Gen Z Defies the Digital Gatekeepers

If you’ve been paying any attention to Silicon Valley over the past two decades, odds are you’ve noticed our tech overlords’ driving obsession with one overriding goal: Maximize efficiency across every conceivable part of life.

First, Apple gave us instant access to music. Shortly thereafter, Amazon placed a world of books at our fingertips.

Then every tech company handed the keys over to algorithms. The idea was that machines could learn your tastes well enough to choose what you should watch, listen to, and read before you even knew what you wanted.

Hard as it may be for older folks to believe, a whole generation has now been raised in that algorithmically gatekept world. And to the shock and confusion of the tech bros, they’re rebelling against it.

A recent Hollywood Reporter piece documents Gen Z’s growing fascination with analogue tech. As we’ve covered before, Zoomers are buying vinyl records, print books, Blu-ray discs, and other media that Big Tech did its level best to leave on the scrap heap of history.

At first glance, this phenomenon looks like just another nostalgia cycle. Young people have always rediscovered fashions from bygone years before their birth. And taken in isolation, the individual data points don’t amount to much. But if you zoom out and look at the profusion and distribution of retro tech re-adoption reports, it’s hard not to see a trend.

Read the full post on Substack.

The classic adventure returns ...

Celebrate the 10th anniversary of my Dragon Award-winning horror adventure novel with the definitive anniversary edition.

Celebrate the 10th anniversary of my Dragon Award-winning novel. Get the inside track on exclusive editions, limited rewards, and collector’s items! Follow the campaign now on Kickstarter.