Generation diZappointing

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

4 hours ago, Vegas_Millennial said:

Last night I was at Silverado in Portland, and exactly ONE Gen Z boy looked at me and said hi and asked me how I was doing after I tipped him for his public dance, out of more than a dozen dancers that were working that night.

My faith in the younger generation is somewhat restored.   I went back to Silverado tonight, and several boys were engaging with me.  One even walked up to me and thanked me for visiting last night.  Miss Manners would be proud 🥲 

[Archangel]

@Vegas_Millennial, it’s almost as if we shouldn’t make generalizations…

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

On 1/29/2025 at 7:27 AM, sync said:

Children know what they are taught/see/hear.  If/when we have more positive adult role models, we will have a more stable, productive population of young people.

This is so true!  My father is a member of the Silent Generation (before the Boomers) and as a rule the Silent Generation are so respectful and polite and productive because they live in the shadows of the Greatest Generation who fought in World War II.

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

At my work, the Z'ers have a bad habit of not researching existing policies and articles, but instead asking the same questions over and over in different places.  I can't believe not looking something up is still a thing when looking up the answer is so easy nowadays with a Search function or Control+F.  They don't even have to know the alphabet anymore to look things up in alphabetical order!  When we made it so simple that you don't even need to know your ABC's anymore to go to work or fiction in society, God help us all when the Z's can't even use Search 🔎 

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

"A man's not worth a cent until he's 40.  We just pay him wages until then to make mistakes." -Horace Vandergelder

 

 

[Lotus-eater]

On 2/12/2026 at 3:33 PM, Vegas_Millennial said:

"A man's not worth a cent until he's 40.  We just pay him wages until then to make mistakes." -Horace Vandergelder

 

 

 

Cornelius Hackl: Well, what am I now?

Horace: You're an impertinent fool, that's what you are! 

[samhexum]

WHO SAID GENERATION Z IS LAZY?  WHAT AN ENTREPRENEUR!

(or entremanure, as Archie Bunker would've said)

An 18-year-old Pennsylvania high school student was arrested Friday after authorities accused him of running a massive “catfishing” and “sextortion” scheme that involved more than 20 underage victims.

Zachariah Abraham Meyers, a student at Peters Township High School in McMurray, faces over 300 felony counts of trafficking in minors, sexual extortion, intercept communications, corruption of minors, child sexual abuse material, unlawful contact with a minor, sexual exploitation of children, and criminal use of communication facility.

A criminal complaint alleges that Meyers instructed the juveniles to produce and disseminate explicit images and videos of themselves, requested them to “engage in prohibited sexual acts,” and demanded $500 from two of the victims in exchange for him not sharing the explicit material. The victims ranged in age from 14 to 17, according to the court documents.

When one of the victims allegedly ignored Meyers’ demands to pay the $500, the victim’s sister received an Instagram message containing a naked photo of the boy, according to the complaint.

Meyers is being held without bail, court records show. Attorney information was not available for him.

Peters Township School District said it was made aware of the investigation earlier Friday.

“The Police have indicated that there is no immediate safety risk to our schools, and we will continue to cooperate fully with the investigation,” a spokesperson said. “The safety and well-being of our students, staff, and families remain our highest priority, and we appreciate all the efforts of the Peters Township Police in this matter.”

The criminal complaint alleges that Meyers coerced another victim, who is 15, to pose as an adult on “adult LGBTQ dating applications” to “engage in specific sexual acts with adult men.” Meyers allegedly instructed the teen to record the acts, the complaint says. The victim told Meyers multiple times that he did not want to engage in the acts, it says.

Meyers is also accused of coercing the 15-year-old into recording the high school’s wrestling team, the complaint alleges. It says that the victim secretly recorded the locker room on six occasions, and the videos show the team “in various states of undress, including having only underwear on.”

Police were alerted to the scheme in December, according to an affidavit of probable cause. Court documents identified 22 victims.

Investigators said a majority of the juveniles were victimized over social media, including TikTok and Snapchat. Meyers allegedly hid behind phony profiles of an Arizona man, a female adult film star from the Netherlands, and an unidentified woman, the affidavit says.

“All but one of the juveniles believed they were communicating with an attractive young female,” authorities said.

Edited February 22 by samhexum
for absolutely NO @%!*ING reason at all!

[Lotus-eater]

https://fortune.com/2026/03/05/gen-z-women-new-face-of-unemployment-low-grades-and-bad-health-are-to-blame-new-research-warns/

Millions of workers are bracing for AI layoffs and restructurings. But a growing slice of Gen Z isn’t even making it onto the corporate ladder in the first place—and increasingly, they’re young women.

PwC’s new Women in Work Index, which digs into Labour Force Survey data on 16‑ to 24‑year‑olds between 2020 and 2024, shows that around 1 million young people in the U.K. are now classed as NEET (not in education, employment, or training). 

Female unemployment has been drifting downward since the mid‑2010s (aside from the COVID spike), but that progress is now reversing. In 2024, the jobless rate for young women jumped from 9.5% to 11.8%—the fastest annual rise since PwC’s index began. 

And in the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures, released last month, the overall NEET rate ticked up to 12.8%, driven almost entirely by women: While the number of young men locked out of work actually went down quarter on quarter, 13,000 new women found themselves out of the job market.

While young men still slightly outnumber young women overall, the numbers are starting to skew female. In other words: The gap is closing—and fast. 

A sudden shift in unemployment: Why are young women being left behind?

Just two years ago, young men dominated the NEET data. When Fortune first covered the trend in 2024, one in five men under the age of 25 was unemployed—and not actively looking for work, either—despite having just graduated.

Experts at the time said the key reason for the phenomenon was that women were more flexible in accepting job offers that didn’t perfectly align with their career goals post-pandemic. Essentially, male Gen Z graduates were holding out for dream jobs that never materialized because the number of white-collar roles shrank. Instead of taking up a part-time job or an entry-level position outside their field, they disengaged.

But new data suggests that for young women today, unemployment is less about choice. PwC pointed to two key drivers behind the sudden surge in female NEETs: poor grades and deteriorating health.

One in four young women who left high school with low grades ends up a NEET, compared with one in five young men. When low grades collide with a health condition, the damage compounds brutally: A young woman with both is almost four times as likely to be a NEET as the average young woman—48% versus 12.2%.

The reason it’s causing unemployment now, all of a sudden, comes down to the sudden shift in career choices for young people who aren’t bookworms, says Lewis Maleh, CEO of global recruitment agency Bentley Lewis.

 

“When young men leave school without strong grades, there are well-established routes waiting, like construction, trades, logistics, which are all hiring right now and don’t require further education,” Maleh explains. “Young women with the same low education go towards retail, care, or hospitality. These sectors have been shrinking and offer limited progression.”

...This is only being compounded further by the current AI race. The increased focus on tech roles is further limiting the pool of jobs available to women, who are less likely to have studied STEM subjects. Another recruiter, Zara Amiry, echoes that the rate of female unemployment is a direct reflection of the roles available right now. “Certain roles tend to have more male applicants,” she adds. 

 

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

 

@TJMS said:

My daughter heads recruiting for an international securities firm. She sees a HUGE difference in the 20 somethings today compared to even 10 years ago. With few exceptions, they are whiney, entitled and lazy and those are the good ones! One even brought their mother with them for an interview, no joke! 

Thankfully, not all GenZ is like this.  It's mostly the children of middle/upper class parents whose parents helped them through university and now help them find jobs who have had this disservice done to them.  But visit a community college, who is primarily working class or immigrant class who has to figure out college on their own, and you see common sense among those enrolled.

[TJMS]

I think you should include children of wealthy parents who have no idea of how most of us live

[+ FrankR]

This showed up on my Instagram… There may be some wisdom in this.