{"id":20767,"date":"2025-11-07T09:37:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T08:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/07\/meet-gen-x-middle-aged-enraged-and-radicalised-by-internet-bile-gaby-hinsliff\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T09:37:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T08:37:21","slug":"meet-gen-x-middle-aged-enraged-and-radicalised-by-internet-bile-gaby-hinsliff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/07\/meet-gen-x-middle-aged-enraged-and-radicalised-by-internet-bile-gaby-hinsliff\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet gen X: middle-aged, enraged and radicalised by internet bile | Gaby Hinsliff"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who is driving the populist insurgency? It\u2019s not grumpy pensioners or vulnerable teenagers \u2013 it\u2019s my generation<\/p>\n

If in doubt, we used to talk about the weather. Or if not that, then why the trains were late again, or how sweet someone\u2019s baby was: the kind of routine bland nothings you exchange with strangers on the street. But something about the way we speak in public is changing.<\/p>\n

A few days ago I was in Aldi, making the usual small talk at the checkout. When the cashier said she was exhausted from working extra shifts to make some money for Christmas, the man behind me chipped in that it would be worse once \u201cshe takes all our money\u201d (in case Rachel Reeves was wondering, her budget pitch-rolling<\/a> is definitely cutting through). Routine enough, if he hadn\u2019t gone on to add that she and the rest of the government needed taking out, and that there were plenty of ex-military men around who should know what to do, before continuing in more graphic fashion until the queue fell quiet and feet began shuffling. But the strangest thing was that he said it all quite calmly, as if political assassination was just another acceptable subject for casual conversation with strangers, such as football or how long the roadworks have gone on. It wasn\u2019t until later that it clicked: this was a Facebook conversation come to life. He was saying out loud, and in public, the kind of thing people say casually all the time on the internet, apparently without recognising that in the real world it\u2019s still shocking \u2013 at least for now.<\/p>\n

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a>
\nWho is driving the populist insurgency? It\u2019s not grumpy pensioners or vulnerable teenagers \u2013 it\u2019s my generation
\nIf in doubt, we used to talk about the weather. Or if not that, then why the trains were late again, or how sweet someone\u2019s baby was: the kind of routine bland nothings you exchange with strangers on the street. But something about the way we speak in public is changing.
\nA few days ago I was in Aldi, making the usual small talk at the checkout. When the cashier said she was exhausted from working extra shifts to make some money for Christmas, the man behind me chipped in that it would be worse once \u201cshe takes all our money\u201d (in case Rachel Reeves was wondering, her budget pitch-rolling is definitely cutting through). Routine enough, if he hadn\u2019t gone on to add that she and the rest of the government needed taking out, and that there were plenty of ex-military men around who should know what to do, before continuing in more graphic fashion until the queue fell quiet and feet began shuffling. But the strangest thing was that he said it all quite calmly, as if political assassination was just another acceptable subject for casual conversation with strangers, such as football or how long the roadworks have gone on. It wasn\u2019t until later that it clicked: this was a Facebook conversation come to life. He was saying out loud, and in public, the kind of thing people say casually all the time on the internet, apparently without recognising that in the real world it\u2019s still shocking \u2013 at least for now.
\nGaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who is driving the populist insurgency? It\u2019s not grumpy pensioners or vulnerable teenagers \u2013 it\u2019s my generation If in doubt, we used to talk about the weather. Or if not that, then why the trains were late again, or how sweet someone\u2019s baby was: the kind of routine bland nothings you exchange with strangers on …<\/p>\n

Meet gen X: middle-aged, enraged and radicalised by internet bile | Gaby Hinsliff<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":20768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20767"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}