Zynternet

But Hawk Tuah's broad success as a meme is less about its own intrinsic qualities than about the increasing size and cultural power of something I'm going to call the Zynternet. ¶ Over the last ten years or so, a broad community of fratty, horndog, boorishly provocative 20- and sometimes (embarrassingly) 30-somethings--mostly but by no means entirely male--has emerged to form a newly prominent online subculture. This network is adjacent to the "sports internet" of 40something dads and the "hustle internet" of Miami crypto bullshit and the "reactionary internet" of trad influencers, but is its own distinct community with its own distinct cultural referents--college sports, gambling, light domestic beers, Zyn nicotine pouches--and influential personalities and media outlets, among them Dave Portnoy, Pat McAfee, Antonio Brown, and Call Her Daddy, in addition to dozens of minor podcasters and hey-fellow-kids content creators who nearly all work for sports-betting concerns.

2024 June 28, Max Read, “Hawk Tuah and the Zynternet”, in Substack, archived from the original on 06 Jul 2024

If you're a member of the Zynternet—which is to say, you do not advertise precise ideological stances, your Instagram stories are not constantly paneled with causes you care about, and you tend to wield the internet for the pursuit of pleasure and nothing else—then you will be perceived to be right wing.

2024 July 3, “How the Right Won the ’’Hawk Tuah’’ Girl”, in Slate, New York, N.Y.: The Slate Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 05 Jul 2024

Poilievre's message is as Zynternet-y as his delivery style. He looks and sounds like a YouTube bro selling drop-shipping schemes from a luxury condo – taking no lessons but endlessly teaching them.

2024 September 12, “Pierre Poilievre is winning the online rage war. But his playbook may be crumbling before his eyes”, in The Hamilton Spectator

The Zynternet wasn't explicitly ideological or anti-liberal, but its biggest personalities were "'edgy,' trollish, hedonistic, attention-seeking"—or, as Read put it more bluntly, "dipshits."

2025, W[illiam] David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century, New York, N.Y.: Viking, →ISBN, page 184

In the US, its popularity has birthed an online subculture, where fans joke on TikTok or Reddit about popping in an “upper deckie” or “lip pillow.” The movement has been dubbed the “Zynternet” by journalist Max Read who describes it as “fratty, horndog [and] boorishly provocative”.

[2025 June 5, Clara Murray, Mari Novik, “The new nicotine hit that could save Big Tobacco”, in FT.com (subscription required)