Gen Z Is Not a Bloc. It Isn't Twelve Blocs Either.

When the rains arrived during the recent Mumbai monsoons, along came the flood of posters and hoardings plastered all over the city, trying to define an entire generation.

The headline "I am Gen Z" was followed by a list of promises that sounded more like commandments imposed upon them: to respect the police, the army, the Constitution, and the Prime Minister, and to stand with the country's students. Clean, confident, professionally produced, with a real budget and a real wish to connect behind them.

One version of the poster gives away the whole game. The image is split in two: on one side, a student studying with the caption "I support the students." On the other, a cutout of the Prime Minister in front of the old Parliament building, captioned "I respect my PM." They are placed back-to-back, with the line "I stand with both" underneath. The poster tries to show unity, but it can only do so by dividing the image. That irony sums up the whole problem, right there on the wall.

Someone created those posters, and it was not a nineteen-year-old. Someone decided what young people believe, or should believe, and put it on display, expecting them to see themselves in it.

But they will not see themselves in those posters. The issue is not only the tone, though that is off. The real problem is the idea behind "I am Gen Z," as if an entire generation could be summed up as one person.

To be fair, the people behind these posters meant well, and they put real thought into them. The government knows it has a real challenge with the youth. It has seen a leaderless student movement force a union education minister to resign, and a generation the government assumed it owned use the state's own communication tools against it. Now, the government is investing real money and effort to respond. The Prime Minister is active on his phone, and ministers are told to post in a more relaxed, youthful style. There are now reels, sitcom jokes, gym talk, biker jackets, and sunglasses. The machine is trying very hard.

But it will not work, not because they are trying, but because they are trying to reach someone who does not exist. Gen Z is not a single bloc you can reach with a few posters, a few promises, and a few videos plastered on the walls, either digital or physical. It is a label on a slide. There is no person who fits the description.

What is actually there

Picture two nineteen-year-olds in India, both on their phones one evening, both watching the same viral video, loud enough to break the algorithmic barrier and land in their feeds, even though their social media feeds are otherwise completely different.

One is Ishaan, living in a hostel in Bengaluru, three years into his engineering degree and already expecting a job with a foreign company. The other is Anmol, in Ranchi, who had to drop out of the same degree because he could not afford the fees and now delivers food for an app that determines his pay using a formula he never sees. The video reaches both of them at the same time. Ishaan laughs and shares it. Anmol feels hurt, watches it again, and stays silent.

They both see the same message, but it affects them in completely different ways. That is what defines this generation.

And by "generation," I do not just mean age. The schoolchild who protested over a broken toilet is too young for the label, and Anmol might already be a year too old. What matters is not when you were born, but whether you live inside the same social media feed, a group much broader and stranger than any age bracket.

They are bound together more tightly than any generation before them, not by age but by a shared nervous system: the same platforms, the same grammar, the same references, the same news in the same minute, the same handful of images they want their lives to resemble. In that sense, they really are one thing, and it is the one thing the machine noticed.

But here is what the machine missed, and it is obvious if you look at how social media works. Their feeds are not the same. Each is tailored to a different life; what Ishaan sees is not what Anmol sees, and most of what they see they see alone. What they share is not the daily content, but the rare message loud enough to reach everyone at once. When that happens, it lands on lives that are very different. The same message, at the same time, can mean many different things. What makes one person happy can hurt others.

Because each feed is personalised, no one sees how others react, not even the machine. Ishaan never knows that Anmol was hurt by what he found funny. The people monitoring the data only see numbers (views, shares, and engagement) and assume that means approval. The real divide is hidden from them. They measure how far the message spreads and assume everyone agrees, while in reality, the same message can have the opposite effect on different people.

This is why saying "Gen Z is not a monolith" is not enough. Dividing them by geography or city size is just an old habit in a new form. It still assumes you can talk to each group separately. But there are no separate groups; they are all on the same feed, reacting to each other. The real divide is not about where they live or what they earn, but about meaning. The same message, at the same time, can cause a thousand different reactions.

The lecture and the wedge

Once you understand this, the government's two main strategies for reaching young people not only come across as awkward but also work against its own goals, which is even more concerning.

The first strategy is the lecture. Even with a newfound casual style, the message still remains about telling young people what to admire, how to act, and whom to respect. But on social media, there is no one above the audience; no one on the podium; only content. When something sounds condescending, it does not come across as advice; it becomes an easy target to mock and share, which is exactly what happens. The machine has not realised that, in this space, a lecture is not a message; it is ammunition for critics and meme farmers.

The second strategy is to create the wedge. The Mumbai poster did this by accident, splitting its own image to make a point. More experienced strategists do it on purpose. They have stopped trying to reach everyone and instead focus on winning over a group that can be made to feel patriotic, threatened, or upset, hoping to turn them into loyal supporters. In a world of separate groups, this might work. But online, there are no separate groups. When you try to divide a shared feed, everyone else sees it and understands that you are not speaking to them. The divisive content you create spreads the fastest, but it also shows everyone that you are not on their side. Instead of quietly winning over a few, you end up losing the whole audience, and everyone sees it.

The comfort that will cost the most

Every political party might find some comfort in this situation, but that comfort is actually the most costly mistake they can make. Let me explain why.

The comfort is the belief that Gen Z does not vote much. Many are still too young, and their turnout is low, so parties think they can wait to reach out until these young people become more important.

But look at what this generation has already achieved, not just as mere spectators, but as active participants. A group of mostly non-voters forced a Union minister to resign. Schoolchildren who cannot vote for years managed to close their schools and get what they wanted. These are not people waiting for a future campaign. They are already making things happen, without needing a ballot.

This is where that comfort is completely wrong. It confuses elections with politics. Democracy is not just about voting; the vote is only one part of it. Politics is the ongoing struggle over what a country believes about itself, what it will accept, and what it will fight against. This generation is already shaping that struggle, even as parties wait for them to turn eighteen. The real power this year did not come from the ballot box. It came from the story, and the votes followed later, influenced by a story the parties did not control. Ignoring the people who shape the story just because they cannot vote yet means giving up the story and hoping to win the count. That approach is completely backwards.

Even if you only look at voting, the numbers are misleading. The nineteen-year-old who sees a poster telling her who she is today will vote in 2029, the election everyone is planning for, and she will remember exactly how you made her feel now. Non-voters are not absent from your future; they are shaping it in advance. Every condescending video you post today will come back to hurt you when it matters most.

Faster, and in the wrong direction

All of this is about to speed up for three reasons that are happening simultaneously.

The first reason is timing. Several states, including Uttar Pradesh, will hold elections through 2027. This means campaigns will continue without pausing to reconsider their approach. They will do more of what they are already doing, only louder, and still aimed at an audience they do not fully understand.

The second reason is what I wrote about in last week’s article. The people who are already active online are at home in this space. They do not have to learn how to use social media for a campaign; it is where they live. Campaigns, on the other hand, are outsiders here, and it is obvious in every awkward video they make.

The third reason is one that almost no one is considering, even though some strategists think they have already solved it. They have not.

By 2027, the technology will be more affordable, and the most powerful tools will be in the hands of the biggest organisations. They will be able to stop sending one message to everyone and start sending personalised messages to people like Ishaan and Anmol, each tailored to the individual, at scale. Artificial intelligence will enable us to address each person directly. On paper, this seems like the perfect solution: the end of generic messaging and the ability to address every unique concern. But even if they build this system and target perfectly, they will still fail for two reasons they have not considered.

The first problem is a contradiction. The message that appeals to Anmol and the one that appeals to Ishaan are completely different on important issues. You tell Anmol you understand his anger at a failed economy, and you tell Ishaan you represent the success he is about to have. Both messages end up in the same digital space, and because everyone is connected, each person will eventually see what you said to the other. Personalisation does not hide your double approach; it actually proves it. The delivery worker sees the video you made for the coder and realises you were hiding something from him.

The second problem is trust. Artificial intelligence can tell you exactly how Anmol feels about his pay, but it cannot make him believe that the party he blames for his situation actually cares. Even a perfectly targeted message can be rejected, because the issue is not about knowing what he wants to hear; it is about who is saying it. AI cannot fix a lack of trust, and trust is exactly what this generation has pulled back.

So the most advanced tool ever created for this purpose will end up being used to send conflicting promises, even faster, to an audience that shares information and does not believe them anyway. Instead of closing the gap, it will widen it, and it will happen quickly.

This is not just one party's failure

I would not rely on any article that claims otherwise. The barrier has fallen for everyone, and the misunderstanding is shared by all, because looking down on young people is not about ideology. It is what those in power have always done to youth, and every party in this country is about to repeat it.

The ruling party is just the first, the loudest, and the most visible. It has the biggest campaign machine and the most confidence in its methods. It controlled the information space first, so it has the most to lose now that the space is pushing back. But other parties should not feel reassured by its mistakes. Congress and the regional parties will make the same mistake, and probably an even bigger one, by relying on nostalgia. Nostalgia is the clearest way to talk down to young people; it gently tells them that the country's best days were before they were even born.

Where I stop

This is where I will stop, and I am choosing to do so deliberately.

The situation I have described is real and, more importantly, solvable. There is a way to communicate within this shared digital world without lecturing or dividing people. There is a way to send a message that can be understood in many different ways, and to be part of this space as an insider, not an outsider. I know what that way is, but I will not explain it here.

I am not keeping it secret to be mysterious. I am holding it back because it is my work, and that is what has value, especially for the parties I have been talking about in this article. But I will give you a hint by telling you what the answer is not, since pointing out the mistake costs me nothing.

The answer is not about being louder or trying to sound younger and more casual. It is not about a minister at the gym or a Prime Minister wearing sunglasses. It is not about dividing the group and turning one part against the others. And it is never about putting up a poster that tells a generation who they are and asks them to agree.

Please do not write their pledge for them. You need to find out what they already believe, all the many, sometimes conflicting things, and speak in a way that each person can listen without others judging them for it. That is a real and rare skill, and it is not something you will find on a hoarding in Mumbai.

This generation is not waiting for someone to tell them who they are. They already know. The real question is whether anyone trying to reach them is willing to learn, and so far, the biggest political machine in the country has only guessed.

Image courtesy: The Print

Contact

tushar(at)tusharpanchal(dot)co

or

tushar(at)warroom(dot)live

Social

Subscribe