"Damn it! Pander to us!" say Boomers

[hajario]

@PharmBoy

Count me in, and I say Amen to that. Also born in '63, I do not consider myself a BB - pretenious, whiny, smug, self righteous BORES all of them!

or a GenX’er - bunch of overschedueled, pampered, uninformed twats.

It’s not entirely fair to say that we didn’t get movies directed towards us but it was short lived and consisted of crap like The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles.

[elfkin477]

@hajario

Hi Sam, I was also born in '63 and I agree with you. You and I are Tweeners, we’re not Boomers or Gen X’ers. A Tweener is roughly someone who doesn’t remember the JFK assassination but does remember Watergate. We better be prepared to take care of ourselves because we’re going to get fucked on both ends.

I’m on the tail end of GenX, and for a long time I was all doom and gloom. “We’re never going to be able to retire. We’ll never see anything from all the social security we pay in.” But then it occurred to me: The boomers will be long dead by the time I’m old enough to retire, so social security will be able to be restructured by then to fit a smaller generation. No, it’s people your age who are going to be fucked over. Sorry, Man.

As for the OP, my folks are both boomers, and they still like TV just fine. Dad likes things like 24, Numb3rs, Jericho and Bones. Mom’s pleased with the trifecta of doctor shows - House, Grey’s Anatomy and E.R. OTOH, I’m not sure anyone ever told them that they’re supposed to be catered to, so perhaps ignorance is bliss.

[Spoke]

@Mrs. Cake

Tweener here (another ‘62 baby) who always wanted to be a boomer, thanks to my older sister who got all the righteous fashions, the groovy blacklight posters, and the free lovin’. All I got was a rock. And disco.

Disco? Heck with that noise. We 'tweeners invented Alternative Rock. You know, back when it was good. Michael Stipe, Eddie Vedder, Frank Black, Anthony Kiedis, Flea, Paul Westerberg, Bob Mould (to name but a few) – all born in that 1960-65 groove.

Personally, I identify much more closely with Gen X than with the Boomers.

spoke- ('62)

[eleanorigby]

@Motorgirl

Aren’t most of those Millennial traits, rather than Gen-X?

As a Gen-Xer, I get the “best [friend] with benefits” bit, but the rest seem very Millennial to me.

I dont’ know what Millennial is. It sounds like a skin disorder. Oops, that’s milia…

and as for Alternative Rock-I’m 1962 and have no clue of ANY of the “artists” so named upthread. Maybe we’re the non-cohesive, splintered gen.
all I know is that Topsiders are a good looking shoe to me. I didn’t mind disco-I never danced to it (that I recall), and there was plenty of pot and hash brownies, but I digress…

[Zsofia]

Forget that, watch Wheel of Fortune. All laxatives, all the time! Well, sometimes there’s one for Gas-X or funeral insurance, just to spice things up a bit.

[asterion]

@jsc1953

If you’re a boomer (like me) and want to feel pandered-to, watch the broadcast network evening news. *Every * commercial is for prescription medicine or laxatives.

Or football. If it isn’t a stupid truck commerical, it’s boner drugs and prostate problems. I would be a happy 24-year old if I could watch a football game without any of those commericals.

[Evil_Captor]

@asterion

Or football. If it isn’t a stupid truck commerical, it’s boner drugs and prostate problems. I would be a happy 24-year old if I could watch a football game without any of those commericals.

So, truck commercial on TV give boomers boners, and they need drugs to combat that. You could be a little more sympathetic!

[Grits_and_Hard_Toast]

@eleanorigby

Yep, born in 1962 here and feel the same. Although, if I were to have to choose between the two groups, I’ll go with the Boomers. I’ve never understood stuff like “best with benefits” or hip hop or the odd fashions (hey, I fully admit that “our” fashions were odd, but the jeans so baggy and droopy, the girl shirts so cropped, and no zip to the jeans, they’re cut so low and wanting your thong to show…sorry, old fuddy duddy here).
I think it’s pathetic that someone actually wants TV to pander to them. Maybe they all need new glasses or their hearing aids haven’t been delivered. I thought Boomers were the active, out there, volunteer and travel generation. Now I learn that they want to sit on their asses and watch the idiot box. They’re all coming home to Sesame Street…

I was born in the later part of '64, so I am also in between groups. I used to identify more with the Boomers. But many of them are starting to seem really old to me now. Most of my new friends are a few years younger than I am. And I am really enjoying that, and now identify more with them than the boomers.

I never enjoyed television. It might be that as others mentioned, early on I felt I would definately have to be able to take care of myself so I always had jobs or was taking classes and never had time for TV. I was busy getting a head start on my nest egg.

There are finally a few shows this past year I have actually made an effort to watch. I loved Deadwood, and now love Dexter. I also enjoyed Rome. I hadn’t thought about it, but those shows don’t have advertising, so maybe I am more what they are marketing towards. I also like South Park. Other than those shows, my TV viewing is either sports or shows on the History Channel or Discovery or something along those lines.

But if TV ceased to exist tomorrow, I wouldn’t mind at all. I much prefer spending time online learning new things and researching things I thought I knew about, but realize now I had only scratched the surface. And even those things may relate back to my feeling I need to make sure I can always take care of myself, completely believing that SS and Medicare won’t be there.

It has always been a habit of mine when finding a new hobby or interest than I can justify the time I spend on it by thinking it could turn into an additional source of income should I need it. For fun I have developed several marketable skills I haven’t needed to use, but can in the future if things turn out the way I think they will.

[pokey]

Remember how Thirtysomething wound up a joke due to everyone finding Hope and Michael old and annoying by the time they were 34? Everyone said, “I hope they cancel this shit before it’s called 40-something, yuk, yuk,” and then meanwhile they did cancel it and ever since then boomers have not liked to see themselves on TV unless they are solving crimes in a gritty urban setting.

[eleanorigby]

Thirtysomething was too old for me (I was a newly married 24 year old, IMS), and they were prententious pricks. Funny how many of my acquaitances resemble them now (hell, make them look kind and liberal thinking!).

I don’t watch a lot of TV-I did rent 6 Feet Under and really enjoyed it-it seemed to be a mix of all the generations that touch mine. It was nice that way.

As for sitcoms etc-I am probably wrong, because I hear rumors of bold new comedy that is edgy etc, but to me, all I see is canned laughter and stupid domestic humor. Either that or trash yelling at each other or “judges” talking trash. So, I tend to judge people myself on if they watch TV…(is there good stuff out there? Sophisticated comedy that depends on situations and intelligence?)