Mending the gap

Every generation is saddled with easy categorisation, like Gen Z now. Ignored in digital adolescence are the struggles of young lives searching for meaning in a fractured, glowing world

Bindu Menon

Updated At : 04:41 AM Sep 21, 2025 IST

Empathise, not exploit the poor Recently I was travelling by bus to Chandigarh. Before reaching the highway, the bus stopped at Miller Ganj where many passengers boarded the bus. Miller Ganj is the largest industrial area of Ludhiana, employing a huge number of labourers from different parts of the country. Sitting on a window seat, I spotted a young boy, accompanied by two middle-aged labourers pulling a cart with goods. The boy asked them to load the goods in the dicky of the bus and gave them their labour charges. Suddenly, I heard a commotion. The labourers were arguing with the boy about the money which they had been promised earlier. The boy rudely told them, “Itne paise hi milenge, lene hai to lo, nahin to jao (You will get only this much payment, take it or leave it). Saying this, he ran to board the bus which had started moving. I felt sad for the labourers. I have come across many similar situations, in particular during house constructions or renovations. After work is finished, many people sometimes refuse to pay masons and labourers, on the pretext that some portion of the house has not been constructed according to their choice, and they should either build it again or they shall not be paid. If the labourers show their inability, the house owner gets angry, saying "Who will pay for the loss of the material which you have wasted?" Some people even go to the extent of snatching their tools and shoo them away. This is the dark underbelly our society, exploiting illiterate, poor and ignorant. There have been many news about labourers losing lives, after being hired for a pittance to clean septic tanks. The law may not be able do much in these situations, therefore I sincerely urge people to be more humane towards these poor sections of society. Ravinder Kumar Jain, Ludhiana The World Health Organisation has sounded the warning that depression is fast becoming the defining illness of our age. Already, more young adults than ever before are seeking help for mental health and antidepressants are being dispensed in numbers never seen before. Istock

IN his book ‘Utopia for Realists’, the Dutch thinker Rutger Bregman pauses to reflect upon a haunting observation made by psychologist Jean Twenge of San Diego State University. Under the telling subhead, ‘The Pampered Generation’, Twenge describes a paradox of our times: children raised in a climate of endless praise, each told they could be anything they desired, for they were “special”. At first, such words sound like gifts of love. Yet, as Twenge notes, this constant affirmation has a darker consequence — it does not build resilience but cultivates fragility. Instead of grounding children in strength, it feeds a brittle narcissism, polished on the outside, hollow within.

And what happens when these children, bursting with hope, finally step into adulthood? They are not greeted by the Disneyland-like wonderland they were promised — a carousel of pleasures and a world of rewards waiting with open arms. Instead, they find themselves thrust into the cold theatre of capitalism, a landscape of shifting sands and endless competition. Here, the horizon of opportunity stretches endlessly, but every step forward cuts with its own sharp cost. In this arena, direction is scarce, and survival is not a shared adventure but a lonely race.

The World Health Organisation has already sounded the warning bell. Depression, it tells us, is fast becoming the defining illness of our age. By 2030, it is expected to stand as the single-most significant cause of sickness across the globe. Already, more young adults than ever before seek psychiatric and psychological help, while antidepressants are dispensed in numbers never seen in the history of medicine. Is the dream of boundless possibility, offered so freely in childhood, curdling into despair?

‘Adolescence’ follows a 13-year-old boy whose arrest for the murder of a female classmate unsettles assumptions about the fragility of youth. Courtesy: Netflix

This unease finds reflection in art too. The British drama ‘Adolescence’, streaming on Netflix, recently swept the Emmy awards, validating why it became a much-raved-about show and global talking point. The drama follows Jamie Miller, a 13-year-old schoolboy — brought to life with remarkable vulnerability by Owen Cooper — whose arrest for the murder of a female classmate unsettles not just his community but our assumptions about innocence, violence, and the fragility of youth.

Told in real time, the series draws us intimately into Jamie’s life — his family, school, and hidden battles — and forces us to confront the brittle structures that shaped him. Social media’s glare, the tightening grip of toxic masculinity, and the haunting rise of knife crime in Britain form the backdrop of his tragedy. For many middle and upper-middle-class households, the series was no simple crime story but an unflinching mirror, showing a reality that was too raw and uncomfortable to ignore.

But Jamie’s story is not an isolated tale. It is part of a larger narrative that distinguishes today’s youth from generations past. The young of the 1970s and 1980s grew within scaffolds of books, faith, political idealism, and capitalist myths of the self-made hero. They were taught to find guidance in family, religion, and the printed word. The Gen Z, by contrast, wander in a different terrain. Their moral compass is no longer shaped by heart or scripture but by the restless pulse of social media and globalisation. This is tellingly brought out at the start of the series when the detective investigating the murder is bewildered when his son decodes online slang and incel culture.

In this new world, cult culture thrives — not the old cults of secret societies or hidden temples, but digital cults born in the glow of screens. This generation does not gather in cathedrals or shrines but in fandoms and micro-communities. Their devotion, however, carries the intensity of worship. K-pop armies, such as BTS ARMY, gather with chants and rituals, mobilising across borders with the strength of congregations. Western fandoms too — Taylor Swift’s Swifties, or devotees of Marvel and DC — echo the language of spiritual devotion. In India, we are also saddled with the cult of cow vigilantes and religious and political cyber bullies. These are not simply fans but congregations, their banners raised in the name of belonging.

And then there are the influencers, new high priests of the digital age. They cultivate parasocial bonds with their followers on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. Algorithms lift their images higher, until they tower over ordinary lives, shaping not just taste but loyalty, as the clergy once did with faith. Beyond these digital cathedrals, politics too borrows the same methods: memes become scripture, conspiracy theories are dressed as communion, and online movements draw in the lonely with promises of belonging.

Consumerism itself becomes a creed. Apple, Nike or Supreme are no longer merely brands but have become banners of identity. Aesthetic (or Internet subculture) lifestyles — cottagecore, dark academia, clean girl — become symbolic tribes, with their own dress codes, languages, and values. This fractured inheritance shapes the lives of Gen Z. For them, the sacred is no longer carried in scripture or sermon, but remade through streams and feeds.

Belonging is bought, borrowed, streamed, and shared, while freedom — once the brightest promise — often unravels into silent searches for self. Every adolescent, in his or her own way, longs to be seen, a spectacle, an object of desire.

In this theatre, sexuality plays a role too decisive to ignore. Many of these subcultures are steeped in misogyny. Incels, or involuntary celibates, gather in digital spaces to direct their anger towards women, spinning narratives of male victimhood and female deceit. Their resentment often brews into hostility and sometimes erupts into violence. Closely linked are the Red Pill and the broader manosphere, where adolescents are taught to reject feminism, embrace hypermasculinity, and treat dominance and entitlement as a natural order. In urban contexts, toxic masculinity thrives in gangs and peer cultures, where identity is bound to conquest, violence, and the control of women — reinforced by music, gaming, and the glossy images of social media.

Other subcultures form around sexuality itself. Hyper-sexualised peer networks on Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat encourage adolescents to craft themselves as brands, where value is measured in desirability, and belonging is secured through likes and shares. Queer adolescents, on the other hand, find refuge in LGBTQ+ micro-communities, which, though positive and affirming, still mirror cult-like devotion with their rituals and shared symbols. Meanwhile, pornography has become a dominant, if silent, force in shaping adolescent sexuality. Online communities gather like quasi-cults around fetishised content, rewriting understandings of intimacy, consent, and gender roles in troubling ways.

And all this unfolds while another set of pressures tighten their grip: the relentless demand for academic excellence, the family’s dystopian refrain that “every child is a prodigy”. In the Indian context, there is a class consciousness that dictates what subjects to take and what job to aspire for. What a child might genuinely be drawn to, what their orientation, talent, or temperament might suggest, is rarely given space in this grand overarching objective. And then, hidden behind closed doors, other temptations will come too: drug culture and the dark web — subterranean worlds invisible to the mainstream or deliberately ignored by it.

Every generation is saddled with a label and a set of attributes, often imposed rather than earned. After the First World War, Gertrude Stein famously coined the term “Lost Generation” to describe a battle-weary, disillusioned cohort scarred by the horrors of conflict. Since then, the habit of branding generations with sweeping stereotypes has persisted. Baby Boomers were cast as relentless workaholics, Millennials as entitled materialists, and so on. Gen Z, too, has not escaped this easy categorisation — dismissed as aimless, distracted, and lacking work ethic. Yet such judgments overlook a crucial irony: it is the very generations that came before, in their unbridled pursuit of material progress, who depleted resources, ravaged ecosystems, and left behind a precarious, overheated planet.

In this context, ‘Adolescence’ arrives not merely as a show but a window through which we glimpse a vast forest of struggles. It tells one story, but behind it are thousands more, brimming and boiling in the digital age. Each story reminds us that the mainstream idea of success — measured in exams, salaries, and accolades — feels utterly detached from the anxieties shaping young lives. Bregman ends his chapter with a striking lament, quoting a former mathematician at Facebook: “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads.” It is a line that captures the futility of an age where genius is spent on hollow pursuits, belonging is commodified, and the fragile heart of youth beats beneath promises never fulfilled.

‘Adolescence’ is thus more than a drama — it is a peephole into the surreal landscape of today’s digital adolescence. It offers a glimpse into an urban and suburban world, shaped not by ancient morals or communal rituals, but by the restless tide of social media, globalisation, and cult-like devotion. Young people continue searching for meaning in this fractured, glowing world — restless, fragile, and unresolved.

— The writer is a contributor based in Bengaluru

Mending the gap

Bindu Menon

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