Performativity and Gen Z in the Age of the Crowd

At a time when social media has transformed politics from policy to performance, the emergence of latter-day political personalities provides the public insights into how performativity underpins modern political behavior—and how that behavior in turn resonates with the aspirations of a younger generation steeped in digital culture.

- SONNY COLOMA

The modern-day spectacle is characterized by crowd-drawing antics and meme-inflected social media campaigns that invite a question. How much of what we see is substance, and how much is performance?

Originating in philosophy and social theory, performativity refers to how individuals enact a role, not simply reflect it. In the context of politics today, this means public figures don’t just govern—they stage. They “show up” for an audience, craft a persona, curate visuals, and manage moments that will play well in media feeds. The result: a politics less about purposive deliberation and more about visibility, movement, crowd optics, crisis moments, and rapid-fire content.

Today’s social media-savvy politicos stage live events that are filmed, posted, reshared, and commented on. The performance becomes the evidence of power. As one columnist put it, they position themselves as “being a thorn to the powers that be.”

So why does this posturing matter now? It’s simply because we are living in a social media era where attention is the currency, and the members of Generation Z, or those born after 1995, consume politics through screens, reels, TikTok, tweets, and livestreams. The traditional gatekeepers, such as media, political parties, and community networks, are being bypassed or ignored.