Panic over Gen Z digging bin Laden

If you spend any time online, you’ve probably seen the media panic about Gen Z (and millennials too I guess) suddenly developing an affinity for Osama bin Laden. Apparently, a bunch of videos on TikTok have gone viral with young people (I think mostly women), talking about how they read bin Laden’s manifesto, ‘Letter to America,” where he explains why he did the 9/11 terror attacks, and they are surprised that they actually agree with a lot of what he said.

Mainstream media is freaking out because they view this as some kind of psyop by TikTok (owned by the communist Chinese), to subvert American youth and get them to sympathize with our biggest enemy. Some Hollywood elites, like Sacha Baron Cohen, said that TikTok is creating a new generation of Nazis. (Evidently because bin Laden was like Hitler or something. Fair enough I guess).

Now, this whole thing is almost certainly overblown, and is probably limited to a couple videos on TikTok and will be forgotten about in a few days. Media people are making a big deal out of it because that’s what they do.

So why am I writing about this? I think it’s interesting because it’s so inevitable that Gen Z—who have grown up with perhaps the most complete spiritual emptiness, lack of hope, and crushing despair of any generation in American history—would latch onto something that felt genuine. And bin Laden’s criticisms of America, to him at least, were genuine. (I haven’t read his manifesto, but I’m sure he makes some valid points about how American imperialism created a backlash that he led). The interesting thing, though not at all surprising, is that the media is so confused and shocked that this is happening—they really think that Gen Z (and millennials) could just have absolute nothingness shoved at them forever, and that they wouldn’t feel a natural desire for something that seemed genuine. Because Hillary Clinton, Obama, etc., and the media and cultural apparatus that acts as a kind of extension of their neoliberal hegemony have offered Gen Z/millennials nothing, absolutely nothing. And the charade has been well and truly exposed by now. Everyone knows that Hillary, Obama, and Biden are full of shit. (And before this awareness became widespread, everyone basically figured out that George W. Bush and the neocons were full of shit). This is the biggest reason that Trump won in 2016—he was the first major presidential candidate to point out that both George W. Bush and Hillary were equally full of shit. (Of course, this didn’t mean that Trump wasn’t full of shit—but whoever points out that others are full of shit first, has a kind of advantage, and will seem to be less full of shit than others are).

The thing that is breaking media people’s brains about this, I think, is that the Trump thing was contained to a certain segment—his MAGA base, and what Hillary called the deplorables (who were like half of the MAGA base I think). These new pro-bin Laden supporters are young, women, not necessarily right wing, not what Hillary would call deplorables—they might even be former Hillary supporters!

But again, this shouldn’t be surprising, since whole generations of Americans now have grown up without anything genuine or authentic to grasp onto—Obama was that, but everyone knows he was a fraud. And it should be even less surprising that bin Laden is filling that void, because, as I wrote a few years ago, he is very similar to Trump. I called Trump the American bin Laden.

Okay bye have a nice weekend everyone.