wakes up out of the induced leftist stupor and seeks to look up the truth about something

the first 15 or 30 (and sometimes ALL) of the g-search results are ALL far leftist repetitions of the same slanted news or Big Lie propaganda pieces

total mind control by filling it up with commie-islamicist rubbish......and blocking out of any actual true information ever even reaching the person

[9YearLurker]

The way to go!

[No name given]

That’s right.

[Justa]

“And we can’t overlook the effect of banning prayer and Bible reading in government schools in the early 60s.”

Removing morals.

Television and media: instilling values.

Morals were replaced with values in public discourse. I.e. tyranny.

What’s-good has been replaced with what’s-good-for-me.

Western civilization didn’t catch on and reject the substitution and arrest, revoke citizenship and deport the attackers. So Western civilization has fallen.

[Cowgirl]

Add to that daycare…no bonding and minimum brain stimulation.

[doorgunner69]

“Social media platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram don’t just reflect our preferences; they shape them,”

Well, maybe liberals and gen-xyz.

I have not used them, and only peripherally aware of utube.

[ClarityGuy]

TV and government schools are ways to incubate the youth for those who do not wish to raise them, properly speaking. I know because it's how I grew up.

[Ueriah]

It was a great day to mow. Sounds like you both enjoyed and appreciated it :)

[montag813]

Television was the "parallel reality". It was all a fiction. They were not our values. They didn't mirror us.

A Marxist propaganda show like "All In the Family" was a funhouse mirror, distorting and savagely mocking American values, and pressuring Americans into supporting leftist dogma.

[Hatteras]

bump