Since last week’s midterm elections, an unusually cheerful style of video has been circulating in left-leaning pockets on social media.
The videos layer pop music from the 2010s over golden-hour photos of Democratic Senators-elect James Talarico of Texas and Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan. They flash through snapshots of clear blue skies, peace signs drawn in chalk and buttons with phrases like “come at me with compassion bro.”
The posts are being used to sum up the mood of the Gen-Z voters who helped power Democratic candidates to victory in races around the country. And a new term has emerged online to describe the ensuing celebrations: “WhimZ,” or a sense of optimism among young people who are cautiously embracing the idea that things might get better.
WhimZ is upbeat and self-consciously twee — a marked shift from the nihilism described by many young people who are struggling to find jobs or afford housing.
“This is my first time having hope in a long time regarding our government,” said Olivia Knitter, a 23-year-old office manager in Austin, Texas.
Knitter said she voted for Talarico in part because she appreciated his message about treating one’s neighbors with respect. She is celebrating his win, even though she thinks it is “millennial-coded” to earnestly believe that her life will change significantly as a result of her choices at the ballot box. “We’re kind of learning from the people above us,” she said, adding: “To be cringe is to be free.”
For Gen Z (the oldest of whom are around 29 years old), a generation known for its acerbic sense of humor and dissatisfaction with the status quo, the term offers a modern spin on “millennial optimism,” a label used to describe the sense of hope-and-change sincerity that many people felt after the election of Barack Obama in 2008. (Millennials are about 30 to 45 years old.)
While today’s young people may be viewing politics with a newfound earnestness, many are also wary about what comes after the victory lap.
Tatiana Louisius, a 22-year-old college student in New York City, said she was “ecstatic” to see the results of the midterms, especially the election of Keisha Lance Bottoms in Georgia, who will be the nation’s first Black female governor. But much more effort will be necessary to ensure that the promises that Democratic candidates have run on — cheaper housing, affordable groceries — actually come to fruition, Louisius said.
“There’s so many videos saying: ‘This is not the end. We actually have to put in more work,’” said Louisius, who voted for the first time this year. She is reading up on the potential candidates for House speaker and making plans to call her representatives.
Casey Lewis, 39, who writes the youth culture newsletter After School, said she considered WhimZ to be a touch more skeptical than what had come before it. “Millennials grew up being told we could do anything that we put our minds to,” she said. “And I just think with Covid and politics and the economy, Gen Z has never really felt that that was true.”
Even in the short span of their political engagement, many young people have already been disappointed, Lewis added. “Some Gen Z-ers thought that electing Trump would be the ticket to some of this optimism,” she said.
In 2024, Gen Z men who were feeling socially and economically left behind gravitated toward President Trump, who positioned himself as a champion of traditional gender roles. Those voters have since swung to the left, according to preliminary results from Times Voter Trends. Since 2024, men ages 18 to 29 shifted toward Democratic candidates in the House by nearly 40 percentage points.
After Republicans received a walloping in the midterm elections, Brilyn Hollyhand, a 20-year-old conservative commentator, said that the party failed to put up energetic candidates who got Gen Z excited. They also made a less successful argument about affordability issues than Democrats did.
“Gen Z lost their trust in who they thought was a populist president this cycle,” he said. “I certainly hope that instead of pessimism, instead of boycotting, we take this opportunity to rebrand the party to what it needs to be to have any shot in 2028.”
Americans’ optimism about the future has declined in recent years. The percentage of people who anticipated having high-quality lives in the next five years dropped to 59.2 percent in 2025, according to a Gallup survey, the lowest level since polling began in 2008.
The Democratic candidates elected this year are not all in alignment about potential solutions. They represent a wide swath of beliefs, encompassing left-wing candidates, like El-Sayed, and more moderate ones, including Rob Sand, the Iowa governor-elect who pitched himself as an alternative to partisan politics.
Though social media lately has been filled with nostalgia for the 2010s — with Millennials and Gen Z-ers posting montages of mustache finger tattoos, pixie hair cuts and stomp-clap pop songs — some people who lived through the era are not looking through rose-colored Ray Bans. Liz Plank, 39, a journalist and an author, recently posted a video on TikTok that pushed back on some of the idealism.
In it, she poked fun at some fanciful notions — like short-term rentals improving access to housing, or the novelty of a new dating app (“This one’s with swiping!”) — and also recalled fondly being able to focus on a TED Talk for 18 consecutive minutes.
“Were we delusionally hopeful in thinking that a female C.E.O. of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, would change feminism forever? Yes,” Plank said in an interview. “Did we think that the first Black president would change America, and we would live in a post-racism world? Probably.”
Still, Plank, who lived in Brooklyn and worked in news media around 2014 — optimism’s nerve center — said that she had never regretted feeling optimistic about the future.
“You’re young,” Plank said. “You’re supposed to think you can change the world.”
And much of that optimism was imbued in the fashion of the time: whimsical collars, oversize belts and patterned scarves. Cultural icons like Zooey Deschanel, the upbeat star of “New Girl” who played folk guitar while wearing bright patterned dresses, represented a kind of unbridled positivity.
For Maria Davis, 38, who recently posted some outfits of that era, there was a feeling in the late aughts as though life could only get better.
“It’s hard to tell what of it was that time period, and what of it was just growing up,” said Davis, a middle school librarian and teacher.
As she was becoming an adult, she said, “it seemed like the arc of history was bending toward justice,” adding, “I trust that it will continue to do so, but it’s hard.”
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