Every single GTA V or RDR2 centric discord I have ever been on is full of people who use the vernacular I described, to the point they will mock and then ban you for questioning it, as if theyve always been right.

Its possible I've just had extremely bad luck.

Its also possible that these people are primarily console players who just got computers to play only Rockstar games, I guess if you had 0 experience with PC gaming and 100% with consoles, it could explain only hearing the term modding as something illegal or cheating.

Or it could be along the lines that you've said: Younger generations just read official documentation and have near 0 knowledge of anything that came before?