As someone who's Gen-Z, I think a lot of millennials & Gen X-ers who say "tankies/dengists are just loud online, you won't run into them irl" don't realize that a lot of us /have/ encountered tankies IRL, that this is a genuine problem affecting younger leftist circles

At my university, there was a split between YDSA & the more radical socialists. Tankies ended up infiltrating the leadership, and now the org is PSL affiliated. A lot of non-tankies end up joining and becoming influenced into supporting some pretty awful rhetoric

I've also had the tankie vs. non-tankie issue ruin friendships in my own personal friend circle. So, no, this is not just an online issue, because the gap between IRL & online spaces is increasingly small for Gen Z. As tankies grow more prominent online, they'll do so IRL, too.