Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2023/08/30/tom-the-dancing-bug-generation-gaps.html
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It’s even more meta when you realize that the hippie and the MAGA guy are both boomers.
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Unless you’re using some weird made-up new meaning for “Boomer” (ie: maybe you’re talking about the berserk-prone robots from the '90s anime Bubblegum Crisis that pretend to be humans?) then no, they probably aren’t.
Boomers are the generation born between 1946 and 1964, which yes, most hippies were part of, but during the 1960s, that would mean the oldest “boomer” would have been 14 at the start, and 24 at the end - nowhere near old enough to have an already adult child arguing about politics. The “parent” in this situation is at least part of the “Silent Generation” born from 1925 to 1945.
The Dancing Bug is on fire with this strip. 
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Boomers born between 1945 and 1950 would have been 18 to 23 in 1968. Just the right ages to be “hippies”.
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Yes, and their parents would have to have either given birth to them before entering puberty, or not be boomers.
Who is saying that the parent in the 1973 panels is the boomer/hippie? I’m pretty sure you misread that first comment you replied to.
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The cartoon identifies the top half as 1973, so the baby boomers would be between 9 and 27, which fits with the age of the “hippie”. Nobody was suggesting the father would’ve been a baby boomer.
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Read the original statement being responded to - it’s calling BOTH people in the comic boomers. The whole point of the strip is that it’s the same two people having the same conversation 50 years apart, but saying eachother’s lines right up until the second last panel. There are only two characters presented.
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I didn’t take them as being the same people since they don’t look alike, I assumed they were four separate people.
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I re-read it several times and that’s definitely not how I interpret it. It said “hippie” (the younger person in 1973) and “MAGA guy” (the older person in 2023.) To me the meaning is quite clear.
The hair color, shape of noses, etc also make it clear to me that these are not the exact same people decades later.
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I like this cartoon since it really does sum up the arguments I’ve had with right wingers as of late which have been, to say the least, ironic. I’m not a revolutionary when it comes to anarchism, I’m in the gradualist camp, but I’m usually fine with outright defiance against the state. It’s just that these right wingers aren’t doing it to liberate folks, it’s all to keep privileged white and rich bozos in charge. So, it’s amusing when I get called an establishment plant/stooge despite hating the state and capitalism.
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Right?
The young lady in the ‘73 version could be Jane Fonda, and the old MAGA guy in the ‘23 version could have been her classmate…
One of the best of these comics I’ve seen in a while.
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Generations aren’t set in stone, and there is a lot disagreement about the time frames. It mostly references a shared set of experiences mainly around consumerism and ideals that are often largely only had with middle and upper class white people. 
Self-identifying probably matters more here than some arbitrary set of years that were made up by some dudes trying to shove entire groups of people into a shared framework to prove a theory they had…
Also, someone posted this in another thread somewhere and it’s worth a read… from a
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They’re reactionaries, not revolutionaries!
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Same, I see four people. Usually when a cartoonist wants you to assume you’re seeing the same character over time they bend over backwards to draw things that clue you in or the script supports it.
Would be weird if she was talking across time to herself too without acknowledging it in some way.
But the hippie and the Maga are both drawn in a way that makes me think they are Boomers. The generations joke I think goes like: Silent talking to Boomer then vs X-Z talking to Boomer now.
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I am saying that the young person in 1973, and the guy in the MAGA hat in 2023 are both boomers. I am not saying the older person in 1973 or the younger person in 2023 are boomers. I don’t know any other way to interpret what I said.
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And Gen X talking to no one, since no one acknowledges our existence! Either that or we don’t care… 
I think that’s the case…
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You know what, in honor of Gen X, I’ll include all the Alphabet generations old enough to vote!
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