Andrew Tate is over: the surprising result of quizzing teens about the gen Z crisis

A year of talking to 16-year-olds across the country has led Peter Hyman and Shuab Gamote to rethink preconceptions about what makes the 'lost generation' tick

- Peter Hyman and Shuab Gamote

Corrupted by Andrew Tate. Addicted to porn. Endlessly scrolling their lives away online... We are told on a daily basis that Gen Z are the lost generation.

But is any of it true? To find out, we travelled the length and breadth of the country over the course of a year - from Uxbridge to Wigan, Birmingham to Sunderland - listening carefully to more than 700 16-year-olds. After all, they're going to get the vote soon and few people have bothered to understand what they are thinking.

We come from different backgrounds: a mid-50s, white ex-headteacher and former political strategist from London, and a mid-20s, black researcher and writer from Manchester.

Through our conversations with young people, we found a different story. Not a lost generation but one forced to grow up faster - navigating crisis and contradiction with remarkable resilience.

They are testing values, building communities and seeking meaning in places adults rarely look. The real challenge for society lies not just in their online worlds but in how little we have invested in their offline lives.

When we began our research, one name dominated the conversation about 16-year-olds: Andrew Tate.

The influencer was treated as the answer to every question about young men and social media. How do we explain the rise in misogyny? Tate. Why are teenage boys disillusioned? Tate. What's behind the anti-feminist backlash? Tate. Andrew Tate, so the argument went, was a one-man radicalisation machine.

But when we started talking to young people, we soon realised something important. Andrew Tate is dead.

Not literally, of course. But in the way young people use the term - meaning irrelevant, finished, past it. He was mentioned during our conversations, but not with the same weight that the media gives him.

He is "just a meme now", said some. Many others rolled their eyes, describing him as someone who still pops up online but doesn't matter any more.