The Nonchalant Generation
Why traditional political categories don't apply to young people
I was finishing up a virtual visit with a group of educators earlier this month when one of them asked if I had any thoughts on the Nonchalance trend. I hadn’t heard of it, so she quickly filled me in, noting, parenthetically, how much she hated the way her students take words that already have a meaning and assign them new definitions. Nonchalance, in this new context, is a TikTok trend that escaped the lab. Its presence is distinguished by its absences: the nonchalant must avoid any displays of emotion, interest, curiosity, or enthusiasm. It’s a blend of something timeless (teens trying to look cool by avoiding effort) with something newer and more concerning—a pervasive sense that everything is pointless, that the future has fallen off a cliff. “Try using the Socratic Method in a classroom where everyone’s ‘nonchalant,’” the teacher sighed.
Later, as I read up on the trend with a mixture of horror and amusement, I found myself thinking about an article I’d just read by the New York Times’ Sabrina Tavernise in which she profiles a 24-year-old GOP rising star named William Hendrix. (Full disclosure: Tavernise interviewed me for her story.) Hendrix, whose participation in a racist, sexist, and antisemitic group-chat was exposed by Politico in October, isn’t particularly thoughtful or insightful, but his story is instructive nonetheless. Forged in an online cauldron of shitposting and nihilism, he’s typical of a new kind of political actor, one whose beliefs have little foundation in political theory or ideology. Like nonchalance, it’s just vibes, all the way down.
The vibes, in this case, are the feeling that something is wrong with our society without any analysis of what or why. It’s a solution-free zone, which is fine because nonchalance says that solutions are a lot of work and probably won’t succeed. Vibes-based politics allow you to combine contradictory positions into a single incoherent take. You can blame a rigged system that favors the rich and want lower taxes, be mad about school shootings and want unfettered access to guns, hate the police and make jokes about George Floyd, resent identity politics and want acknowledgment of your marginalization.
I met many young men whose politics were in this inchoate category when canvassing for the last election. Their main political belief is Nothing Works. One young guy, whom I met while door-knocking in the Central Valley, was eager to talk it all through with me. He was sweet and smart and desperate for answers, but his racing thoughts kept getting getting stuck in mental cul-de-sacs of hopelessness. In the thirty or so minutes we spent talking through the mesh of his screen door, we mostly agreed on the problems we face as a nation. But he couldn’t land on a solution. He knew the problems were bigger than any one person, but he was uncomfortable with any politics that didn’t emphasize personal responsibility. (Gender probably played a role in his thinking. Research shows that people of all genders are more likely to blame lack of effort when men fall behind, which makes them less supportive of offering them assistance.) He knew what he was against, but he wasn’t certain what he was for.
When we talk about young men moving right or moving left, we miss the vast number of them who are neither or both, whose politics exist independently of traditional categories.
