Jaycee Woods

Sometimes I come across a foreign slang word that has me scratching my head. Recently this occurred with ‘neet’ which was being used as a pejorative. Instead of Googling, I asked Copilot for an explanation. Its response:

A “NEET” is an acronym that stands for “Not in Education, Employment, or Training.” It refers to individuals who are currently not engaged in formal education, not employed, and not participating in any training programs.

NEETs can include a wide range of people, such as recent graduates who haven’t found a job yet, young adults taking a break from their studies, or individuals who are in between jobs. The reasons for being a NEET can vary widely, from personal choice to external circumstances.

The term “NEET” originated in the United Kingdom in the 1990s. It was first used in a 1999 report by the Social Exclusion Unit to describe young people who were not in education, employment, or training. The concept quickly spread to other countries, including Japan, South Korea, and European nations, where it gained recognition as a way to describe a similar demographic. In recent years, NEET has been used more broadly to refer to individuals of any age who find themselves in such circumstances. It is often used in discussions about youth unemployment, social exclusion, and policy-making related to education and employment.

Of course, as a government acronym, it doesn’t make intuitive sense on first hearing; yet it does describe something real that connected with people in a way that extended it beyond jargon to common slang that was then spread likely by internet discussions across borders.

Interestingly, this old term from another country found relevance around the world struggling to deal with the negative consequences of Bismarck’s contagious social welfarism. Increasingly as America degenerates under the stifling oppression of Max Weber’s bureaucracy, our young have become increasingly neets.

While its origin is not necessarily pejorative, as an identity of a persistent state of failure to launch, it has become a debilitating social problem.

I do have one drafted short story featuring a neet. I should probably consider other ways to dramatize this phenomenon. It is difficult in that a neet, in the pejorative sense, would mostly not make choices, fail to recognize the opportunity of choice, make self-destructive choices, or be alienated by a lack of desirable options. That presents challenges in creating a reasonable character arc as that neet remains static instead of dynamic. There may be an opportunity to explore the impact of such a neet on others with its resulting frustrations; such would be looking at duty to the persistent neet as a Sisyphean task.

Maybe that is a seed for a story ‘Modern Sisyphus’ about a single mom struggling with an adult basement dwelling son. That is relatable as a subject a reader can point to in reality. It would be easy to turn this into a series of failed efforts to fix her neet son to the point of growth into a novella or novel. However, it would require a solution by which the neet discovers purpose and applies himself despite early setbacks.