Millennials killed Applebees.
Millennials killed diamonds.
Millennials killed golf mayonnaise the power lunch malls
Millennials whine about their debt, but if they’d just eat less avocado toast they could buy a home too.
It’s a great response to this sort of generational targeting. Beyond that I’m not convinced.
I mean, on the one hand yes, on the other hand what the fuck have *we *done ?
Stuff like this is just as gross as the “millennials could buy houses if they’d stop eating avocado toast” nonsense. Probably grosser.
It’s not about right wingers or their politics - there absolutely are stereotypical boomers on the “left” or center left. Here, I’ll show you by impersonating a former boss of mine, and every person born after 1980 in the thread is going to compulsively roll their eyes in unison. I’m talking The Exorcist levels of trigger, for which I apologize in advance. Ready ? clears throat OK here goes :
“Yes, look, I know exaaaactly where you’re coming from - I was at Woodstock you know, did you know that ? We did the counter culture fight and we won, so I know **all **about social justice but then I cut my hair and came back to the real world because that’s not how it works and look at me now, I have my own company and three houses so you’ll see, kid, you’ll make it too. I really like your energy and passion, I do, but you should be using it like I did and knuckle down instead of whinging about big bad capitalism !”
I know there’s a correlation, but why insult people for being old? Especially if that’s not even the issue? 28,000,000 of us boomers are Democrats.
Again, “OK boomer” isn’t about your age or generation. It’s about your (putative you) attitude. If you catch some “OK boomer”, maybe reflect on why, or what is it in what you said that might have prompted the clapback. And if you don’t, what makes you think it’s about you ?
Because pithy is more important than nuance when trying to make a phrase go viral.
Is this what you tell millennials who are annoyed at millennial-bashing?
Because it’s addressed to me, as a member of that generation. How is “boomer” not about boomers?
Why address something at an entire demographic group if it’s about a behavior many in the group aren’t doing? Or if it’s characteristic of some other demographic group such as Republicans?
As a teenager, I heard from the previous generation, “Don’t trust anyone over thirty,” and I thought that was stupid. I heard the apocryphal Churchill quote about being a liberal at 25 and a conservative at 35 and thought that was stupid. I heard people complaining about my generation being slackers and thought that was stupid. I heard my mom talking about how great her generation was in taking on social injustice and thought that was stupid. I heard people from her parents’ generation talking about how self-absorbed their children’s generation was and thought that was stupid. Then people started complaining about millennials and I thought that was stupid.
It’d be out of character for me to hear millennials complaining about another generation and to think it was incisive analysis.
I suspect that the people overusing “ok boomer” today will, in thirty years, be complaining about the younger generation’s reliance on neurojacks and unwillingness to put in a hard day’s work or something…
It’s less about specifics, and more about how some people want to see the world in broad demographic blobs rather than as ideological differences between individuals.
I asked you if the world was a less democratic place now than post war…you said
Now wasn’t that easy?
If that is your position then fine, put up the numbers. You will have to make a judgement as to whether a shitty democracy is favourable over a dictatorship or other autocratic system. Even the shitty democracy in a shitty democracy is greater democracy than in the alternative systems. If you think those people were better off in a dictatorship then say so.
The figures do not agree with you. The bald fact is that autocracies etc are down, democracies are up. If you have figures that suggest otherwise then show them.
You haven’t shown a trend
That’s a very weird take on what I said. Political murder is not a required feature of a democracy and no political system will guarantee it can’t happen. However, some systems do seem to have political violence and repression as a common outcome.
but then you yourself in this very post have said
, referring to a whole demographic. How lovely. I think I see why you are so against improving medical care for extending life.
And, as ever, you are arguing against a point that I never made, nor even hinted at. If any group suggests that the desired alternative to shitty democracies is better democracies my response would be “yes”, that is exactly what I think too. Go for it.
My citing of the charts was to counter the assertion that the world is a worse place now than after the war. It was an example of where the world, overall, has got better, along with increased lifespan, lower infant mortality, lower poverty, disease erdication, healthcare improvements, improvements in equality and the extension of the democratic franchise in general. There are more. I was very careful to talk about the world overall and to ask people to imagine themselves born as a random child in 1945 or today.
I’ve also accepted that not every metric shows improvement everywhere, at all times, in all situations. You giving examples is of little use when I’ve already conceded that fact.
The difference being, millenial-bashing is bashing us for stuff upon which we have little to no personal control.
We’d love nothing more than to be able to buy houses with big friendly loans, or go on big shopping sprees in giant malls (well, not really, malls sucked, but we’d love to be able to actually buy some shit sometime, have the odd day off…), or have power lunches. We have clocked 30 minutes lunch breaks to eat at our computer or in the lobby though so, y’know. And that’s when we don’t have to piss in discreetly stashed bottles because Jeff Bezos can’t abide nor evidently afford our going to the fucking loo.
We’d enjoy being able to choose to have “corporate attitudes” and loyalties to whatever shitbox we’ve been diligently working at for 20+ years if that’s our plan - but if they’re going to treat us like disposable garbage, keep us on shit salaries that barely cover rent & medication for the requisite crippling depression nevermind student debt, hold us on precarious temp contracts doing the job three people used to be doing before they got downsized in time for the quarterly (don’t complain or it’s your ass next) and lulz if we even think about getting a pension or health coverage then, well, why is *anyone *surprised that our general reply and attitude is along the lines of “Yeah ok, it’s 5:01pm though so I’m out, don’t even think of contacting me at home” ? They expect us to fight like rabid dogs for the privilege of their scraps, yet we’re the lazy entitled ones ?
…I’m just getting myself mad on the internet again, aren’t I ? :o
… Dude, if you keep not listening to explanations that have already been provided in this very thread, I really don’t know how I can help you. Help us help you. Read what **Jragon **wrote, they’re on point. Accept that’s how we’re using it. “boomer” is not about boomers.
It’s a
n Oklahoma (OK) fight sing.
I disagree that that’s a significant counterargument. First, nobody has control over their birth year. Second, plenty of the idiotic criticisms of millennials are things under individual control (avocado toast, use of cell phones, dislike of Applebees, spurning of malls, yadda yadda). Third, a lot of the economic stuff is different from the economic struggles that Boomers went through, but plenty of Boomers, for example, weren’t allowed to get credit independent from their husbands, or were redlined out of bank loans in certain neighborhoods due to their race, or were part of the workforce during the worst of the union-busting eighties. Any conclusion that boomers had it easy, economically speaking, reveals a fairly class-, race-, and gender-blinkered understanding of boomers.
By all means make fun of people who obsess over generations and try to criticize those of a different generation based on some stupid broad brush. Just don’t join their ranks.
And this is why I say it’s sloppy analysis.
Yeah but those are patently idiotic taste police nonsense and aren’t even worth addressing. They’re not the stuff that gets our collective goats - it’s just jazz; cubism programming the VCR and fixing the computer all the way down, who cares. Old man yells at clouds.
Nobody’s saying they had it easy. We’re saying “for god’s sake, will you ever understand that the world you grew up in is fundamentally different from today’s world (and vice versa) and your ready-made pre-chewed “wisdom” just doesn’t apply any more, nor has it for a long ass time ?! And if you won’t understand, can you at *least *spare us the judgemental or patronizing lectures, or the assurances that everything is fine (because you are fine) ?”
It’s not meant to be analysis at all, anymore than “oh FFS :rolleyes:” is meant as sharp post-modern deconstruction of a tired talking point. Like I said, it’s just memetic catharsis (and a little bit of tribalistic signaling I guess, a little bit of “*you *get it, don’t you ?”).
But it’s not like we don’t also do sharp post-modern deconstruction, or political activism, or trans-sectional solidarity and so on. There’s plenty of that going around on our strange gizmos, if the oldies would care to stop bitching for a second about the strange gizmos between themselves and *look *for it.
Oh, and while obviously (as I said time and again) it’s not meant as a sweeping generalization of age groups and yes #notallboomers yaddayadda ; that doesn’t mean generational feelings don’t have anything to do with it either. Obviously I’m not every millenial, I’m not every race or subsection of population, I’m just some bougie idiot trying to not be a dick ; and I’m not even on social media myself (I’m too old a millenial, it’s a newfangled gizmo to me :)) but I do browse twitter and watch youtube stuff from people who are more social media savvy than me and consider myself somewhat hip to what these young cats are putting down, dig ?
Yet even though I was only exposed to the “OK boomer” meme like a couple weeks ago, I immediately and implicitly grokked it ; because it’s a pithy and concise phrase that nevertheless matches with or encapsulates thoughts and experiences and frustrations I’ve been subjected to my entire life. It resonates, somehow.
Which is probably why it caught on like wildfire.
Or how about, “Did you vote?”
I like that. And, “What was your branch of service?”
… y’see what I mean, though, Left Hand? 
Like, there’s so much to unpack and counterpoint in just this tiny exchange of stupidity and it’s exhausting to even contemplate that task. So y’just go “… OK, boomer” instead because fuuuuuuck
Um, exactly?