Most Mainland Chinese people still know how to use traditional characters for historical or aesthetic/artistic purposes. There’s a bit of a complex from some Taiwanese and HK elitists who think China is trying to impose simplified on everybody or that people who use simplified are dumb, but there really is no “right” script. Traditional characters definitely look more aesthetically pleasing than their simplified counterparts, but also making it easier for people to gain and maintain literacy is much more important than some notion of tradition.