I looked through various examples of it and I still don’t understand. You just blankly stare at someone? Is that what it is?

  • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    6 days ago

    It’s the gormless expression teens make when they have absolutely zero initiative and will only function by being told what to do. You see it in new retail workers all the time and it’s those workers, hotel workers, and fast food people come into contact with it frequently enough for it to become a thing people notice.

    They grow out of it. Most people had it at some point as a teen and it’s just really ridiculous that people pretend they weren’t also like that when younger.

    Expecting someone to point out gormless is ableist or something. I have no idea what the etymology of that word is. I’ll be disappointed if I have to stop using it because it’s a strong word.

    • insurgentrat [she/her, it/its]@hexbear.net
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      6 days ago

      Had a big research student orientation yesterday. Thought “Cool now I can meet the younger genZ crowd, I remember the older ones I taught were good people”.

      Had a look out for all these allegedly weird genZ behaviours, I saw… very friendly slightly shy 20 somethings who were eager to study and a bit LLM brained like everyone else.

      Basically the only thing I could point to as different was there were no Goths (rip) and seemingly more tolerance for people with their own styles given the variety of dress/hair styling/jewellery.

      As usual humans are just humans and the kids are alright.

      • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        6 days ago

        Yeah people are just looking for things to cause generational division. Trying to make sure generations do not interact with one another, if people are negative about genz before they even speak to one they’re going to have a bad interaction with them

    • c. 1746, also in early use gaumless, gawmless, “wanting sense, stupid,” a British dialectal word, from gome “notice, understanding” (c. 1200), from Old Norse gaumr “care, heed” (of unknown origin); + -less.