[00:00:00] Hello, and thanks for joining us. My name is Richard Gerver. I've worked in education, human development, and leadership. For every time I say this, it makes me choke up the last four decades. In this podcast series, I'm chatting to a diverse range of people from a number of different fields from business, sport, the arts, education, and philanthropy.

Richard Gerver: To explore what our young people and organizations really need in order to thrive, not just survive in times of increasing change and uncertainty. Welcome to the Learning Bridge. Now, today, I. I'm incredibly fortunate today. I've been chasing my guest today for what seems like forever, and we finally managed to coordinate diaries to get [00:01:00] together.

I'm gonna be talking to an extraordinary person, Chloe Combi. Chloe is one of the world's leading experts on young people on their culture, on the way they see the world on the future. And I don't think there has ever been. A more pertinent or important time to be discussing these issues, which of course have been recently even more highlighted in the headlines.

Thanks to a drama. I'm sure many of you will have seen worldwide, Adolescence, which has really hit the zeitgeist. On Netflix. And so now is a time to have a conversation with a world expert, not just about the drama of it, the downside of it, the darkness of it, but hopefully the constructive nature of what we can all do to support our young people in what is undoubtedly [00:02:00] incredibly complex times.

So, Chloe, thank you so much for joining us today.

Chloe Combi: It's a pleasure. It's nice to see you finally.

Richard Gerver: Yeah, I know. So look, I do this on every episode. I don't tend to read out the email that I get sent on impressive buyers and yours is extraordinary. And we'll dig into your journey I think a little bit as we go through.

But can you tell our listeners a little bit about you? And your work, and I suppose specifically how you came to do what it is you do now, because I know your journey's been a really interesting one.

Chloe Combi: Yeah. So I kind of, I graduated Oxford with an English degree and was, and it was that kind of post economic crash and lots of kind of industries were imploding or felt quite shaky.

And there was a sort of a strong background of education in my family. And I've always really enjoyed working with young people. So I started teaching. In the state sector. And what I quite quickly realized was that I'm not very good [00:03:00] with bureaucracy, which te teaching is absolutely kind of, tangled with.

But I was incredibly interested in young people and their lives. And this kind of coincided with, really kind of a revolution in everybody's lives, which was the introduction of the smartphone. It was round about that kind of 2011, 2012 period when everybody, including teenagers were the first generation essentially to get a smartphone at such a young age.

So I started writing quite a lot for the British press exploratory pieces, particularly about young people in technology and was way, way early on figuring out. You know, by researching and talking to young people that things like pornography and social media bullying and the way it was kind of transforming how young people socialized and communicated and actually how it was having quite a toxic effect already.

So it was quite crystal ball stuff because it's really interesting when you read those early pieces. Those same themes get repeated again and again. And [00:04:00] indeed in adolescence today, I was talking about in 2012 about how pornography was gonna kind of drive a huge amount of kind of misogyny and distort the way young people saw each other, particularly on a kind of sexual or personal level.

So those pieces went kind of nuclear and actually were syndicated in various countries, including America. So then in 2015 I wrote the first book on gen Generation Z called Generation Z. Their Voices Their Lives, which was the products of 3000 interviews, but then Gen Z and there was some really, I think it was quite a revealing book in many ways, not least.

'cause at that point, people ge barely knew what Gen Z. Were now, it's a total buzzword that everybody understands, but when the book came out, I was like, what the hell is Gen Z? You know, everyone was still talking about millennials and we were kind of already grownups by then. So then that, that did well, very well, and.

It kind of expanded from there and I got much more kind of serious about the research and started doing it in a very kind of sort of structured [00:05:00] and coordinated way, really focusing on both kind of qualitative and quantitative stuff and going much more global. And sort of from there it kind of expanded out into more books and media, a really successful podcast called You Don't Know Me, which is all about the li like lots of teenagers talking about their lives.

I worked with it became really interesting the research for both industry across industries. Everything from like the beauty to entertainment to financial industries to governments who were obviously becoming increasingly invested with thinking and understanding the young vote. I did a, I worked on an American presidential campaign in 2020, not the Trump one.

And on the other side, and I. Kind of, it takes us up to here where it bookends it kind of 10 years later that I'm writing the first book on Generation A and have sort of started a thing called The Respect Project, which is work in schools. And I think what distinguishes my work, because there is a lot of, I think so-called generational experts, is I spent a lot of time [00:06:00] in schools and working with young people.

So it's kind of on the front line of that, and I think that's why it makes it very in demand. Across a variety of sectors because I genuinely believe that. I think it's the only possible realistic crystal ball we have into the future. And when you do talk to an awful lot of young people, I mean, I think at this point I've probably interviewed 20 or 30,000 people, young people like both Gen A and Gen Z.

You really get a good window into where we are going. And if you want a really good insight into everything from like social media to technology, to sex, to social habits, and kind of everything in between. It really does give you a good insight. So it's quite valuable to, I think, lots of people.

Richard Gerver: Brilliant. Thank you so much. When I just wanna take you back if I can to you know, there you are a millennial and then Gen Z, gen A, which we'll come on to. I want to take you back to your own experiences as a young person in school yourself. What were the [00:07:00] biggest influences and blockers for you during your school career?

Because it strikes me, Chloe, that you've lived quite, quite an eclectic life in the and I'd love to know because so many people are ill prepared for that kind of existence. But it seems to me that it's something you embraced from an early age. And I'm always fascinated when I talk to my guests.

What is it you think in your own life that gave you the confidence, courage, whatever it is, to embrace that kind of that that, that journey, that meanders in ways that wouldn't necessarily be predictable.

Chloe Combi: Well that's actually a really sort of, I think quite an insightful question because, it was a really interesting combination of a fairly sort of standard middle class ish. You know, I grew up in northwest London, similar to you in Harrow, which is in a particular kind of fairly unexciting suburban place that's distinguished only by a kind of a boarding school really, that I think had Winston Churchill go there.

But no one it's not making any particular headlines. But I actually had quite an interest in quite [00:08:00] Bohemian upbringing because my dad Graham Combi. Owns owns a record company. And it's not like a a sort of Columbia or Geffen Star one. It was kind of started as a punk label that he started before we were born in like, the early eighties.

And and kind of, it expanded throughout the sort of nineties and was really kind of expanded into sort of independent music. And he had like quite a lot of in that kind of wave of bands in the nineties when that kind of sit back type of music got really big. So we had.

This quite kind of eclectic and bohemian and arty upbringing in that we as kids, we went to like loads of gigs and we went to loads of festivals and we were introduced to a really unusual range of people and we often had like these kind of really arty band types come round. And actually my mom was a teacher, but she, my parents were kind of fairly from that sort of seventies isle of white Woodstock generation.

So they were very much from that, quite sort of my dad is a bit of a feminist. My my mom w you know, [00:09:00] was came from quite a sort of staunch boarding school background and kind of rebelled against that. And there was that, that, so they were the real products of that kind of post hippie generation.

And I think it kind of, for me, I. Instilled in me a real curiosity about the world because I was there, there was a real kind of juxtaposition of people because on one hand there was obviously sort of industry people and people who probably came from kind of enormous wealth and those kind of things.

And then equally we knew some really kind of unusual and artistic and bohemian types. And I think. What that instilled in me were two things. I think it was a curiosity about the world, which obviously is essential to the work that I do. But I think the other thing that it really instilled in me was a complete nonjudgmentalness.

Which I think has made me really good at the work I do because I think that I quite an easy person to talk to and open up to, which actually is a really essential quality for. Talking to [00:10:00] young people in particular, many of whom can be vulnerable or sensitive or like a tricky time in their lives.

'cause teen years are tricky, inherently. And we, and I mean, I remember looking back to when we were small children ourselves, and this was pre. Much more kind of inclusive times. And my parents had in, even in those as when we were kids, like gay friends and trans friends and friends of all kinds of ethnicities.

And we went to these kind of world festivals and stuff like that. So I never and I think it's, I think it's dishonest for anyone to sort of say I'm totally open-minded because that always sounds a bit naff. But I do think that broadness of perspective and that kind of richness growing up instilled in me.

That, that kind of, I, I guess that wonderlust and curiosity about other people.

Richard Gerver: And then, I mean, you be, you became a teacher for a while. And you taught in the English state system. What did, what surprised you about the job compared to how you thought it would be? Was there anything that really shocked [00:11:00] you, surprised you positively?

What was your impression during that time? And

Chloe Combi: I think this will probably speak to a lot of teachers. What I found with the students were fantastic. And lots of the colleagues were great. But I think teach, I think teaching and teachers are sometimes their own worst enemy. And I think that there is an awful lot of kind of infighting and and sometimes quite.

Corrosive kind of behavior and non-supportive behavior, which is always quite surprising for an inherently sort of caring profession. And I think the weightiness of the bureaucracy, and I remember thinking, and I'm sure this speaks to lots of people who work in education, that we'd had something like a run of seven meetings, which were all about Ted and hadn't once mentioned the kids.

So when a profession becomes more about standards. Then and ticking kind of government boxes than actually taking care to sort of educate the kids and really thinking about how you can do that in a productive manner. [00:12:00] And I also think that teaching. Has become a profession that's not about teaching.

I mean, for example if you think about English, it's now in, in many ways, or in many cases, become a failure or a criticism of you and teach the entire book. Or you spend a lesson focusing on a book. And that's bonkers. That's utterly bonkers. I mean, obviously you need to sort of teach like the basics, but this idea of making.

Learning Joyless has really, I think, haunted particularly the English education system and it's become this kind of box ticking exercise. And you watch kids bright kids, middle average kids, middle kids just kind of get ground down by these really quite depressing educational standards when learning poetry or literature.

And the wonder of those things, and it is certainly true of any other subject is, has kind of been robbed from kids. So [00:13:00] I think it's sort of, it's such a great profession that's kind of on a path to self-destruction in both terms of the kind of the nature of the teaching, but quite often people within the profession.

And I think that's hugely. Reflected in the fact that when you look at other education systems like Scandinavia and Finland.

Much more thought that goes into kind of the individual student and the very kind of nature of learning. And also got, I think, the wellbeing of students. I think that they produce much more sort of successful education systems. So I think for me. That was why it was incredibly problematic actually sort of remaining in teaching and I always knew that I wanted to continue to work with young people and.

To see where they were going and kind of go on that journey. But I sort of made the decision, and rightly or wrongly, but I think it was the right decision that I could actually have more of a positive effect working [00:14:00] outside the system. And that's come to pass for sure, from like the books to the Respect Project, to all the work that I do in schools to the staff I do.

You know, I often think that some, sometimes my work is a bit like being the David Attenborough of teenagers because you get to kind of, you get the privilege of observing their worlds and somewhat being let into those worlds. You're never a, a kind of. Part of those, because by the very nature of whenever I hear adults say, oh I'm down with the kids, that's always the thing that makes me shudder, because as soon as you're not a teenager, you cease to really, really ever be part of that kind of world in existence.

But I feel like I, I've made more of a, kind of a positive impact than I could have from within the system, and I'm glad I made that choice.

Richard Gerver: I think that's really interesting. And one of the questions, I just wanna go back a bit actually to what you were saying about the, if you like, the strangulation of youth in formal education the, and.

Do you think, and we'll talk a lot more about young people [00:15:00] themselves in a little while, and some of the complexities that they faced in the last couple of decades, in particular with the advent of technology, smartphones, and all of that kind of thing. I. Do you think there's a perfect storm here in that?

Do you think that just at the point, teenagers and young people needed a humanity in education, the humanity was beginning to be squeezed away from it.

Chloe Combi: Yeah. Yes, I do. And for the simple reason that I also have been enormously privileged to, to work in a lot of private schools and indeed sort of boarding school environments.

And I think because of the I. Generally speaking, the much higher level of kind of funding that they have. One of the things I've known it's a real sort of cliche that kind of private school or boarding school, like still maintain this quite kind of Victorian and sort of really draconian standards, which was certainly true a hundred years ago, but isn't remotely true for the most part.

Now that there, there's much more [00:16:00] kind of, 'cause there's much more in investment and time into, to each child and you, what you see. In those environments, and certainly some state schools absolutely nail this. I think when they've got kind of generous management and when they've got more funding is they can be much more thoughtful about the individual.

And because when you think about the enormous complexity of humanity, I. How different we all are. The very notion that a one size fits all education system is ludicrous, is absolutely ludicrous. And to be perfectly honest, it is failing a lot of kids. There is a lot of kids, for example, who.

Absolutely need to know the basics of like numeracy and literacy. And that's that's a non-negotiable. But again, you look to other countries to facilitate a kid who's a fantastic artist or is great at fixing cars or is brilliant at doing hair or is you know, all the many kind of things that you don't necessarily need to know.

The periodic table for. And [00:17:00] I completely agree with that kind of the, particularly within our system, the humanity has been kind of extracted from it, and it has become this very box ticking exercise whereby, and I think and many brilliant teachers are kind of pushed into these standards that do feel really dehumanized.

And then when you add to that. Education system, the complete dominance now of technology. Whereby, I mean, the average teenager now spends about seven a minimum, like an average. This is just an average of seven and a half hours a day on screens. It's roughly a quarter of their lives. And the extraordinary sort of crunching of that.

Is the mean age. A child gets a telephone a, a smartphone now in the UK is just before their 11th birthday. So it's roughly about sort of 10.8, 10.9. And if that hypothetical child, which is most children now gets the phone for their 11th birthday and maintains the average [00:18:00] screen time of a teenager or 20 something or 30 something or 40 something and so on and dies.

About 80, 81, 82, which have relatively affluent person tends to do in Western countries now. They've been on that phone for 23 years. By the time they die. So the dehumanization is kind of everywhere. And so when I am asked, which I'm asked all the time why kids are unhappy, why they're sad, why we're in the midst of this kind of mental health crisis, it's the easier answer is how could they not be?

And actually really thinking about how we absolutely bring that kind of humanity back to education and their everyday lives.

Richard Gerver: What do young people themselves say to you, Chloe, about the positives and the negatives of their school experience, of their formal education experience?

What are they saying to you about how that impacts on their lives? Both positively and negatively?

Chloe Combi: I think for this generation, for sort of gen [00:19:00] generation A and the younger Gen Z school, generally speaking. Not in for all of them, but generally speaking it's, they're kinder places. There is much more of a, kind of an awareness of things like you know, mental health and wellbeing.

And there's much more of an empathy about that. And I think that's particularly true. You know, like sort of teenage boys 10 or 15 years ago never would've mentioned their mental health or observed it in their peers and their friends. And obviously that's now kind of a really centralized thing.

And I think the inclusivity is much better now. So if you're a gay kid in a school, your experience likely to be exponentially better than it was like 10 or 15 years ago. Kids are much more inclusive and kinder and things like certainly not perfect, but things like kind of racist bullying and LGBT bullying have certainly declined.

I think the. One of the things that's not declining is misogynistic. Bullying as you know, I think has been central to this discussion. And I think that's [00:20:00] actually not really the force of kids. I think that's hugely being fueled by algorithms and lives lived online. And, but I think for lots of kids similar to my observation, that school can often be stifling and not really, sort of allowing for all the kind of different talents and kind of personalities and learning styles. And I think the second thing that is the biggest conversation that's particularly come out in the last sort of two or three years with kids is this kind of entrepreneurial buzz. Because obviously when you ask.

Now a classroom of nine, 10 year nine year 10 and elevens what you want to be the most dominant response will be, I wanna be an entrepreneur. And whether that's a crypto entrepreneur or social media or entrepreneur, they're not necessarily always clear or no, but that has their pin ups for particularly for Jen a are much more likely to be Stephen Bartlet and Elon Musk than they are to be like footballers or the actors, what have you of old, and I think that there's a hyperawareness [00:21:00] or it, I think it's not so much an awareness, but an anxiety that school sometimes isn't preparing for that future. Now, I would actually argue that the. The focus are kind of on there. There is this kind of, I think this message that's coming from lots of people that they follow or like school doesn't teach you anything of value, and I would argue that nobody's ever known where we are going.

So actually being taught. To be a great thinker and a great communicator and a great problem solver. Those are the things that we should be focusing on actually much more than thinking about making every kid a coder. 'cause that's absolute nonsense. And actually when you talk to employers, loads of them are sort of saying we are maxed out in coders and sort of tech type people and we need kind of linguists and problem solvers and psychologists.

And team players and all those things. And I think those things were as important as the things that were often pushed by kind of Elon Musk types. And that's kind of a miscommunication. What I [00:22:00] think is that we need to start thinking, and lots of schools do this, but we also need to really start thinking about the substance of people.

Because when you talk to top employers. Because of AI and 'cause of Chap GPT and because of the way the kind of exam results are, lots of them are increasingly getting really interested in the substance of a person. Not just did they go to a fancy university? Did they get top grades? Did they have the specific set skills?

But what have they done in their life? What have they? Given back to the world, what are their kind of views and goals and in a substantial way, not that they popped off and did a fancy three month building, like internship that their dad got them. But increasingly this idea is this a person of substance?

Is this it an impressive person? Is this someone who's actually thought about the world around them? When we live increasingly narcissistic times and that. Presents another challenge, but I think it's a really interesting challenge because I think it's kind of [00:23:00] going back to kind of a form of meritocracy.

So it is not just benefiting the kids who have very well connected parents or might have money, but this idea that you can actually do stuff for your community, for the people around you, irrespective of who you are. And I find that some something to be quite actually quite heartened and excited about.

Richard Gerver: I think I. What you've just said really interests me because so much of the narrative and the dialogue that we hear, I suppose it's true of every generation, but my own, in my own naivety, my feeling is it's more, more pronounced, more acute now than it's ever been. This kind of. Misunderstanding of generations, which leads to fear of future generations, which leads to negative negative projection on future generations.

And what I'd really love is, you've just touched on it there, do you see in young people in Gen A, a sense of. [00:24:00] Community of desire to do good, to change the world for the better. Do you see that in the conversations you have and the experiences you have with young people? I.

Chloe Combi: You do for sure. And I think this idea that it's pushed by kind of like conservative press and sort of tabloidy conversations that like all young people are just kind of these narcissistic and inward looking people is nonsense.

I think that the, when you talk to kind of Gen A and Gen Z, there is this enormous desire. To change the world and that kind of makes sense because obviously the it, they want to change the world in the capacity of kind of other people. But they also realize that lots about the world has gone incredibly wrong.

And it's very clear to them, and it's not like kids will change the world, but I would argue that. Leadership that currently is being led by people who I actually think are too old to be world leaders. I think this notion that people who I, I think taking advice and I think listening to [00:25:00] older people and the wisdom that they have, I.

Is a really good thing. But the fact that some of the most powerful people in the world are kind of in their late seventies and heading towards their eighties, hasn't actually produced a good model of leadership in the last few years. It feels.

Richard Gerver: Can I just interrupt as well because it strikes me, and I dunno, this again, this is a question, it's not leading, it's asked in genuine ignorance, has that resulted.

Younger, particularly for young men, younger cooler people like Andrew Tate becoming more attractive because they see these people having power and influence, but they're younger, closer to their age and talking to the issues they think are dominant in their lives.

Chloe Combi: Totally those people are filled void.

That's kind of been left by actual leadership. So if you, like, I sort of see leadership almost in this kind of two-tier way. You've gone and got the older model, which is the older model of like politics and media, which would be [00:26:00] represented by kind of government and sort of news TV and print media and the institution's kind of like law and education.

And then you've got this kind of new tier of leadership, which I would argue is becoming. As influential but more for I guess anyone under forties, which is the online world and the podcasting world and the crypto world, which has kind of replaced the traditional kind of financial banking world and the fact that loads of young people are issuing kind of traditional kind of sort of education path like university and doing online courses.

But the trouble is with that. Is particularly where you've got these two tiers of leadership, that those, the second tier of leadership at the moment, as it stands, is incredibly unregulated. What that means is you can get some fantastic people within those spaces. It's not all kind of Andrew Tate and Logan Paul and dodgy crypto scams, but you can get an awful lot of.

Bad information and bad leadership and bad ideas. And what we don't have at the moment, which is a big part of my work, is a [00:27:00] way to equip young people with distinguishing between what is good and what is bad information. And also I think this, not this notion of kind of. What's aspirational and what's unrealistic, because I'll give you a really good example.

I think it's fantastic for young people to aspire to be entrepreneurs and want to be kind of the bosses of their own life. But at the same time, that needs to be tempered with a realism that most people who start a kind of a business don't become like nine figure. You know, 70 billionaires and actually the world still needs those kind of traditional institutions like teaching and architects and surgeons and all those things and to some extent, because of this kind of two tier.

System is almost like this two tier messaging. And lots of young people are also getting this idea that traditional roots are kind of a bit naff or second tier to use one of their expressions. And [00:28:00] we, the world still really needs those kind of traditional institutions and those traditional jobs and what they shouldn't be is somehow seen as second rate.

Which, which lots of young people have kind of been given that idea by these influences that they follow. So what I think we really need to do is kind of honor the new institutions, the new ideas and give space for them to develop in good ways, but almost have those things kind of work together.

And really I think with the what, the direction of travel that Jen a and I guess gen beta now, who were born this year needs to go in, is to be really thinking about how to sort of. Exist within both of those tiers so that they understand what is good information, what's realistic information, what is a toxic influencer versus a good influencer?

What is kind of good trouble versus bad trouble? What is good activism but versus bad activism? And actually kind of figure out those spaces a bit more. Because I think at the moment what the problem is that there is no distinction between people couldn't go [00:29:00] into these kind of spaces like TikTok.

Or Discord or Snapchat and say, the moon is made of cheese, or women have inferior brains. And unlike the old institutions where you had to back up those statements both with kind of substantial facts and proof, anyone can say anything in those spaces. And this is where young people are getting almost all, if not all of their information.

So the point now is thinking about. Regulation and actually thinking about how we make those spaces that young people largely exist in safer and better informed.

Richard Gerver: I think that's really interesting. I also think there's something really fascinating there in the way that if there are educators listening to this, or even employers and thinking about how do I.

Manage a conversation where what I don't do is continue to make the highlight reels of Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson, or whoever else it is into something taboo, which makes it [00:30:00] sexier. But at the same time, how do I have. How do I construct those conversations in order to make a constructive argument, make a constructive point and a learning issue for young people.

And I love the idea of helping young people understand that their terms the tier thing, but the two tier nature of leadership is fascinating. Yeah. Sorry, you were gonna.

Chloe Combi: I was just gonna say the key thing is, and I've I have a sort column in the independent. I've written a lot about this recently.

I am completely with you. I think by out banning and outlawing these figures, you basically fuel their kind of outlaw cool reputation. What works much better, and this is certainly across the board whether you know, it's a girl getting obsessed with OnlyFans, which is dangerous, or a boy or indeed a girl.

Getting obsessed with the manosphere is you give them the information. And that I think is much more empowering. It's this idea that knowledge is power has always been a thing, but I think we've sort of forgotten the simplicity of that message. And what I always sort of say to the [00:31:00] boys is, Andrew Tate.

Is all he cares about is the monetization, the commodification of these kind of angry and upset lads. He's not contributing to kind of male charities or helping young men. You know, he's sort of more obsessed with his bugattis and you know, the zeros on his bank account.

And I think when you give young people the information about what the, intent of these kind of influencers are, and the also the intent of these algorithms, which absolutely kind of monetizing young people. That is much more interesting. I call it Wizard of Aing, that you pull back the curtains on how these things work and why they work the way they do.

That I think is much more empowering for young people than telling them that something is banned or naughty.

Richard Gerver: Yeah I mean, I couldn't agree with you more. You know, and it strikes me that this pulling back the curtain, I love that term, the Wizard of Ozzy I think is so incredibly important.

And it always worries me generationally, [00:32:00] every generation, if you tell a current generation of young people that something's. Bad. You are just opening the door for that to become sexier and cooler and something they need to have more of. I remember as a child growing up, and there were certain books that were banned for us that we were told we were never allowed to read.

Well, what books do you think I went out and found to read?

Chloe Combi: Absolutely. And it was like the parental advisory stickers that were like and everybody the teens of the nineties all wore parental advisory t-shirts. But I think the other thing that's been a little bit missed about this whole you know, the kind of influencers and the manosphere and the kind of the even the kind of extreme politics, like lots of young guys are very attracted to kind of politicians like Donald Trump who go to ww e stuff is for a lot of them.

And indeed there's sort of the stuff that's quite a lot of young women are into that has become their counterculture. Because this is a generation both Gen Z and Gen A who largely have grown up with gen cool, fairly liberal Gen X [00:33:00] parents, and now cool, fairly liberal millennial parents.

And if you've got like a mom and dad or carers who are into kind of equal rights and a cool feminist dad and a mom who's got a great kind of career. How and wouldn't care if you got a tattoo or you listened to hip hop or heavy metal, or if you were gay or you were trans. When you think about the very nature of teenage, every teenage generation, the very nature of is you want to rebel against something.

What do you rebel against? And what. I was finding, talking to particularly young people in the last few years, that it shocked their parents more when they started getting into hard right-wing politics and really conservative ideas. So I actually think that quite a lot of the attraction of those ideas and those people and those movements was, it was shocking, more shocking to their parents than if they said, oh, mom and dad look at my tattoo.

So it, it's really interesting to think about. Maybe these will be kind of countercultural flashpoints and whether they'll look back. In five years [00:34:00] time when they're in their twenties and think, oh God, that was a bit embarrassing in the same way that people did it. They went through like a socialist phase or you know, whatever.

Richard Gerver: Do you think, I mean, it's an interesting, I was having a conversation a while back with a very senior, former politician and I said, what happened? To society, why did we lurch so far to the right? Why did things like Brexit happen? Why did Trump happen? Bolsonaro, all of those things. And one of the things he said to me was, Richard, the problem was we became complacent.

And it, it just something that resonated in what you just said because I guess I am at am my kids are in their mid to late twenties. I'm that kind of generation where we spoke out a lot about social cause and justice and all of those things. Do you think it's really important now for future generations that we don't become complacent in just assuming everybody and particularly young people know life's as good as it's gonna get?

Do you know what I mean? Do we need to be better at telling stories?

Chloe Combi: I, yeah, I mean, I think the stories that, [00:35:00] I mean, I think a big problem is obviously people sort of tend to read less and we get lots of kind of. Easy information, like, like the internet and social media has made information sort of very easy.

And in some ways I think that the ease of information has also made people kind of lazy because you kind of be, everybody's become like top line information consumers because that's the way that we consume information through really short, like flash videos and everybody reads the headlines and doesn't necess.

So we kind of read the substance of the body. And I think that's incredibly important. And I think a really good example is one of the things I've heard recently is that a young, particularly kind of, sort of Gen Z in that kind of that kind of 20 to sort of 18 to 23 range of opening sort of said, oh, well democracy's not that great and you kind of.

Think about what that means, but. It's [00:36:00] very easy to make that statement if you've never had a kind of experience or really had an experience with people who've known or seen an alternative. And this is a generation now whose grandparents would, wouldn't have sort of experienced the second world war and would've grown up in kind of relatively kind of privileged, easygoing times of like the sort of the sixties and sort of seventies and you get these kind of guys from.

Men in particular from those generations who. You know, the kind of Nigel Farage type who, who like their kind of which will be the grandparents' age of sort of gen exec kids who get kind of we won the second World War and it's like, dude, you weren't even born. And they you know, they kind of loved this kind of war porn and soldier porn, but this was a generation who they themselves have never experienced war except at a distance on news channels.

So, so it hasn't kind of a, you know. Affected them in any kind of meaningful way. And obviously they are now the [00:37:00] grandparents age of Gen Z. So this is a generation who are now two generations removed from having any understanding of observing things like kind of fascism or the lo loss of democracy or people having to go overseas to fight for these things.

So of course it, it feels very distant. So this is a generation who can quite casually say, oh, democracy's rubbish. Or the. You know, communism's a better idea or fashion's Fascism's a better idea because they have no. It's a direct experience of what those alternatives look like. So it's a long-winded answer to your question of like, absolutely there is a kind of complacency when you are two generations removed from essentially one of the most easygoing and kind of privileged.

Sort of times in certainly our history where people have always kind of experienced hardship and have always experienced kind of difficulties. But fundamentally it's been a long period of kind of prosperity and peace and those things you can, it's quite easy to get complacent about. [00:38:00]

Richard Gerver: And that's really interesting.

It's funnily enough on a, another episode I was, I interviewed a remarkable woman called Ban Sheesh, who was a child survivor of Kurdish torture and imprisonment during the war. And one of the things she said is she said, the problem is. Unless you've experienced what it's like to live in a dictatorship, you have no idea how important democracy is.

No,

Chloe Combi: absolutely. And I think the ease or the calmness of which lots of Americans certainly not all seem to be observing like Donald Trump's administrations kind of a source on the kind of democratic exists around it is a really good example of. And this isn't to call 'em ignorant, but a lack of awareness of.

What the alternative looks like, and I don't know. But I read and I've watched things and my grandparents were kind of just, I mean, they didn't fight in the Second World War, but they were kind of they were too young, but they were around for it. And so, so, but we probably, I. [00:39:00] The la you know, the old, like millennials and Gen Xs are the last generation in these, the countries that we live in who have grandparents who, who have a memory or were alive in those days.

And I think that those, that was quite important thing and perhaps more important than we realized.

Richard Gerver: I think, and it seems such a great place to round up and I'm so conscious of your time and so grateful for your insight. Chloe, which has been extraordinary is exactly almost where we started, which is.

Why education has never been more important. And I mean, three dimensional education you know, and if we're ever going to help future generations to see their value and their opportunity. It just shows why that three dimensionality to education, conversation, listening, broadening horizons, all the things that really matter in an education system have never been more important and more special.

[00:40:00] So I. Thank you so, so very much. One final question for you, because I am sure that the last 40 minutes or so would've sparked more questions in people than answers. How can people connect with you and how can they find out more about what you do and the work you're involved in?

Chloe Combi: Okay, so I'm all over the place.

So I'm Chloe combi.net. My website, which actually is kind of getting updated. I have Substack, which I wrote, I don't put it behind a paywall. People can read like loads of stuff on Jenna and Gen Z culture for free. I have a column in the independent newspaper. And I'm on LinkedIn and Instagram and because my name is quite distinct, I think I'm actually the only Chloe company.

It's relatively easy to find me.

Richard Gerver: Yeah, I know how you feel. I think I'm the only Richard Gerber in the world as well. Oh, there

Chloe Combi: you go. Which can be of a curs and a blessing. Yeah,

Richard Gerver: yeah. Although people sadly think when I rock up to something that they've hired Richard Gear and you've no idea how disappointed they are.

When I turn up. I'm sure not. Or Ricky Ves or something like that. But anyway. Chloe, thank you [00:41:00] so, so much for your time. Thank you and thank you all for joining us. If you'd like to find out more, please check out my website, richard gerber.com, and subscribe to this podcast so that you don't miss any future episodes.

Until next time, here's to the future.