My hope is that nothing really changed for the worse, and it’s just that dating scenes are always dominated by men looking to score instead of get into a serious (and equitable) relationship.

Millennials had h3h3 and pewdiepie. I don’t think it meaningfully prevented those same viewers from a leftist turn if they were ever going to. Sometimes this shit just boils down to “kids can be dumb” and then they turn out fine after their prefrontal cortex finishes developing at 25.

[–] meowMix2525@lemm.ee 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The audience that took off for h3 (and that whole orbit) and pewdiepie* was definitely the older part of gen z, not millennials. There are zoomers that are as old as 28 (born in 1997).

*tbqh I don't think pewdiepie deserves a mention here. Heated gamer moments aside, I really just don't see him as a major political influence for the audiences that watched his stuff especially early on.

[–] quarrk@hexbear.net 5 points 2 days ago

If older gen z were watching, then so were younger millennials… both of these creators were popular in the early 10s.

I don't think pewdiepie deserves a mention

Fair, I don’t know that much about him except that he was the biggest YouTuber and had a few scandals for saying slurs.

Maybe I’m an optimist but I think it shouldn’t be that alarming that kids watch offensive things. They always have, forever. The millennials especially grew up in a new internet environment with minimal guardrails. Millennials saw a lot of gore and porn and edgy incel shit which was way easier to stumble upon than it is today, and with none of the warning labels. It probably felt cool to see that stuff, like flipping through grandpa’s playboy magazine, but that’s just angsty teenagers being angsty. I don’t see much cause for alarm in my personal experience with zoomers.