Gary Vaynerchuk says Gen Z mental health was ruined by this common family issue—so stop blaming social media

Gary Vaynerchuk prides himself on being ahead of the curve. As the chairman of communications company VaynerX and the cofounder of Resy, not to mention an angel investor in brands like Twitter, Facebook, Uber, and Venmo, he knows a thing or two about trends in business. And in a new interview with CBS Mornings, he shared what he thinks is to blame for consumer burnout: not advertisers, social media, or even consumers themselves—but modern parenting.

“I think that parenting needs to be called out of the last 40 years,” Vaynerchuk said. “I believe that the burnout, the insecurity, all the stuff we talk about, I believe the reason we’re buying more stuff is, we’re using it as Band-Aids and glitter because we’re not strong enough to be secure in what we are and who we are and what we have.” 

What many people blame on an oversaturated market and the omnipresence of social media, Vaynerchuk attributes to overly lax parenting. After all, he says, being inundated with ads is nothing new.

“We grew up with Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. MTV Cribs had plenty of run,” he pointed out. “We want to blame technology for a much bigger issue, which is modern parenting misstepped. We don’t hold kids accountable, we don’t ground, we definitely don’t whoop.”

Vaynerchuk claimed he receives “tens of thousands of DMs from 20-to-30-year-olds every month” that often cite frustration with being coddled by parents, from being tracked on apps like Life360 into adulthood, to having their lives bankrolled with no expectation of paying their family back.

“We’re sending these kids into the real world, and we’re wondering why they’re depressed,” Vaynerchuk continued. “They’re depressed because they weren’t taught any accountability. Eighth place trophies for everyone.”

“We’ve demonized losing, when losing is the teacher,” he added.

Elsewhere in the interview, Vaynerchuk gave his predictions for the next big industry in America—live shopping, already a half-trillion dollar industry in China, “is where social media in 2009 was”—as well as for the future of artificial intelligence.

“All of it is gonna lead to us having more time for leisure,” he said. “I think there’s a scenario where we go to a four-day work week because of efficiencies and subsidies from the biggest winners in AI.”

“People are worried about losing money,” Vaynerchuk continued. “People are scared of losing their jobs. But the tractor was invented when 80% of us worked on farms 200 years ago, and we found new jobs . . . Instead of, ‘wah, wah, wah,’ what about, ‘Let me take control of it’? What about all the people that might get inspired by this interview, and get a job in three years that pays them three times more that they’re happy about, because they took the AI surfboard instead of putting their head in the sand?”