Gen Z Scooby-Dooing mysteries of friendship, freedom and futures

After running out of good crime true podcasts, it became clear there were no Chad Daybell people around me. I don’t know anyone who has murdered over love, estrangement or jealousy, nor do I realize anyone (excluding lawyers) who interacts or has interacted with murderers.

I enjoy hearing about and sorting through mysteries. Not only that, but I used to do it all the time with friends, but that was decades ago. My late teens and twenties were like living in the Scooby-Doo mystery machine, their van. Like Shaggy, Velma, Scooby and the crew, we solved mysteries of life together, kind of like a never-ending scavenger hunt.

We discussed the riddles of why: love, betrayal, freedom from parents, fearing futures, people who were bad, good, rich, poor, virginity and so much more. We had little experience to draw from and found ourselves in adventures from getting the mystery wrong. A lot.

Imagine your new crush — whom you met at a party while standing in a basement beer puddle — texts you days later: “hey what’s up” Enigma of the first order. Advisors are quickly gathered to decipher the meaning. One declares, “you’re now in the friend zone.” Another adds, “they love you and want to spend their life with you.” And then one speaks, “there isn’t enough to conclude anything.” That friend is most likely fired from getting to solve this mystery.

I had forgotten all this until last week when hanging out with a group gen Z. They spent all day and night planning activities they rarely acted upon, often settling for throwing themselves into the bustle, hitting things that both charge and send them into another charge, kind of like being pinballs. Pin balling always triggers mystery conversations. “Why is this happening?”

Experience clears many of these teen and twenty-something mysteries. I no longer run around with friends in a Scooby-Doo van. I listen to true-crime podcasts. True crime beckons any open ear when on. Hearing or reading about estranged lovers murdering triggers a WTF? Who doesn’t rubber neck or find a place from which to watch horror unfold?

Humans study threats. Most animals do. We study threats by looking, for example, at a car wreck just as a gazelle may view a lion on the clear plain. Why would a gazelle research a lion? To study about their mortal enemy. Why from an open plain? The Gazelle will outrun the lion in such a setting. Mystery and danger direct our rubbernecking, teaching us how to protect our lives. We pick up a great deal from studying mystery such as those we love or fear.

ScoobyDooing in The Mystery Machine moors them to community with one another as they confront unmooring mystery after mystery. Without such company, mystery can overwhelm one into abject depression, but also energize one, such as when getting a text from a crush.

Next time you see GenZers ScoobyDoing, understand, they are creating their communities in which they’re defended from too much mystery, confusion. Feeling beloved in the turmoil of having a crush eases the torment of wondering what does this text mean.