I agree that it’s impotent prejudice*, but does that make it a completely separate phenomenon?
*Doubly impotent in fact - as I said in the OP, I don’t think the magnitude of actual harm is very great at all, compared to other forms of prejudice that have existed
Yes. I’m not saying they’re not bad people for making those comments, they’re totally little shits, but I don’t think it’s necessarily indicative of their held prejudices, so much as an awareness of what words will hurt which people the most. They also don’t really think their Fortnite opponents are gay, IMO. They’re just trolls.
For what it’s worth, I’ve never heard anyone called a Boomer in the wild from any of the sub-21 people I know, except in quoting the “OK, Boomer” meme, sarcastically.
Interesting, so not a contiguous phenomenon with the matching prejduces in the more general and deeply-held sense, you think?
I don’t think so.
Hell, is Boomer even a valid term for someone in the UK? I had assumed it strictly a US phenomenon.
I think we had the baby boom here too - WWII being part of the preamble for that, and being a global phenomenon.
Back in my day, we used to sarcastically say “OK, grandpa” instead of “OK Boomer”. Now get off my lawn!!
Yeah, but you didn’t have the post-War prosperity that went with it, did you? I mean, rationing went on till the 50s.
They mostly voted for these people because they didn’t have a choice. The vote for president is always between “this old person selected by the one party”, “this old person selected by the other party”, and “throwing away your vote in a way that helps the party you like least.”
Trump was the only exception to that that I recall, and he still happened to be old despite not being a party frontrunner.
Not perhaps so immediately, in fact I would say that the return of prosperity was delayed by maybe a decade - I have a book right here with me published in 1965 called ‘It’s Fun to Entertain’, which is basically trying to teach Brits to do those weird party things that were all the rage in the USA from the mid 50s
Yeah, it’s not so much the OK Boomer phenomenon, but rather the labelling that came out of it.
ok boomer. 
See how that works? (I’m born 1970 myself and am both dealing and receiving the OKB)
In my experience it’s usually used in reference - the intent ranging from being amused or affectionate to eye-rolling or dismissive - to a complaint from “anyone over 30” that suggests Things Used To Be Different And Better And I Don’t Like How It’s Gotten.
Okay, that made me chuckle.
Several months age I was getting out of my parked car on a somewhat steep hill to hit a local market. A guy in his late teens/early 20’s went whipping by in the street on a skateboard with a shouted “Watch it Boomer!” and I admit I was irrationally annoyed and a little amused at myself because of it. Not by the warning, which was appropriate if a little rude, but being called a Boomer when I’m Gen-X damn it! I’m in my early 50’s, not my late 50’s - it’s entirely different 
.
Those Gen-Zers! Impolite and unable to tell late fifties from early fifties!. Useless, the lot of 'em.
It’s a good thing Boomers never disparaged their parents’ generation, or their children’s, with such a broad brush.
When someone disparagingly refers to Boomers, my immediate impulse is to say that I’m not like that. I’m not technologically incompetent, I didn’t vote for Trump, I didn’t vote for those other Republicans who did other bad things, and I don’t hold retrograde opinions on social issues.
Then I remember how I felt about the previous generation when I was younger. I thought they had everything handed to them: college on the GI bill, houses with VA mortgages, well-paying jobs with pensions. They could easily support a family on one income, which I couldn’t do and would probably never be able to do. And they referred to my generation as “lazy hippies.”
So I keep my mouth shut, and I try to avoid giving people any additional reasons to resent me. I smile when I see younger people talking as if aging is an easily-avoidable bad decision, like having an adjustable-rate mortgage. But I don’t say anything, even though I wish I could give them Abe Simpson’s “weird and scary” speech.
Oh, they won’t. Guaranteed.
Is this a common view? It never occurred to me to think about a previous generation in these terms. Even if true, it’s not their fault. Every generation (and every person) has it’s own advantages and challenges. We do the best we can. One generation isn’t more hard working, more introspective, more caring, or more anything than the next.
I don’t think anyone here asserted that ageism is a new thing
The whole generational thing is ridiculous. Does a person born on December 31, 1964 really have a different experience from someone born January 1, 1965? Of course not. Attributing characteristics to birth year isn’t quite as stupid as racism, but it’s close.
“Ok, Boomer” is a perfectly suitable response when some geezer Boomersplains something to a dumb millennial who never did anything in the real world.
See, that’s the way the world works. Everybody gets to start out in the younger generation and if you survive that you get to be in the older generation. When you’re the younger generation you think you know everything but you don’t, and you poke fun at the old farts in the old generation. When you’re in the older generation you think you know everything but you don’t, and you poke fun at the wet behind the ears younger generation.
So sure, ‘they’ had it easier than your generation, ‘they’ don’t understand what life is like for your generation, and if you haven’t been ‘they’ already you will be some day.