Gen Z: Bullying of Liam Payne and Shawn Mendes reveals ugly side

They’re meant to be the enlightened generation, but Gen Z’s online bullying tactics has revealed they’re not as caring and tolerant as they think they are.

They’re the Greta generation who care about the planet and pride themselves on sustainability.

They promote body positivity, self-love, and inclusiveness.

Basically Gen Z are more caring, tolerant and enlightened than the rest of us, or that’s what they like to believe.

So, why is it that pop star Shawn Mendes is being hounded by some of his fans on social media over his sexuality? Whether someone in the public eye is gay or not, is admittedly still a curiosity for most of us, but I thought bullying someone into outing themselves was a thing of the past.

For years Mendes has been the target of innuendo, but recently it has reached epic proportions.

He’s spoken out about it several times, but just like schoolyard bullying – which now happens online these days – and which the younger generations seem to be masters of, there’s no escape.

Left to right, Liam Payne from One Direction and Canadian singer Shawn Mendes.

Apparently, some of this speculation is based on outdated stereotypes, like having a ‘girly voice’.

The 26-year-old Canadian made a heartfelt statement at a concert in Colorado last month, saying people talking about his sexuality “always felt like such an intrusion on something very personal to me, something that I was figuring out in myself, something that I had yet to discover, and still have yet to discover”.

In the few weeks before the death of One Direction’s Liam Payne, social media users had been driving a hate campaign against him, over allegations he had been harassing his ex.

Following his death, one user on X, @selovelenaa, called them out, “wtfff yall were bullying liam payne online for the past few days and now that he passed away yall are suddenly mental health advocates”.

This week I have been writing a story about the normalisation of words such as ‘rape’, now bandied about like a joke among young people, and the rise of misogynistic language, spouted by male influencers on social media.

They promote rigid old school versions of what it is to be a man in 2024.

In fact, the Australian Government is so worried it’s running a campaign to educate young people and their parents around how easy it is to fall into an algorithm of disrespect on social media. They fear it could be laying the groundwork for a generational rise in sexual violence and abuse.

So, while Gen Z may think they know everything already, perhaps they need to take a good hard look at their actions, especially online, before they drag their cohort back to the dark ages.

Originally published as Gen Z: Bullying of Liam Payne and Shawn Mendes reveals ugly side