“I was so upset and disappointed in myself because growing up, I was told that if I get an education, if I go to college, then I’ll be successful,” Santos told Business Insider—and she’s not the first Gen Zer to complain about feeling tricked into pursuing further education.
Just last month, 27-year-old Robbie Scott similarly went viral on TikTok for insisting that Gen Z isn’t any less willing to work than generations before. Instead, he said, they are “getting angry and entitled and whiny” about the prospect of having to work hard for the rest of their adult life, only to “get nothing in return.”
But you understand the 'cynical' response, right? I agree its not necessarily constructive, but the crabs at the bottom of the bucket have experienced the betrayal of those near the top many times - the labor aristocrats who will talk about solidarity and crab buckets when they start being pushed down by the fisherperson, but when they are on their way up are suddenly quiet? I don't mean socialists or communists so much, but certainly that happens many times (to revolutionary movements too) and the only fix is for those better compensated workers to make the first move, in deed not just in words, to show they're willing to actually operate in everybody's interests. No 'crab' at the bottom trusts or believes those near the top when they start talking about solidarity or the concerns of the working class, because of the repeated betrayals - an appeal to the masses to help, followed by ditching the concerns of those masses once they've been used for the desired purpose.
The schadenfreude reaction is akin to a camel trainer throwing a shirt for the camels to tear apart - it stops them attacking the trainer. But its only one type of reaction, others are sympathetic or empathetic, and I'm sure there are more.
The point however is to appoint or select a representative for a particular social issue, from the media class (i.e will share and understand media class interests), through which socio-economic trends and events can be discussed in a controlled manner. This person wants to be a professional influencer (i.e manipulator, propagandist), and has demonstrated her credentials, so she's been given a shot.
To give a concrete example, there is currently a recession (a 'bust' after the 'boom' or from the perspective of capital, a harvest or cull period) in tech. Why is the media not talking to and featuring tech workers about this, but instead talking to bosses and propagandists? Because tech workers are infrastructure workers, and if they were organised and angry enough, they could like any infrastructure worker pose a real danger to the interests of the elites. This isn't the only trend occuring, there's also migration, outsourcing, expensive foriegn wars, plague, inflation, retail rentierism collapsing, another financial 'crisis' and so on. Regardless, the point is to have all these things discussed in the public sphere by carefully selected representatives.
This is because its much easier to control a few people than many - why representative democracy or republicanism is favoured, because its easier to coerce, control, bribe etc a few people rather than many. Its a class war, and the same strategies and tactics employed during any other kind of war are used here, including the 'informational' part of war. We'll know we're winning when we can choose (and vet, and dismiss) our own representatives, rather than having them chosen for us like in this case, or better still represent ourselves. Currently, we're not winning, and the ease with which this kind of informational or psyop part of the war is conducted by the ruling classes, eliciting the desired reactions (including naively taking their propagandists in good faith), is emblamatic of that.
Performing is not something we all do. Its something actors do, or other entertainers. Crying because you can't get a job is very different from pretending to cry and pretending that you can't get a job. Mimicry can be very skilled and elicit the same reactions as the real thing, but whats true and false does matter.