Gen Z Is The Most Susceptible To Propaganda—Here’s How You Can Tell If You’re Being Targeted

“By starving the sensibility of our pupils, we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes,” wrote C.S. Lewis in his 1943 book The Abolition of Man. Lewis, like many other poignant thinkers of his time, was understandably concerned about how people could easily become propagandized in an era demarcated by historically enormous wars to fight fascistic regimes.

But rather than advising that we just go in our own corners and shut ourselves up in devouring echo chambers, thinkers like Lewis recognized that evil would attack us from every angle. Whether yesteryear’s Nazi propaganda or today’s progressive social credit scores, we’re better off being exposed to deceptive, manipulative ideas because censorship will only make us less capable of identifying their falsehoods. As the “chronically online” generation, we’re no strangers to media propaganda. So here's how you can escape the indoctrination matrix and arm yourself against psychological warfare.

You’re Biased, I’m Biased, She’s Biased, He’s Biased

History is one of the most high-risk weapons known to mankind. It’s thought of as a chronological record of events, and you’d hope that it’s told through as objective a lens as possible, but people perceive the events of the world around them in remarkably different ways.

Because we’re actually mammals and somehow still have some amount of animal instinct left within us – despite how far we’ve divorced ourselves from our furrier, less cognitively advanced primate relatives – we are prone to biases. Biases aren’t always evil: in-group favoritism (a.k.a. tribalism) helped us develop dynamic social networks (the IRL kind, not the ones you have apps for), which, in turn, made it much easier to attain physiological and safety needs.

But our tendency to be biased also unfortunately means that historians and average citizens alike interpret historical events differently. Up until very recently, it was difficult to document history without fragmentation and oversimplification. So, historians have been tasked with providing their own interpretations and filling the gaps on what evidence we lack for a complete picture. Especially when current social norms are applied to the past, when modern political correctness seeps into the telling of history, we run the risk of outright historical revisionism. 

History isn’t just “written by the victors,” it’s written by those who hold the most political power at any given time. Thus, history can become pseudohistory, which devolves into propaganda. Today’s revisionists harness the political power of social class, race, sex, “gender identity,” sexuality, religion (and the lack thereof), and many more characteristics under their woke agenda to make broad, sweeping assertions about historical and current events.

Under Joseph Stalin, the Soviet government renamed the cities of “St. Petersburg'' and “Leningrad” to “Petrograd” and “Stalingrad” respectively as a way to memoryhole innocent citizens that there had been a czar at all. Today’s Soviet-lite liberals urge that, due to certain Founding Fathers like George Washington owning slaves, we should tear down statues of them or rename buildings, cities, and businesses that even mention such unspeakable evil – despite the fact that Washington freed his slaves.

Government talking heads and their legacy media parrots urged us all to follow the science during the outbreak of Covid-19, but flip-flopped on their narrative time after time. They also were quite fond of the “defund the police” movement, but decided to quietly shift their tune once everyday people were forced to bear the burden of the historic crime surge that followed.

No matter how benign, eye-roll inducing, or outright offensive the political purge may be, the end result is clear: Distorted accounts of history can then be used for propaganda purposes. And with effective propaganda comes unmatched, collective power.

Whoever Controls the Media, Controls the Mind

Concentrated government power has been considered by many of modern history’s most brilliant minds (J.R.R. Tolkien, Aldous Huxley, and George Orwell to name a few) to be one of our greatest threats to humanity as we know it. Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong, Nicolae Ceaușescu, or Pol Pot weren’t out there personally murdering individual people, but in their quests to create utopia – heaven on earth – their marching orders created hell. As Pot himself once infamously told The Guardian in 1979, “Our policy was to provide an affluent life for the people. There were mistakes made in carrying it out.”

Leftism thrives on the romantic idea that bigger government can make for better living, but this idyllic view doesn’t account for humankind’s innate sinful urges. While musing on the roots of evils that could contribute to America’s decline, bestselling author and radio show host Dennis Prager wrote that the “most important ingredient necessary for evil is lies.” He pointed out how slavery was possible due to the lie that the black race was inferior to the white race or how Lenin named the state-run newspaper “Pravda” or “Truth” because that’s what the Communist Party wanted its people to believe.

So how does propaganda work so well? Your common Soviet man would, perhaps, pick up a copy of Pravda and read what Big Government wanted him to read. It would persuade him, even if illogical, because it elicited an emotional response or appealed to authority. 

The modern term propaganda has morphed from its more malicious connotations to the sanitized term “public relations,” thanks to early 20th-century journalist Edward Bernays. A close nephew of Sigmund Freud enamored with his uncle’s hypotheses on how unconscious thought informs public behavior, Bernays championed the concept of propaganda. 

He later worked with the United States government to develop sneaky ways to garner public support for the First World War. After seeing how successful wartime propaganda could be in manipulating culture, Bernays rebranded propaganda to “public relations,” and successfully sold the marketing world on these sly powers for persuasion.

But it wasn’t just the marketing world that caught on to the power of public relations. Universities – overrun by Marxists and postmodernists – fell victim to this toxic trap too. After all, Bernays himself said, “The normal school should provide for the training of the educator to make him realize that his is a twofold job: education as a teacher and education as a propagandist.”

Spin Doctors Carry Several Tools for Their Trade

To best arm yourself against propaganda, you have to understand some of its most successful tools. Propagandists use the power of suggestion through broad, positive statements. They’ll present their ideas in simple, easily digestible language to appeal to the masses. 

If that’s not enough, they’ll employ the power of insinuation to hit you right in the dopamine feels. For instance, lifestyle magazines will portray a very romantic vision of a travel destination that scrubs any unsavory truths (like showcasing beautiful imagery in the Mediterranean while conveniently not photographing the vagrants who might try to solicit you for money) in order to sell you on traveling to that destination. 

Another method they’ll use is “sticky” slogans and symbols, things that we might also call “bumper sticker activism.” Short, catchy sentences are far more memorable to the masses than long-winded concepts. This is why catchall bandwagon campaigns like #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter, or even #MAGA are so successful in capturing the hearts of both casual and fervent activists. 

These phrases can mean very different things depending on the audience and, as their definitions broaden, we can’t keep up with new information – much of which rewrites the original meaning – and as a result, we become more susceptible to “fake news.”

Sociologist and philosopher Jean Baudrillard argued it well when he said back in 1994 that “we live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.”

But are all simple marketing phrases and touchy-feely political movements meant to coerce you into blind subordination? Of course not. Some people don’t have ill intentions and really just want to make a positive impact, but you need to understand how even the most well-meaning tactics can be weaponized by the most unsavory individuals among us.

How Can I Realistically Get Better at Identifying Psychological Warfare?

Identifying propaganda in the media you consume isn’t super straightforward, but there are a few general rules you can follow to think critically and prevent yourself from falling for agenda-driven biases or outright misinformation. 

1. Be Honest. Who’s in Charge of Your Emotions?

First off, if someone posing as an objective news reporter (not a columnist, commentator, or op-ed writer) is telling you how you should feel about a current event rather than giving you the straight facts, that’s an immediate red flag you’re dealing with propaganda. 

Recall when Cosmopolitan began its coverage of the Supreme Court overruling Roe v. Wade in June 2022. Cosmo’s lifestyle editor Christen A. Johnson wrote that “a post-Roe future is terrifying,” despite the piece being headlined as a more objective look at what could happen following this event.  

An important element of this tactic is to understand how journalists craft their stories. The inverted pyramid structure, which has been used by most media outlets for breaking news, categorizes information based on what the writers and editors feel are the most important elements of the story. What do you see at the top? What’s buried at the bottom? What’s lying in between?

Monitor your emotions when you take in current events. Are you quickly agitated? Frustrated? Emotional? These might be red flags that you’re being emotionally manipulated, which is easily accomplished through this inverted pyramid method.

2. Are You Getting the “30,000 Foot View,” or Are You Grounded?

The way that people frame their written messaging is one piece of the puzzle, but as we know, the medium itself is the message. So here’s my second tactic: If you’re only provided with photos or videos and very brief written context, that communicates a pretty different message to the audience than more in-depth coverage of a story. 

For instance, a video of a homeless New York City man named Jordan Neely went viral because he was being held in a chokehold and later died. This video then sparked a firestorm on social media from progressives and BLM-adjacent radicals who assumed this was a racially motivated hate crime. 

But how many of the people who had watched the original viral video in its early circulation knew the full scope of the story – that Neely had over 40 arrests, a notable history of mental health complications, and that he had begun acting erratically in a public space, screaming and ranting aggressively? 

Daniel Penny, the man who subdued Neely and is now facing second-degree manslaughter charges, pleaded not guilty because he and eyewitnesses urged that Neely posed a threat to those in the subway. But legacy media won’t show or say what happened after Neely was subdued – that the homeless man was put in a recovery position and that there were passengers commending Penny for protecting them. 

This exemplifies how quick, easily digestible bits of “breaking video journalism” can easily devolve into propaganda – and the same can be said for other information presented with confusing levels of brevity. Are you being shown shocking graphs that lack numbers or units or don’t explain where the data even comes from in the first place? Again, red flags!

3. Do You Know Who’s Pulling the Proverbial Strings?

Third, but easily the most important tactic to detect if you’re a target of propaganda, is to thoroughly vet sources on the media you’re exposed to. There’s a good reason why we say “follow the money.” Money makes the world go round, and while there’s certainly nothing wrong with being paid to provide a reasonable, ethical service, some people, either driven by fame or fortune, will put money behind a message.

Look no further than Big Pharma and just how successfully the industry has been in creating lifetime customers. Ever watch a single slate of commercials on television? They work overtime to sell you on symptom-management and pharmaceutical dependency, and what’s more, here in America we’re only one of two countries that even allow drug advertisements in the first place. Special interests bankroll the research that marketers use to sell the drugs, like the happy-go-lucky synchronized swimmers in NuvaRing commercials who make hormonal contraceptives seem like no biggie (except they’re entirely a biggie).

Vetting sources might complicate your daily news intake, but it’s well worth the trouble. The media network Al Jazeera rebranded much of its digital content that’s targeted to Americans to the ethnically-ambiguous title “AJ+” which is all well and good…except that the cute rebrand conveniently hides its origins as Qatari state-owned media. Qatar, a dictatorial nation, is known for systemic human rights violations and lack of freedoms for average citizens.

This isn’t just an issue with foreign “interference” or what some perceive to be outside threats to American democracy. State-funded media, marketed as objective fact, is often rife with subjectivity. Very recently, the Media Research Center (MRC) Free Speech America published a study showing how the allegedly nonpartisan rating system for media outlets known as NewsGuard is, in fact, overwhelmingly partisan in favor of left-leaning outlets. Not only is this the third year that NewsGuard has been slammed for its contradictory partisanship, but according to MRC, their liberal bias is “even worse” than prior years.

MRC called out NewsGuard’s propagandistic double standard with several examples. The New York Times, an “explicitly left-wing” publication is awarded a perfect score. At the same time, Not the Bee, an offshoot of conservative-owned satire site The Babylon Bee, which posts absurd content that you would think is satire but sadly isn’t, was marked as 62.5/100. NewsGuard penalizes conservative outlets like The Federalist with a score of 12.5/100 because of their critical coverage of Covid-19.

Not All “Implicit” Biases Are Bad

Again, I’ve got to urge that targeted messaging to support your own values isn’t inherently evil, but it should be identified and individually evaluated to see if there are ill intentions at play. Even misinformation-busting political bias estimator Allsides admits that “everyone is biased – and that's okay. There's no such thing as unbiased news. But hidden media bias misleads, manipulates, and divides us.”

Strictly speaking “objective” news here and not commentary, cultural analysis, or opinion writing – I’d bet that there are very, very few publications that have no editorial slant. Furthermore, we shouldn’t write off all rhetorical and argumentation techniques since they are commonly taught to help people become more effective communicators. But, we should be wary of their application since they can just as easily be weaponized as methods of deceit and control.

For this reason, I’ll give you one bonus tactic for detecting whether or not you’re a target of propaganda: diversify your sources. A thoughtful financial planner would never allow you to place all your eggs in one basket and only invest your income in one market – they’d encourage you to spread your wealth over several sources to reap maximum benefits. The same concept should be applied to the media you consume.

When you take in biases from both sides, like reading a breaking news piece about Neely or Roe v. Wade from both The Blaze and The Huffington Post, you’re far better equipped to boil down the facts of the matter. Don’t just rely on talking heads to dissect the news for you – you’re more than capable of investigating sources, piecing together the common elements, and forming your own opinions.

Zoomers Are Uniquely Susceptible to Misinformation

Young millennials and those of us in Gen Z are chronically online. This is advantageous to us in the sense that we’ve been inundated by sneaky digital tactics for years and might not fall for the same schemes that older boomers and our grandparent’s generation inevitably do. But, our digital addictions are also a major disadvantage because there are endless new ways for us to fall into the trap of hyper-politicization and embittered partisanship without even realizing it.

Millennials still prefer sites like Facebook, but YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram top the charts for teen social media usage, according to recent Pew Research data, and the same can be said for older individuals in Gen Z. These distinctions are relevant because the latter platforms focus on fleeting, short-form content that’s more often than not just total sensory overload.

Though the platform is changing to fit the times, on Facebook, you’re more likely to come across content like family members recapping their vacation or a recipe they cooked, but on TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels, you’re fed a regular diet of algorithmically-calculated content from total strangers. 

The content is (mostly) crafted and curated by the influencer themself, and so it gives young audiences a “realistic” glimpse into someone’s life. Political agendas – yes, propagandistic, indoctrinating material – can easily fly under the radar. But sometimes, it’s more overt than others. There may be no better example of this than (please forgive me for giving this name a platform) Dylan Mulvaney, who had charmed audiences through the engrossing format of “day in the life” videos to document life as a young man identifying as a transgender woman. 

Prior to stirring up global controversy with an infamous beer sponsorship, Mulvaney had earned over a million dollars from fashion and beauty brand endorsements. This doubled as a way for marketers to sell their products to younger audiences and virtue signal to the general public that they’re good allies to the LGBTQ+ agenda. 

Make no mistake, the uptick in “transgender” and other gender non-conforming identities is a social contagion that’s best spread like a common cold across video-based social media platforms. Remember the kitschy phrase, “labels are for soup cans?” Gen Z is diametrically opposed to that concept. 

This generation’s social media bios are walking billboards for the “-ism” du jour, or the user’s own various aesthetic identities and, chances are, they’ve got pronouns in their email signatures…if they’ve even got one. Yes, this generation is even known to date based on political preference and just how good of an activist we appear to be on our social media handles.

If we’re already more prone to self-segregation, you’d bet that this generation’s hyperpartisanship makes us all the more likely to actually go fringe with our beliefs and genuinely become outraged by ideas that stand in opposition to ours. But life isn’t just black and white – even if we hold firm values, we need to be open to hearing the other side so that we can dissect the truth for ourselves.

Closing Thoughts

With a major election cycle on the horizon, we should all be extra vigilant about the content we’re being served and how we let it affect us. Like I said, it’s actually good to read up on messaging and poke around on sources from those in opposition to our own ideological biases, but there’s a difference between doing oppositional research and falling into the trap of de facto psychological warfare. 

Social media platforms may insist they’re cracking down on misinformation, especially around election season when they “ban” political ads, but paid content isn’t the only propaganda in circulation. Propaganda is everywhere. While we’re all vulnerable to its snares, we’re also equally capable of seeking out the truth and remaining firm in our values.

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