Can we really draw a link between Nepal and Madagascar? Bangladesh and Peru? Indonesia and Morocco? Why are waves of defiance sweeping nations that are oceans apart? That defiance now bears a name: Gen Z protests. The generation born after 1997 has had its fill of corrupt elders clinging to power – and their offspring flaunting excess on social media. There too, new hashtags have taken root: nepo babies and nepo kids. The contempt of the ruling classes is as old as French queens quipping, “let them eat cake”. So what is it about the digital age that seems to rub it particularly hard in young people’s faces – or rather, on their screens?