Anonymous Zoomer. "I was indoctrinated at university".

The latest column from an anonymous member of Gen-Z

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Earlier this year, I asked an anonymous, right-leaning twenty-something member of Gen-Z to write a column on how they see the state of our politics and country. That column went viral and subsequent pieces have become some of our most read. For that reason, I asked Anon Zoomer to keep writing for us on a regular basis. Here’s their latest.

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I recently graduated from one of Britain’s most prestigious universities. But over the last year it’s become increasingly clear to me and many of my friends that despite amassing over £60,000 of debt for the privilege of joining the graduate class, we learnt very little of any genuine value at university.

Unless, that is, you count critical race theory, gender ideology, climate activism, and the ‘new religion’ of wokeness as having any genuine value outside of the increasingly narrow bubble that is filled with members of the liberal graduate class.

And I think this tells us much about shifting political allegiances in the West. At recent elections, many members of the liberal graduate class have watched in horror as large numbers of Zoomers, like me, have moved to the right, expressing support for Donald Trump in America, national populists in Europe, or Nigel Farage’s Reform.

As the Free Press recently noted, in regard to ‘Zoomers going MAGA’ in America:

“New polls show that the Gen Z vote, which Biden won by about 20 points in 2020, is now in play. A recent New York Times/Siena College survey—taken after Biden’s disastrous debate flop—puts Trump ahead of Biden by eight points among registered voters aged 18–29. And Pew research, conducted from February 1 to June 10, 2024, shows the GOP is leading among those under 30.”

But should all this really come as a surprise, given what Zoomers like me were forced to contend with while growing up? While at that prestigious university, for example, I was simply forced by my professors and lecturers to believe many untruths.

I was forced to believe that sex was not binary. I was told, ludicrously, I could be one of 72 genders. I was told that being white meant being racist. I was told that all of my ancestors were colonial oppressors and so, by default, was I.

This was also the time when climate activism on campus ramped up big time. Hero worshipping Just Stop Oil and their aggressive if not illegal tactics simply became a critical part of the university experience.

While Just Stop Oil’s illegal protests were considered legitimate, even fashionable, anybody who protested against Covid lockdowns was labelled ‘far-right’ —a term that students and professors lazily applied to everything to the right of the Labour Party.

Personally, I always thought university should be a time of questioning the established status quo and developing critical thinking skills. That is, after-all, why I enrolled. But applying these same skills to question the left wing orthodoxy that reigned supreme within the lecture hall and on campus was considered strictly off limits.  

And once I had finally left the stifling climate on campus I became truly aware of how us Zoomers have been completely screwed over by the mainstream system. My parents, for example, were married, with one child, and onto their second property at the same age that I am now, despite not coming from any kind of wealth at all.

But the reality, today, for Zoomers like me, is that I will likely never be able to afford my own house, nor will I ever be able to pay of my university debt faster than the interest on it grows. Almost half of my monthly salary now goes on rent, meaning it is virtually impossible for me to save any money at all.

There is a listlessness that my peers and I feel – that I think is borne from the fact that we simply do not ‘own’ anything, nor can we put roots down anywhere. We are neither the ‘Somewheres’ nor ‘Anywheres’ British writer David Goodhart talks about; we have neither the means to join the Somewheres by putting down roots nor the desire to join the continually mobile, hyper-liberal Anywheres who eschew these roots for a sort of hedonistic, bohemian, and hyper-individualistic ‘life’. We are simply trapped.

Despite the fact that I keep less and less of what I earn in Britain, life just …