Shedeur Sanders, Benson Boone, and Misinformation

Teens are talking about Shedeur Sanders’ dramatic draft slide, Benson Boone is the internet’s least favorite good guy, and Gen Z could be the most gullible generation—depending on what you choose to believe. To hear [podcast teaser], check out our Roundtable podcast, available now! But first:

Song of the Week – “Ordinary” – Alex Warren

TikTok-influencer-turned-musician Alex Warren has been slowly creeping up streaming charts with his song “Ordinary.” It’s a pop-rock love song infused with religious language; Warren describes praying at his partner’s altar, referring to her as the sculptor and himself as the clay. While this is hardly the first time a song has used religious language for romance (looking at you Madonna), it’s definitely an opportunity to discuss the ways we think about romantic love, the euphoria it can inspire, and where we place it and Jesus in the hierarchies of our lives. If you want to read the lyrics, they’re right here.

And now for our three conversations…

1. Shedeur’s Slide

What it is: Despite being projected as a late first-round/early second-round pick, Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders very publicly slid all the way into the fifth round in the NFL draft.

Why the drama captivated the sports world: The question on everyone’s mind is, “Why did NFL teams value Sanders so much less than the talking heads on ESPN and, generally, the rest of the sports world?” Theories abound: Maybe Sanders wasn’t as good as people thought. Maybe NFL teams saw him as too confident and too much of a risk. Maybe the league was punishing him for opting-out of the on-field drills at the combine. Sports analyst Emmanuel Acho even went as far as claiming it was because Sanders didn’t “code switch.” Whatever the reason, the confident 23-year-old is left with a chip on his shoulder and a chance to prove the world wrong.

Continue the conversation: What do you do when you feel rejected?

2. Boone Backlash

What it is: Last year, breakout star Benson Boone had one of the most streamed songs in the world and opened for Taylor Swift. Now, some people proudly say they don’t like him—and don’t even care to figure out why.

Why Gen Z can’t stand to have their nice guys finish first: The twenty-two year old from Washington state has displayed a decidedly wholesome persona in his music and on stage—which has caused quite a few young people to write him off as a shallow, boring try-hard. Boone dresses like Elton John and can belt like Freddie Mercury, but hasn’t embraced the hedonism of these musical influences. In fact, pretty much nothing about Boone is controversial—which for some, makes liking his music controversial. To enjoy his music is to imply absolutely nothing about yourself, personally—and Gen Z finds that annoying. As Spencer Kornhaber writes in The Atlantic, “In these times of national confusion about masculinity, no happy-go-lucky dude with a mullet and a nice voice can exist for long without controversy.”

Continue the conversation: Is it looked down upon to be “wholesome”? Why or why not?

3. Hard to Believe

What it is: According to Politico, being a digital native doesn’t make someone information-savvy—and Gen Z is the generation most likely to be duped by unverified information online.

Why there’s more to it: We know that teenagers, young adults, and their parents are all susceptible to being misled by wild claims shared online. (That’s why we teamed up with The Pour Over last year to make a Media Literacy Kit.) Politico gives some extreme examples of Gen Z’s credulity, including a TikTok trend from several years ago that insisted Helen Keller had faked her disabilities. The article points out that young people just don’t trust institutional sources of information, which could be part of why they sometimes don’t bother to verify facts by looking them up. But this cynicism about traditional media isn’t limited to just young people—and maybe, that isn’t entirely a bad thing.

Let’s translate this one further…

Early in my career, I had the privilege of being mentored by a hard-nosed journalist who had seen some things. His name was Marty Steadman, and in the 1960s, he covered everything from the JFK assassination to the Newark race riots for the storied New York Herald Tribune.

Unlike so many members of Gen Z, who see it all through a screen and grow cynical, Marty had seen it all up close—the heartwrenching, the tragic, the surprising, the sublime—and he never grew cynical. He even kept a file on his desktop called “A Few Good Conspiracy Theories,” where he meticulously listed facts and observations about controversial figures and events spanning his career as a Pulitzer-nominated reporter. He retained a healthy degree of skepticism—and yet, after seeing so much, he was all the more willing to consider just about anything.

In one of my favorite quotes by C.S. Lewis, he writes, “[Christianity] is a religion you could not have guessed. If it offered just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up. But, in fact, it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up. It has just that queer twist about it that real things have.” In other words, Christianity is the kind of thing you have to see to believe—it rewards investigation, and curiosity.

Curiosity can deepen our faith like few other things can, because it implies that God is someone we can know, and learn more about—someone who has left powerful evidence throughout human history of His deep care for us. And once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it. It is pattern recognition of the Highest kind—the hand of God writing on every wall.

At a time when institutions have lost much of their credibility, we are witnessing a not-so-covert smear campaign on genuine curiosity. But instead of giving into cynicism, and/or the idea that the truth is ultimately unknowable, we can reassure our kids that it’s okay to keep asking questions—as long as we look for a source, or to the Source, before accepting the answers. Some of those questions might belong in a long-lost file on a coworker’s desktop, and some belong in a whispered prayer only God will hear—but in any case, it’s never wrong to wonder.

For more context and nuance, check out our Roundtable podcast on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. In the meantime, here are three questions to spark conversation with your teens:

Parenting together,

Kate Watson and the Axis Team

PS: Know someone who could use our conversation starters with their teens? Share the CT with a friend!