**Generated Title: We Keep Trying to Define Gen Z. They're Too Busy Trying to Survive.**

Every few months, the content machine spits out another take on Gen Z. You know the drill. They’re either entrepreneurial super-go-getters building brands from their dorm rooms, or they’re emotionally fragile snowflakes who can’t handle a 9-to-5. It’s a neat little binary, perfect for a LinkedIn post or a consultant’s PowerPoint slide. The latest flavor of this nonsense is the “Gen Z Split,” a theory that the generation is cleaving in two.

Give me a break.

This whole narrative is a comforting lie we tell ourselves because the truth is way messier. The truth is that we’ve handed a generation a world on fire and are now shocked they aren’t all following the same, charred playbook we used.

I just read a piece by a business lecturer, Jeff LeBlanc, who’s been teaching Gen Z for a decade. In an article titled I’ve Taught Gen Z for Almost a Decade. I’m Split on the So-Called Gen Z ‘Split’, he describes a classroom exercise where students “bid” on leadership traits. For years, he says, they’ve consistently picked kindness, communication, and expertise. The only thing that’s changed is that now, they stop and ask why. They question if “kindness” is just corporate PR, or if “communication” still matters when an AI can write your emails.

It’s a nice little story. It paints a picture of a thoughtful, introspective generation grappling with big ideas from the comfort of a college classroom. And look, I don’t doubt his experience. He’s probably right. But his conclusion—that they aren’t fractured, just adapting—feels like looking at a hurricane through a keyhole and describing it as a bit breezy.

The professor notes that his younger students are more skeptical because they “watched social movements unfold on their phones.” That’s one way to put it. Another way is that they’ve watched the institutions their parents trusted—governments, corporations, the media—fail them spectacularly and repeatedly, all in glorious 4K. Their skepticism isn't an academic exercise. It’s a survival mechanism. It's the only rational response to the world we've built.

From the Classroom to the Streets

While students in a lecture hall are bidding fake money on the concept of “kindness,” kids their age in Madagascar, Kenya, and Morocco are dodging real bullets for the concept of “clean water.” Let that sink in.

In Madagascar, young people organized on Facebook to protest electricity and water shortages. The government’s response? Tear gas and gunfire. The UN says at least 22 were killed. In Kenya, Gen Z stormed parliament to protest a finance bill. Dozens died. In Morocco, they’re using TikTok and Discord to coordinate mass rallies against a government they see as corrupt and wasteful.

Their symbol isn't a university crest. It’s a cartoon skull from the Japanese anime One Piece, a story about pirates fighting a repressive world government. A meme. And people are dying under its banner.

This isn’t a split. No, 'split' is too clean, too binary. It suggests two equal, competing philosophies. This is a chasm. It’s the gap between the kids lucky enough to have the time and safety to debate the semantics of leadership, and the kids who are forced to practice it in real-time because their leaders have failed them so completely. They’re not just asking if authority is “performative”; they’re actively trying to dismantle it because it’s trying to kill them.

What does a leadership auction even mean to a 21-year-old medical student like Fanilo in Madagascar, who went out to protest peacefully and watched his friends get shot? He’s not wondering if a leader’s kindness is “sustainable.” He’s wondering if he’ll be targeted by security forces for speaking to a reporter. These kids aren't falling for government propaganda, offcourse, because they see the truth on their streets and in their empty taps.

This ain't some abstract, intellectual debate club. This is the real world. And in the real world, the stakes are a little higher than getting a good grade.

The Nomads of a Broken System

So where does that leave American Gen Z, the ones not (yet) facing down armed police over utility bills? They’re fighting a different kind of war, a quieter one against economic instability. A new study from RentCafe, Gen Z Renters More Likely to Relocate Within Two Years, found that 72% of Gen Z renters are “hyper-movers,” relocating within two years. By comparison, only 43% of millennials do.

The talking heads will spin this as a desire for “flexibility” or a rejection of “settling down.” Bullshit. They aren’t moving for the fun of it. They’re nomads by necessity, chasing a decent job, a room they can afford, a city that hasn’t been completely hollowed out by private equity. They have no loyalty to a company or a city because those institutions have shown zero loyalty to them.

This constant motion is the American version of the same underlying disease. It’s the frantic scramble that comes from knowing the ground beneath your feet is fundamentally unstable. The system the professor’s older students had a “stronger belief in” is the same one that’s now forcing their younger peers to pack up a U-Haul every 18 months.

They're not disengaged; they're just done playing a game where the house always wins, and honestly—what other choice do they have? You can't "buy in" to a system that's already sold you out. Whether it’s with a protest sign in Nairobi or a moving box in Ohio, they’re all sending the same message: the old way isn't working. The contract is broken.

Maybe I'm the crazy one here. Maybe it really is just a simple split between the ambitious and the anxious. But I don’t think so. I think we’re seeing a generation’s logical response to a profound, global betrayal.

So Much for the Think Pieces

Let's stop the condescending analysis. The real "Gen Z split" isn't about their personality types. It's about their circumstances. It's the brutal dividing line between the few who have the privilege to ponder the system and the many who are getting crushed by it. One group gets to talk about values; the other has to fight for their lives. And no amount of corporate consulting can paper over that.