- Gen Z is apparently digging up Donald Trump’s embarrassing “Grab ’em” comments that came to light in 2016.
- This can make you feel absolutely ancient – but resist the urge to dive in.
- We should be happy that young people have TikTok to help them learn about … history.
Want to feel old? Some members of Gen Z are apparently only now discovering Donald Trump’s infamous “Grab em …” comments that came during a heated mic moment.
The clip, which became an issue in the 2016 election, has resurfaced on TikTok, where some teens and 20-somethings are now hearing it for the first time, The Washington Post reports.
Older readers, prepare to crumble into dust:
“I don’t think any of my friends had heard it,” said Kate Sullivan, a 21-year-old student in Ohio, who first heard the tape on her TikTok For You feed this week. “We were all equally shocked.”
The recording, which was caught on tape in 2005, came to light in 2016. It was taken while Trump was having an off-camera conversation with “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush.
Keep in mind that the Gen Z’s now hearing the recording for the first time would have been children in 2016. An 18-year-old voting for the first time next week would have been in the fourth or fifth grade when Trump was first elected. You can imagine why they might have been put off by the harsh language of the actual clip when it first broke.
This week, I saw a tweet that went viral from someone who was surprised to learn how the results from the 2000 presidential race dragged on for so long and were so contested. This was big news at the time, but of course, another much bigger event happened in 2001 that changed the political agenda for the next decade, sending the 2000s and its umbrellas down the memory hole.
In the recent furore surrounding The Washington Post’s decision not to issue a presidential endorsement, I read the editorial board’s 1988 decision to endorse neither candidate. I was in second grade, and my awareness of the political landscape was largely through imitating Bush Sr. of Dana Carvey. In the 1988 work, I was struck by the depiction of these really essential, complicated policy arguments about taxation and foreign policy that have faded from modern relevance.
As older millennials like myself enter their 40s, moments like this are happening all the time: memories that in now it’s the weird old mists now. We are no longer the youth leading the mainstream culture and the moments and events that felt so important to us are now long forgotten or, even worse, vibration. (Please, let’s agree to never tell Gen Z about the “left shark”.)
I know the knee instinct is to think how this makes us feel old (we are self-obsessed millennials after all) and scoff at these ignoramuses the young people who do not know their very recent history.
But leave that aside. We should be satisfied that kids these days have the technological access and the means to learn about these things. The fact that many young people are learning about the 2016 election is a good thing — even if they’re only getting it because Billie Eilish reposted the clip on TikTok. Excellent! I want more! I want young people to know all about this – an informed electorate is ideal and who cares if that information comes in the form of a TikTok?
We should feel happy that Gen Z is informed and grateful for the penetration of news events and cultural moments that make it into the collective national memory. Don’t let this make you feel old; let it make you wiser.