I first began seeing a small group of young people regularly showing up to actions together, and I was impressed by their degree of cohesion and esprit de corp. Months later, two of them came to a political education event hosted by my group. Conversations there led to a face to face meeting between some members of our group and of theirs.

As it turns out, a group of highschool students decided to form an explicitly maoist revolutionary study group based on their reading of Organization Means Commitment by Grace Lee Boggs and exchanges on both rednote and tictoc. They started out with a campus organizing against an abusive teacher and against Zionism, but they decided they need to focus on off campus issues and study as well. We talked about their study and I was genuinely impressed. While I was calling myself a communist, involved in organizing and even involved in street actions at their age, they are an order of magnitude more principled and disciplined in their work than I was as a teenager. This is what leads me to think this isn’t just a passing phase of teenage rebellion. They are explicitly aware that their political line and strategy will develop through the course of their study.

It was a surreal experience though. Hearing communist theory intermingled with nearly incomprehensible meme speak (and I’m not even old lol. The meme speak has just evolved rapidly since I was in highschool), ableist slurs and jokes about school shootings or 9/11. The ableism was one of the most problematic things I heard and was significantly off-putting. I hope some of the teenage edgelord tendencies they will grow out of with time (school shooting jokes were in vogue when I was in highschool as well and I did play pumped up kicks on my phone during lockdowns when I was in highschool which I would now consider idiotic edgelord shit). It was a fascinating if strange experience, and pretty cool to see. I hope that they keep learning and keep on a positive path. It’s refreshing to see in what can feel like a sea of extreme reaction.