Blaise Tapp: ‘I don’t believe it’ why do people feel the need to moan so much?

Everybody knows at least one ‘Victor’, either a relative or that bloke at their work with the perma-frown who grumbles about everything from the rubbish IT to how bad the office’s coffee machine is. but what most of us with even a scintilla of self awareness realise is that incessant whining is never a good look. In a way, these sorts of people - those who would probably complain about the colour of the cheque if they were lucky enough to win the lottery - are useful to have around as they serve as a permanent reminder of why all of us should keep at least some negative thoughts to ourselves.

While Moaning Minnies and Martins have always been around, they seem to be multiplying at an alarming rate right now, which I can only put down to the fact that there are more platforms of communication available than at any other time in history. I used to quite enjoy Facebook and Twitter, before it became X, but my social media activity has been dramatically curtailed by the very real fear that I might stumble across a semi-coherent diatribe by a cyber ‘friend’ who fancies themselves as an alternative to the likes of Jeremy Clarkson or even the peerless Caitlin Moran.

While these tiresome characters will bleat about absolutely anything and everything, many of them have set their sights on Generation Z, which covers those aged in their late 20s to mid teens and is the most maligned of age groups. They have been dismissed as the pedlars of wokeness as well as being clockwatchers who don’t like to come into the office.

Of course, this is all hogwash being churned out on an industrial scale as, in my experience, the very many Generation Zs I know are fantastic, engaging company and make for excellent colleagues, given their ability to understand all types of technology when most of those of my vintage fly into a rage at our printers. Theirs is a generation that genuinely cares about the world around them and while they may interact with each other a lot differently to how we did when we were their age, they are masters at the art of modern communication.

However, possibly the thing I like about them the most is that they are nowhere near as good as moaning as their elders are and almost none of them will know who Victor Meldrew is. That can only be a good thing.