Gen Z's manifest destiny

Sarah Perl, who goes by the TikTok handle @hothighpriestess, says she has a successful career and relationship because she manifested both. Many of her recent posts focus on manifesting love, and they're particularly aimed at young women who want romantic relationships with men. The 23-year-old Los Angeles resident talks to her viewers about how they can manifest a text back from a guy within 24 hours. Sometimes she even manifests the aim of her videos: "I am manifesting that this video only reaches the people that are on the brink of the greatest up level of their entire life," she says in one post that has more than a million views.

She's not just saying that to the universe; she's feeding the TikTok algorithm, which likely sends her content to other young women. To her, manifestation and the code powering TikTok are inextricably entwined. "Obviously the algorithm is going to work its magic," says Perl, who has amassed 2.5 million followers since 2020 and also offers paid online courses on manifesting. "I view manifesting almost like the For You page: Where you put your attention is where your life will end up going." If people dwell on negative content, that's what they'll be fed. But if they like videos with a positive outlook, TikTok may give them more.

Perl is one of many influencers who specialize in manifestation: the idea that positive thinking and visualization can bring people closer to their goals.​ Manifestation began in the 19th-century New Thought movement, and does have a kernel of truth to it: our thoughts can in part shape our reality. The latest trend has gained traction since the height of the pandemic, but modern manifesting remains a broad term covering a range of practices. It can cover meditating and journaling as part of a spiritual practice as well as posting memes about achieving great fortune. Pop stars Dua Lipa and Ariana Grande have professed their beliefs in the power of manifesting.

Online, the trend is owned predominantly by Gen Z women. They use social media and self-help apps and even artificial intelligence to manifest romance, financial stability, career success, and cozy homes. These are all things that for generations have felt out of reach for many young people, but perhaps none more than Gen Zers, whose high-school and college years were further destabilized by the pandemic. They're facing a glut of algorithmic-driven dating apps, a tumultuous housing market, and lots of uncertainty about the future. Some faceless TikTok accounts even encourage people to like or share their posts in order to find love, farming engagement the way millennials once shared email chains threatening years of bad luck. For Gen Z, the divide between the divine and the digital can be razor thin.

Gen Z may be the least religious generation in American history. In a 2021 survey from the Survey Center on American Life, 34% of Gen Zers said they had no religious affiliation, compared with 29% of millennials and 18% of baby boomers. But Amy Wu, the founder of Manifest, an app launched this summer that uses generative AI to send affirmations to its users based on their goals, says that even though more young people are turning their backs on church, they still "want to believe in something greater."

So far, Wu says, nearly half of the desires people put in the app are related to love and romance. About 70% of Manifest's users are women, and most users are 18 to 35. She envisions Manifest as a tool to help users process sadness, anger, anxiety, loneliness, and other feelings that are perhaps exacerbated by the digital world. Rather than doomscrolling and comparing themselves to others on social media, Manifest's users are taking part in a private experience where they're encouraged to briefly meditate.

"We're not a Magic 8 Ball of trying to guarantee you a certain outcome or predict the future," Wu says. "It's taking that very real concern that person might have in that moment and then giving them reassurance." For example, if someone expresses uncertainty about a crush's interest in them, Manifest might generate less-specific, more-evergreen affirmations, like "I honor and trust my feelings and intuition as I navigate this relationship," or "I am worthy of love and kindness."

Young people are also turning to older platforms, reenvisioning them as places for manifestation. Gen Zers now make up Pinterest's largest cohort, accounting for about 40% of active users. Searches for "romantic manifestation," for example, have increased seventeenfold from last year, and posts related to "love scrapbooking" are up 250%. Users are also searching for financial empowerment — searches for "lots of money aesthetic" are up 953% year over year.

Sydney Stanback, a global trends and insights lead at Pinterest, says that young people using the internet to envision their futures are "bringing a new level of warmth to these platforms."

"It's allowing that kind of spirituality that exists in real life to be transferred over to these spaces," Stanback says. "They're using Pinterest to craft a world in which they want to live in. And then they're going out and acting on it."

Shanna Watkins sees her manifestation journey similarly. "There would be no manifesting for me, in the way that I do now that's super effective, without technology," says Watkins, a 28-year-old in Dallas who works as a public-relations and communications manager at AT&T. Raised Christian, Watkins began questioning aspects of faith and eventually discovered more about manifesting on YouTube. Now she uses a personal-growth app called Mindvalley and writes affirmations in her notes app on her phone. She also says she has jotted down notes about her dreams and asked ChatGPT to analyze their content. She says she found the generative-AI chatbot's read reliable, summarizing feelings she was having that might have been represented in the dreams. Tools like this, she says, "can be another channel for my inner being and my consciousness to speak to me and send messages."

The loose definition of manifesting means there are no rules or standards around it. "The whole manifestation buzzword and how it's being thrown around so loosely, I do think it can be harmful," says Emily McDonald, a mentor and coach with a large following on Instagram and TikTok who has studied neuroscience. To her, manifestation is rooted in neuroscience and about rewiring your brain to perceive a reality that's aligned with the things you want. To do so means setting intentions and visualizing outcomes — not just having a thought and expecting it to come true.

There's a thin line between sharing the power positive thinking and visualization and selling a get-rich-quick scheme. Researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia found that people who said they practiced manifesting were more likely to see themselves as successful and hopeful that they could achieve success in the future — but they were also more likely to seek out risky investments, to think they could reach success quickly, and even to have gone through bankruptcy.

Whether or not you believe manifesting works isn't really the point. People who engage with this content on social media or use tools to manifest better futures for themselves are trying to act in a world where money and love feel out of their control. "They want support in their lowest times and even at their highest times," Wu says. "In this social media, post-COVID world, people want a sense of control in their lives." It will take more than a manifestation to attain it.

Amanda Hoover is a senior correspondent at Business Insider covering the tech industry. She writes about the biggest tech companies and trends.