Can the Lost Generation Be Found?

A generation sidelined by debt, ideology, and stalled adulthood is drifting — but it doesn't have to stay lost if society restores real opportunity, accountability, and purpose.

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by Victor Davis Hanson
December 15, 2025

The current generation “Z” — those now roughly between 13 and 28 years old — is becoming our 21st-century version of the “Lost Generation.” Members of Gen Z are often nicknamed “Zoomers,” a term used to describe young adults who came of age in the era of smartphones, social media, and rapid cultural upheaval.

Males in their teens and twenties are prolonging their adolescence — rarely marrying, not buying a home, not having children, and often not working full-time.

The negative stereotype of a Zoomer is a shiftless man who plays too many video games. He is too coddled by parents and too afraid to strike out on his own.

Zoomers rarely date, supposedly out of fear that they would have to grow up, take charge, and head a household.

Yet the opposite, sympathetic generalization of Gen Z seems more accurate.

All through K-12, young men, particularly white males, have been demonized …