Calling out 1 Bullshit on Gen Z: The Most Diverse Generation Ever

We are literally covered in reports that call Gen Z the most diverse generation ever. Flowing pages that seem to imply that this is going to be the generation to break all racial and ethnical barriers, carrying us in a cotton-candy world of mutual acceptance and respect.

If there ever was something called diversity-baiting, that’s how it would sound like.

Don’t get us wrong, we totally believe it’s important to invest time and strategy into the representation of diversity (it’s one of our main goals!). Yet, we must acknowledge the facts and challenges that this young generation is — STILL! — facing.

So, if you think Gen Zers are growing in a diverse and inspirational environment, well, you’re wrong.

Let’s examine one of the ecosystems where Zoomers seem to hang out the most these days — good old TikTok — and the implications of the filter bubble effect.

For those of you who don’t know (seriously?) what a filter bubble is, we are talking about that ideological and cultural isolation that comes from personalized searches engineered by websites and social media algorithms. Simply put, we look for something on the internet, the internet understands our preferences, and keeps feeding us the same sort of content, never contradicting our viewpoints or expanding our interests.

So, what happens when the filter bubble effect permeates the environment of a generation as diverse as Gen Z? Well, it aims at the opposite of diversity: standardization.

Here are a few examples to clarify the scenario.

Last week, Berkeley School of Information researcher Mark Faddoul tweeted about an AI-bias he suspected having found on TikTok: face-based filter bubbles. Faddoul pointed out that TikTok’s algorithm may or may not recommend users to follow people who look like the profiles they already follow. That means the algorithm not only recognizes broad features such as hair colour, ethnicity and gender, but it also profiles physiognomic traits, such as facial features, body type, even signs of disability. 

Faddoul argued that this face-based filter bubble could be a bias of the algorithm, for it leads to homogeneity in recommendations that doesn’t have anything to do with the content created by those users — and TikTok should be all about content creation, right?

People responded to Faddoul’s experiment hypothesizing that TikTok’s algorithm could be creating recommendations by combining facial profiling with the “followers of the followers” lists, which could still give homogeneous results because “human chose” each other among similar beings.

Other users wondered if this face-based filter could actually be helpful for some minorities, for example, disabled people. Would having more disabled users recommended to them help them create a closer community? It could be, but not without the community (and single users) consent, and not with recommendations being solely based on facial profiling and not content (“hey, this user looks just like your friend, you TOTALLY SHOULD be friends with him/her too and ignore others who DON’T look like that”. Yeah, awkward).

Even bigger problems come when TikTok doesn’t just promote a plain standardization of your following, but it fuels the degradation of diversity representation through cultural appropriation. Hashtags like #Ghetto #NWordPass and #CripWalk are big on the platform, yet they are often used by white young people creating whimsical choreographies out of voicemails of angry employees accusing their bosses of being racist, or teaching how to dance just like members of notorious street gangs.



Call it digital blackface, “context collapse”, or plain ignorance: what we are witnessing on TikTok is a disregard for minority culture and social dynamics. A certain content looks cool and viral? Just post it, no matter if it doesn’t show respect for the group and situation that originated it, or if it was straight-up copied from a non-white creator without crediting her. So much for diversity acknowledgement.



When diversity is acknowledged, however, it’s often for sad reasons. And it enters discrimination territory (yikes!). TikTok users of colour are starting to riot against the platform’s algorithm by saying that it penalizes their visibility in favour of white users. Given the fact that TikTok’s algorithm is still kept secret, and no one really knows how to systematically end up on the For You stream that brings with it career-boosting opportunities, we are left to wonder: could these accusations be justified? Is TikTok perpetuating the discriminatory treatment often reserved to influencers of colour by media agencies and brands?

Finally, what are you going to do about this? What is your take on Gen Z and diversity? Do you have any theories on TikTok’s algorithm? Let us know if you have something in mind, let’s plot something together, shall we?

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This is part of YAD — Understanding Young Audiences Digest: a free monthly digest on young audiences for VOD and TV professionals. We’ve analysed millions of data points and we don’t mind sharing some of them — if this could help channels and commissioners to reach Gen Z, by understanding their needs, behavioural traits and intrinsic cultural values.

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