Remember the kids of Generation Z? You know—that notorious cohort of entitled, lazy, and apathetic people that Boomers so love to mock?
Over the past two years, members of Gen Z across Asia, Africa, and Latin America have been taking to the streets, covertly organizing revolutions and dethroning entrenched rulers. Quite a few of those involved in the uprisings have paid with their lives—another indicator that these events are worth taking seriously. On Oct. 14, Madagascar President Andry Rajoelina was ousted after weeks of protests and replaced by a military government, underlining the new power of the young and sometimes violent demonstrators who have been demanding change.
Remember the kids of Generation Z? You know—that notorious cohort of entitled, lazy, and apathetic people that Boomers so love to mock?
Over the past two years, members of Gen Z across Asia, Africa, and Latin America have been taking to the streets, covertly organizing revolutions and dethroning entrenched rulers. Quite a few of those involved in the uprisings have paid with their lives—another indicator that these events are worth taking seriously. On Oct. 14, Madagascar President Andry Rajoelina was ousted after weeks of protests and replaced by a military government, underlining the new power of the young and sometimes violent demonstrators who have been demanding change.
Some observers might dismiss this new wave of activism as irrelevant to the future of established democracies. But such complacency might be ill-advised. If this new revolutionary movement has demonstrated anything, it’s that no one should underestimate its infectiousness.
In 2022 and 2024, respectively, youth-led uprisings toppled the leaders of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, two countries with a combined population of around 200 million. This year has seen similar upheavals in Indonesia (284 million), the Philippines (116 million), Kenya (56 million), Morocco (38 million), Nepal (30 million), Madagascar (32 million), and Peru (34 million). That adds up to some 790 million people—a not inconsiderable chunk of the global population and enough to make this the largest wave of revolt in human history. Madagascar is not the only country where leaders have fallen; Nepal and Peru have also discarded their rulers. Meanwhile, Ecuador, recently inspired by the unrest in neighboring Peru, is still working through its own chaotic version of Gen Z turmoil.
But are we really justified in lumping all of these cases together? An intelligent observer might concede that labels like “Gen Z” often end up obscuring more than they reveal. After all, we live in an age where political polarization, driven at least in part by the ubiquity of social media, has opened up fault lines even among people of the same age. In the United States, Western Europe, and South Korea, sociologists have discovered that coeval men and women are increasingly diverging in their political preferences—so one should proceed with caution when lumping enormously diverse groups of people into a single political category.
Similar caveats apply to the comparison of social movements across national boundaries. The protests in Ecuador were triggered by cuts in subsidies for diesel fuel. In Morocco, it was a government decision to spend billions on a soccer stadium and related infrastructure amid the conspicuous decay of the national health system that prompted people to take to the streets. In Nepal, unrest spiked when the government attempted to ban major social media platforms—in some cases, the very same ones that had caused public indignation with their coverage of so-called Nepo Kids, children of the elite whose lavish lifestyles stand in brutal contrast with the underprivileged majority. Some of the countries affected by Gen Z turmoil are poor (like Madagascar); others are within striking distance of high-income status (like Indonesia).
Nonetheless, there are still some notable continuities. Twentysomethings have played a conspicuous role in all of these countries—representing burgeoning youth populations who have seen their own opportunities for advancement blocked by greedy elites. This generational commonality has even translated into some tactical borrowings across national boundaries. One of the most intriguing is the use of Discord, the social media platform widely used by gamers—but largely overlooked by the older generation—as a medium for organizing protests even as governments tried to crack down on other forms of online communication. In September, demonstrators in Nepal used Discord to sift through candidates to replace the ousted prime minister. An online vote on the platform ultimately picked former Supreme Court Chief Justice Sushila Karki as the interim prime minister, who has been running the country since.
Protesters have openly acknowledged their contemporaries in other countries as sources of inspiration, evidence of the ease and speed with which news and information can still flow despite the efforts of authorities to remain in control.
Indeed, Gen Z protesters have made a point of putting their own stamp on the uprisings by citing a pop culture reference now shared by fans from Lima to Kathmandu: the Japanese anime One Piece. The show’s hero is Monkey D. Luffy, captain of the “Straw Hat Pirates,” a group of social misfits combating a brutal global oligarchy. Their flag—a skull and crossbones topped by a straw hat—seems to have cropped up at most of the recent youth-led protests. At one point during the protests there, authorities in Indonesia declared that displaying the image was tantamount to treason.
But there is actually a semi-serious point behind the silliness: Just like Luffy’s pirates, today’s Gen Zers see themselves as opponents of anyone who can be considered a part of the existing system—including even those political parties that claim to criticize the powers that be. Most of the demonstrators have consciously rejected allying with established opposition leaders, choosing instead to emphasize the “leaderless” quality of their movements. Sri Lanka’s Aragalaya movement explicitly set the pattern by declaring itself to be a “nonpartisan” response to the increasingly heavy-handed rule of the Rajapaksa clan. Subsequent Gen Z protesters have largely followed suit.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the countries seized by Gen Z protest, however, is what they are not. None of them qualifies as an outright autocracy (with the possible exception of Bangladesh under ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who became increasingly dictatorial during her 15-year rule). The overwhelming majority of these nations are democracies—more often than not illiberal, corrupt, or grossly unequal, yet still retaining many democratic institutions. However apolitical some of the demonstrators might have claimed to be, most want to see their grievances—cronyism, government mismanagement, inequality, lack of economic opportunity—addressed through a renewal of those democratic institutions rather than a wholesale rejection of them. This places them in stark contrast, for example, to the revolts of the so-called Arab Spring starting in late 2010, which took place almost entirely in autocratic states with little tradition of democratic rule.
In this sense, the Gen Z wave of the 2020s should inspire a certain degree of optimism. The younger generation is demanding change, and doing so in ways that reveal an underlying faith in the possibility of reform. But what will happen if the revolutions they’ve demanded don’t produce the desired results, as already seems to be happening, for example, in Sri Lanka? The same skepticism that informs their rejection of politics as usual could also prove a liability when hard practical choices have to be made down the road. We’ve already seen that social media-driven protest sometimes isn’t enough to build the new political organizations needed for genuine change. Cynicism and stagnation could easily result.
Americans or Europeans have little cause for complacency. Evidence suggests that many Gen Zers in the West also feel politically homeless, unrepresented by existing parties and institutions, bereft of the same opportunities for economic advancement that their parents once enjoyed. It will be interesting to see what lessons they draw from their contemporaries around the world.
