The root of Gen Z’s hyperindividualism
Creator Michelle Skidelsky on why internet discourse is so toxic now.
Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.
Paid subscribers first learned about Michelle Skidelsky’s work a few weeks ago in the Sunday Scroll … just saying. —Kate
TikTok’s For You page algorithm has the unique ability to drop its users directly in the middle of an argument. Already several stitches deep, you’re forced to work backward for context. That’s confusing in the best of times, but even more so when the argument is about something as simple as “we should generally be polite to one another.” Yet, for some reason, it’s that opinion 20-year-old Canadian creator Michelle Skidelsky has been forced to defend again and again online.
“I am horrified by the amount of people who genuinely think they don’t owe anyone anything,” she says in a March 16 video. By anything, she means niceties as benign as nodding through a boring conversation or offering a small laugh to unfunny jokes. Spending a pandemic online appears to have resulted in a subset of a generation that broadly supports social justice while at the same time rejecting any obligation to individual responsibility—a hyperindividualism that’s exacerbated by the internet’s proclivity towards “whataboutism.”
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“I honestly just stumbled upon this because people were being so mean to me,” she tells me over Zoom. After making a playfully snarky video about the flavored water trend, Michelle was met with an oversized backlash, and in her attempts to respond to and unpack the reactions, she ended up sparking a larger conversation about internet discourse and what it has done to the Gen Zers who have grown up with it.
I wanted to chat with Michelle because she was putting into words something I had been trying and failing to properly articulate for the past few years about the way the internet has changed our relationship with ourselves and each other. I also figured that her astute ability to pick up on these hyper-meta cultural shifts would lend itself to other questions I had about Gen Z’s relationship with the internet, social justice, and news consumption. This interview is a wide-ranging conversation between Michelle and myself about just that, and is crucial to understanding not just how the internet is changing our social and behavioral habits, but also why.
I came across you via your videos about how we owe each other basic politeness, which for some reason are controversial. What made you start talking about this stuff?
Internet comments are crazy, and I remember hearing influencers talking about how that really affects them and I was like, “Psh people online? Relax.” No, people are mean and they disagree about the most mundane things. And I saw a video talking along the lines of like, “Why would I ever participate in a conversation about Taylor Swift if I don't like her?” And I was like, “What do you mean?” And that's where it kind of started from.
Let's start with that example. For a generation that cares so broadly about social justice, they individually seem to feel like they actually don't owe anyone anything, even the basic courtesy of being polite when you’re in an innocent conversation you don’t want to be in. Do you think this is a Gen Z-specific thing? And also, do they actually act this way, or is it how they're talking online?
It's a good question. I don't know 'cause all of my friends are normal, but I've seen teachers on TikTok, on social media, talking about how Gen Z is really snippy and rude. I don't know if it's only a Gen Z thing. I'm sure every generation is hypocritical in some way, but I just feel like because Gen Z has such a heavy social media presence, it's documented. Like one [video] is bullying Hailey Bieber and the next one is, like, Black Lives Matter and it's like, what's going on?
I think this is because of the internet, and Gen Z just happens to have been raised on it—I think the same thing would happen to any generation that was raised on it to this extent. But everything is now reduced to a fandom, including social justice movements, which is what results in things like the video you made about sharing Instagram graphics.
I also think it's because being perceived as not supporting some social justice movement, because Gen Z politics are so hyperpolarized, it's like, “Well I don't want people to think I support, like, Ben Shapiro ‘cause I didn't post an Instagram story.” And so it's almost like, because the other side is crazy but also so demonized, I think that really adds to it as well.
I don't fall in the marginalized groups that many social justice movements represent, so I don't have any right to speak on them. But when Roe v. Wade fell, everything on my Instagram was about abortion and about how bad everything was. And I was obviously really emotionally affected by the news. But I was like, you know what I wanna do? I wanna open my phone and scroll pretty pictures. The last thing I want in this moment is see over and over again about how Roe v. Wade fell. But I think people felt that posting any else was like—
Like, “Oh, so you hate women.”
Right? Like you had to be performing your outrage. I feel like there's an awareness that people don't post everything on social media, but when it comes to social justice, you're not allowed to grieve that privately. I kind of think being raised on influencers, and I include myself in this, a lot of the ways we've learned to use social media is from following people who have larger followings. Therefore I now feel accountability akin to a public figure, but to my own small following.
Yeah. I feel like it kind of comes down to two things. I think the first is that everyone feels like they have a personal brand now. Which is like, okay sure. I have one now because I have followers on TikTok. But even before, when I was like 16, I felt like I had a personal brand on social media. I remember I was looking through pictures with my friends and there was one where I was smiling and they were like, "Oh you look so good." And I was like, "No, that's not my brand." And I think that the other thing is that it's such an echo chamber to be on social media. Everything is so curated to be what you wanna see that the odd person really sticks out.
It's so interesting to hear you talk about the brand thing at 16. Growing up with these social media tools but also with the idea of a “brand” being normalized, do you feel like you explored identities more, or has it felt like you had to have one brand your whole time on social media?
It's kind of maybe hard for me to say because I was very online but not as online as some people. I was a very nerdy, academically-focused kid. So that was always my brand. But I feel like this generation, I feel like we've all been raised by the media and that's not exclusive to us. Like, my mom was raised by movies, but now it's like, we have so many models of how we should act all the time. Like a morning routine: This is what I should do when I wake up, this is how this person acts when they do this, this is what they eat for breakfast. And so I feel like that really strongly affects that ability to kind of pick and choose [identities] ‘cause I feel like you see so much detail about like one niche that it's impossible to like jump across them—it's just too much information to absorb.
Another thing you talk about is the rise of “whataboutism” on TikTok. I wanna know what yours is, but my theory for that is that a lot of this stuff has played out before on different platforms, but Twitter specifically really rewards callouts and takedowns with engagement. So I feel it's trained many people to go in pursuit of that whataboutism because they get rewarded.
Yeah. But also, because people are posting about so many things, everyone feels represented in some small way, even if it's a really little way. And so before, I would just kind of go about my life and be like, “Maybe I'm the only person with these experiences”—I'm obviously not, but I'm not really thinking about it, and then I see someone else talking about it and I'm like, “Oh, okay, so this is like a thing.” And then when I see someone talking about something that doesn't necessarily align with that, I'm like, “What about me and the other three people on Twitter that I saw? Because actually apparently this is a real thing so include me!”
It’s common to say people are more sensitive these days, but I don't think that's true. I just think we've never all been in the same space before. We've never all been able to talk to each other at the same time. TikTok especially is like, "Oh, indie sleaze is back, but also twee is back but also pop punk is back." I don't think you can really say anymore that one thing is happening. Everyone's doing their own thing.
Everything's popular all the time.
I saw someone say cowboy boots are back. And I'm like, no, you just found people online wearing cowboy boots.
Right. People have always worn cowboy boots.
You touch on topics that generate a lot of discourse, good and bad. How do you cope with all the feedback? Do you set any boundaries?
I don't and that's my problem. It's awful though. It's awful because the thing is, too, when people are praising me then I'm like, "Oh my God, this is the best." And I just wanna refresh, refresh and see what everyone is saying. And so when people are being negative, I'm like, refreshing, refreshing. And I'm like, “Where are the people who agree? What's going on?” I feel physically ill when I know something that's getting negative [feedback], like I feel like my blood pressure is high. I just wanna sit and be catatonic.
What keeps you doing it?
I just really like attention, actually.
It also seems like you are verbalizing something that a lot of people have been feeling. I don't know where we go from here, but in terms of you personally, do you have any hopes or plans? Is there anything that stumbling upon this following has made you think about for the future?
I mean, people have asked me to start a podcast. I would love to do that if someone paid me and I had the time. But honestly, I don't know. And part of it is I feel like at any moment, the whole internet's gonna switch up on me. You know what I mean?
Right. One of the things I care a lot about is the labor of influencers, and it is less so a physical action they're doing, but just the looming knowledge that they're—
Being perceived all the time.
Yeah. That they're being seen, and that anyone could turn on them and any platform they're on could suddenly change its algorithm or get banned. And then that's their lifeline. Has this pressure changed your relationship with the internet at all?
It's kind of hard for me to say because I was raised on the internet. And so really primarily I do see the internet as an incredible thing. Like there's so much information out there, it's amazing. And even the social aspect, like my parents are immigrants. My family has always lived far away. And so the internet literally is the only reason I even had a relationship with my grandparents and things like that. And so I love the internet. I just don't love what the internet thinks of me. And I feel like the issue is like, I feel like none of us were meant to evolutionarily be perceived by so many people all the time. And I think like Abraham Lincoln, like he was famous but wasn't hearing about it all the time. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah. And the pressure of being famous, now we're doing that all to ourselves even though we’re not all famous. One of the last points that I just wanted to touch on is I've been thinking a lot about news consumption and Gen Z, specifically how it seems Gen Z is more likely to trust individuals than official news outlets. Why do you think that is?
I feel like the difference between an influencer and a traditional celebrity is first of all, a celebrity has a skill that they're famous for. So like acting or singing or being an athlete, and I only have myself. I can't tell you why I'm famous, it's just because people like me and I don't know why. And so I feel like in exchange for that, we have to offer up so much more of ourselves. Like I'm thinking when I was like 11, I knew everything about my favorite YouTuber, like where they went to school, like everything. And so I feel like that creates more trust because it's like, “Listen, you know everything about me, so why wouldn't you believe what I say?” But then as soon as it flips, it's like, “I'm gonna use everything I know about you against you now.”
That makes so much sense. And it makes me think of those creators who break out of the traditional influencer mold and they become real celebrities, they then try to then pull back. I'm thinking specifically of Emma Chamberlain—like, now you don't know anything about her. But I do think that's why there's this inevitable thing that happens where an influencer's audience turns on them because they stop being relatable. I think they run into the consequences of people knowing everything, and so they try to pull back, and then that can shatter their relationship with their audience.
Interesting you brought up Emma Chamberlain 'cause it is such a paradox. I've done some brand deals and people are like, "Oh my gosh, it's so good to see that you're doing this." And I'm like, I know if I get too famous, I lose everything. No one's gonna wanna listen to me anymore because then I'm just another like, whatever.
Whatever the umbrella media falls under where Gen Z is like, “I don't trust the media,” you would enter that, because you've elevated to something where they're like, “I can't trust you anymore.”
Like, oh now you have a publicist. It's not just you.
There's a lot of discomfort the viewers have in seeing someone who they support for being like them suddenly ascend to a different class. And so I understand the anger, but I also feel for the influencers ‘cause it's just like—
What was I supposed to do?
Yeah. Like, there's no way to win.
You gave me the success.
This was FANTASTIC, I kept nodding throughout all of it
This interview is BRILLIANT!!!! I absolutely loved it.