CHALLENGE CHALLENGE

While Manley lost that election as well as a subsequent run for the House later last year, he is still politically active in causes that resonate with many Gen Zers, from housing and LGBTQ protections to health care and climate change—issues that affect individuals across all ages.“[Gen Z’s] not just interested in making things better for ourselves,”says Manley, “but making sure that everyone has a shot and everyone’s life gets better.”

For Gen Zers in particular, that means broadening economic opportunities and access to affordable housing. Previous generations, Manley says,“grew up with a lot more to show for their hard work; that’s not true for us.”

All Work & Low Pay

The old adage of “kids don’t know how good they have it nowadays” doesn’t hold up for Generation Z. Compared to older generations, Gen Zers are well undercompensated for their labor. A recent study from customer review company Consumer Affairs shows that Gen Z has 86 percent lower purchasing power than baby boomers did at the same age. This is partly driven by inflation, but also due to wages not keeping pace with the soaring price of goods. According to data from personal finance site GoBankingRates, the median income for a Gen Zer is about $30,000 per year in Florida, while the median rent in South Florida is just under $3,000, the cost of which would eat up a Gen Zer’s entire salary and then some. In a job market that doesn’t pay enough to cover basic necessities, Gen Z’s response is simple—only give to a job what you get back.

“I think for a lot of younger people,” says Manley,“we don’t want to be underpaid for the work we do, and we’re very quick to leave a job.”

Manley says that he has “quiet quit” a job before, a method of working where employees refuse to go above and beyond their job descriptions if they feel that they aren’t being properly compensated. Kelsi Fizer, a recent graduate from Lynn University, wasn’t shy about quitting jobs that weren’t a good fit. She’s held a variety of positions over the past few years, both part- and full-time, seldom for longer than six months.

“There was always something that I was majorly sacrificing,” says Fizer. Whether that was pay or work-life balance, if there was a deficiency in her job, she would find another one.“It wasn’t worth it, and I knew I could find another job elsewhere.”

Having worked parttime jobs in the service and education fields, Fizer believes that quiet quitting isn’t always intentional, but rather the result of a gradual buildup of resentment.“I can see where the fuse is really short, and there’s no loyalty or no commitment to say, ‘I’m going to sacrifice my mental health to continue working,’” says Fizer.

Fizer herself has never “quiet quit” a job, but always knew when her time at a current position was up.“When I mentally made the decision that it was time for me to move on,” says Fizer, “then it was time for me to move on.”

For Fizer,“job-hopping” had the desired effect. She currently holds a marketing position that provides a better salary and worklife balance than any of her previous jobs. She is able to work remotely, a privilege coveted by many Gen Zers who value flexibility in their careers. Fizer believes that companies are sure to benefit from accommodating Gen Z’s workforce preferences. As a cohort that is acutely in tune with pop culture and social media, Fizer says that Gen Zers bring to the workforce “fresh new ideas and different perspectives.”

Social Dilemmas

Gen Z’s intuitive knowledge of the internet and social media cuts both ways. Having access to a vast range of people, cultures and ideas provides Gen Z with more information than any civilization has had access to in the history of humanity. This access affords Gen Z the ability to educate themselves on complex social, economic and political issues—but at a cost. Social media takes a potent toll on the mental health of young people. A study from consumer and business insight group ORIGIN found that 48 percent of Gen Zers say that social media makes them feel anxious, sad or depressed. Eating disorders are the highest among Gen Z than any previous generation. To combat the growing mental health crisis, some Gen

Zers are using their social media platforms to assist those suffering.

Emma Tropea is a social media influencer who uses her Instagram and TikTok accounts to post content that focuses on mental health advocacy. While“influencer” certainly wouldn’t fit older generations’ standard of a job, for Tropea it’s a full-time gig. From creating and editing video content to establishing relationships with new brands, Tropea finds her influencer status overwhelming at times but is motivated by her desire to help those suffering from mental illness.

“I have really struggled with my mental health since I was 12,”says Tropea,“and I never want anyone to go through what I went through.”

Tropea, now attending Lynn University, once struggled with body-image issues, much of which stemmed from social media. In a digital world where beauty is the highest virtue and is validated through an algorithm of likes and shares, young women like Tropea are given an impossible standard of appearance to measure up to. A few years ago, she made a TikTok video discussing her struggles with mental health, and the video went viral, viewed by tens of thousands of users. Since then, she has dedicated her platform to developing content related to overcoming and removing the stigma from mental illness.

Tropea keeps her direct messages (DMs) open as a lifeline for those in need, answering questions and offering advice for anybody struggling with their mental health. The majority of these DMs, Tropea says, come from people aged 15-24.

“The biggest [question] I get is ‘how do I feel less depressed?’ or ‘how do I find happiness?’” says Tropea.

For Tropea, the answers to these questions didn’t come from therapy, journaling, or any of the other outlets espoused by mental health professionals. Instead, she had to teach herself to find joy in the little things, something that she encourages in her 95,000 TikTok followers. But doing so isn’t easy, and overcoming preconceptions about mental health is another challenge unto itself.

For older generations such as Gen X (those born between 1965 and 1980) and baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964), mental health was not given the same level of concern as it is for

Gen Zers. The diagnosis of major depressive disorder didn’t even exist until 1980, when it was added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Mental health has since gathered greater attention, particularly with members of Gen Z who prioritize their mental health when deciding on careers, where to live and more. But the generational gap in understanding mental illness causes many Gen Zers’ claims about their health to be dismissed.

“I feel like they disregard [mental illness], because we didn’t live in the same time they [older generations] did,” says Tropea, who is emphatic in the belief shared by a majority of clinicians that mental illness is not a choice but rather the result of chemical imbalance in the brain. For Tropea, the other big detriments to mental well-being come from the very technology that binds so much of Gen Z together. The impersonality of text exchanges creates a digital wall between close friends, the cyberbullying inherent to digital platforms means the school bully lives in your pocket at all times, and the overwhelming access to information makes it difficult to develop a concrete belief system, as Gen Zers are constantly inundated with new ideas. The chaos of the digital world leaves many Gen Zers “confused about their place in the world,” says Tropea, at a time in their lives when prior generations had already established their identities and found their places in society. A sense of balance is necessary to escape the dizzying stream of information flooding social media and the web.

For Tropea, that means listening to audiobooks, watching her favorite shows and movies, and enjoying the company of her friends—in short, spending less time on social media and more time connecting in real life. Like many Gen Zers,

Tropea favors a small social circle and generally steers clear of raucous nightlife, but struggles at times with life away from the screen.

“Online I share everything because it’s strangers,” says Tropea.“I don’t feel that anything they could say could hurt me the same way that someone in my real life could.” In this sense, social media is liberating. Thoughts and feelings that aren’t socially acceptable in the context of the workplace or even at home have their outlet in a digital world unmarred by the judgment of discussing difficult topics with someone standing in front of you.

While many of the social and mental health issues affecting Gen Z can at least be partially attributed to their online lives, social media has proven an effective way of connecting young people across cultures and ideologies with one another to form “digital relationships” that are in no way less meaningful than those formed in real life. And for many Gen Zers, forming these connections and establishing digital platforms is a way of making their voices heard in the realms of politics and social change.

Youth in Revolt

In terms of activism, Gen Z is not much different from the youth of previous generations pushing for the progressive reform of social and political institutions. Baby boomers had the Flower Children of the ‘60s lobbying for civil rights and an end to the Vietnam War, while Gen Xers’ revolution was largely spiritual and internal, with a radical rejection of the frenzied consumerism of the ‘80s. For Gen Z, the focus is on addressing climate change and LGBTQ+ rights, and ensuring equity for historically marginalized groups. While Gen Z shares its progressive spirit with the movements of old, it is able to effect change on a much larger scale through current technology.

Maxx Fenning, 20, is the founder and president of PRISM, a youth-led LGBTQ+ organization that works to expand access to inclusive education and sexual health resources for young people. Fenning says that social media is the organization’s “bread and butter,” providing an enormous digital platform from which PRISM is able to share informational videos and mental health resources. Gen Z’s aptitude for all things digital makes today’s youth more capable of drawing attention to important social issues than ever before.

“There’s a key to understanding the ways in which technology is shaping our political and social landscape that I think older folks don’t really have as firm of a grasp on,” says Fenning.

“No one knows how young people are scroll- ing, swiping and typing on the World Wide Web better than young people themselves.”

Fenning began his LGBTQ+ advocacy as a teenager, when he started what is now PRISM as a high school club. The organization is now a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has recently begun work in changing Florida state policy—more specifically, the controversial House Bill 1557, known by its critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

“We didn’t get our feet wet,” says Fenning.“We got our feet drenched.”

PRISM began investing in school board elections last year, particularly in Miami-Dade, to push back against the bill, which seeks to limit LGBTQ+ education in schools. For Fenning and many who work at PRISM (Fenning estimates that about 78 percent of volunteers and staff are younger than 25), almost all of the learning is on the job.“We’ve been flying by the seat of our pants,” says Fenning, but says the organization has helped him and other like-minded Gen Zers develop a sense of community.

PRISM is one of many nonprofit advocacy groups started and operated by Gen Zers. Gen-Z for Change is a nonprofit founded in 2020 that focuses on creating content and developing relationships with social media influencers to address topics ranging from climate change and systemic inequality to foreign policy and voting rights. Voters of Tomorrow works to mobilize Gen Zers on election day. In nearly every as- pect of society, Gen Z is fighting to ensure that it is represented.

“Gen Z is becoming an increasingly powerful political cohort in and of itself,” says Fenning.“Our ability to procure information at our fingertips has imbued this sense of restless optimism mixed with an existential dread.”

Going Forward

Gen Z’s “walk uphill both ways” is demonstrably longer than previous generations. A lack of affordable housing, jobs that pay living wages and representation in government bar today’s youth from the American Dream that was once so accessible. But

Gen Zers are proving they are up to the task. With the recent election of Maxwell Frost to Congress, Gen Zers have made a small step in securing their future—and more representation is sure to follow in politics and the workplace as Gen Z gears up to be the most educated generation in history (more than half are enrolled in college, per a Pew Research study). On the night of Frost’s electoral victory, the freshman representative tweeted out a message affirming Gen Z’s place in the halls of power.“History was made tonight,” said Frost.“We made history for Floridians, for Gen Z, and for everyone who believes we deserve a better future.”

A

pilgrimage brings ancient Egypt to visitors’ fingertips

WRITTEN BY JOHN THOMASON

ay down in the southern terminus of Egypt, under a cloudless sky just north of the Sudanese border, the vibe is Disney-inthe-desert. We’re here to see the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Abu Simbel, an enormous temple completed in 13th century B.C. Yet to get there, we must traverse a restaurant and bazaar where visitors lounge under beach umbrellas, everything’s in English, and the soundtrack throbs with “We Are the Champions” and “Dance Monkey.” Nothing is too sacred for commerce.

Just a quarter-mile down a winding road, however, it’s a different story. One doesn’t see Abu Simbel from afar, or all at once. A strategically organized rock formation blocks your view as you make the short downhill trek, so that by the time you round the bend, the money shot fades into view like a developing Polaroid, and the wonder accumulates as we take it all in. Rising 66 feet in height, three preserved carvings of King Ramesses II, the most celebrated pharaoh in ancient Egyptian history, sit on thrones like eternal sentinels. They dwarf the relatively smaller figures at their feet—representations of some of the king’s daughters, of which he fathered 67—along with even smaller sculptures of falcons symbolizing the Egyptian god Horus.

Inside the temple, the views are no less extraordinary. Incense wafts from the entrance and sparrows flutter among the pillars, as visitors explore the dimly lit catacombs, a sprawling arrangement of chambers within chambers. From the decorated columns to the bas-reliefs, no inch of wall space is unused, the artwork depicting offerings to the gods, memorializing Ramesses II’s heroic battles or telling stories with arcane hieroglyphs: in short, a complete panorama of life, love, faith and conflict, each scene chiseled with precise intention and relentless piety.

We had risen before 5 a.m. and ridden four hours by bus to get to Abu Simbel, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity worth every wink of sacrificed sleep. We had been in Egypt seven days, and seven more awaited us.

This fortnight into the ruins of the ancient world and the heart of the Nile River was produced by Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT), a company specializing in intimate excursions into exotic lands. Though Egypt has long been a tourist mecca, the Arab Spring uprising of 2011 battered what was then a $12.5 billion tourism industry for some eight years, shuttering many of the country’s hotels. Tourism, which once employed 12 percent of the nation’s workforce, finally rebounded in 2019, only to collapse the following year from COVID-19 restrictions. Trips such as OAT’s“Ancient Egypt & the Nile River”have only recently re-launched in earnest.

Our trip leader was something of a local legend: Jocular and gregarious Mohammed “Big Mo” Khalil, whose 29 years in the business have fostered an encyclopedic knowledge of Egypt past and present. A professor and ex-Egyptian Navy Seal who spent 21 days in Tahrir Square protesting the Mubarak government during the 2011 uprising, Khalil’s favorite phrase—“I know people”—manifested often throughout the two weeks, as his connections would prove indispensable to enhancing our experience.

The journey started in Cairo, where we were put up in five-star luxury at the InterContinental Cairo Semiramis resort. Among its creature comforts were a spa, pool, casino and 10 restaurants, including surprisingly extraordinary Italian fare at Pane Vino Terrace. We had a suite with a balcony overlooking the Nile and the downtown Cairo cityscape, where the muezzins’ periodic calls to prayer echoed off the glowing spires of mosques, and where a nightly procession of motorboats cruised the calm waters in neon blues and greens.

It’s a lovely vision of bustle from afar, but frankly, I couldn’t wait to leave Cairo. It’s a tough metropolis, densely overpopulated with some 22 million inhabitants. There is little to no waste management in Cairo, so residents burn their garbage, the haze blanketing the skyline. Roadways are always clogged, lane dividers are absent or ignored, and most of the cars have scrapes and dents from the fender-benders of everyday commuting. Khalil called Cairo traffic the “daily circus. … If you find a traffic light that works, show it to me. We use the car horn as a language, like hieroglyphs.”

While the trip began and ended in Cairo, it was punctuated in the middle with a seven-night cruise on the Nefertiti, a private 75-passenger riverboat docked in the port city of Aswan. Away from the congestion of the capital, this was the most pleasant time on the journey: enjoying three meals a day—including four-course, prix fixe, chef-driven dinners—surrounded by lively company. Cruising the Nile allowed us the opportunity to take in the quaint riverside domiciles, the water buffalo and cows and horses, and the enthusiastic rural children waving and shouting from the water’s edge.

Befitting its ancient Egyptian focus, the trip included informative stops at nine temples—Abu Simbel, Kagemni, Philae, Kom Ombo, Edfu, Dendera, Luxor, Hatshepsut and Karnak, each with their significant backstories and stunning attributes, although they began to blur together by the end of the journey. Navigating us past the heaving throngs of tourists toward the most impressive carvings and stories, Khalil offered a condensed curriculum in Egyptian gods and the real-life pharaohs who worshipped them.

These included the sky goddess Nut, sprawled along a rectangular ceiling on the extravagantly preserved Dendera—its blue and red colors derived from lapis lazuli minerals and animal blood—who swallowed the sun every sunset and then birthed it anew every sunrise. Or the Kom Ombo Temple, whose hieroglyphics revealed evidence of the first pregnancy and fertility tests in the ancient world. The Luxor Temple was distinguished by its Sphinx Avenue, with nearly 80 preserved representations of the hybrid sculpture lining a street as far as the eye could see. After an hour or so of Khalil walking us through the highlights, we had another 45 minutes to an hour of free exploration at each site, and then it was off to the next attraction, the next flight, the next port of call.

OAT made sure that its visitors travel like real Egyptians: While some of the sites were reachable only by air-conditioned bus, others were achieved by more primitive means. We traveled to Edfu via bumpy horse-andbuggy ride, traversing the unpaved domestic back roads, where beggar children occasionally latched onto the carriages, and where the turbaned drivers adroitly swerved around a menagerie of donkeys, cabs and tuktuks. We traveled from another temple via felucca sailboat, letting the natural winds off the Nile direct our pace.

We also visited two museums—the Egyptian Museum, whose hallowed artifacts included a mummified crocodile and a lock of hair from King Tut’s grandmother, and the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC), which opened three years ago and is among Cairo’s most modern buildings. Its priceless antiquities included a first edition of the Quran and the Description L’Egyptie, the book that opened the door to Egyptology.

About OAT

Operating since 1978 and targeting active seniors, OAT has achieved an almost cultlike devotion among its adherents. Its trips are carefully organized for traveler safety and comfort—a necessity in a city as rough-around-the-edges as Cairo. OAT factors in nearly all expenses, including admission to everything, almost every meal for 15 days, private plane rides between Cairo and Luxor, and a seven-night Nile cruise. And these vacations have an adult-education sensibility: Each group of 15 to 20 tourists is guided by a Trip Experience Leader whose background in Egyptology and the issues facing contemporary Egypt provides each traveler with a wealth of information. To learn about upcoming trips, visit oattravel.com.

Above: Columns at Karnak Temple in Luxor; opposite page, from top: view of the Nile from Cairo International Semiramis suite, the riverboat Nefertiti, and Mo Khalil describing art at the Egyptian Museum

The Other Side of Egypt

In its efforts to show Egypt “as it is,” OAT offers a number of opportunities to experience the country outside of its tourism strongholds. For example, it takes its travelers to a dinner hosted at the home of a Coptic Christian family, a faith represented by10 percent of Egypt’s population. In the family of four that we visited , both parents worked at home for multinational companies, and they had been hosting OAT travelers weekly since last September. They were eager to discuss their lives as religious minorities.

We also enjoyed an hour-long presentation and Q&A on the controversial topic of the hijab in Egyptian society from a young professional woman who, like the majority of Muslims, chooses to wear the veil. And we visited a farming community in Luxor that’s home to some 14 villages and 12,500 residents who live off the land. A nephew of one of the village heads, clad in a cotton dress and sandals, toured us through the community’s wheat fields and date palms, whose wood is transformed to make furniture and the thatched roofs of their modest homes. We saw discs of bread leavening in the sun, and tagine pots being formed in front of us on a foot-spun pottery wheel with mud from the Nile and sand from the Red Sea. Finally, we sat down for an al fresco meal of beef, okra and potatoes harvested directly from the fields, alongside piping-hot pita cooked in the outdoor oven. Surrounded by her six grandchildren, one of the village elders did not speak English, but her warm smile and gracious hospitality inally, on the second-to-last day of the trip, we alighted at the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx. Maybe it was saving the best for last, but it was a fitting sendoff—the cherry atop a crash course of Egyptian mythology, history and current events. As our bus approached the only surviving wonder of the ancient world, we spotted the pyramids rising surreally above the buildings of Giza amid the urban activity, like some trick of rear projection. Within moments, we were there. Tour buses parked at the base of the Great Pyramid, the 26th century, B.C., tomb of the pharaoh Khufu, its perfectly aligned point gesturing to the sun god Ra.

The NMEC also housed the underground Mummies Hall showcasing the actual preserved bodies of 20 Egyptian royals, blackened and shriveled and clothed in humble cloth sacks under glass, respectfully displayed just steps from their gold-inlaid sarcophagi. Their genders and identities long erased, these seemingly mythical warriors and influencers we’d been learning about for nearly two weeks somehow appeared before us in their flaking flesh. The sarcophagus of Ahmose Nefertari appeared to be shedding a tear. Despite the mummy’s cultural baggage, the scene was more melancholy than creepy.

King Tut was not included in the museum. We saw his mummy separately at the Valley of the Kings, the premier burial site for Egyptian monarchs, where some five to 10 of its 64 tombs are open daily. The ceilings of King Ramses IX’s tomb shimmered with gold; the walls of Ramses IV’s final resting place were resplendent in mustard yellows and royal blues. By the time we saw the tiny, soot-colored, skeletal form of the teenage Tut, shed of his famous glory and raiment, the moment felt invasive, almost voyeuristic, and yet it was entirely appropriate: He was resting exactly where he should be, hopefully at peace, just miles from his treasures.

The site covered 13 acres and contained more than 2 million stone blocks, each weighing between two and 30 tons. We know the builders hauled the granite blocks from a quarry in Aswan, a process that itself took 10 years, then another 21 to build it, but beyond that, Egyptologists only have theories about its construction. Staring up at it, the devotion of its architects still ripples, its impossible sense of geometric perfection radiating from each cracked and stained chunk. As with Abu Simbel and the other ancient sites, there was business to be had here. Bored camels with frilly saddles rested along the rim—idle Ubers awaiting riders at $10 a pop. Roving vendors tried to sell you shawls and hats and Chinese-made pyramid tchotchkes, barking out misleading prices, but by this time we had all learned the most important syllable in the Arabic language—laa (“no”).

It was impossible to be truly alone with the pyramids, but if you had the mental gymnastics for it, you could compartmentalize the hive of people and cameras and tour guides and buses and just bask in the awe, like you were one of those astronauts who discovered the monolith in “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

But then, a welcome distraction: A clutch of puppies spilled from a crevice near the base of the Great Pyramid, in black, brown and white, of the Generic Dog breed that lazes around Egypt in numbers nobody bothers to control. They trotted clumsily among the stones, scavenging for food but otherwise leery of human contact, and it was delightful to see that this burial chamber was now, in the 21st century, a sanctuary for new life.

Then, after only an hour or so, we departed. We had a schedule to keep.

WEB EXTRA:

For the Dos and Don’ts of shopping in Egypt, visit BOCAMAG.COM/APRIL-2023.