Every year at Seventeen, we honor the teens and young adults that are working today to save tomorrow with Voices of the Year.
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Meaning together, Gen Z played a huge part in electing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the next president and vice president of the United States.Īnd that’s just the beginning: Gen Z is already proving that there’s no age limit when it comes to enacting change. According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University, youth voter turnout increased by about 8% since 2016. Meanwhile, those of you who were eligible to vote traveled to the polls unlike any generation before. And last month, if you were too young to vote in the presidential election, you spread the word, phone-banked, and helped friends register. In May, following the senseless killings of George Floydand Breonna Taylor, you flooded the streets, leading the charge to demand change. When the coronavirus hit in March, you jumped online to start small businesses from scratch and raise awareness for issues on TikTok. Despite all of that, young people have proven once again to be incredibly resilient. You went from being surrounded by friends to being stuck in a house, forced to stare at a screen for hours a day, attempting to ingest the knowledge you are expected to learn. You missed proms, graduations, college orientations, and more. You left school one day and didn't return for months, if ever.
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This year has tested the whole world, but possibly Gen Z most of all.