The Gen Z revolution

Today on Dad Strength

• Keeping it all in One Piece

• We lose muscle power as we age. Here’s how to stay strong and fast

• A book, a quote, a dad joke

Dad Strength is not exactly a source for breaking (ish) news BUT the recent Gen Z revolution in Nepal is both fascinating and under-reported in many circles, so I took some extra time to lay it out for you today. I’m also sharing a piece on maintaining muscle power as we age that I wrote for The Globe and Mail.

Keeping it all in One Piece

There’s a point where young people realize that adults have not figured it out that I call “The Rupture.” Whether they begin to rebuild the world to fit their sensitivity to injustice is not a given. But let’s look at a very strong signal coming from Nepal.

The Gen-Z uprising was influenced by anti-corruption protests in the Philippines and began with online critiques of “nepo baby” influencers who flaunted their lavish lifestyles. These kids of politicians were symbolic of corruption and wealth disparity in Nepal. As the protest began to really heat up, the Nepalese government panicked and banned 26 social media platforms by geo-blocking them on September 4. Four days later, 10s of thousands of Gen-Z protesters erupted into the streets to protest, flying the One Piece jolly roger as a rallying symbol. This was met with curfews and live rounds fired by the police.

The government, unable to handle the scale of the protests, tried restoring social media, which was… ineffective. By September 9, protesters had set fires at Singha Durbar (administrative HQ), the party offices, and the president’s and prime minister’s residences. The finance minister was notably beat up in the streets. This was right around when the sitting Prime Minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, resigned. The army rolled out – in seeming good faith – to prevent looting and more public violence and the toll is now at about 2,100 injured and 72 dead (for context, the population of Nepal is just under 30 million). And then the Discord went up. The conversation — a combination of text, video, and audio – was so consequential that it was discussed on national television and live-streamed on news sites.

By September 11, the national discussion was about who would take on interim leadership with the Discord channel – peaking at ~100K users – as a media focal point. Gen-Z eventually put up their pick for interim leader: ex-chief justice of the supreme court, Sushila Karki. If it wasn’t official, the army still met with leaders and didn’t push back against the legitimacy of the Discord vote. And, as of September 12, Nepal has their first woman Prime Minister. This is an interim position that is intended to last no more than six months. At this point, Karki has appointed three ministers and the president, Ram Chandra Poudel is still in office and the country seems to be in rapid clean-up mode.

Older political divisions of left and right seem to be collapsing in on themselves, which will make policing things according to the left/right schema increasingly ineffective. Like trying to list Antifa as a terrorist organization (LOL).

What can we expect from chronically online North America’s Gen Zs? Something more violent and less cohesive, probably. For now, anyway. the incredibly complex financial tools whose opacity made the 2008 financial crisis possible – there will be a point where the products built for profit will be leveraged in ways that their old-ass administrators simply can’t keep up with.

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We lose muscle power as we age. Here’s how to stay strong and fast

A while back, I thought I’d show off for my son by performing a kip-up, springing neatly to my feet from my back in one powerful motion. I hadn’t attempted this in 20 years but somehow expected to pull it off. He watched as I kicked off explosively and caught about an inch of air before falling back to earth with a thud. “What was that?” he asked. Other than a near concussion?

Read the rest of my piece for The Globe and Mail here.

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What I’m reading/listening to:

Lyrical Dharma: Hip-Hop Mindfulness

The one English tourist in Nepal during the Gen-Z Revolution

Living Colour Tiny Desk concert

The Bluesky account tracking the urine tank on the International Space Station

A quote

A dad joke

Where do you go after a peek-a-boo accident?

The ICU

Take care of yourself, man!

GG

Geoff Girvitz
Father, founder, physical culturist
dadstrength.com