Transcription
Guys, welcome to the program. My name is Joker, with a face for radio and a voice for print. Uh, from the New York Post, stressed adults rely on pacifiers to soothe themselves. I feel a sense of safety from childhood. Now, obviously, the title I gave for this is, "This is why Gen Z is cooked."
Look, I did a video, uh, two videos actually, the other day talking about why Gen X, and yes, the boomers, although the boomers are slowly going out to pasture. Why Gen X and maybe the oldest millennials look down upon the younger generations and the younger people. Because younger people today say, "Oh, we can't handle it, and life is too stressed, and you just don't understand how hard it is to get a job, and you don't understand all the things that young people are going through. You have it easy. You guys are the ones that destroyed society," etc., etc.
But it's stories like these, and some of the things that pop up in these news stories, that are the reason why the older generations look at you guys and say, "Well, you're kind of weak, and you're kind of weird." And we don't understand what you're doing, or why you think you're doing it. But whatever it is, it's not working out for the best for you. And of course, I get a lot of hate for that.
But, and we're not talking about all of Gen Z, or all of millennials, or all of Gen Alpha. I never talk about all of them. There's always exceptions to the rule, and there's always the rule that gets exceptions. But in this case, this, among with many other oddities that Gen Z is doing, is one of the reasons why I think they're struggling so much. They're not well, and they're not coping very well with what's going on in the world. And the world, yes, is changing, but you still have it pretty good.
If you're sitting here watching me on a cell phone, or a YouTube video, or something on Rumble, or wherever, life is pretty good for you. It's not that bad. There are probably four and a half billion people on the planet that have it worse than you.
Uh, from the New York Post, uh, stressed adults, that's what we just read. I'm going to read the story actually from Zero Hedge. I like Tyler Deran's writing a little bit better. He says, "WTF? Trend of adults using pacifiers to relieve stress is snowballing. Uh, yes, really. Men and women are literally regressing to a pre-toddler state of mind when the world becomes too much for them."
A New York Post reports, "Despite the devices being bad for jaws and teeth, and being dangerous to sleep with, people are acting like babies and sucking on pacifiers because they can't handle the real world." Uh, from the New York Post, the TikTok is sucking it up, literally, with videos of American adults pacifying themselves at traffic, at work, or in the throes of a burnout.
In the comments section of TikTok, by at the Ben Dentist, one user swore, "I just use an adult pacifier. It hasn't moved my teeth. I've been using them for four years." Another double-downed, "I just got an adult pacifier. I use one, and the ADHD tip works." Others admitted, "We got to do what we got to do to keep focused. Overbite, not getting stuff we need to get done. Lol." And another said, "I'm so ashamed. I've been addicted for 23 years. My entire life." Which, if you're using a binky and your entire life is 23 years, that puts you firmly in the Gen Z category.
I'll speak to this in a moment. I just want to kind of get this story out there so you guys know what I'm like. A cursory search on the web reveals a whole subculture of people making YouTube videos about adult pacifiers, reviewing and unboxing them. The people appearing on camera are often dressed in adult-sized baby clothes, surrounding themselves with baby toys, and have multicolored hair. Well, I'm surprised about the multicolored hair. Something's gone very, very wrong in the childhood of these individuals.
Now, I looked up some of the videos, and he linked. And here is a gal. She looks to be, I don't know, around 25, 23, 28, somewhere around there. Unboxing a new adult pacifier. 36,000 views from 2 years ago. And the comments, I read through the comments. I'm going to read through more of these. Here's another woman. Uh, she's in a like a house. I assume she's the homeowner. Maybe it's her parents' house, and she's just a big kid. 13,000 views, two years ago. Another one, 60,000 views from seven years ago. Yes, she has the multicolored hair.
But listen to the comments, because it's, you know, if this video were out there and everybody was roasting her, I would say, "Okay, it's just a small segment of the population." Here's, here's some of the replies. "How cute are you? I'm a little, and I got instant little space vibes from this video. I love it." Someone else, "You're adorable. I just ordered a custom-decorated paci." P-A-C-I, apparently, is what these people call their toys. Uh, "Oh, you're so adorable. Congratulations. You're so cute. I love the paci pack. Three color, uh, pre-three pretty colors. So lovely. It fits you perfectly. You're absolutely beautiful and super cute. Congrats on your first paci. I'm also waiting to get my first paci in the mail. I'm getting my first pacis in the mail. I'm super excited. I ordered eight adult ones. I'm going to deco one of them with the LGBTQ themes and give it to my non-binary friend."
These people talk about this like they're discussing car engines, or car parts, or how to build a computer. "This one's easier to repair. I like this model because you can do this with it. This one does this." They're getting all technical and all into this over pacifiers for adults. And apparently, this gal here has 719 subs but got 60,000 views on this. So obviously, it went viral. And by the comments, there are a lot of people that are really, really into this.
Do you understand? This is why my generation kind of makes fun of the younger generations. You know, we used to have public TV service announcements that would come on TV at 10:00 at night, and it'd have a little musical blurb, and it'd come across on ABC or NBC or CBS, and it'd say, "Do you know it's 10:00? Do you know where your children are?" And the reason why they had to remind parents is because we were feral. Gen X was feral. They let us out of the house, or they forced us out of the house, and they said, "Go play. Don't come back until dinnertime, or until the streetlights come on, or whatever." And we'd go down to rock quarries, have rock fights, and we'd go swimming in creeks and rivers, and we'd go biking all over town, and we just disappeared for 8 to 10 hours. And parents loved it.
Now, you can fault boomers for a lot of things. And yes, I suppose Gen X grew up with some attachment issues because of it. But we did learn how to manage very quickly on our own. You fall and get a scrape. There's no crying to mommy. She's seven hours away, or seven miles away, I should say. She's seven miles away down the road, and you just have to rub a little dirt on it and keep going. So, as much as people make fun of Gen X, boomers did the right thing by letting us go feral a little bit, because boy, can we handle crisis and management.
I didn't want to go through all the articles that I've previously read before, because I have read some of these, but I wanted to say, what are some of the com- the quirks about Gen Z? Because, you know, Gen Z is kind of weird in many ways, and they sometimes don't seem to connect very well with reality. Uh, communication work, uh, quirks. They avoid phone calls altogether. Many Gen Zers prefer texting or messaging apps over voice calls, which is fine. I actually like text better as well. But they cite anxiety about real-time conversations, about awkward silences, or the pressure to respond immediately. This has led to telephobia, where they screen calls or expect the caller to speak first without saying hello. That's this thing. I can hear their breathing. Employers enraged over Gen Z's rude phone etiquette of answering but not saying anything. Uh, some even use voice notes or voice chats instead. Viewing traditional calls as outdated or intrusive, which I think is fine. Uh, silent starts to calls.
And that's the other thing. This is now, this is the part where I say, okay, how bad is it out there for Gen Z trying to get jobs? Uh, workplace and job hunting oddities. Ghosting interviews and jobs. Gen Z job seekers are increasingly ghosting employers, failing to show up for interviews, not responding after they've gotten an offer, or even ditching on their first day. Surveys show 93% have skipped interviews, and over half of hiring managers report being ghosted by Gen Z candidates after giving them an offer for a job. Reasons include a tough job market, better offers elsewhere, or retaliation against companies that ghost applicants. This has prompted some governments, like Canada, to consider anti-ghosting measures for applicants.
If the job market's really that hard, and Gen Z really wants jobs, why are they not going to like, why are they ghosting on job interviews? And look, if you, they give you an offer, and it's not good enough, which has happened to me before, I've given a counter-offer. I'll say, "No, that's not going to meet my needs. I have more experience than that. I feel I would at least require X amount of dollars per hour or whatever." Then if they say no, you say, "Okay, well, thank you very much for the offer. I appreciate it. I think I'm going to go in a different direction." It's professional. They get the idea. And if enough people say, "Hey, you know, you need to pay more for this position," and they can't get anybody to fill the position, then they have to pay more, or the position goes unfilled.
Just ghosting makes it look like you're a neurotic weirdo. It's not clarifying to the employer what the issue is with either their interview style, the questions they ask, the job offer, or something else. And if things are really that tough for young people to get jobs, wouldn't you probably take the job and hope you could get a promotion or work that job while you're looking for another job for six months or a year? I mean, that's what my generation did. You know, I took a dishwashing job, which I've talked about before. I think it paid $5.25 an hour when I got out of the military. My very first job was washing dishes. Do you think I aspired to be a dishwasher, or that I wanted to be a dishwasher? No. But I did that while I continued to look for other jobs because I had bills, and I have responsibilities, and I wanted to try to save some money, even at $5.25 an hour. Did it end up working out? Yes. Do I never want to wash another dish again? Yes. But to be able to just walk off like, "Nah, it's not enough. I'm just going to ghost you." That is not being professional. That's why we look at many in the younger generations as being irresponsible, or feeling that things aren't really that bad for them, or else they take the job. Do they just live at home with mom and dad instead and just keep looking for a better job? You got to get into the market, and you got to get your resume being built up. And then over time, as your resume improves, you drop the oldest jobs off. So when you're 50 years old, you're not putting the, you know, 15-year-old Burger King job that you had on your resume. You're keeping the most relevant and the most recent, because they're the most important. You go back, I don't know, eight or 10 years and call it a day. But this youngest generation's just not even trying that. They're just saying no to everything because, I still say, many of them are spoiled and entitled, and they think they need to have everything work out perfectly for them right off the bat, and if it doesn't, they think they deserve better.
I mean, dating's going the same way. Uh, they're bringing parents to interviews. A surprising number of Gen Zers admit to involving parents in the job process, from attending interviews to completing assignments, which managers see as over-reliance or lack of independence. They're perceived as hard to manage. Managers also often label Gen Z as the toughest generation to work with, citing self-centeredness, demands for high pay without effort, and quick quits. This all boils back to Gen Z being spoiled and not working hard enough.
And once again, I know some of you are probably going to get frustrated with me, but I'm not talking about all of you. I'm sure a large number of you haven't taken mommy or daddy to your interview, you haven't ghosted anybody, and you're struggling to find a job. But if you're wondering maybe why employers aren't calling you back and aren't giving you a chance because you're a Gen Zer, it's because they're having horrible outcomes with Gen Z. So they're just skipping Gen Z entirely if it's possible.
They say they doom spend on subscriptions. Amid economic stress, Gen Z engages in doom spending. Impulsive buys or non-essentials like subscriptions to Spotify or meal kits, while saving aggressively elsewhere, creating a thrift-splurge paradox. Again, this is one of those things I brought up in my video. We didn't have the thrift-splurge. My generation had thrift, thrift. There was no splurge time. We couldn't afford it. But even here, there's news stories about young Gen Z's going through and doing this stuff. How can you splurge if you don't have money? It's being irresponsible. And because of this, it is giving the rest of Gen Z a bad name.
Um, I think that was most of all of it. They have some other weird stuff, and that's not the point of my story here. But what it is, is how my generation, maybe the boomers, maybe the older millennials, are looking down at the youngest of the millennial generation and the oldest of Gen Z and saying, "Look, you guys have to, many of you have to get your act in order, or otherwise the rest of Gen Z, which is you that are responsible and mature and adult, half of your society is going to be a bunch of weirdos. You're not going to be able to get any doctors because there are no doctors because they're, I don't know, not able to handle school or jobs or whatever. It all just kind of crumbles apart."
Uh, someone else says, "I saw one of these recently in a college campus in North Carolina." Talking about the binkies. "I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Adults with pacifiers as a mental illness." Someone else says, "Please, New York Post, please conduct a poll of the adults with pacifiers and ask what political party they all vote for. We all know the answer, but just to prove a point, please do it. Please." Someone else says, "If you need this kind of thing, you shouldn't be able to vote." I agree.
Someone else says, "No, stressed adults do not rely on pacifiers to soothe themselves. Mentally stunted, attention-seeking morons rely on pacis to soothe themselves." We're seeing the end of the West. We went from one of the greatest generations to the weakest and worst. Our fathers and grandfathers are rolling in their graves in disbelief over what we've become.
Somebody else says, "Pacifiers for adults. Adult Happy Meals. Every movie released as a cartoon or superhero movie or a reboot of an '80s or '90s movie or TV show. Standard adult attire, shorts, t-shirts with a superhero or movie t-shirt. Hyper-detailed, expensive action figures for adults. Adults reading only YA novels or comic books. Adult summer camps, adultting." Oh, and they don't mention this, but, uh, Disney World, Disneyland, they're all centering themselves around adults, usually overweight with blue hair, going to their parks. I saw an opening of one of the more recent attractions, and it might have been at Universal, maybe it was at Disneyland. There were no kids. It was just a bunch of weird 20 and 30-somethings, overweight with blue hair, many of them, a bunch of gay dudes. And they were all, "Oh my god, this is so exciting. Oh, let's go check this out." There weren't any kids. Disney used to be for a family, or a family with young ones, not just weird adults. Even Disney is having to realign.
Look, I know that things are kind of tough, and I know maybe I don't think my father's generation understood my generation, and I know my generation probably doesn't understand the younger generation. So, but there does have to be a point in time where if you want to be successful, and you need to find a way to make it in the real world, you do have to understand that the world doesn't really care about you. The world in general. I could disappear tomorrow. A bunch of people will put "F" in the chat, and then you move on with your life. Like no one's that important. And that's how I grew up, and that's how my father grew up. And I think that's what the young people are missing. They're missing realizing no one really cares about you.
You could have 10 million followers and get 100,000 likes on your videos. You disappear, and people forget about you in three days. That's the truth of it. And once you have that mentality, you realize it, what other people think of me, what's really going on in the world, what employers think, or what, I don't know, politicians think, or people that hate you think, that all goes away. Nobody actually cares about it. And then once you realize that, it sets you free to say, you know, instead of jumping on TikTok and jumping on this trend of, "I'm going to post how I viral quit," or, "I'm going to post me with a binky as well." I guess we call them binkies. I keep saying that instead of pacifier. We've always called them binkies, or at least my family has.
When you hit that point in time where you say, "I'm not going to chase this viral trend. While all these people are ghosting, while all these people are not showing up, I'm going to be super professional. I'm going to make sure when I'm in an interview that I mention that I'm aware a lot of people in my generation are not doing so well or they're hard to employ. But here's why I'm different. Here's why I'm better. Here's why you should take a risk with me." Speak directly to that employer with confidence and go out there and do it, and you will be successful. If this is how everybody is, how can you have a hard time competing? Make yourself stand out of the crowd for the right reasons, instead of the weirdos like this.
Guys, if you like my content, don't forget to join me on betterbachelor.locals.com. Links are down below as always. We've got a great community of like-minded guys. We talk about com- news stories. We talk about common problems guys go through, or even young people go through. Building houses, cooking recipes, how to live on your own. Lots of things we cover. It's a great community of like-minded people. So, come on over and check it out today. You'll be glad you did. And it's behind a paywall of five bucks a month. And yes, it's a couple of bucks, but it's less the price, less than the price of a stupid cup of coffee. And you get to be back there behind the paywall, so we can do lots of videos and interesting content that you wouldn't be able to see on anywhere else on the web.
All right, guys. I'll leave it there. We'll see you in the next one.
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