Ya know, I thought this was going to be about Chris Berman.
Oh well.
It generally makes for amusing reading when people step on the garden rake of reality when walking on the lawn of fantasy.
Such vitriol. Some people here are still angry at their parents, I think. A little intellectual discernment reveals that the article is not a scientific survey, but a single journalist’s point of view intended to evoke emotion. Are you folks really buying it, hook, line, and sinker?
But I admit that when I go to a library, or need a nurse, I notice how many of those greedy, self-interested, deficit-spending divorcees are over 40, the whiners.
In the spirit of this silly and emotionally over-the-top skewering of a whole generation, let me join in the fray by paraphrasing that wacky propagandist: “A boomer is for me an object of disgust. I feel like vomiting when I see one. Christ could not possibly have been a boomer. It is not necessary to prove that scientifically - it is a fact.” (J.G. speaking to A.H.)
(P.S. Thanks to the Gen-X dot-com folks for taking 10 years’ worth of venture capital and my father’s savings, spending it on pool tables and Superbowl ads, and then slinking back to mom-and-dad’s house when the bubble burst. Thanks for ruining the mutual fund market and drying up venture capital for years just so you could call yourself a CEO at age 22 with your little cellphone, pager, Mac laptop, and goofy ideas about running companies without products or profits.)
This intergenerational blame-game gets boring. If you’re mad at your dad, tell him!
Those two paragraphs next to each other make me laugh.
Everyone whining about people older or younger than themselves in this thread is irritating and overgeneralizing. Yes, the people in the article in the OP are annoying, but to complain about a whole generation of millions of people is dumb. Also, I can’t help but feel angered on behalf of my non-self-absorbed, hard-working, celebrating-their-30th-wedding-anniversary-this-year, 56-year-old parents.
Why do people have such a hard time understanding that no one generation is any better or worse than any other? It’s simple a matter of environment. Each generations acts as selfish and boorishly as they can get away with. Not individuals, but generations do. Period.
It’s not that, Earl, it’s that the OP felt that we hear about the selfishness and boorishness of the baby boomers way too much.
I’m right between gens here; I’m 38 and while technically a BB, born in '65, I missed out on all the “fun” of the 60’s and had to grow up with 70’s clothes. And my folks were born in the late '30’s, so it’s not like I’m rebelling.
I’m glad, that was the point. I don’t really believe what I wrote (except for the last statement about inter-generational blaming being boring). In other words, I agree with what you said.
I enjoy using multiple levels of irony, but it doesn’t always come across clearly in this medium.
Hmm. Well that’s an interpretation I hadn’t thought of. Maybe the OP can come back and clarify what (s)he’s actually thinking.
c’mon, if I can’t rant with a extra wide full bodied ox hair brush in the pit, where can I?
I suspect that alot of boomers don’t realize, due to their majority status, just how much of their culture, concerns du jour, and politics impact those in the minority. We can’t escape it. It’s pervasive. And frankly, we’re sick of hearing about it.
No fear, NurseCarmen. Just go on back to your “mosh pit”, crank up the “Ecstasy”, and “jive”. You won’t have to worry about hearing stories of hemorrhoids, 401Ks and the rest of that there boomer stuff. 
I’m not sure about this Boomer label. I’m 41, born in 1961, so technically I’m part of that demographic, but I have nothing in common with that generation. I was only 2 when Kennedy was shot, so I have no memory of that Boomer-defining event. I was 10 years too young for the Age of Aquarius and 10 years too old for raves and smart drinks. My mother was born in 1943, so she was the one buying Beatles albums and mourning JFK and RFK while I was in nappies.
What’s the label for those of us on the far right of the Boomer Bell curve?
Sorry gobear, you don’t weasel out of your responsibilities that easily. You’re part of the Evil Self-Absorbed Hordes, and have everything in common with someone born in 1946.
Gobear, I’ve heard us called 'Tweeners - neither Boomers nor Gen-X. Works for me.
Nah, you’re gen-x.
According to Strauss & Howe (the leading generational theorists) the boomer birth years are 1943-1960. X is 1961-1981. Millennials are 1982 - ???.
http://www.fourthturning.com/my_html/body_generations_in_history.html
Yes the tail of the high birthrate bulge lasted until the mid-60’s, but S&H base their generational divisions on more than just birthrates. They use a variety of demographic data, as well as the intersection of various major world events with people’s lives. (For example … are you old enough to remember Kennedy getting shot … .)
S&H prefer the term 13th Generation to Generation X, partially because when Douglas Coupland wrote the book Generation X he intended the term to just refer to those of us born in the immediate post-boom in-between – exactly the time you describe.
And since this is the pit: Boomers Suck!
I was born in 1964, so I am right at the end of what some would call the baby boom, although as others have said I really do not share the same experiences as the older baby boomers and really consider myself to be Generation X.
I have very mixed feelings about the Boomers. On the one hand I admire a lot of what many of them stood for, and some of them still do stand for. In many ways I have been influenced by the left of center politics and hippie counterculture of the late 60s and early 70s.
On the other hand, I am disappointed that so many Boomers did sell out and become exactly that which they opposed in their younger years. A particularly sad manifestation of this is the “lesser of two evils” mentality of supporting the Democratic Party, no matter how much to the right they drift, instead of the truly progressive Green Party.
As a boomer, I can’t necessarily defend everything my generation has done. But just consider this: Is there a generation that HASN’T screwed up big time when it was their chance?
My parents’ generation did their share. They bought into the “evil Commie menace” propaganda that sent my friends off to die in a jungle. Mr. Butrscotch has 20+ friends’ names on the Wall, plus a relative or two. And what happened to all that evil Commie meance? Nothing. Absolutely jack shit. They turned into fucking capitalists first chance they got.
You want to complain about a generation fucking over the economy? Try THEIR parents’ generation. Do the words Great Depression mean anything to anyone here?
I seem to recall reading somewhere that Socrates was recorded complaining, to paraphrase, about the useless youth of today and how the world was going straight to hell. Seems like each generation blames every other one.
Jerrybear, I agree that being a Democrat is probably selling out, but have you felt the pain of witnessing boomers turn into REPUBLICANS?
I can’t stand the boomers. Bunch of divorced neurotics whose lofty goals have been reduced to scheming how they can boink their personal trainer. Generation Y sucks too. These baggy panted semi-literates represent a bleaker future than a William Gibson Novel. An entire generation destined to hold jobs with their names on their shirts. The older gen X’ers, those born before 1973, aren’t much better than the boomers. I got news for ya’ll - 80’s music sucked. Your “Flock of Seagulls” concert t-shirt is northing to be proud of. And those born after 1973 can lick my left nut. You’d be listening to Duran Duran with your “Flock of Segulls” t-shirt wearing older brother if we hadn’t changed everything. Those born in January - October, 1973 can fuck off as well. The fact that your car insurance rates went down before mine doesn’t make you richer as a person. And to those of you born in December 1973, bite me. I wouldn’t buy you a beer a month before you turned twenty one and I’m not gonna pop for one now. A big sphincter sandwich goes to those born before 11:28 AM…
This is exactly why generational labels are such bullshit. People are born all the time; they don’t come out in ten-year increments for demographic convenience. Even if you lived through the same social and cultural periods, an event has a very different impact on someone who’s, say, five years old than on someone who’s twelve years old. Even an age difference of one year can be significant if the people in question are very young. Why on earth do people assume that what “generation” you were in will determine your personality and value system?
I was at work and being harrassed and answering the phone and trying to figure out how to unscrew my pen so I could refill the ink when I wrote my post, so it’s possible I wasn’t giving your post the attention it deserved.
The Rolling Stones haven’t put out a decent album in many years. Think I’ll take some Ecstasy and go moshing instead.
The Boomers whine. The Gen Xers whine. Their brats whine. Your grandfather didn’t. You fucking softy.