The Lost Generation: Woke DEI, the End of Meritocracy, and the Rise of Mediocrity
Jacob Savage’s recent article, “The Lost Generation,” presents data-based, irrefutable evidence of a coordinated purge of young white men. For millennials graduating from college and seeking to launch a career, the professional landscape shifted dramatically between 2011 and 2013 as diversity recruitment gained momentum. Entry-level positions, once awarded based on merit, were increasingly limited by demographic priorities rather than performance or ability .
Savage argues that this discrimination has had institutional costs. He questions whether the media enjoys more trust than a decade ago, whether Hollywood produces better films and television programs, and whether academia commands more respect. His central question is whether the exclusion of an entire generation has strengthened these institutions or, in fact, accelerated their decline when meritocracy was abandoned, writes Antonio Graceffo .
The phrase “go woke, go broke” isn’t theoretical. It’s been repeated repeatedly in various sectors, from Bud Light to Cracker Barrel. Institutions that pander to the wishes of the masses are eventually consumed. No matter how far they shift to the left, it’s never far enough. History offers a parallel. Communist revolutions, including those in China and Vietnam, ultimately devoured their own founders after deeming them insufficiently radical.
Hollywood, long positioned on the left, has crossed a critical threshold in the past decade by embracing ideological conformity at the expense of talent and broad appeal. Movie theaters are now struggling to stay open, an outcome unimaginable thirty years ago, when conservative parents would have found it unthinkable to boycott Disney or PBS because of the values they instill in children.
Box office data reflects the collapse. In 2024, domestic revenue fell 21 percent compared to 2023, 45 percent compared to 2020, and approximately 60 percent compared to 2019, the last full year before both the pandemic and the full implementation of DEI mandates. Projected revenue for 2024 was approximately $8 billion, down from $9 billion the previous year. Excluding the pandemic-related closures, this is the worst performance in modern Hollywood history.
Disney’s losses illustrate this pattern. In 2023, The Marvels lost an estimated $237 million, despite following a $1.1 billion franchise. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny lost approximately $143 million, while Wish, Haunted Mansion, and other releases pushed total annual losses to $700 million. In 2025, Snow White, Tron: Ares, and Thunderbolts reportedly lost more than $100 million each, while Captain America: Brave New World barely broke even. Previous failures include Lightyear, Strange World, Ant-Man: Quantumania, The Little Mermaid, and Elemental, Pixar’s worst opening in nearly three decades.
Non-Disney projects followed a similar path. Sony’s Madame Web collapsed in its second weekend, scuppering plans for a franchise. Drive-Away Dolls grossed only $2.5 million in over 2,000 theaters. Warner Bros.’ The Flash lost an estimated $155 million. These weren’t isolated failures, but part of a broader industry trend.
“Woke” filmmaking follows a formula. Male heroes are replaced by “girl boss” figures, casts are assembled for demographic balance rather than narrative coherence, and social messages are prioritized over storytelling. Existing characters are subjected to race and gender swaps, traditional masculinity is portrayed as flawed, and LGBTQ storylines are inserted regardless of narrative relevance.
This pattern is well-documented. Marvel increasingly sidelined white male leads. She-Hulk openly mocked male fans, while Thor: Love and Thunder portrayed its protagonist as incompetent. Star Wars alienated its audience by dismantling core characters and failed to generate lasting interest in new series or merchandise. Disney’s live-action remakes, including Snow White and The Little Mermaid, prioritized ideological messages over craftsmanship, with stars publicly attacking both the source material and the audience.
Audience rejection followed predictable lines. Viewers felt more attacked than entertained when beloved characters were demoted or replaced, and films portrayed audiences as moral problems rather than customers. One analysis described Hollywood as a divide between “us and them” and the erasure of half the audience. Quality also declined. As Savage documented, the share of white men among junior-level television writers fell from 48 percent to 11.9 percent, with hiring based more on demographics than skills. The result was weaker stories, characters people couldn’t identify with, and franchises diluted by oversaturation on streaming platforms.
The contrast with successful films is stark. Top Gun: Maverick succeeded by embracing traditional masculinity and craftsmanship. Oppenheimer grossed nearly $1 billion through serious cinematic artistry. Sound of Freedom exceeded expectations, and The Super Mario Bros. Movie was successful as family entertainment. These films respected their audiences, focused on the story, and avoided preachiness.
Hollywood largely responded with denial. Executives blame the pandemic, competition from streaming services, strikes, superhero fatigue, or bad luck. Conservatives counter that more movies will be released in theaters in 2024 than in 2023, that streaming already existed in 2019 when revenues were much higher, and that the decline began before the recent strikes. The simpler explanation is that audiences don’t like the product.
The Lost Generation directly echoes this finding. Hollywood has reduced the number of white men writers from nearly half of the total to just over a tenth, made diversity the most important hiring criterion, and consequently produced weaker content. Audiences noticed this and responded by withdrawing.
The cultural divide has widened. The remaining moviegoing audience consists primarily of upper-middle-class liberals who go to the cinema less frequently, while conservative, center-right, traditionally male, and international audiences have largely left. Viewers have shifted to YouTube creators, podcasts, older pre-DEI content, foreign entertainment, video games, and faith-based films.
Disney illustrates the decline. Besides losses at the cinema, merchandise sales also fell, Disney+ lost more than a million subscribers, and cinema chains saw their shares plummet due to lower attendance. CEO Bob Iger’s decision to scale back production of Marvel and Star Wars amounted to a public acknowledgement of quality issues.
Politically, critics argue that the period after 2016 and after 2020 has accelerated the collapse. Cancel culture has reshaped awards ceremonies, diversity mandates have hardened into doctrine, and Hollywood has openly turned against half the country. Conservatives were the first to withdraw, moderates followed, and the industry retreated into an isolated ideological bubble.
From this perspective, the crisis is self-inflicted. Hollywood abandoned profit, prioritized activism over entertainment, imposed ideological conformity, and attacked its clients. The result was a weakened talent pool and plummeting quality. Some studios now appear to be quietly withdrawing, but others argue that it will take a generation to repair the damage to the talent pipeline.
The conservative view is that Hollywood, starting around 2014, has systematically excluded white male talent, abandoned meritocracy, alienated its core audience, and consequently incurred billions in losses. With box office revenues still roughly 60 percent below 2019 levels despite the resumption of normal operations, the public’s verdict is clear. Whether labeled “wokeness” or something broader, the time lag between the adoption of DEI and its institutional decline is difficult to ignore.
The Lost Generation has sparked a discussion across the political divide, and for many conservatives, it’s a rare opportunity to publicly state what they believe has been clear for years. Matt Walsh noted that in an era when people no longer read, it took a 10,000-word article in a lesser-known magazine to bring the issue to public attention.
At the same time, Walsh criticized what he called the Compact’s “permission structure,” arguing that it acknowledges discrimination while minimizing its duration, scope, and consequences. He argued that anti-white hiring practices didn’t begin around 2014, but have existed for much longer, rooted in affirmative action policies, federal contract quotas, and university admissions systems that have existed for decades. The post-2014 DEI era, he argued, has only formalized and accelerated existing trends.
According to Walsh, these policies have had consequences far beyond employment. He points to declining marriage rates, postponed family formation, and broader social disruption among working- and middle-class men, who were systematically excluded from career paths that once supported stable lives. This argument reflects the institutional collapse seen in Hollywood and the media, where merit was replaced by ideology, audiences were alienated, and quality steadily deteriorated.