For a time, people called 2019 "the year of the protest," as civil unrest flooded streets from Hong Kong to Egypt. Before that, it was 2011, marked by Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring 's pro-democracy uprisings in the Middle East.

But now, with what are being called Gen-Z protests spreading around the world, some experts say 2025 could steal that title.

"I do think this might actually be a new emergence of protest culture, and I do think it will be global," said Shana MacDonald, the O'Donovan Chair in Communication at the University of Waterloo who researches social and digital media.

Over the last month, a wave of youth-led protests has hit the streets in Nepal , Morocco and Madagascar , all of them mobilizing support online and driven by frustration against govern

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