• by Steven Rosenbaum , Featured Contributor, November 25, 2024

"If you lean into that negativity, you're rewarded.” Joseph Gordon-Levitt threw the challenge out to a panel of social media creators.  Gordon-Levitt knows something about this -- besides his career as an actor, he's spent years building the platform HitRecord, where collaboration trumps competition. But here he was, getting creators to confess what really drives engagement.

Most conversations about social media's impact on Gen Z happen without them in the room. Policymakers and tech executives debate their future while they're busy living it. But Project Liberty’s recent Summit on the Future of the Internet flipped that script, putting young creators at the center of the conversation.

At the table: Lexi Hidalgo, whose vulnerable takes on mental health reach 2.6 million followers on TikTok; Tejas Hullur, whose journey from cynical content to community builder has earned him 122,000 YouTube subscribers; and Abbie Richards, a digital researcher with 56,400 Instagram followers. Their raw honesty about life inside the algorithmic machine hit harder than any congressional testimony.

"Something that's always been very important to me from when I even first started posting is to be open and to be vulnerable. It's crazy to see that when I do that, the response is mind-blowing," said Hidalgo, whose audience is teenage girls and 20somethings who hang on her every word.

She'd later confess how this vulnerability comes with a price: "We're drowning in information... young people are using social media to avoid feeling their feelings." Coming from someone who started "making fun videos during quarantine" and evolved into "taking on a big sister role on the internet," this hit differently. Her platform became both a lifeline and a trap for her young followers.

"I remember on TikTok specifically," Hullur reflected, "I would make content that was like 'the dark side of this,' 'the ugly truth of that.' I found myself going down this rabbit hole." His voice dropped. "I had to ask myself one day: What am I doing? Am I being a positive force in this?"

Richards, who studies misinformation on TikTok, cut through the tension: "You're constantly thinking about your numbers, constantly thinking about your engagement. You start to align your sense of self with numbers determined by algorithmic gods you can't control."

Gordon-Levitt, sensing a deeper current, steered the conversation: "What do you think the point of view of that ideal, optimistic version of TikTok would be? What would it stand for?" It wasn't just a question -- it was a vision check for an entire generation of creators trapped between authenticity and algorithms.

"The one most beautiful thing about TikTok," Hullur said, leaning forward, "is, it's allowed people to become interested in things they didn't know they'd want to be interested in. If TikTok could stand for something, it is inspiring people to get into things they didn't know and form communities."

Richards added, her researcher's perspective cutting through the optimism: "I would like to see it become something that makes people curious again instead, of the thing that we just go to to stop being curious." The room went quiet as she continued: "I used to love going on TikTok just to scroll and get new ideas. Now I go on TikTok to escape doing those new things." Her words captured the platform's evolution from inspiration to escape hatch.

Hidalgo elaborated on her Gen Z audience: "People being vulnerable online as creators opens up these things and moves us forward and does help people, but social media as a whole is almost making it worse." She described watching her teenage followers use the platform as an emotional coping mechanism, avoiding real-world connections in favor of endless scrolling.

Meanwhile, Frank McCourt, the billionaire who founded  Project Liberty to develop a part of the internet that gives users control of their personal data, watched from the wings. "Your data is you," he'd say later, his frustration evident. "We would never let the government know everything about us. Why are we letting a few companies know it?" The kicker? "It's super sad that it's taken mothers and fathers that have lost children to bring this issue to the surface."

Here's what's wild: While the policy wonks debate privacy bills and tech executives spew PR about "community guidelines," these creators are living the reality. They're trapped in a system that rewards their darkest moments while promising connection. They're chasing metrics that eat at their self-worth while preaching authenticity.

Gordon-Levitt gets it. His questions weren't just conversation starters -- they were excavation tools, digging into the real cost of social media success. When he pressed about platform values, the responses revealed a generation of creators caught between their desire to inspire and an algorithm that feeds on their fear. "Tolerance," Hullur offered. "Curiosity," Richards added. "Open-mindedness, togetherness" -- their ideal platform sounded nothing like the attention casino they currently inhabit.

The game needs to change. Not with more congressional hearings or tech company pledges, but with a complete rewiring of how we build and reward social connection online. As McCourt put it: "We are going to do this because you take the change in the zeitgeist and the need and the harms and the problems... people begin to understand that they can actually reclaim their identity."

McCourt's closing thoughts lingered in the room: "We could sit and make policies that we think are going to work great for today. The tech is already gone. It's already in the next place. You can't have a viable, I would say even thriving, democracy without a technology stack that is harmonized with it."

After two days listening to tech leaders, Washington insiders, and GenZ connect and debate, one thing was clear: The revolution won't be monetized. It'll be humanized, one authentic connection at a time. And the voices of those living it daily are showing us the way.