With "OK boomer," millennials are killing intergenerational resentment

OK Boomer will rapidly cross generational designations. I see it already.

Those who make everything about themselves know no generational bounds.

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If that’s true, it’s too subtle. Although it’s not my generation, it seems like a slap in the face to those who tried (in multiple election cycles) to prevent the shitshow we’re in now, only to find themselves repeatedly out-spent and out-maneuvered by leaders who wanted power and profit at everyone else’s expense. Those clueless folks responsible span multiple generations.

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I’m depending on Millennials (like my daughter, whom I had relatively late in life) to work through the long-term problems that we’re all facing. Because I’m a Boomer and not likely to live long enough to see long-term problems solved.

We Boomers are hearing our children (and, for most of my cohort, our grandchildren) say the same things that our parents said: we’re self-centered. We throw our trash everywhere. We’ve had it too easy (we’ve heard this all our lives; the Greatest Generation gave their all to make sure that we make sure that we had it better than they did, and deeply resented us for having it better than they did). Worst of all, we’re too numerous.

There must be something to it, given that generations both before and after had the same opinion.

(Edited to correct a missing ‘n’ in ‘Millennial’)

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I remember a lot of slacker crap being flung at my generation by elders. Some of us managed to eventually get out of debt, only to get whacked by epic economic downturns. The nature of the acknowledgement tends to depend on whether or not you’re perceived as better or worse off financially than the person doing the talking. Boomers at or below the poverty line and wealthy 20-somethings get different reactions.

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Yes, it does deem that way. But it’s a deserved slap in the face. We Boomers had a moral duty to prevent the shitshow, and ultimately failed to prevent it. We enjoyed the fruits of being a generation of privilege, and squandered them.

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Wow, you’ve captured perfectly what happens when I tell another Trekkie that Federation would’ve made a much better movie! :nerd_face:

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Ah, this is the source of my problem with the label. I don’t know many privileged people of that generation, and those few are on the young end of the range dealing with expenses for themselves, parents, and kids in college. I won’t blame the older, working-class ones because they’re either still working or struggling on fixed incomes.

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I wonder if Millennials and Gen Y/Zers have really, really thought about who may be (or now… not be) named in their Boomer relatives’ wills?

Won’t matter. Nobody has long-term care insurance that’s even close to being adequate, so some nursing home will get everything, anyway. Unless our kids smother us with pillows one of these days, or else the guillotines get brought out. (Given those choices, the guillotine sounds like the most painless exit…)

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OK Boomer.

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That’s pretty much the situation in Britain, because neoliberalism has eaten the social care system. Most Gen X/Y/Z will only get debts in their relatives wills. We’re better off disowning elderly relatives who will vote for the Conservative or Brexit Party in December.

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I’ll never get used to a system that claims I’m the same generation as someone who was born and grew up after the internet was in common use. I remember the internet not being a thing for the majority of my childhood, and I only actually started to use it when I hit my teenage years. Someone born in 1996 was raised in a completely different world.

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That’s the late Generation Jones experience as well. For later boomers- some early boomers could be you parents. And your growing up cultural touchstones were the 70’s & early 80’s - not the 60’s.

It really should be split to have some resonance with what other ages that are carved out. If we going to call something a generation- it should have tops a 15 year spread.

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Some comparisons in real dollars.

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Indeed, I was blissfully unaware of Woodstock when it happened (Apollo 11 was the only major event of 1969 that I actually remember). It wasn’t until several years later, when MAD Magazine did a sendup of it, that I realized that Woodstock wasn’t just a cartoon bird.

Funny how any of the attempts to repeat it ended disastrously. Late-stage capitalism doesn’t mix well with hippie idealism.

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David Brooks would disagree. His elegant solution for Boomers who feel guilty about going Reagan in the 1980s: forget about all that social and economic justice stuff and just buy your ‘60s authenticity. Since Amazon bought Whole Foods, you don’t need to leave your gated community to eat organic at a few hours’ notice.

ETA: this meme just came to my attention. It rings very true:

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Okay, I laughed way too loud at that superbly apt meme.

YOINK.

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