• by Gord Hotchkiss , Featured Contributor, July 14, 2020

It’s been interesting writing this column in the last four months. In fact, it’s been interesting writing it for the last four years.

And I use the word “interesting” as a euphemism. It’s been many things: gut-wrenching, frustrating, maddening and head-scratching. Many times — most times — the writing has made me profoundly sad and despairing of our future. It has made me question my own beliefs. But yes, in a macabre sense, it has been interesting.

I call myself a humanist. I believe in the essential goodness of humans, collectively and on the average. I believe we are the agents of our own fate. I believe there are ups and downs in our stewardship of our future, but over the longer term, we will trend in the right direction.

I still am trying to believe in these things. But I have to tell you, it’s getting really hard.

I’m sure it’s not just me. Over the years, this column — Media Insider — has morphed into the most freeform of Mediapost’s columns. The rotating stable of writers, including myself, really has a carte blanche to write about whatever happens to be on our mind.

That’s why I was drawn to it. I’m not actively involved in any aspect of the industry anymore, so I really can’t provide any relevant commentary on things like search, mobile, TV or the agency world. But I do have many opinions about many things. And this column seemed to be the best place to talk about them.

What really fascinates me is the intersection between human behavior and technology -- and so, most of my columns unpack some aspect of that intersection. In the beginning, it seemed that technology was dovetailing nicely with my belief in human goodness.

Then things started to go off the track. In the past four years, this derailment has accelerated. In the past four months, it’s been like watching a train wreck.

We, the writers of Media Insider, have all done our best to chronicle what the f*ck is going on.

Today I looked back at our collective work over the past four months. I couldn’t help thinking that it was like trying to write at the micro level about what happens when a table is upended in the middle of dinner. Yes, I can report that the pepper shaker is still next to the salt shaker. But the bigger story is that everything is skidding down the table to the abyss beyond the edge.

I suspect that where we are now can be directly traced back to the source of my naïve optimism some years ago. We were giddy about what technology could do, not just for marketing, but for everything about our world. But to use the language of COVID, we had been infected but were still asymptomatic. Inside our culture, the virus of unintended consequences was already at work, replicating itself.

My vague and clung-to hope is that this is just another downswing. And my hope comes from my kids. They are better people than I was at their age: more compassionate, more empathetic and more committed to their beliefs. They have rejected much of the cultural baggage of systemic inequality that I took for granted in my twenties. They are both determined to make a difference, each in their own way. In them, I again have hope for the future.

We love to lump people together into categories and slap labels on them. That is also true for my daughter’s generation. They are often called Generation Z.

Every generation has their angels and assholes. That is also true for Generation Z. But here’s the interesting thing about them. They’re really tough to label.

Here’s an excerpt from a recent report on Generation Z from Mckinsey: “Our study based on the survey reveals four core Gen Z behaviors, all anchored in one element: this generation’s search for truth. Gen Zers value individual expression and avoid labels. They mobilize themselves for a variety of causes. They believe profoundly in the efficacy of dialogue to solve conflicts and improve the world. Finally, they make decisions and relate to institutions in a highly analytical and pragmatic way.”

The other interesting thing about this generation is that they grew up with the technology that seems to be upending the world of every previous generation. They seem -- somehow -- to have developed a natural immunity to the most harmful effects of social media. Maybe my hope that technology will ultimately make us better people wasn’t wrong, it just had to skip a couple of generations.

I know it’s dangerous to lionize or demonize any group, generational or otherwise, en masse. But after watching the world go to a hell in a handbasket in the hands of those in charge for the last few years, I have no qualms about handing things over to my kids and others of their age.

And we should do it soon, while there is a still a world to hand over.