Jahn recently published an opinion piece in The Globe and Mail, entitled: “Universities should stop treating AI as a cheating problem.” She cites a 2026 study from the Higher Education Policy Institute at Oxford, which found that 94 per cent of UK undergraduate students use generative AI to aid with school work. Moreover, KPMG Canada found last fall that 73 per cent of students in Canada now rely on generative AI for schoolwork, an increase from 52 per cent two years ago. Of the Canadian students surveyed by KPMG, 45 per cent say their first instinct is to use AI when drafting written assignments, a practice of which 48 per cent attribute to the decline in their critical thinking skills.

Academic institutions have begun providing widespread access to specific generative AI models, which Jahn described as a more coordinated approach. For example, McGill’s Max Bell School of Public Policy provides all students and faculty with access to Claude Pro. However, as Jahn wrote in her article, “[Claude Pro] is a subscription and a training program. It is not a rethink of what a degree is for.” Moreover, certain Canadian professors, for example Jonathan Malloy (Carleton) and Daniel Silver (UofT), have partially opted for assignments that require and engage with AI. Malloy and Silver have similar approaches, essentially having students use AI to produce papers or assignments and then analyze AI’s response.

When asked if she had noticed the impacts of AI on syllabi this year, Jahn acknowledged McGill’s more proactive approach this fall. However, she also stressed the absence of an up-to-date, consistent AI policy across McGill and other post- secondary institutions. Additionally, she noted a move away from take-home papers and a pivot towards in-class assessments. This is echoed in a key piece of feedback from the Max Bell Center’s cohort last year: students need to monitor their use of AI.

This summer, the Max Bell School administration, including but not limited to Director Jennifer Welsh and Associate Director Manuel Balán, presented their faculty with a framework for professors to use when drafting AI policies in syllabi. The framework provided faculty with concrete categories and language, so that these policies (no matter the professors’ individual stances on AI) can all be slightly more cohesive.

Jahn breaks down AI regulation into three possibilities. Option one is an AI-free environment with measures like in-class evaluations and digital locking softwares. Option two is a hybrid model in which students aren’t technically allowed to use AI but have no parameters in place unlike the digital locking software in option one. The school is looking to avoid his as the model as this is what Jahn describes as the “least effective.” Option three is freedom for students to use AI. What is essential is not mixing the models, but using them in tandem, as, according to The Globe and Mail, “the mass lecture model has been failing students long before ChatGPT arrived.” Though this is a newly mplemented framework, the results of which we have yet to see at the Max Bell Center, Jahn notes that professors have greatly appreciated the guidance and structure provided by the Centre thus far. When asked about different approaches to AI use across McGill’s faculties and programs, Jahn emphasized how each program has a distinct disciplinary culture and, therefore, fundamentally different modes of evaluation, with some more challenged by AI than others. The Faculty of Arts in particular, with their heavy reliance on the take-home essay, has been targeted; however, not all arts classes are equally affected because there is no unified approach to regulating AI use. When asked about this, Jahn’s response was clear: “This is ultimately where universities and professors need to step in and clarify the rules.”

Moreover, Jahn was able to tell us more about an AI policy initiative specifically highlighting Canadian students’ voices. This past spring, the Centre for Media Technology and Democracy gave voice to young Canadians on AI policy at Gen(Z)AI: Canada’s Youth Assembly on Artificial Intelligence. Over eight months, thousands of youth crafted policy recommendations concerning AI regulations in Canada and presented them in parliament. I asked Jahn what surprised her most about the responses from post-secondary participants of Gen(Z)AI. Without hesitation, she described the manner in which post-secondary Gen Z students balance hope with realism, as seen in Gen(Z)AI’s role as “the democratic voice of [a generation that has] the most to gain or lose, speaking clearly and in their own name.” According to Jahn, Gen Z cannot afford to not think about AI in the same way other generations do.

Ultimately, what Jahn drove home most was that higher-level administration needs to be specific about the main skills they’re trying to instill in their students. “The fundamental question AI is pushing on us is ‘what are the real skills and learning outcomes we are working towards and how do we…[allow] our students to explore them?’” For Jahn and McGill faculty, exploring looks like moving toward AI-safe examinations. However, this elicits another question of how students can explore newly acquired knowledge if not through cognitive exercise, research, and the process of writing. Jahn has emphasized both in her article and speaking with the Daily the necessity for McGill to formulate a comprehensive AI policy. As we begin to see the impacts of AI usage on Canadian post-secondary students and their syllabi, the Max Bell School of Public Policy has been taking initiative, creating a framework for professors to tackle the troubling waters of AI use.

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We, Gen Z, are the generation who are constantly told by Millennials and Gen X that we have killed the dance floor, that we drink less and date less than any generation before, that AI will be taking over our pointless degrees, and that climate change will kill us before we can have children or own a home. When we do go clubbing to seize the supposedly fleeting days we have left, we open social media the next morning only to be asphyxiated by hundreds of reels with people advising us to go to the gym, hit our protein goals, stay home, and make zero-calorie-low-fat-oat-milk-chia-seed slop for a sweet treat (as you’re watching these reels, you’ve done none of these things). The irony and the pressure are discouraging.

Wellness Anarchism is a term coined by British award winning brand strategist and entrepreneur Tom Garland in 2025. Garland is an expert with over twelve years of experience in consumer research and trend forecasting, and founder of the brand consultancy edition+partners. Garland’s Wellness Anarchist is someone who strives to lead a balanced yet uninhibited lifestyle, ultimately rejecting the overbearing health and life optimization peddled by the mainstream wellness industry. For example, the Wellness Anarchist could be found at their run club, but always finishing it off with celebratory drinks. A term that began as a consumer archetype has evolved into less of an identity and more a
wide range of daily habits. These habits are particularly enacted by Gen Z for a sense of control over the futurity that has been taken from us. Wellness culture, with its traditionally strict, all-or-nothing framework, has thus been met with Wellness Anarchist resistance. The practices Gen Z appear to be using to combat it include, but are not limited to a notable surge in: smoking; short-term and noncommittal relationships; and making frequent, smaller purchases rather than large savings and investments.

Of course, there is something to be said about seeking instant gratification and rebellion, and their historical connection to youth. Disobeying parents’ wishes, sneaking out, or impulsively changing one’s appearance, to name a few examples, have long been staples of youth culture and the tendency to prioritize our immediate desires over future consequences. Wellness Anarchism, even before the term was coined, has always been a means for young adults to manage the stresses and anxieties of being in such a transitional stage of life. But in the year of 2026, we all have much more on our plates than we ever bargained for — and online discourse of Gen Z’s doom, combined with wellness culture being pushed down our throats, certainly isn’t lightening the load.

Two years ago, Substacker Sarah Noack published her article, “Dump your matcha and have a cigarette, bitch,” that now has over 22.5K likes and 4.5K reposts. Despite the conviction in her title, Noack highlights how the Ikarians, inhabitants of one of the world’s Blue Zones (regions with high population longevity), have never engaged in what we know to be wellness practices. Rather, they simply walk or swim instead of going for spin class, they also nap, eat locally produced food, and most importantly, enjoy substances like alcohol and tobacco for pleasure rather than as vices. A portion of Gen Z is arguably no longer just following in the footsteps of our predecessors’ reckless youth but also using these habits as what Noack describes as a “necessary escape.”

The latest Canadian Tobacco and Nicotine Survey from 2022 shows young adult smokers (20-24) decreased from 10 per cent in 2021 to 8 per cent in 2022, and smoking reached generational lows worldwide. However, we do not yet have data from the past year, when smoking cigarettes made a dramatic resurgence online. Whether it’s Kylie Jenner lighting one on the cover of Vanity Fair or countless images of Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams with cigarettes in hand, we’ve all watched the revival of the cigarette as a symbol of rebellion, an aesthetic, and, for some, an escape from everyday pressures.

Earlier this year, the CBC released an article titled “Smoking is making a pop culture comeback (even if the risks haven’t changed),” which fully explains how smoking has made a large return to mainstream media. In the article, Jared Oviatt, who runs the popular Instagram account @cigfluencers, said he saw the pop culture resurgence of smoking as separate from other mundane daily habits. However, through his social media presence, Oviatt has expended time, effort, and energy towards the aestheticization of the cigarette. It works directly in his favour to argue that the pop culture spotlight on smoking has no real effects, hence avoiding culpability for perpetuating smoking as an aesthetic, while maintaining his own habit guilt-free. Oviatt’s prediction of the ultimate demise of the trend ignores the fact that cigarettes are an addictive chemical substance, not something as innocent as a polka dot top from Brandy Melville. While we do not yet have the data to assess the real-world impacts of the cigarette’s cultural renaissance, celebrities can influence what we find cool, what we purchase, and where we go. Hence, it would be naive to say their actions are totally distinct from our own and have no impact on our individual choices.

Where I can agree with Oviatt is his theory on why young people smoke. Oviatt acknowledges that broader economic and social pressures are at play: “The anxiety over climate change, general burnout … it’s all part of it.” There has always been a traditional appeal to doing something taboo, recreationally sharing substances to foster a sense of community, and emulating your idols. Still, smoking has been on the decline for decades now. What’s different today is the pressure our generation faces, and a resulting inability to conceptualize our futures.

What’s more, Gen Z is notably dating less than previous generations, notoriously choosing more low-commitment, non-exclusive romantic relationships. The Atlantic declared that we are in a “Great Romance Slump”, with declining marriage rates and exclusive relationships, with 42 per cent of single adults under 40 in 2019 having never been in a committed relationship. Moreover, Gen Z has been spending more on everyday, smaller purchases to make their day-to-day lives easier, rather than saving for large future purchases. I would argue that the loss of our capacities to imagine a successful and secure future, and our consequent sense of general despair, contribute to a lack of commitment present both in romantic relationships and in the fruits of our spending power. Of course, low-commitment, non-exclusive romantic relationships have always existed. Gen Z has only legitimized this dynamic by giving it a name: the “situationship.” Even then, it appears to be more present than ever before.

Alongside a discernible revival of the cigarette, a decline in committed exclusive romantic relationships and an increase in short-term spending, it seems paradoxical that sobriety is on the rise. A World Finance Report found that Gen Z averages around 20 per cent less alcohol consumption than millennials. There are many possible reasons for this: a better understanding of the dangers of drinking, inflated prices, wellness culture, to name a few. If all of this data is factual, then why do we throw caution to the wind with our wallets, lungs, and love lives, but not alcohol?

No matter how one looks at the data, Gen Z appears to take the hit. We are smoking more, meaning we suck; dating less, meaning we suck; and drinking less. Though supposedly healthier, the narrative remains that we are less fun, and thus suck. In contention, I would argue that it is not Gen Z who is responsible for the death of the dance floor, but our predecessors. With their wellness culture and talk of doom and despair, they have made us the generation of Wellness Anarchism: the same generation that has brought back smoking and rejects commitment more than ever, who will always buy the overpriced latte.

I don’t speak from a place of judgement, but of deep understanding. I am proud to be a Gen Z, so it is hard to be unbiased. But I believe our actions, individual and collective, are valid responses to the state of global affairs, to the overbearing influencers on our phones, and to the way we have been treated by older generations, which has altered our perception of what the future holds and its meaning.

However, as much as these small patterns can bring great relief, we are far from as anarchistic as we may believe. Even if we are using these habits as fleeting escapes from the precarity we face, they are still merely attempts to cope; not, as we saw with Noack’s article, a sign of genuine, carefree living. There is power in Wellness Anarchism, but we are engaging in it out of necessity, not real interest. The $10 matchas are not just simple pleasures, but pinpricks of light amidst a seemingly dreary present and future.

Documentary photographer and poet Sophia Borzilleri articulated it best in an Instagram post, where she described her smoking habit as a means of reminding herself that life doesn’t always have to be taken so seriously, that she can do things that are objectively bad and be at peace with it. This frame of thought counters the dominant narrative in all our lives, that everything is that serious and that everything won’t be okay.

However, Borzilleri adds nuance to this perspective when she says “For me, when I smoke a cigarette, it’s a moment for me to step outside and breathe and realize nothing is that serious. But I want to be able to do that without the cigarette. I want to be able to realize that I don’t always have to be curated, [planned, perfectly healthy] and whatever in order to be okay. I can live in a balance.”

As we begin a new school year, it’s important to be conscious of our habits, not in pursuit of condemning them as either good or bad, but rather to recognize why we engage in certain patterns. Acts such as smoking or spending provide us with a moment of control in a time when we are told we have so little. However, our generation is entitled to living in the present, not because the future does not exist, but because it is something worth looking forward to.

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Whether it’s your long-term ex from high school, an old situationship, or the same old Hinge talking stages, there is a cultural tendency for people to use the breaks from school (whether one goes home or not) as an opportunity to reach out to old romantic partners. This is a noted and understood psychological phenomenon, one I have also noticed circulating within McGill’s student community. Some of you may know where the break is heading before you even leave Montreal.

Despite my teasingly cautionary tone, this article is in no way meant to dissuade or pass judgment on using breaks to get back in contact with old partners. Rather, it is meant to serve as a social observation. I am a firm advocate for second chances and trusting your intuition. However, as a writer and a student, I feel forced to confront the question of why exactly we do this. There is no one cause for the upward trend of rekindling relationships over breaks, which is rather borne from a combination of factors: equal parts timing, boredom, nostalgia, and a loss of identity.

For some, being at school and tasting independence has allowed them to discover a new sense of self distinct from family, childhood friends, and the environment in which they were raised. Subsequently, returning home after having been away for an extended period of time can feel like reverting to this old identity, which is in turn connected to the people of their pasts. Supporting my personal irritations, I noted a large amount of online discourse describing the feeling of reverting to your 16-year-old self the moment you step through your front door. This phenomenon explains the revisiting of a failed relationship as well — making decisions the younger, more immature version of you would, even if your current self would not. You may never catch yourself thinking about a past partner, but suddenly, when found in an environment you once shared, your mindset is transported back to your common past. Moreover, if you are in close physical proximity to this person once more, rekindling a dead spark becomes much more plausible. People often use the very foolproof guise of seeking closure in person over these breaks to test the waters once more.

Boredom and nostalgia also play a crucial role in facilitating this dynamic. Winter break is a time when life slows down — when we have time to think, reflect, and feel. At the same time, we enter an extremely nostalgic environment. The emotionally dangerous combination of boredom and sentimentality push you towards that risky text, no matter whether you’re the one receiving or sending it.

However, routines return eventually, and normal life resumes. Are these rekindled flames able to withstand that, or will they fade out? Are these circumstantial and fleeting opportunities the second chance every relationship deserves or simply false potential? The evidence, the pattern, the trend, leads one to believe that it’s not about the partner but about the conditions. I may not be great with statistics, but based on the experiences of my me and my friends, there is no way so many people have amazing past romantic interests that they’re somehow destined to reunite with.

That’s not to say that the choices one makes to communicate with their old partners over break are dissociative choices you have no control over or responsibility for. However, that’s also not to say these choices are not an accurate reflection of what people truly want. We must all be held accountable for our own actions. Simply because it is a social trend with clear causes does not mean that we lack agency, and the fact that this is a shared experience does not mean it’s necessarily a wrong (or right) choice. It is merely worth taking note of the seasonal patterns that affect so many of us, so that we can all think critically about our personal decisions. This would enable us to closely examine our actions and the influence of emotion on them with curiosity and openness rather than judgment, and give us room for personal growth and self-awareness.

If you sought out this article for guidance or moral direction regarding your post-winter break romantic predicament, I apologize for my more critical approach. If I had to conclude this article with some concrete wisdom, I would advise you not to listen to made-up TikTok dating rules (that is an article for another day) and to trust your gut. That being said, if your friends are saying it’s a terrible idea, then maybe, just maybe — they might have a good point.

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You didn’t have to spend the summer in Montreal to notice this latest fad. The average Instagram user or TikTok watcher has most likely become aware of the term after it blew up this past summer. However, we McGillians are lucky enough to go to school in Montreal. The “performative male” goes beyond the memes for us, as our city is full of them. We are cursed with living among the legends, getting to see them (or match with them on Hinge) up close and personally.

For those of you who have never seen one in the wild, or those of you offline enough this past summer to have missed the term altogether (props to you), a “performative male” is a newly defined male archetype, rooted specifically in their aesthetic signaling. This aesthetic consists of a moustache, a mullet, wearing workwear, drinking matcha, using exclusively string headphones (through which they listen to “Bags” by Clairo on repeat), always having a carabiner and a tote bag on hand, and having a pierced nose and painted nails. Despite its deep roots in aesthetics and taste, this surface level phenomenon has a deeper necessary quality.

Performative men pride themselves on being feminists and caring about women. From empathizing with and idolizing Clairo, indie pop singer known for her confessional lyrics, to an annotated copy of Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks sitting on their side table, this is a crucial and key part of their identity. Winner of Montreal’s performative male contest, Shahzaib Sultan, even went on to say in his online acceptance speech: “Keep performing as long as you respect women, because this is all it’s about.”

Despite the term’s extreme popularity this summer and the great increase in performative men I’ve noticed walking around Montreal, the concept of the “performative male” is far from new or revolutionary. Judith Butler, one of the most prominent feminist philosophers, coined the term “Gender Performativity” in their renowned book, Gender Trouble (1990), and they famously expand upon this idea in their essay “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory” (1988). The premise of this theory is that one’s gender and associated gendered traits are in no way natural, but come from the “stylized repetition of acts” that we come to believe are innate. What she argues is that we are all actors who have forgotten we are on stage, who have performed in this play so many times that we believe it is our reality. Though Butler was imperative to the development of this foundational theory, they were not the first person to view gender this way. Simone de Beauvoir, renowned French existentialist philosopher and feminist thinker, famously wrote in her book The Second Sex (1949), “One is not born, but, rather, becomes a woman.”

A key part of gender performativity is that this performance has been happening since before we as individuals were born and will continue even alter we are gone. Butler states in Performative Acts and Gender
Constitution: “But neither do embodied selves pre-exist the cultural conventions which essentially signify bodies.” We never have and never will encounter a body or person that exists before society gives it a meaning. However, these gendered characters we perform, because they are a social construct, are susceptible to change, evolution and revolution. The prime example of this is the “performative male,” our latest subversive gender performance.

If gender is a performance, then the “performative male” is only the newest character in our play. Their “stylized repetition of acts” consists of ordering matcha, reading Sally Rooney in a public park, and manipulating their current situationship. Repeat. Their “stylization of the body” includes (but is not limited to) growing a moustache, putting on rings, and adorning their jorts. Repeat.

The “performative male”’s subversion of gender norms forms an essential part of their identity. For the first time, an allowance for the deviation from heteronormativity to represent the modern masculine. However, we must ask ourselves, how subversive is the “performative male” from the stereotypical masculine male persona we’ve known all these years?

To answer that question, I present you with another.

Why do we all pursue our performance of gender so devoutly? This may seem like an obvious question, but in the journalistic pursuit to analyze the “performative male” and his significance to our society, it is a crucial one. There are many philosophical, anthropological, and scientific reasons to justify why we feel a need to perform our gender, one of which being the pursuit of sex.

At the core of the “performative male” is the quest for romantic attention. Our society has curated an entire aesthetic based on this. The “performative male” performs feminist fluency and emotional intelligence as a tactic in love. Their greatest performance of all is that they care about women, and that is not a gender or a personality trait — it’s the commodification and appropriation of feminism. Most men appearing to read feminist literature in a café do so not in the name of understanding women and their struggles, but in that of impressing them. This is why the “performative male” is so sinister.

However, the fact that performative men pretend to care about women is not revolutionary — it’s in the name! What is so interesting is why we as a society are so obsessed with this latest performance. For the first time, men are not trying to play the role of the masculine hero, but are attempting to emulate what they think women want. Historically, men have held the power in deciding their partner, and women have had to bend to these powers. However, the “performative male” phenomenon shows that women are no longer at the whims of men’s sexual preferences. Men are dipping their toes into “feminist” traits for the first time not in pursuit of identity or liberation from toxic masculinity, but for romantic and sexual leverage. Despite their newfound social popularity and deviation from gender norms, this “new male” is not evolving masculinity. It is simply repackaging it with the hope of being more likely to get some play.

Nonetheless, for once, this performance is not a “phantasmic ideal of heterosexual identity” as Judith Butler once described. Modern men are dressing more diversely, exercising emotional intelligence, and entering the feminist sphere. Yes, it might just be a performance, and this is inadequate. That being said, they are consciously no longer emulating toxic masculine ideals. Culturally and socially, despite the jokes, this is a new, extremely important gendered act we have never seen before.

Simone de Beauvoir would not have imagined her books gallivanting through city streets in the tote bags of the twenty-something-year old men of 2025, and I’m not quite sure how it would make her feel. Would the disingenuity of it all dishearten her? Or would she be in awe at the mainstream way in which men are deviating from toxic masculinity? We’ll never know. What I do know is she would be turning in her grave if she knew we were falling for their vinyl collections and Hinge prompts about astrological compatibility – so this semester, keep your wits about you.

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