This is of the most Gen Z stories ever -- rather extreme and from Brazil -- but applicable to most of the world. A 21-year-old black law student named @aanaelisast built a very large YouTube following with daily pro-Lula and far-left political content. She just parlayed that into a stunning vote total to be elected to Brazil's national Congress at 21 (with more than 500,000 votes). Overnight she became the media darling. They all heralded her as the genius and pioneer to help Lula figure out how to use social media to reach young voters to help him overcome his deficit behind Flavio Bolsonaro. Lula's campaign put her on its communications team. Such a sweet, inspiring story . . . . BUT THEN: People started predictably looking into what she's been saying. And they found pretty much the worst possible messages for Lula's campaign at this stage: she called for the shutting of churches, expressed what appears to be anti-white hatred, called for Moraes to censor or shut Instagram, YouTube, X in order to block conservative messaging, etc. etc. Some of it was a bit out of context, some ironic, all of it written at a young age (since she's 21, that's true of everything). The only way to build a large internet following that quickly is through deliberately provocative and even extremist messaging that may or may not reflect the persons's true character and beliefs. But in political warfare, those nuances are irrelevant. At first she denied the worst messages, claiming they were forged and even threatened to sue those who fabricated them. Then she admitted they are all authentic, then closed and locked her social media accounts, and now Lula's campaign has to repudiate her. I've long said that the thing for which I'm most grateful is that I didn't have to grow up with every thought and traansressive view that I had at 17 and 19 and 21 years old permanently recorded online. As people increasingly enter politics whose lives were never internet-free, the only people who will escape this kind of negative scrutiny are soulless, bloodless people created in vats and labs to be US Senators: like the Pete Buttigiegs and Mitt Romneys of the world. Grim all the way around.