The Gen-Z Effect

Greta Thunberg

Leading the game-changers of the next decade

Young, outspoken, internet and social media savvy. More aware of social injustices, more inclined to take a gap year and often bullied online. Worried about the future and more concerned with academic performance and job prospects. Does this sound familiar? It should. If you’re finishing up with school and starting this new phase of your life, this should speak to you. You are Gen Z, writes Madelaine Page.

We talk about our future, they talk about their present.”

Environmental and climate-change activist Greta Thunberg

Your generation wants real change, and you want it now. You and your peers won’t hesitate to call out politicians, companies and brands when they do not behave in a transparent and authentic way. You’re pragmatic, resilient and ready to adapt to change. You have to be… at the speed the world around you is changing. But your generation is also likely to suffer more from mental disorders, ADHD, anxiety disorders, behavioural disorders, depression and sleep deprivation. Maybe because you are more inclined to talk and be open about it. The social media you’re exposed to daily may make you more likely to have body image and selfesteem issues. Also called the iGen or Centennials, your generation was born between 1996 and 2010, following on from the Millennials, and you’re about to enter the workforce and change the way things were done before.

The Greta effect

Greta Thunberg, 18, has for many become the face of Gen Z. Whether you like her or not, she is steadfast in her quest to challenge world leaders to take immediate action for climate change mitigation.

It started in 2018 when she staged a solo protest during school hours outside the Swedish parliament, advocating a “school strike for climate” after the heat waves and wildfires. It was Sweden’s hottest summer in almost three centuries. She demanded that the Swedish government reduce carbon emissions in accordance with the Paris Agreement. Internet and social media savvy, she posted on Instagram and Twitter, setting the ball rolling for others to join her cause. One of her tweets was retweeted by someone with more than 200 000 followers, and the next thing her message was being shared on social media, along with her photo, and YouTube channels were dedicated to her story. In the days that followed, she wasn’t alone outside parliament – she was joined by others, making first national and then international headlines.

Two months later, she joined protests across Europe, inspired by her initial stand, and gave speeches urging world leaders to take climate change seriously. She continued to grow and mobilise followers on her social media platforms from all corners of the world. After being invited to speak at the 2018 United Nations’ Climate Change Conference, her presentation went viral. Following this, student strikes took place every week somewhere in the world. In 2019, there were scores of coordinated multicity protests, with more than a million students at each one! When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, she responded: “In a crisis, we change our behaviour and adapt to the new circumstances for the greater good of society.” A virtual strike followed in September, because “the climate crisis doesn’t pause”, even while the world is in lockdown.

Praised by many, she was also cyberbullied, even by adults who should know better (including former US president Donald Trump), and called “obese” by a Chinese newspaper after she said that China’s carbon emissions exceeded those of all developed countries combined. The photograph they used was digitally altered.

Greta took a sabbatical year from school to meet like-minded people from the climate movement in the USA. A year later, she was back at school, getting excellent grades while still inspiring people everywhere to take action and protect the planet.

Greta says she heard of climate change when she was eight years old and was so depressed about it three years later that she stopped eating and speaking for two months. Her activism started when she convinced her parents to change their own lifestyles and reduce their carbon footprint. Her mother, an opera singer, gave up her job as it depended on flying all over the world. When Greta went to speak at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit in North America, she decided to sail from Europe instead of flying, which is very energy-intensive and bad for the environment.

Diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and selective mutism, she chooses to see every condition as a superpower and not something to hold her back.

She usually starts her speech in every city by acknowledging the indigenous people whom the land originally belonged to: “In acknowledging the enormous injustices inflicted upon these people, we must also mention the many enslaved and indentured servants whose labour the world still profits from today.”

I want to feel safe. How can I feel safe when I know we are in the greatest crisis in human history?” – Greta in her

winning essay on climate change

At the UN Climate Action Summit, New York, 23 September 2019:

‘This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you! ‘You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!’

@gretathunberg | @GretaThunberg