Lorde's 'Man Of The Year' TikTok trend and why Gen Z copes with humor
Lorde's 'Man Of The Year' TikTok trend and why Gen Z copes with humor
Lorde's 'Man Of The Year,' a song about gender identity, is trending on TikTok for an unexpected reason: Gen Z creators are posting videos sharing their negative experiences with their ex-boyfriends over the track.
Thousands of videos listed under the song ironically make fun of something a man did wrong over the song from Lorde's upcoming album, 'Virgin.'
'Got me pregnant at freshly 20 yrs old. Promised me everything. Left me a month after finding out. Blocked me and everyone I know on everything. Got with a new girl. And still doesn't care how it all affects me or his baby,' one user wrote over a viral June 7 video posted to the song.
More than 63,000 posts are listed under the hashtag #manoftheyear. Many feature photo sliders of screenshotted text messages from relationships gone wrong. Creators shared videos about pregnancy horror stories, infidelity and threats of domestic violence, opening up a conversation about how young people use humor as a coping mechanism to talk about traumatic events.
The trend's popularity eventually led Lorde herself to respond. 'These messages...' she captioned a June 11 TikTok video of her eyes widening in reference to the trend.
Is Gen Z sad? Study shows they're more open about struggles with mental health
Gen Z is more open about mental health than past generations
When asked to describe their current mental health or well-being, just 15% of members of Gen Z polled said it was excellent in a 2023 study by Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation. Gen Zers report having experienced negative emotions such as stress, anxiety and loneliness, the study said, and 47% of those polled said they are thriving in their lives right now – a figure among the lowest across all generations in the U.S. today.
That's a big decline compared to a decade ago, when 52% of millennials in that same age range said their mental health was excellent, the study noted. And in 2004, 55% of people aged 18 to 26, including both millennials and Gen X respondents, reported excellent mental health.
Ryan Jenkins, a bestselling author who has written extensively on Gen Z and millennials, previously told USA TODAY that social media for better or worse has given Gen Z "a platform for their voices from day one to be heard and outspoken." He says technology has in many ways given Gen Z "an overstimulation" that no other generation has had to deal with.
Gen Z uses humor to cope
The trend provides insight into how young people use social media and humor to cope with relationship trauma. Creators used the trend to share their experiences with racism, unwanted attention or aggressive voicemails and inappropriate responses from men regarding family deaths.
'Get over yourself. I never loved you. Never have, never will,' one screenshot of texts from the trend read. Another featured a man yelling at his girlfriend of three years regarding her recent miscarriage.
Variants of the trend also touched on body shaming. One woman shared, 'I was sleeping at my boyfriend's house and it got hot so I took my clothes off and he told me to put them back on cus my body is gross.'
In a May 15 Rolling Stone cover story interview, Lorde opened up how recovering from an eating disorder, healing from a break up and reflecting on her gender identity inspired the song. Users were quick to point out the paradox of straight women using a song about gender fluidity to talk about their ex boyfriends.
'I'm so sick and tired of the man of the year trend where straight women dunk on their ex cishet bfs when the song is literally about being nonbinary/gnc and it's directed to the self,' one user posted on TikTok. 'Sometimes a song is not about you!' But songs have all kinds of meanings for people, and evidently this struck a chord.
Platforms like YouTube and TikTok have changed the way young people talk about their mental health. And whereas the cultural norm on Instagram is a more polished aesthetic, TikTok's trend-driven community feels more informal and prioritizes user engagement, creating a fertile environment for personal moments to go viral. When the comment sections on users' videos are filled with support, it builds a sense of solidarity and peer connection.
Humor is an extremely useful and common coping strategy that can help some process such a heavy and traumatic event, according to Marni Amsellem, a licensed psychologist. For others, it can lighten the emotional severity of the trauma as well.
According to Jean Twenge, author of "iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood," Gen Z is more pessimistic than millennials, which might explain their inclination toward dark humor, a "type of humor you have when you're feeling negative emotions."
For Gen Z, it's another example of using online spaces to widen the conversation about mental health. And mental health experts agree that's a good thing.
Terry Collins and Jenna Ryu contributed to this report.
Rachel Hale's role covering Youth Mental Health at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal Ventures and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input. Reach her at rhale@usatoday.com and @rachelleighhale on X.
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