Gen Y at a Crossroads

Remember 2013?

It’s a strange year to look back on now—so close, yet from a different world. Back then, you could still pretend that history was over. The average Gen Y adult still believed life was basically going to continue on a flat trajectory—same pop culture, same tech; just a little shinier every year. Smartphones were still exciting, Marvel movies hadn't completely rotted, and even late night talk shows passed for clever. The cultural frog was in the pot, but the water hadn’t hit boiling yet.

Then the pot cracked wide open.

It’s almost funny now … almost.

The great illusion that “Everything will just keep getting better with cooler apps and more representation” got dragged out of bed by the reality police sometime between #GamerGate and lockdown world. And the ones who bought into the illusion—mostly Gen Y—are now being forced to reckon with the repercussions.

For a brief window in the early 2010s, we all went along to get along. We consumed the same corporate slop, posted the same memes, and laughed at the same dumb clips.

Then three events blew it all up.

1. Gamergate (2014)

The masks came off. The lies about neutrality in the gaming press were exposed for what they were: agitprop disguised as journalism. Most normies weren’t ready to see behind the curtain, but the word “SJW” became common usage, and suddenly it was open season on the supposed lock-step consensus. The Death Cult’s long march through the institutions was no longer subtle. They were in your games, your shows, and your comics—and they hated you.

2. Trump’s Election (2016)

If Orange Man’s legacy consists of nothing else, it will be shattering trust in the mainstream media. Trump caught the talking heads with their pants down. People who hadn’t trusted the news since the Iraq War were vindicated, and millions more joined them. In retaliation, the regime took the gloves off, wielding censorship, deplatforming, and media psyops against anyone who questioned the narrative. Pronouns and DIE programs replaced merit and truth in the work force. Bruce Jenner was feted for donning a dress.

3. Pretty Much Everything (2020)

2020 will go down in history as the year of total exposure. Lockdowns, medical experimentation on the populace, and racial scapegoating fused into a grotesque state religion. Most bent the knee. Those who didn’t burned down careers, friendships, and family bonds. And the powers that be stopped pretending they didn’t want dissenters’ heads, wising may up to the Globetrotters vs. Generals game of traditional politics Their eyes were opened to the real struggle between belief in objective reality and a totalizing Death Cult.

But it didn’t start there. Gen Y’s slide began long before; right after 9/11, in fact. Back when the first of us were starting college, the illusion was still intact. But the foundation had already crumbled. The Boomers had promised us a world that would just work if we toed the line: go to college, buy a house, retire on a beach. Gen X mocked that song and dance, but Gen Y believed it. We tried to play by the rules and be good little consoomers.

And when it failed, we didn’t know how to react.

Some adapted. Others raged at reality. And that split over the acceptance or rejection of what is has only grown since. Now it defines the entire generation.

Gen Y has passed the crossroads. The last ten years were the point of no return. Ys aren’t young anymore. We are no longer invincible; the death of every norm we were raised with has driven that point home. The people who made it through aren’t normal anymore—nor should they be. The old normal was a lie, anyway.

Now we face a choice.

We can become what we were meant to be: rooted in truth, grounded in God; forsaking mindless consumption of cultural product to pass down the torch.

Or we can implode, withering into bitter husks consumed with nostalgic rage who reject any reminder that the dream was never real.

The bifurcation is complete. There is no middle ground anymore.

Related: Hope for Gen Y

And that division is apparent in the culture, or what passes for it.

The aughts felt like the 90s going into overtime. Now try comparing 2013 to 2023. We went from hopeful mediocrity to cynical parody. We’d been coasting since the culture stalled in 1997, and now we know we’ve been coasting downhill.

But here’s the kicker: Even as pop culture has burned down, the hype machine keeps shilling the ashes. 90s nostalgia is back … again.

Related: Why the Entertainment Industry Can't Let Go of the 90s

Didn’t we already do this? Weren’t pre-faded Hey Arnold! shirts and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboots already passé in 2015? Shouldn’t we be deep into aughts nostalgia by now? Where’s the revival of Tony Hawk, flip phones, and emo?

They’re nowhere to be found. Instead it’s back to pogs and scan line filters.

Why the repetition? Why are we getting another wave of 90s regurgitation instead of moving on to something new?

Simple: because we can’t. Gen Y is emotionally stuck there. And now that we’re entering middle age, Madison Avenue is back to squeeze the last juice out of the rind. This is the same play they ran on the Boomers with the 60s nostalgia craze. Now it’s our turn.

The problem is, Gen Y’s heritage is a burned-out strip mall with a vape shop in the defunct Pizza Hut.

The silver lining is that those Ys who took the other fork have finally noticed they’ve been turned into walking ATMs for people who hate them. They’re priced out of housing. Their food bills have tripled. And their careers have stalled thanks to Boomers refusing to leave the workplace until they’re wheeled out in body bags. Ys may not know why the system is broken, but they knows that it is.

We’re done pretending.

We’re done apologizing.

We’re ready to reclaim our birthright.

And here’s the open secret: The ruling class isn’t afraid of Donald Trump. They’re afraid of the guy who used to say, “I’m a common-sense moderate,” and now shares RETVRN TO TRADITION memes. They dread the guy who used to binge Netflix and now attends Mass twice a week; the guy who used to read comics and now reads Scripture.

The Great Severing has already happened. If you bowed to the Death Cult, you’ll keep bowing. You performed the humiliation ritual and liked it.

But if you resisted, you’re not going back. There’s nothing they can threaten you with anymore. You already lost the fake world. Now you’re building a real one—so you can help younger generations escape the same trap you did.

So where does Gen Y go from here?

2034 will not look like 2024. Of that, we can be certain. And who shapes that future is being decided now.

We’ve only got two options:

1. Fulfill our mission to remember truth, rekindle beauty, and rebuild order

2. Collapse into nostalgic onanism amid the ruins, lashing out at anything that reminder that Christmas is past.

Choose wisely. Because there’s no middle way anymore.

There never really was.

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