Gen Z are not to blame for the ‘cancel culture’ within their own friendship groups

University of Oxford student Alex Rogers died this January - (Just Giving)

Last week, an inquest found that Oxford University student Alexander Rogers killed himself earlier this year after being ostracised by his university friendship group. 

The inquest revealed that Rogers’ group of friends distanced themselves from him after a female student confessed that a sexual encounter with him made her “uncomfortable”. 

What happened next was the result of a “pervasive cancel culture”, the coroner’s court heard. Rogers walked to Donnington Bridge in Oxford and jumped into the River Thames, where he died from head injuries.

But medical expert Dr Dominique Thompson said that she was “not surprised” by the existence of this culture at all. And speaking as a Gen Z myself, I have to say the same.

Alex Rogers’ death was tragic and avoidable. Not because this culture is backwards and shouldn’t exist, but because Gen Z are the first generation to enact a proper form of accountability for sexually inappropriate behaviour among friends – and they’re also basically children.

Alex Rogers, 20, was a third year materials science student at Oxford (Just Giving)

Gen Z are the worst offenders of dishing it out without being able to take it. I can’t imagine that any of the people in Rogers’s friendship group would have been equipped to deal with the social shaming he received, and yet they all thought that some kind of ostracisation was necessary. That women should be believed. They handled it clumsily, Rogers was vulnerable, and he lost his life. It’s a great shame, and a tragic story.

What they did was not overtly wrong. I know many friends — a few of them male, too — who have cut out men from their friendship groups for sexual misconduct accusations. It is never easy, and no one I know who’s been part of this process has ever enjoyed it. Many still carry the guilt.

No friendship group can act with the authority of the police or courts, which makes these things even riskier. They aren’t qualified to sentence someone to a form of punishment.

Then again, with more than less than one per cent of rapes reported to police ending in a conviction in England and Wales, it’s not like the police and the courts have such a great track record either.

Rogers was a member of Oxford’s Corpus Christi college (Getty Images)

In the instances I have witnessed, multiple accusers have come forward before the male friend was excommunicated. That makes things a lot easier. Rogers only had one, according to the inquest.

But the “it’s his word versus hers” argument casts a long shadow, one which has been consistently used to silence and minimise women and their experiences. Because it may be his word versus hers, but it's often only his word that matters, in reality. Time has proven that again and again. I don’t doubt that these friends felt like they were stuck in between a rock and a hard place. I don’t think they got any joy out of what happened. In fact, I think it was extremely hard, even before the eventual tragedy. 

If people want the younger generations to stop playing judge and jury, then these children, teenagers and young adults need to be able to trust the actual systems of power so they feel safe enough to report things and leave them in the hands of capable, trained adults. 

Rogers’ accuser clearly didn’t feel this way, so without any other form of consequence and any other evidence, his friendship group were forced to make a decision. Hypothetically, if they had decided the other way, another student could have killed themselves. This should not have been a decision in the hands of students, and Rogers should be alive. 

What happened to Alex Rogers is far bigger than him, his friends, or the University of Oxford. It is endemic. Something has to change, and it’s not Gen Z.