Gen alpha are now teenagers too. Right around the age where a bunch of millennials and Gen z had their edgy "anti-sjw" phase that spawned from Gamer Gate and whatever other bullshit came before that.
Now social media is full of hate groups that are overjoyed to recruit teens along the exact same pipeline as gamer gate, and hateful beliefs and opinions are easier to spread through modern attention-based content algorithms.
It's probably a bit overstated as to how much of a problem it is right at this moment, but I don't think we should dismiss that concern outright either
Hate is easy to teach, difficult to unlearn
Edit: to the replies wondering about Gamergate; research it. Start with wikipedia, follow the sources(and confirm the validity of said sources)
It's important to know why the name of that movement is so recognizable. It's exactly what got my attention as some fuckass loner kid that needed to blame his struggles on someone else.
The alt-right teen to lefty adult pipeline is a meme for a reason. Lonely losers can easily shed the hate when they actually meet the people they were taught to dislike. I was a 4chan addicted asshole for years, but then I actually talked to people.
It's okay, we have self-knowledge on our side. Just tell them you know they're just reading to escape because they believe living literally any other life they read about is better than living their own and they can't disappoint anyone within the pages of a book, but they're wrong.
Same, iFunny / 4chan ex-addict gen Z here. The echo effect in those spaces is nuts, but it took actually interacting with people who helped me to come out more rather than just being pissed off at who I was
Yeah sure, but things were kind of normal back then, when alt right kids got confronted by people, stuff institutions, sceince, medical professional and univertisties, all slowly confronted about not only how their beliefs were disgusting, but also how wrong they were.
Like If people got out of their misinformation, stuff like being trans would not be so debated given history, science, psycology basically are on the side of trans people.
But now when the goverment is on the side of misinformation, when they just acquiered tiktok, we are in a place where even the president does not hestiate to use AI Videos, to lie on screen, when they are forcing each institution to bend the knee, to even destroy research, well these kids and teenager are not going to come out to a place that confront their beliefs, they are going out to a world that coddles them, that incentivize them, as they would rather have them hating women, minorities, immigrants, lgbtqia, than actually getting angry at the upper class.
Worse as someone outside the USA, you can see how their venomous ideas reach other places and expand, from people who see it as clearly as I do, and decides to copy the process or because they fell from the same misinformation and now spread it.
We are fucked right now and AI just came to things worse.
I mean, do people not realize that the generation is being brainwashed in real time in front of our eyes? They are espising knowledge to believe what the Internet says to them. And it'll get wilder as AI takes over more and more of the online content.
Nah you'd be younger gen Z. Gen Z goes from the late 90s to the early 2010s. There's not really solid dates for these things, and the borders are somewhat blurry as some people disagree where the lines actually go, but pretty much everyone would reckon 2007 is Gen Z.
Elementary schoolers? Jesus fucking Christ, how out-of-touch can balding Reddit millennials be? Theyâre teenagers now and the oldest ones are almost adults. I bet you think anyone born in the 2000s are teenagers and not grown adults.
Gen alpha here.
When I was 12-13 I went through a big alt-right phase supported by my mother and I was into a lot of manosphere bs, homophobia and racism etc.
I completely understand that pipeline and how people fall in it, loneliness and Christianity easily, hate to sound like I'm virtue signalling but I mainly couldn't continue because I matured and developed a better sense of empathy.
I remember I think a big part of me stopping was due to one night I was on one of those alternative Omegle websites with a groupchat, I randomly joined and I just 20 minutes watching some Algerian guy cry his heart out because he was Gay, had no way to leave the country and was struggling with depression because he couldn't imagine repressing it any further.
Basically I think I had a "are we the baddies?" Moment because I felt really bad for the guy. Also turns out a few years later I was trans so It was kind of inevitable.
I think it's very real for young people and I know many people who are still in that pipeline today, I believe I'm a minority of them who stopped, I've also seen where it ends up, which was a guy named Aaron I knew who over a few years went from lonely and eccentric to a straight up Nazi who claimed he wanted to get swastika's tattooed on him and kill Indian people, for some reason, considering he'd been doing that for a year since I saw him last until he moved schools (I wonder why) I would not describe that as a phase.
Insane to think that the oldest gen alpha are 16 year olds, in my head gen alpha is still kids learning the alphabet and gen beta hasnât even started
Especially the edgy years around 12yo to 16yo when teenagers love to claim being part of an extremism movment, either nazism, either communism (and sometimes they even switch from one to another in a few month)
Exactly. My political beliefs werent fully formed when I was in middle school. I'd say they only really found a consistent hold when I was most of the way through college.
And the infantile conservative takes on the internet tend to have a stronger hold on kids who dont know anything. They won't all grow out of it, but plenty will.
True, but as a parent of a middle schooler I can confirm they have been bombarded with right wing âwhite men are victims, life was better with women in the kitchenâ propaganda for most of their lives.
Well I myself used to be transphobic/homophobic misogynistic antisemitic and basically a piece of sht as a kid and still grow out of it so I believe they would too
Well if Biden would get off his ass and actually let Obamacare pay for childhood transitions, weâd all be able to break free.
Actual quote from my super conservative uncle btw. Apparently Obamacare was gonna pay for all kids to transition but Biden was too stupid to implement it. Being from the south is WILD
Like 80% of the trans women I've talked to have told me how they used to be a shitty edgelord boy that watched "Liburel DESTRYOD" compilations and wrote hateful shit on 4chan
I believe that the studies say that Autistic people's brain typically prioritize Facts and Logic, and filters out fluff (for lack of a better term.)
So people with Autism are less susceptible to traditional emotional manipulation, as well as the fact that a lot of ads can be very sensory overloading to individual.
Unfortunately that just means that people with those traits are typically susceptible to other more direct forms of advertising. Like lots of succinct detail, and open "honesty" about business practices. Also a heavier focus on marketing for specific hobbies or interests (Think collectables)
I'm in my early 30s, when I was in middle school kids would start rumors that one particular kid is gay and that would result in a bunch of other kids who didn't even know that particular kid pressing him over whether it's true, and if they didn't believe him they'd beat him up. It happened like once a month to a different kid each time.
Nowadays most of my peers don't give a fuck about gay or not gay, and the ones who do are literally the ones we talk shit about. Yes, some kids today are more conservative than we are right now, but we used to be 10 times more conservative than we are right now too.
Yeah people are forgetting that the oldest gen alphas are barely teenagers. They've had very little opportunities to grow and learn, so acting like they're a lost cause is awful.
Millennials had to be so cringe that they flipped the âedgyâ and ârebelliousâ position from being left wing to being right wing somehow.Â
Because in the past, the young rebellious types were almost always left wing, hippies, punk rockers, etc.Â
But then starting in like 2015 or so some of the younger gen-z grew up on anti-SJW stuff making fun of silly millennials for their anti-manspreading chairs, their colored hair, being easily offended, etc.Â
And somehow that just snowballed. I swear every Gen Z or Alpha kid/young adult I know is only right wing because they think the left is âcringeâ and the right is manly. They donât know or care about economic policy, just culture war bullshit.
I mean yeah that makes sense. It works like a pendulum.
And I can understand from the view of someone who was originally neutral seeing millennials as cringe and slightly swaying away from them at first and that sway is all that's needed by the current algorithms to keep recommending shit that is ultra far right and keep feeding it into their brains.
In the end of the day, as long as they ain't too radical, life experiences and meeting new people should slowly get them out of it.
You can imagine then that Gen Beta will be a lot more left leaning and the Gen after that will be more right leaning and then so on so on continues the cultural view spectrum since every single generation cannot help but take things too far with their radicalism whether they're left or right.
Donât worry, Gen Z and alpha are ensuring alt-right politics will retake the cringe throne. Theyâre so brainwashed that leftism is already becoming the rebellion again.
It's sad that it actually probably had an influence on the last presidential election... The clip of that one influencer saying he preferred Trump because of essentially that comes to mind.
No, thatâs exactly what I mean. Younger Gen Z and now Gen Alpha are growing up with now older liberal millennials in the mainstream, as their school teachers, parents, etc.Â
And the same way past generations rebelled against the older conservative generations, a lot of Gen Z/Alpha are ârebellingâ against what they see as cringe liberal millennial stuff
Ahh ok, I see what you mean. I wonder if their "liberal" influences are what is causing that vs the pipeline conservatives have built online to funnel kids into becoming right wing
My vote is on the online alt-right online pipeline that did the work. They got hold of grifter/online influencers and got hold of people wanting to be edgy. Also the whole gamergate shit is also the same crowd.
Yeah, the oldest gen alpha is 16. At that age and younger you're far more likely to be politically aligned with your parents and far more likely to be surrounded by any propaganda that has worked on your parents. We should give them the chance to move out of their parents' bubble, experience the world, and form their own opinions before judging.
I was gonna make a sarcastic remark about every generation having said that, but i guess that is kind of a nice thought; like wow, tons of generations and all of them tried to be better than the last
I try my best to give grace to those came before us, even when it's really difficult. Every generation did what they could to chip away at the trauma passed down to them. Even if they couldn't break the cycle, they made some progress for the ones who come after
I mean maybe it's just me but boomers and gen X have gotten so reactionary and hateful that I really do think even the silent generation and greatest generation are progressive comaprtivley. The current right leaning and even allegedly moderate centrist have gotten tothe point of being misanthropic towards anyone outside their bubble.
As backwards as the two earlier generations were at least they had some interest in care in their children's future.
Fun task. Read Plato's The Republic. Yeah, it's dry. Just read it and "listen" to the voices in the dialog.
This book was written in 375BC, almost 2400 years ago by Plato because he found the political voices around him to be exhausting and constantly repetitive. The voices he recorded in that book can be heard today in our modern day political discourse. We went from the Iron Age to the Modern Age, from human and livestock power to landing on the moon and nuclear weapons and we have barely changed at all. In spite of the moral gains we've made in equality, we're still the same hairless apes we have always been.
This isn't about generalizations or generation beef or something, this is a real and noticeable trend that will have effects on society. Just like boomers are generally more conservative than younger people, there is a shocking uptick in far-right ideology in the youngest generations compared to for example millennials.
(tbf talking about the beliefs of gen alpha specifically is a bit useless, since they're still kids. But you can say it about Gen Z, people who are actually allowed to vote)
They're still more generally left-wing yes, but also insanely polarized. If they're not left-leaning, there is a very high chance they're far-right. (Speaking of Gen Z and younger)
Speaking for Western Europe, the key voting bases of the most far-right parties are the youngest people.
i'm french and the politician in question is Jordan Bardella who is a far right asshole and a while ago my fyp got assaulted by edits of him (with popular songs and all) posted by his official account and with a shit ton of comments glazing him
I'm a science teacher in a small, very privileged middle/high school. And I must say I'm surprised at how most of them are very enlightened about ecology, capitalism's problems and social justice. Much more than their parents which are mostly a bunch of typical CEO and entrepreneur.
They are kids so they sometimes act quite edgy but overall, most of them just need to mature.
Of course I can't say about gen alpha in general. Maybe I'm just working in a particular dĂŠmographics.
Oh my god, can we not do this? Every single generation criticizes the generations after them. Gen Alpha are a diverse group of hundreds of thousands of children all over the world. And, your oldest Gen Alpha is either six or sixteen depending on where you draw the line.Â
I was super conservative from age like 14-17. Watched all the âBen Shapiro TRIGGERS Green-haired College Student!â videos. Iâd come home and binge right wing content and go around hating gays, women, and minorities.
Then before we left for college I found out my best friend came out as gay but didnât want to tell me because he thought Iâd hate him for being gay. Thatâs really all it took for me to 180 and start thinking more liberally. Transitioning from conservative to liberal felt pretty natural and seamless. Likely because I was naturally more liberal because of how I was raised and growing up in a diverse school system. Just gotta hope kids nowadays have their own personal breakthroughs.
After watching so many of those videos I started noticing the pattern and didnât find satisfaction in them anymore. Iâd watch a 16 minute video promising crying triggered libtards and theyâd end up just being relatively calm debates. Or as I got older I started agreeing more with the chubby blue-haired feminist girls and Iâd be like âoh shit that girl actually made a good point. Letâs see what Ben Shapiro has to say to shut this dumb bitch up!â but then heâd just give some nonsense answer that didnât really satisfy me. I wanted to see the pain, the squirming, the faces of defeat. But as I got older I no longer found it exciting to see someone passionate about their beliefs get ridiculed. A lot of the early appeal was seeing people get triggered and after a while that lost its appeal.
Considered myself âcentristâ throughout my high school years and even registered as a Republican. I had a âChristianâ upbringing and everything. My parents were republicans and forced me into religious schools for high school.
Then I interacted with the real world and became a âleft leaning centristâ
Then I got a job and after a few years of figuring out how world worked I called myself a âliberal.â With that came a lot better confidence in who I am as a person and what I stand for.
Now⌠after 10 years in the work force and watching the conservatives triple down into extreme far right rhetoric? Iâm a leftist.
I can only hope other people have the same luck in removing their childhood instilled brainwashing
Iâll believe it when they start voting. You canât claim theyâre conservative when the oldest of them are just 16, and havenât voted in a single election yet.
Itâs interesting because Gen Alpha boys are statistically much more conservative than previous generations at the same age. On the other hand, Gen Alpha girls are much statistically more liberal than previous generations at the same age.
The overall political aggregate is the same because it evens out, but the polarization by demographic is becoming much more severe.
Eh. Internet culture (a reflection of society and thereby governed by largely the same rules) is a pendulum, and where it swings one way, there will always be people fighting it to make it swing the other way. I think right now weâre swinging (culturally, not necessarily legally or governmentally) towards left-leaning politics, so we have insufferable right-leaning people fighting it.
Please have some hope. I, despite being the very person conservatives would loathe, went through a conservative phase when I was a teen. They're likely isolated and easily swayed. Once they get out of their social sphere its likely they will change.
they are too young to have a solid perception of their own political beliefs yet, i remember falling down gamer gate for abit and good lord i wish i had realised how retarted i was at the time, but i grew out of it and hopefully they will too.
â˘
u/AutoModerator May 27 '26
Download Video
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.