“Let no man despise thy youth but be thou an example of the faithful in word, in conversation, in charity, in faith, in chastity.” – 1 Timothy 4:12
I’ve noticed a common demographic anomaly among the blogs and podcasts I follow, including my own: nobody under 30, not even the traditionally inclined, reads this stuff!
Before anyone accuses me of “whining about not reaching a younger audience” or any other superfluous discontent, I’ll mention that my site has enjoyed a modest spike in viewership recently, as have several other small-to-medium Catholic authors and producers. Let us hope traditionalists are finally jettisoning the old guard of Catholic media, saying farewell to the likes of The Remnant, OneLutherFive, or CannonFodder212.com.
Yet, none of the reputable up-and-comers, for whatever reason, can attract the attention of younger Catholics, those who have supposedly flocked to tradition in droves. We hear all the time that tradition is experiencing a youthful revival, so why don’t we find younger guests on podcasts or as blog writers? I’m one of the younger fellows producing (or consuming) what we might call “Alt Catholic” media.
Furthermore, young trad Catholics seldom involve themselves with online communities related to the SSPX Resistance, Sedevacantism, or even the milder elements of “Recognize and Resist.” The closest I can find may be this Reddit forum for Neo-SSPXers.
Which sites, channels, and other online media have I considered in the formulation of this opinion?
Dr. Deep State’s YouTube channel and Locals community, the CathInfo forums, TradCatKnight, the NonVeniPacem blogging site, and several others seem to attract a Gen X and older crowd. I base this assessment on the comment sections, the age of the content producers themselves, and whatever other demographic context clues I can piece together.
CathInfo, for instance, allows its users to create profiles, along with the option of indicating one’s age. If you scroll through frequent commenters and check the age on their profile, only once in a while will you find anyone under 40. Ann Barnhardt’s meme website also carries a Gen X slant, evident by all the jokes about rotary phones, drinking from water hoses back in the day, and so forth.
Even when people do not outright reveal their age, you can tell they’re older from the content subjects and personal anecdotes shared. Certainly, discussions about 80s music or the accolades of Pete Rose won’t invite much feedback from anyone born in the 2000s. Many blogs and forums feature topics like these as a bonus to their primary Catholic material, typically with a qualitative skew toward middle-lifers and seniors.
While it’s impossible to know the precise demographics for particular sites, one can’t help but notice the conspicuous absence of younger cohorts (especially Gen Z) from most comment sections. They’re either shy, averse to internet conversation (not likely), or patronize different Catholic online outlets (traditional or otherwise) of which we are less familiar. God help us, they may still suffer an attachment to obvious pseudo-trads, such as Taylor Marshall.
Nevertheless, young people are present within Traditional Catholicism. We see them at Holy Mass. However, I almost never encounter them involved in online discourse, as podcast guests, forum participants, etc. Let’s explore possible reasons for this. My first suspicion is that they are averse to difficult subjects like those we discuss within the various Resistance and Sedevacantist online micro-communities.
Do Young Traditionalists Avoid Tough Debates?
Do young people avoid tough issues, such as the Jewish Question, Trump Deception, psy-ops, and so forth? Do they consider themselves “TLM-only traditionalists”?
You could say they are still in their formidable years and have not amassed enough understanding to speak much, for example, on the logical inconsistencies of Nostra Aetate or the historical events preceding the modernist takeover of Rome. Yet, as many elders can attest, a limited education on controversial matters has never halted the young from voicing their views on topics beyond their grasp in the past.
The problem may have more to do with pusillanimity and sloth, I’m afraid. Apparently, it has now become “cringe to care about anything” among the youth.
While a trend toward apathy applies primarily to Gen Z at-large (rather than specifically traditionalists), I don’t know if young trads are exempt. In a nutshell, American youth has become jaded rapidly thanks to the non-stop chaos of the past six years. Jaded or not, however, I’ve still noticed younger Catholics detest conspiracy theories, almost as if some CIA agent had bludgeoned them with anti-conspiratorial propaganda.
My limited experience with Catholics, say, about 10 years younger than me, leads me to believe many remain trapped in feminism, the “blue pill,” and other deleterious side effects of modern social engineering. On a good day, I might call them “semi-trads” with one foot still in the world.
I can recall only one young woman who read my Caesar Vacantism book (or part of it), which must have struck a nerve at her latent feminist sensibilities. I believe she glanced at the table of contents and skipped right to the chapter on “holding women accountable for their abortions.” Suffice to say, she didn’t become my greatest fan after perusing it.
I also got an earful from her friend, the woman I was dating at the time (who also probably didn’t care for the book’s contents, as I recall). In fact, I don’t recall any of the women I’ve dated (all younger) appreciating very many of my “conspiracy theories.” I’m glad I stopped with that rubbish a while ago, but that’s neither here nor there.
I doubt, however, that all younger trads despise difficult, contrarian inquiry. After all, I’m told that Gen Zers have a strong distaste for anything they find “sus” or otherwise disingenuous. You would think, therefore, they would entertain at least some conspiracy theories or alternatives to mainstream media, the embodiment of disingenuity.
Next, I wish to go a different direction to consider a much more fundamental handicap preventing youngsters from participating more in Catholic intellectual online discourse.
Young Traditionalist Absenteeism: A Literacy Issue?
I’ve touched on this briefly before, but it has become clear that the emergence of so-called “artificial intelligence” has been weaponized to de-educate people worse than they already were. I often hear from teachers and professors regarding their pupils’ inability to form complete sentences. This was already a tremendous problem 20 or 25 years ago when I attended college and high school.
Do young traditionalists suffer the same reading disability as their secular or Novus Ordo counterparts? I would imagine they do not, thanks to homeschooling. However, I’m also not sure how successful traditionalist parents have been at teaching certain subjects. Many of them barely survived public/private education themselves (back in the 70s or 80s) with decent reading comprehension and writing/communication skills.
Things have been dodgy for a while.
Then again, I suppose plenty of the GenXers and Boomers who participate in online Catholic communities have instructed their children well, so literacy should not be a pervasive hurdle. Responsible parents would teach their children to read, and (we should think) eventually bring them up to speed on the grim outlook for the secular world and the trials for the few remnant faithful after reaching a suitable age.
Only the most derelict parents would allow their children to reach their 20s without at least some tutelage on the failing world and forthcoming chastisements unless they disbelieved them themselves. I presume those who comprehend conspiracies and psy-ops would find it worthwhile to warn their progeny about them.
So, to continue with that theme, do traditionalist parents encourage or discourage their children from reading literature regarding the Jewish Question, the Uniparty dialectic, the Deep State, the SSPX Resistance, or various versions of Sedevacantism?
Finally, morbid curiosity compels me to wonder . . . would it mortify any of the parents or grandmothers who read this to find their youngsters browsing around a website titled “Catholics Aren’t Zombies”?
*No wrong answers*
Researching Church/World Problems? Young Folks Too Busy
You could contend that the most obvious impediment for young people is their lack of time to devote to studying the pressing Church/world topics. Historically, one’s youth is a time for grinding harder to jumpstart careers, accumulate the economic seed crop necessary for growing families, and find spouses to begin building them. That doesn’t always leave ample time for in-depth study or reflecting on the state of the Church.
We could also say that “online Catholicing” tends to be the domain of dedicated un-married folks, retirees, widows, and widowers. So, this could summarize the reality for young traditionalists, but I still lean toward concluding that they’re too busy with transient nonsense (mindless recreating, secular music, whatever else) instead.
Could it be that young traditionalists are still preoccupied with pursuing traditional vocations (most often, finding a spouse) to be bothered with all the online Catholic chatter? This may be so, too, but it still doesn’t explain their heavy presence within the more vapid social media outlets.
Were they better at eschewing these ignoble conspiracy discussions (if that’s all they are), then why do they supplant such activity with mediocre amusements like that dreadful TikTok?
Ah, maybe Fr. Zuhlsdorf, Peter Kwasniewski, and the rest of the “just zip it” crowd got to them first and cajoled them into all that pseudo-pious silence the rest of us rightfully reject at face value. I suppose it’s possible that unlike us stalwart conspiracy theorists over 40, youngsters are quicker at conforming to the “just shut up and pray” agenda of today’s governing traditionalist class.
Young people are more impressionable, so we should wonder how well they’ve absorbed Peter K’s exhortations to cease being Ultramonatists with so many highfalutin expectations for a legitimate Catholic papacy. At any rate, I have more questions than answers, which is why I invite your comments (either via email or below).
Why Does It Matter if Young Traditionalists Participate?
This question should evoke a rather obvious answer. If the traditional movement, the counter-force to the evil Novus Ordo, Synodal, Anti-Church, is to endure, it will need to replenish its aging members. Although I think we’re approaching the final days faster than others believe, that doesn’t mean trad Catholics should cease educating the young and involving them in difficult conversations.
I don’t dismiss the potential for this agonizing spiritual war lasting several years longer. We won’t survive, much less win it, if successive generations retreat, wallow in sloth, or succumb to “social anxiety.”
Finally, let’s remember the other massive hurdles we face with the development of young traditional Catholics today. Not only do we not find them active in some of our favorite online forums and hangouts, but they also NEVER seem to find spouses any more. It’s one thing that older folks don’t encounter young Catholics, but evidence suggests they do not interact among one another much either, unless they were already married outside of Catholicism.
Somehow or another, there must be a way to account for why we only ever see them at Holy Mass (or, I should say, HEAR them giggling and carrying on loudly in the parish vestibule after Mass). Again, feel free to contribute any insights on this mysterious topic.
Conclusion
Young traditionalists are more than welcome to explore the pages of Catholics Aren’t Zombies, though I don’t pine away for a youthful readership as if it held some intrinsic importance. Moreover, I will not sugarcoat content, litter the prose with stupid disclaimers about “triggers,” or other such nonsense.
Only the literate and thick-skinned will enjoy these analyses of topics like the Jewish Question, Vatican II, inferior cultures, killing chickens, rampant societal mind control, etc. Since most articles are at least 2,000 words, I cannot offer much for the Tik-Tokked Gen-Zer struggling with A-DH_HD-DH (or whatever they call those who refuse to pay attention).
Despite all that, I always end on a positive note. Let us pray for young Catholics, with whom I empathize because of the immense confusion thrust upon them. Would any of us wish to be 20-years-old again in a paganized environment where forming families requires a miracle and every nation teeters on the precipice of economic collapse?
Pray the Rosary every day, preferably all 15 decades, and include the petition that young Catholics will receive guidance from the Holy Ghost in their navigation through a nightmarish social, political, religious, and cultural hellscape.
Catholics Aren't Zombies! 