Is the Gen Z bro media diet to blame?
Among the many questions that will be sure to plague Democrats in the months following Kamala Harris’s defeat in the 2024 presidential election: What is happening with Gen Z men?
Could it be that growing up in a fundamentally different media environment than generations before them, one populated by individual influencers who often preach the values of entrepreneurship, self-improvement, and, ultimately, self-interest over everything else, galvanized the youngest voters to vote for a man who shared that same spirit? Or could it be that young men have helped make this content popular because they like what it says?
What’s clear is that Donald Trump catered to the bro vote and won.
Early exit poll data from swing states shows that 18- to 29-year-old men favored Trump 49 percent to 47 percent, while 18- to 29-year-old women favored Harris by 24 points — the largest gender gap within any age group, and one that defies conventional wisdom that once painted young people as broadly progressive.
It’s worth noting that exit poll data can be unreliable and it will take weeks for a clearer picture to emerge. But even as we wait for a more comprehensive demographic breakdown of the election, it’s fair to say that Trump’s campaign was uniquely attuned to Gen Z bros. He appeared on a succession of extremely online streams and podcasts targeting young men, an unusual media strategy that some second-guessed but ended up being vindicated.
That Trump would attempt such an outreach shouldn’t come as a shock. Gen Z is leaning more right than its predecessors. This fall, a Harvard Youth Poll showed 18- to 24-year-old men saying they were more likely to identify as conservative than liberal, while men and women of the same age group said they were more conservative than 25- to 29-year-olds.
A Gallup and Walton Family Foundation study showed that Gen Z teens are twice as likely to identify as more conservative than their parents in comparison to millennials and their parents 20 years before. This was especially true for male Republican teenagers. Younger people are also more skeptical of major American institutions, including political parties, the government, and the media.
Trump’s campaign directly spoke to this demographic: He echoed that same mistrust in institutions, and did so while stopping at seemingly every podcast, Twitch stream, YouTube channel, and TikTok page whose viewership is dominated by Gen Z men and boys. He joined Adin Ross, a now 24-year-old streamer who once famously looked up and struggled to read the definition of “fascism” on camera, for an interview during which Ross presented Trump with a Rolex and a Cybertruck.
He went on the mulleted comedian Theo Von’s podcast, where they discussed cocaine, golf, and UFC.
He palled around with YouTube millionaires like the Paul brothers and the Nelk Boys, known for their distasteful pranks and crypto scams.
And, of course, he talked to Joe Rogan, the most famous podcaster in the world; the two rambled to each other for three hours. For this, he received Rogan’s much-coveted endorsement.
Where the Gen Z bro media diet came from
A source of endless recent debate has been young men’s rightward turn, despite the fact that the answer may be in plain sight. Young men are seeing the strides women have made in the last several generations — out-earning men in college degrees and nearly tripling the share of women who earn as much or more than their husbands since the ’mid-70s — and feeling left behind and demonized by the left.
Nearly half of men between 18 and 29 say there is “some or a lot” of discrimination against men in America, up from a third in 2019, according to the Survey Center on American Life, which is affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank. They believe the Me Too movement was an overreach and that many women are simply lying about being abused.
It’s not exactly surprising they’re drawn to media that speaks to these grievances — and more often than not, that media comes in the form of individual influencers who are unaffiliated with existing media institutions. Like Rush Limbaugh in the ’90s, these creators have tapped into an enormous swath of men who want to be told they can still aspire to be the head of household, even if they can’t afford rent or find a girlfriend.
Social media platforms, of course, incentivize this kind of content. Though it fits into a specific niche, it’s provocative and engaging, and therefore users will continue to see more if they watch or share it. That’s also why the bro influencer world remains such a mystery to older people, women, or anyone outside of that particular algorithm: The social media landscape is atomized and personalized to each user, yet a lot of men are getting funneled into the same one.
Part of the issue for Democrats is that the most popular content on the internet is either entirely nonpolitical (consider Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy, which only briefly stepped into politics for an interview with Harris) or is right-leaning and geared toward men. While plenty of podcasters and influencers espouse leftist and liberal views, they don’t command nearly as much influence as those on the right.
Hasan Piker, perhaps the left’s sole answer to this brand of charismatic, attractive, and explicitly political young male influencer, explained it like so: “If you’re a dude under the age of 30 and you have any hobbies whatsoever, whether it’s playing video games, whether it’s working out, whether it’s listening to a history podcast or whatever, every single facet of that is just completely dominated by … the center-right to Trumpian right.”
One branch of this network is what writer Max Read dubbed “the Zynternet,” which he covered this summer when Haliey Welch went massively viral for her “Hawk Tuah” joke. It’s fratty and reactionary, and it’s held together by a love of college sports and the gambling industry.
It’s also worth noting that the rightward shift among young people isn’t limited to men, nor is it exclusively the domain of male influencers. Digital researcher Jess Rauchberg pointed out on X that the influx of tradwife content may be shifting “the way young white women are imagining their roles in political participation” (though I’d argue this extends beyond just white women). Creators like Ballerina Farm and reality shows like the The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, she argues, “are endorsing a form of political engagement that reinforces separate (economic, political) spheres for women and men.”
The seeds of this media landscape sprouted a decade ago, when the social justice movements abetted by social media’s rise were met with a swift backlash in the form of harassment campaigns like Gamergate. Those tactics were then mobilized in ways that mystified the non-extremely online back then to help elect Trump the first time around.
Ten years later, men are even lonelier, more likely to be single, more skeptical, and more afraid than ever. They find solace and community online, in places that older folks still don’t understand, where they see idealized versions of masculinity winning. They cheer on UFC fights and boxing matches, use “edgy” slurs, trade in risky crypto investments, bootlick Silicon Valley billionaires, listen to toxic dating advice, and denigrate women.
They vote for a man who has done everything you’re not supposed to do — steal, lie, rape, idolize Hitler — because his election fulfills their fantasy that men really can get away with whatever they want.
For now, it seems they’re right.