Why Our Young Are So Annoying (And Maybe Right)

No wonder young people are so annoying these days.

Yes, they’d rather film themselves doing TikToks than find a job, but to be fair, I’d be bitter too if my first flat cost more than the GDP of Gozo.

I’ve been meaning to write this for weeks, but honestly, it’s hard to put such a big mess into words. Still, let’s try, because maybe one of you geniuses might have a clue.

Like most older folk, I look at today’s youth and sigh. Always holding a Stanley water bottle, always “raising awareness” about something new, and somehow everyone’s got “anxiety” so strong they can’t possibly work. Yet they spend their whole day editing videos in their car — that they don’t actually own.

I keep hearing that a bunch of twenty-year-olds are “economically inactive". Translation: doing absolutely nothing besides taking selfies and arguing about “the system” over iced matcha. And if you tell them to find a job, they’ll tell you the problem is “the 1%” — as if taxing Charles & Ron will suddenly make them homeowners.

But then I stop and think. Maybe, just maybe, we should feel a bit sorry for them. When I was 25, you could actually buy a small flat if you worked hard and skipped a few Fenkata nights. Now, even with a steady job, you can’t afford rent unless your grandmother conveniently leaves you a whole block in Birkirkara.

I remember earning peanuts, but it covered the essentials. Rent, fuel for the Civic, and still enough left for a couple of Cisk bottles at the bar or a night in Paceville. No handouts, no parents paying “deposit money". I just got on with it. But now, even people with decent jobs can’t afford to move out, let alone buy a car that isn’t a secondhand Toyota Vitz with a cracked dashboard.

And let’s not even start on having kids. Who can afford to take care of children when half your salary goes to Enemalta and the other half to rent? No wonder half of them say they’d rather not have kids—some can barely afford to feed their cats.

So instead, they convince themselves that alcohol’s poison, that driving is killing the planet, and that living in a van by Għajn Tuffieħa is “freedom”. It’s a delusion, really, but it helps them sleep at night. And who can blame them?

COVID didn’t help things either. Those two years taught everyone that government handouts are endless and grades can magically improve even if you spent lockdown learning TikTok dances. “Do nothing, get rewarded” — that’s the message they absorbed.

Then there’s social media. Spend all day scrolling, convinced that everyone in Bali is rich, productive, and glowing, while you’re stuck in traffic at Kappara. The algorithm tells you you’re a failure unless you “escape the matrix”, whatever that means.

I’d love to suggest a fix, but I haven’t the slightest clue. Everything’s too expensive, and wages haven’t caught up since Muscat was still smiling for cameras. Some will say “tax the rich”—but which rich? The ones with yachts in Portomaso? Fair enough, but I doubt that’ll put roof tiles over our kids’ heads.

Maybe the real problem is that too much money is stuck in too few hands. Back in the day, being rich meant having an AC at home. Now it means owning three restaurants, a boat, and an apartment block in Swieqi.

But punishing the people who built something won’t suddenly give motivation to someone who’d rather vlog in a MiG t-shirt than work. Because what makes the world spin is drive. And you can’t buy that with subsidies.

So here we are. Stuck in the middle of a generational traffic jam. The young are broke and bitter, the old are angry and tired, and the ones meant to fix it are probably still waiting for the tender to open.