Photos courtesy of Getty
A strange feeling arose in me watching Alysa Liu’s recent PinkPantheress-soundtracked star turn at the Winter Olympics: genuine generational pride.
As a fully grown, 25-year-old adult, I am loath to overly identify with any celebrity or cultural product. But I can’t help but notice something familiar and exciting in Liu, even if she’s five years my junior. She has an Olympian’s work ethic, but her priority is her friends. She is ambitious, but comfortable with failure. She has an online sensibility, but doesn’t speak in TikTok gibberish. She’s gritty, but joyous. Basically, she’s cool.
As a desk-bound cultural journalist, I can’t really relate to winning a gold medal, but in Liu, I do see a kindred generational spirit and a representation of the best of what my age group has to offer. At our best, Gen Z can approach a world of chaos with a blend of humor, irony, and resilence. Liu evokes a happy warrior archetype that is aspirational and balanced.
For too long, the prevailing media narrative around Gen Z was that our generation is full of “woke scolds” and “snowflakes.” To some, the rise of activists like the Parkland students and Greta Thunberg seemed to validate the common consensus that Gen Z is dominated by outright activists.
The other central generational story is one of rising rates of anxiety and depression. This narrative surrounding a generation in mental health crisis was codified by pieces of Gen Z media like the ironically millennial-led Euphoria, and further heightened by outspoken artists like Billie Eilish, who made mental health a central theme in her chart-topping songs.
These dual narratives were quite flat. And it helped serve the interest of conservative leaders that wanted to simply write off young rabble-rousers as annoying, or mentally unwell.
There’s recently been widespread discussion about “Woke 2,” a loosely defined catchall for the resurgence of socially progressive values and populist left politics in response to the Trump admin’s MAGA nightmare. Unlike “Woke 1,” the discourse goes, this iteration of the fraught concept of wokeness (originally scooped up from Black culture), doesn’t care about performative social media politics or fleeting cancel culture. Instead, it’s grounded in a political awareness that sees “being woke” as something you do, rather than something you are.
A new crop of Gen Z stars are balancing activism with creation. And they’re popping off. What’s most obviously notable about all of these artists is their passion, talent, and individuality, not their motivating issues or cause — which is probably healthier, and more sustainable.
PinkPantheress, 24, has reached the pinnacle of pop via her bedroom-produced perfection and clear obsession with craft. Singer-songwriter and Geese frontman Cameron Winter, old souled but 23, has become a young Bruce or Bob, combining his raspy eccentricity with a prodigious, poetic pen. And Heated Rivalry’s own Connor Storrie, 26, has given one of the most zeitgeist-defining performances in recent memory.
Recently, viral videos began to pop up of Storrie’s desktop photo booth vlogs, recorded when he was 12, about his desires to become a star. I made essentially the same videos at the same time, giving his rise added resonance for me. Being able to see his journey from a young boy with dreams to a fully realized grown artist, hits.
The aforementioned new Gen Z stars are all political in their own ways. For example, Liu has been outspoken on the rights of immigrants, and Cameron Winter is on the forthcoming charity album HELP(2), raising money for children affected by war and conflict. But these young artists pair politics with an enthusiastic affect or their artistic passions, challenging the tired generational narrative of righteous anger and/or crippling depression.
It makes sense that we had a cultural period that ruminated in a sense of catastrophe. Shit sucked and clearly still does. But as Gen Z grows up, we will have to learn how to balance clear-eyed awareness (and understandable despair) with the daily work of creating art and crafting the world we will have to live in. Making that world will take steady slow work. If we don’t want to burn up in a ball of rage or anxiety, we will have to have some semblance of cheer throughout the steady grind.
Thankfully we have some new role models. That’s why I salute my national anthem, “Stateside,” and our new generational hero, Alysa Liu.
