Cancelled: TradCult v RadFem: Gender, Gen Z, and the New Techno-Misogyny

In 2025, large-scale campaigns against women and trans people are backed by owners of major platforms and amplified by politicians and other online influencers. At the same time, a new generation grapples with gendered jokes and tropes of "tradfem" versus "femcel" in a networked rhetorical battleground of irony and alienation. While the gender struggles of yesterday may repeat, accelerated online surveillance and harassment create novel threats to freedom and safety. Between generations, what can we learn from each other? And how can we build alternatives in a time when the meme wars have real-world consequences? At the Critical Internet Studies Institute (CISI), we take a "whole of society" approach to combating hate and disinformation, instead fostering timely, accurate, and local knowledge (TALK) networks that stand independent of big tech. This lightning talk will encourage intergenerational solidarity and highlight promising online (and offline) approaches to sustaining the freedom, safety, and joy of our own vulnerable groups.