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Why is Gen Z finding old niches before new technologies

We’re learning we might have been mistrusting people we should have had solidarity with

Rather than looking towards advanced technology for how terrible it is twice now, more if you count my joyful clubbing of social media while using it liberally, I should look towards where Gen-Z is going.

I find that this relates back to the column where I examined the forced stagnation of media and how it all feels like a copy of a copy of a copy of itself. My method of rebellion is to use my phones into oblivion before I replace them, rather than getting the newest model every year or two. For other things, there’s a necessary aspect of delayed gratification, saving up for something nicer and sturdier from a legacy brand — no free advertising, but I will happily shout out my Kitchen-Aid stand mixer — over getting the first item at the intersection of value and usefulness.

The steady reclamation of third spaces is happening this way as well. Coffee shops are not for you to go alone to work on your laptop or just passing through in a group after a morning workout anymore. I feel them coming back to what the café once was, a place to meet new people and interact, where friends can meet and openly exchange ideas.

Not buried in a chatroom or social media echo chamber, it might make someone respond while you are in public. That freaked me out the first time it happened, but there is a comfort in knowing that I am free to express how I feel and why, and then be challenged for those feelings for whatever reason. The point is, just like we’re making new bonds of friendship across various dividing lines, we’re learning we might have been mistrusting people we should have had solidarity with.

Getting off topic. Phew.

One subtle expression of this that I think everyone has benefited from, though I believe only Gen-Z is fully aware of, is how we can become engrossed with niche hobbies and topics, often a small handful each that crosses your social media feed or while you’re looking for something to watch, a documentary or, lucky you, a series to binge.

That sort of interest in a niche topic has a strong effect of allowing you to have this one hobby to yourself, whether you engage in it or not. Maybe you watch history of this or that font documentaries, or deep dives on urbanism and architecture (me), or video gameplay even though you are neither a gamer nor have any desire to be a gamer. It is simply something that allows your mind to go blank with comforting enrichment.

I think of it as the inverse of ‘how do you drive a supercar’ logic — do you drive carefully every day, using it to take your kids to school and fetch groceries, or do you carve out a day once a month to take it to the track where you can open up the throttle and really see what it can do? Much the same, the mind must need chill.

Gen-Z is just more aware of this need, and generally possess better internal awareness of their own mental health needs. More importantly, as mentioned way back in column #9, mental health is not an all-or-nothing game — it’s a buffet. In the same way, technology, media, or hobbies, it doesn’t need to be hyper-advanced for us to want to engage with it, otherwise everything new would be popular with everyone all the time. A niche hobby or a stand-mixer from a legacy brand is a little bit of peace protection. An island of calm in a chaotic world.

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