Millennials and Gen Z are obsessed with death, according to recent cultural commentary. “GriefTok” videos rack up millions of views on TikTok. “Tombstone tourism” is now a recognized travel trend. Aleteia’s latest reflection asks what St. Paul and Jesus would say to this generation’s preoccupation with mortality. The fascination is real, but the Christian answer is older than any social media trend.
What happened
Vice News recently asked why younger generations are so fixated on death. The evidence is everywhere: viral TikTok videos about grief, cemetery visits as leisure activities, morbid humor as a coping mechanism. Observers blame the pandemic’s death toll, constant exposure to distant tragedies through social media, and an aging population making mortality more visible.
Aleteia’s piece reframes the question through Scripture. Rather than treating the death obsession as a generational quirk or mental health crisis, the article explores what St. Paul wrote about death in his letters. The Apostle did not avoid the topic. He confronted it head-on, offering not denial but a radical reinterpretation.
Why this matters
Christian tradition has never been squeamish about death. The Church calendar marks feast days by the date of a saint’s death, calling it their “birthday into heaven.” Memento mori reminders fill Catholic art and literature. What sets the Christian approach apart is not the acknowledgment of death, but the claim that death has been defeated. St. Paul writes, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (1 Corinthians 15:55, Douay-Rheims).
The current cultural moment offers the Church an opening. A generation raised on secularism is grappling with the one thing secular culture cannot answer: what happens when we die. Christianity does not offer platitudes or distractions. It offers the Resurrection. That is a message worth speaking into the algorithms of GriefTok.
For Catholic readers
Read 1 Corinthians 15 this week, St. Paul’s fullest treatment of death and resurrection. When you encounter someone navigating grief or existential fear, the Christian response is not to minimize death’s reality, but to speak of the hope that outlasts it. Pray for those in your life who are mourning without that hope.
Sources:
1. Aleteia — original reflection
