Scroll long enough and you’ll find a Gen Z creator explaining compound interest with the same energy someone else uses for a GRWM. Another breaks down taxes the way friends dissect breakups. It’s oddly comforting. Financial advice, once the domain of suits and spreadsheets, now arrives with trending audio and jump cuts.
For Gen Z, money lessons don’t come from a person in a blazer across a mahogany desk. They come from social media. From Instagram Reels explaining how to budget on ₹45,000 a month in a metropolitan city. From TikToks that start with, “Here’s what I wish I’d known at 18.” And while that might sound unserious at first glance, it makes more sense the longer you sit with it.
This is a generation that grew up watching adults lose jobs overnight, watching rent climb faster than salaries, watching the 2008 financial crisis ripple through their families, and watching student debt turn into something closer to inheritance. They’re not hostile to financial knowledge. They’re wary of how it’s been delivered. Too formal. Too opaque. Too late.
So they go where explanations already live, their feeds.
A recent US study found that nearly 70 percent of Gen Z turns to social media or the internet for financial guidance, compared to 57 percent of millennials and 38 percent of Gen X. TikTok leads the pack, followed by Instagram, podcasts, and online communities. That hierarchy matters. TikTok isn’t just popular. It’s where the language feels native. Short. Fast. Personal. No jargon, no shame, no assumption that you already know the basics.
What older observers often miss is that Gen Z doesn’t treat social media advice as gospel. Many openly acknowledge the risks. They cross-check tips on Google, Reddit, or with a friend who “knows this stuff.” They follow multiple creators precisely because they don’t fully trust any single one. The appeal isn’t blind credibility. It’s accessibility.
Formal finance still feels like a club with a dress code. Social media feels like you can walk in wearing pyjamas.
This shift isn’t limited to the United States. In India, “share market” creators explain SIPs and stock basics through memes and masala edits. In Brazil, TikTokers dance while breaking down inflation. In Nigeria, young creators teach forex trading with the same cadence others use for makeup tutorials. In South Korea, finance YouTubers cut advice with K-drama clips and jokes about anxiety that land a little too close to home.
Across contexts, the tone is the same: peer-to-peer, informal, and emotionally fluent. What differs is the risk profile. Misinformation spreads easily. So do exaggerated claims and casual scams. The line between a helpful tip and a dangerous shortcut can blur in a 30-second reel.
Regulators have started to notice. In Australia, nearly one in three young adults follows at least one financial influencer, and most admit those influencers have changed their behaviour. In India, new SEBI guidelines require “fin-fluencers” to disclose sponsorships and avoid offering unlicensed advice. The UK and Brazil are moving in similar directions. The goal isn’t to shut these creators down, but to acknowledge that they’ve become part of the financial ecosystem, whether institutions like it or not.
But focusing only on regulation misses the larger point.
Gen Z lives in an economic reality where traditional markers of stability feel increasingly distant. Homeownership feels abstract. Inflation eats entire paychecks. Long-term planning feels like a luxury reserved for people with cushions. In that context, advice that feels human, immediate, and survivable carries more weight than advice that feels correct but unreachable.
Authority used to look like expertise delivered from above. Now it looks like someone slightly ahead of you, explaining what worked and what didn’t, without pretending to have solved everything. That doesn’t mean institutions are obsolete. It means they failed to meet people where they were.
Social media didn’t replace banks, advisors, or financial education. Institutions left a gap, and the internet filled it. Not always accurately. Not always safely. But in a way that feels immediate, democratic, and legible to a generation used to decoding the world in motion.
For older readers trying to understand this shift, the question isn’t why Gen Z trusts TikTok. It’s why so many formal systems still make understanding money feel like homework instead of a conversation.
Once you answer that, the feed starts to make a lot more sense.
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