How Gen Z Is Changing Culture on Its Own Terms

Anti-establishment. A very familiar tag for Gen Z because everyone has trust issues in this generation. We grew up in the age of misinformation, myths doing more harm than good, false propaganda and bad PR campaigns so trust has to be earned. The oldest members of the generation were children during the global financial crisis in 2007. Their angsty teenage years saw political instability, climate emergencies, a whole pandemic, rising living costs and a deep sense of mistrust amongst human beings. They grew up to be anti-establishment because institutions are easiest to trust when they appear stable which they clearly aren't. If the traditional bargain says study hard, find a good job, climb the ladder, buy a home and build a stable life, what happens when a generation watches every rung of that ladder become increasingly slippery? You stop worshipping the ladder and that's exactly what happened.

Deloitte's 2026 global research describes Gen Z and millennials as increasingly pursuing "progress on their own terms": prioritising stability, skills and well-being rather than simply chasing rapid promotions. But that does not necessarily imply it's a generation without ambition. This is often something thrown at the generation because its ambition looks different from millennials who thought 60 hour work weeks are normal. But we're just renegotiating what ambition could look like. The old career benchmarks from the long job title, a glass corner office and the corporate ladder has competition now. Downtime, mental health, creative stimulation, personal progression and an identity outside are all equally important, if not more. The gen z lifestyle just refuses to accept a certain outlook on professional achievement and what progressing in one's career looks like. It's merely another way to approach work.

While younger people can be deeply pessimistic about institutions while remaining surprisingly optimistic about their own ability to create social change. Deloitte found that fewer than half of Gen Z respondents believed they could influence the overall direction of their country, yet they

were considerably more confident about affecting specific issues such as mental health, inequality, education and the environment.

If you don't believe the person at the top is going to fix something, you start looking sideways. At communities, at creators, at mutual aid, at the colleague who posted their salary and accidentally started a conversation about pay transparency, at the girl on Instagram explaining something your school somehow forgot to mention and at millions of tiny acts of self expression that eventually stop looking tiny at all. Maybe because this isn't really a generation that waits politely in queues. If nobody is doing it, DIY it.

Can't find jewellery that looks like the stuff on your Pinterest board? Make it and start an Instagram page. Can't find clothes that fit your aesthetic? Source them, thrift them, crochet them, sell them. Can't find the kind of information you needed growing up? Turn on your front camera and explain it to 40,000 strangers. Young founders have similarly used Instagram to turn hyper-specific tastes into businesses, sometimes without a physical store, investors or even a conventional website. And I think the logic underneath all of it is fascinating.

For previous generations, a gap could look like evidence that there wasn't a market. For Gen Z, a gap sounds like - FINE, I'll just do it myself. If your workplace won't talk about salaries, somebody makes a salary-transparency spreadsheet. If school skipped something important, somebody makes an explainer. If mainstream media isn't speaking to you, start a Substack. If fashion doesn't represent you, make the clothes. If the traditional career path doesn't work for you, cobble together three jobs and give yourself a title nobody's heard of yet.

Because for all the jokes about Gen Z being cynical, nihilistic and convinced that the world is ending, there's an enormous amount of faith hidden inside the decision to make something yourself. You have to have faith that other people want what you want too. You have to believe that just because something doesn't exist yet doesn't mean it shouldn't.

And perhaps that's the difference between noticing that something is broken and accepting that it has to stay broken. Gen Z walked into a house with beautiful windows and some very questionable plumbing. We aren't burning the whole thing down. We're just no longer pretending we can't see the damp.