The Delusion of Gen Z
By: Sahil Swe
We, the children of conflict, born in the digital glow of smartphones and social feeds, call ourselves Gen Z. We wear individuality as fashion and change as culture. But beneath this aesthetic freedom lies something far darker, deeper, and dangerously overlooked. I write this not as an outsider, nor a detached elder wagging fingers, but as one of them—as someone who still believes in human connection, in truth, in feeling, in soul.
This generation, so capable of greatness, is drowning in delusions. Not the innocent dreams of a hopeful mind, but socially acceptable delusions parading as wisdom, liberty, and empowerment. And unless we confront these illusions head-on, we will continue to build a society where pleasure is mistaken for purpose, trends are mistaken for truths, and disconnection is mistaken for freedom.
The Language of Emotional Decay
Take a moment to reflect on the words we now use to define relationships: “Situationship,” “Nanoship,” “Polyarmony,” “Sneaky Link,” and worse, “Deluluship.” These aren’t just clever new terms; they are dictionaries of emotional detachment. These words scream of a generation that fears vulnerability but desperately craves it; a generation that wants to be loved without the weight of loyalty, to feel intimacy without the effort of connection.
“Situationship” glorifies indecision. “Nanoship” celebrates how fleeting we’ve made emotional bonds. “Polyarmony” pretends that multiple romantic attachments can exist in peace, while in reality; many young hearts are being pulled in directions they don’t even understand. “Deluluship” is perhaps the most dangerous, a symptom of us not just accepting but celebrating fantasies over reality.
When words evolve, societies change. And when our vocabulary is built around confusion and avoidance, we become people who no longer strive for clarity or depth. We laugh off heartbreak as if it were an aesthetic. We meme our misery. We romanticize chaos.
Let’s take a sobering moment to revisit the dictionary Gen Z is quietly writing, not with ink, but with irony and apathy. “Main Character Energy” isn’t just a confidence boost—it’s the birth of a narcissistic age where everyone wants to be the star but forgets that real life doesn’t hand out applause. “NPC Energy” is our lazy excuse to dehumanize those who don’t match our vibe, reducing real people to game characters—cold, hollow, and programmable.
And then comes “Corecore”—a chaotic visual cocktail of aesthetic decay, nostalgia, and emotional confusion, where we drown in fragments of meaning just to feel something. “Chronically Online”? That’s not quirky. It’s tragic. It’s the inability to exist without the internet scripting your personality, your opinions, even your grief. “Goblin Mode” proudly embraces filth and dysfunction, as if collapsing standards are a badge of rebellion. And the crown jewel? “Delulu.” A cute way of calling ourselves delusional, as if fantasizing about love, life, or success while rejecting effort and accountability is somehow poetic. But this isn’t poetry—it’s prophecy. A generation writing its downfall in jokes and hashtags, while the soul quietly starves behind the screen.
These words seem harmless. Some are even funny. But beneath the humor lies a philosophy: that life is a game of detachment. That mental chaos is endearing. That effort is cringe, and nihilism is cool. The danger is not in the slang—it’s in the normalization of dysfunction as identity.
The Culture of Escapism Masquerading as Empowerment
Every era has its struggles, but our generation is unique in how it hides its wounds. We escape into aesthetics, into phrases like “main character energy” and “soft girl era,” as if these roles will protect us from reality. But beneath these identities is a deafening cry for meaning. We scroll endlessly, refreshing the feed, waiting for dopamine disguised as validation. We write essays in Instagram captions about self-love, while we drown in comparison and perform pain to feel seen.
Goblin mode? Chronically online? Delulu is the solulu? These aren’t jokes anymore. They are truths we’ve normalized. These words mock self-destruction while simultaneously endorsing it. We’re not just lost; we’re pretending it’s cool to be lost.
Is it really liberation when we can’t sit silently with our own thoughts without reaching for a screen? Is it truly empowerment when emotional avoidance becomes a lifestyle?
The Philosophical Collapse
Ancient civilizations didn’t survive because of their wealth or weapons—they endured because they stood on values. Justice wasn’t just a word. Truth wasn’t optional. Beauty wasn’t filtered. Wisdom wasn’t borrowed from memes. These were foundations carved into stone and spirit alike—guiding light for generations to live, build, love, and rise.
But today, what does Gen Z build upon?
We’ve traded timeless virtues for fleeting validation. Our moral compass now spins toward likes, shares, and visibility. We no longer ask what’s right—we ask what’s trending. We no longer ask what is good—we ask what gets attention. In a world obsessed with going viral, goodness is irrelevant unless it performs well.
And here’s the tragedy—we know it.
We’ve replaced Socrates with TikTok therapists who give us 30-second band-aids for wounds we haven’t even dared to name. We treat philosophy like an accessory. One day, silence is self-care. The next day, silence is violence. One week, we preach boundaries. The next, we weaponize them. We’re not evolving—we’re eroding, performing different versions of ourselves to meet the algorithm’s mood.
We’ve made moral fluidity a virtue—but there’s a difference between flexibility and fickleness. What do you truly believe in if your beliefs shift with the trend cycle?
We speak of self-awareness while drowning in self-obsession. We post about empathy while cancelling people in comment sections. We cry “healing era” while refusing to sit with discomfort. We are loud, yes—but rarely honest. Because honesty would mean admitting that behind all our “woke” language and aesthetic activism, we are confused. Spiritually, morally, emotionally confused.
Where past generations asked what is the purpose of life, ours asks what aesthetic fits my mood today? We curate our pain, brand our personalities, and build identities out of trauma—then wonder why nothing feels sacred anymore.
And all of this is sold to us as progress.
But progress without principle is just destruction dressed in innovation. When everything is allowed and nothing is respected, when every feeling is validated but no value is defended—what do you get? A generation adrift. Powerful, yes. Creative, no doubt. But utterly directionless.
The truth is hard to hear: We are philosophically collapsing. And we’re too entertained to notice.
We call ourselves rebels—but what are we rebelling against? Real accountability? Discipline? Moral clarity?
We have turned the sacred into satire. Marriage is a meme. Loyalty is a joke. God is a punchline. And meaning—real, raw meaning—is something we scroll past because it doesn’t match the vibe.
But here’s the deeper grief: deep down, we’re yearning for what we mock. We want virtue. We crave truth. We ache for belonging. Yet we sabotage it all the moment it asks for commitment.
Because it’s easier to laugh at a sunset than sit in silence and feel it.
It’s easier to repost a quote about healing than actually forgive.
It’s easier to say “I’m manifesting peace” than confront the war within.
And while we chase aesthetic spirituality and digest bite-sized ethics, our souls shrink. We lose our philosophical heritage—the right to wonder, the hunger to understand, the discipline to live aligned with something greater than ourselves.
So what is left?
A generation that calls chaos “individuality,” and calls disconnection “freedom.”
But we are not free.
We are fleeing.
Fleeing responsibility. Fleeing depth. Fleeing truth. Because truth requires courage, and courage isn’t viral.
But it’s necessary.
It’s time we return—not to tradition for tradition’s sake—but to timeless principles. To truth that doesn’t bend to trends. To a moral backbone that doesn’t need applause.
Because if we don’t, our generation will not just lose its way—it will lose its soul.
Relationship without Responsibility
Love, once sacred and deep, has been redesigned into a game of evasion. Commitment is seen as a trap. Loyalty is viewed as weakness. Gen Z flirts in fragments, loves through emojis, and ends relationships with “ghosting.” The truth is, our generation has unlearned the art of conversation and replaced it with passive aggression, vague texts, and unread messages. We don’t talk anymore—we calculate responses. We don’t feel—we filter.
We have confused “freedom to choose” with “freedom from consequence.” We want all the thrill with none of the responsibility. We crave connection, but run the moment it demands effort. We seek love, but on our terms—terms that come with disclaimers, emotional exits, and ego-proof boundaries. Real love doesn’t survive here. It drowns in the silence between two people pretending they’re fine.
We idolize characters in heartbreak songs, but we don’t want to be the ones who actually feel. We worship fictional drama because our emotional lives are either too dull, too painful, or too vulnerable to admit. So we substitute real intimacy with storylines. We romanticize the idea of falling in love, but not the raw, unfiltered labor of being in love. The good morning texts are sweet, yes. But are we ready to show up on the bad days too? Or are we just collecting moments to post, not memories to keep?
We scroll through reels about soulmates while texting three people at once with zero intention. We call situationships “low-pressure,” but they carry the heaviest weight—uncertainty. And when it all collapses (because it always does), we post a quote about healing, disappear for a bit, and start the cycle again. No closure, no honesty, no accountability.
What we fail to realize is: love isn’t supposed to be aesthetic. It’s supposed to be real. It’s supposed to be inconvenient sometimes. Messy. Demanding. Worth it.
But in a generation trained to swipe left when things get complicated, we’ve created an illusion: that love should be effortless. And when it’s not, we blame the other person, not our shallow attention span or emotional cowardice.
We’re so terrified of being vulnerable, we’ve convinced ourselves that detachment is strength. That apathy is power. But tell me honestly—does anyone feel powerful at 2 AM when the screen goes black and there’s no one left to perform for?
No. Because what we want, truly, is to be seen—not just watched. To be loved—not just liked. To be held—not just tagged.
But we won’t admit it. So we keep playing these emotional games. And call it freedom.
But the truth? It’s loneliness in disguise.
The Sociological Breakdown and Ethics in Liquid Form
Family, community, spiritual values—these were once the scaffolding of society. Now, they are optional at best and mocked at worst. Individualism has gone from personal empowerment to collective isolation. Everyone is an influencer; no one is influenced by virtue.
Young people seek identity in zodiac signs, mood boards, and hashtags, rather than in contribution, sacrifice, or service. We speak of changing the world, yet can’t maintain friendships. We demand respect but forget how to give it. In this pursuit of self, we have lost the other. And a society that cannot see the other is a society in decay.
In Gen Z, there is no fixed right or wrong. Morality is a mood. Ethics are temporary. Apologies are aesthetic. Activism is a performance. One can be offensive today and a victim tomorrow, depending on the algorithm.
We must remember: just because something is trending does not mean it is true. And just because something feels good does not mean it is good.
Virtue is not a filter. Kindness is not a brand. Love is not a phase.
Plausible Arguments to Break the Extremist Mind-set
To the extreme Gen Z voices that treat morality as outdated and commitment as oppression, I ask: where has your freedom taken you? You say relationships must be fluid—but are you fulfilled? You say nothing should be defined—but does that give you peace? You preach love without duty, but has your heart felt held?
True empowerment is not the ability to detach from everything. It is the courage to connect despite risk. It is not building walls; it is building resilience.
Gen Z has courage, but it is misdirected. Let us not fight for the right to be reckless, but the right to be real. Let us not burn down every tradition; let us question which ones still nourish our souls. Let us not be extremists in the name of self, forgetting the collective truth that no human is an island.
Let’s not be a generation of noise. Let’s be a generation of meaning.
Where Do We Go From Here?
This is not a rejection of Gen Z. This is a cry from within. Because I have seen hearts in pain, disguised as poets. I have met souls craving love, pretending they don’t care. I have watched brilliant minds rot under the weight of peer pressure and digital noise.
Let us return. Not to the past, but to purpose. Let us rebuild love, not as a reaction, but as a responsibility. Let us choose relationships over situationships, truth over trend, virtue over virality. Let us rise not in rebellion, but in reflection.
We are Gen Z. We are not the deluded. We are the destined—if only we dare to wake up.
Let the next revolution be the return to reality. Let this be our legacy.
(The author is a Researcher at NIT Srinagar)
