October 29, 2019

Have you noticed that the term "Boomer" is now being used to refer to anyone at all old, including (at least) Gen Xers?

I was alerted to this evolution of language by this Tik Tok I saw yesterday:



I was reminded of that today when I saw this article in the NYT, "‘OK Boomer’ Marks the End of Friendly Generational Relations/Now it’s war: Gen Z has finally snapped over climate change and financial inequality." Generation Z has snapped and they've got a catchphrase "OK Boomer"...
Teens say “ok boomer" is the perfect response because it’s blasé but cutting. It’s the digital equivalent of an eye roll. And because boomers so frequently refer to younger generations as “snowflakes,” a few teenagers said, it’s particularly hilarious to watch them freak out about the phrase....
But that's not about just us official Baby Boomers, born before 1965. That's about way more older people, people born in the late 60s, the 70s, and maybe even the 80s.
In the end, boomer is just a state of mind. Mr. Williams said anyone can be a boomer — with the right attitude. “You don’t like change, you don’t understand new things especially related to technology, you don’t understand equality,” he said. “Being a boomer is just having that attitude, it can apply to whoever is bitter toward change.”
Anyone can be a boomer — with the right attitude.  "Boomer" is coming to mean something like "oldie." It's a taunt directed at the older generation, and these Gen Z people are probably thinking — as the Tik Tokker points out — more of Gen Xers. Their parents, not their grandparents.

If you look up "boomer" in Urban Dictionary, you'll see definitions that take account of this change in meaning. The second-highest-rated definition is:
A slang term for old farts who hate Millenials [sic] and act politically correct to get back at them.
Third-highest-rated:
A person over the age of 30 that likes 80s Rock and Monster Energy Zero Ultra, that wants things to go back to the way they were.
That's clearly Gen X (or even millennials).

Fourth-highest-rated is a long list, so I'll put it on page 2, but it comes right out and says you don't have to be in the "Baby Boom generation" to be called a "Boomer":
A person who exhibits the following characteristics:
-anywhere from 30-75 years old*
-white
-owns a house in the suburbs
-balding
-drinks Monster Energy Zero Ultra
-calls his kids things like “champ” and “big guy”
-his riding lawnmower is the envy of fellow boomers
-hates and ridicules Millennials
-(sip)
-wakes up at 6am to mow his lawn
-“Yeah I would’ve went pro if I didn’t injure my ___ during that championship game”
-MAGA
-only listens to Dad rock
-“snowflakes”
-“I’m sure she had her reasons”
-“when I was your age”
-“back in my day”
-probably peaked in high school
-will be nostalgic for classic video games like Doom if younger
-drives a Corvette on weekends
-has had steady office job for over a decade
-socks and sandals
-wine and dines at Olive Garden or Applebee’s

*One doesn’t have to be an actual member of the Baby Boom generation to be considered a Boomer. A Boomer is anyone that embodies the stereotypes of this age group.

My Boomer neighbor blasts AC/DC on his lawnmower at 6am whilst double-fisting monster energy zero ultras

100 comments:

Tomcc said...

Speaking for myself, I'm certainly glad that I will have shed my mortal coil long before this cohort is in charge of anything important.
"...you don't understand equality" oh hell, get off my lawn!

tcrosse said...

Boomer was a common term long before the baby boom, and was attached to a lot of previous booms back in the 19th century. Also, in the less fashionable parts of Milwaukee a boomer was a fart.

chuck said...

The pink haired Grey Lady is with it!

Ken B said...

“Never trust anyone over 30”

daskol said...

That's just VSCO girl talk.

daskol said...

The whole "OK Boomer" thing, I mean.

Leland said...

I guess an actual eye roll is beyond Gen Z's capability?

I'm also laughing at the problem of financial inequality. Nope. Not going to give more allowance money because they pout.

Amadeus 48 said...

How the mighty have fallen--we were the Woodstock generation, the pig in the python, the center of THE world, the biggest population cohort in the history of everything. We built this city on Rock 'n' Roll! We discovered the Beatles, and the Stones, and the Beach Boys. It's bitchin', man. EVERYTHING REVOLVES AROUND US!

So, we get to the 2020 election, and who are the Leaders of the Pack? Yup. Trump. Biden (just beyond the edge). Warren. Who is that guy--Pierre Somethin'? Mitt Somethin'?--you know--he killed himself last week, or somethin'

Boomers.

ok boomer, indeed.

traditionalguy said...

The cut off is now raised on internet iPhones . Born and bred in the 80s is just as bad as old timers now...as bad as the war babies born and bred with returning WWII War veterans trained by the Military, but survived and who valued life and family.more than anyone today can believe.

doctrev said...

Watching boomers try to deflect the hostility against their insufferably smugness with, "what the youth -really- mean is Gen X" goes a very long way to explaining why teens hate boomers.

Browndog said...

Children of the corn

Marshall Rose said...

GFY arrogant prick.

Youth is not a magical elixir that grants wisdom, it is ignorance through inexperience.

Being dismissive of experience is dangerous.

Achilles said...

Public education system at work.

Our university and k-12 system needs to be burned the the ground and the earth it occupied salted.

GingerBeer said...

Sure, why not? Nazi refers to everybody they disagree with. It's not like perspective, historical accuracy, or temperament has ever been wasted on the young.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Bet the author of that article is a "Boomer" and won't admit it.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

"A slang term for old farts who hate Millenials [sic] and act politically correct to get back at them."

Huh? Boomers were called boomers long before the boomers were "old farts." I'm a late boomer and I remember hearing the term when I was still in grade school. (For the record, I've always considered the older boomers - the ones who came of age in the late 60's - to be the "real" boomers.)

I suppose it was inevitable that young people would come to use the term as an insult. Heck, it's karma, really, for all the "don't trust anybody over 30" nonsense kids spouted in the '60's.

It's amusing to me though that the youthful scoffers don't recognize how much their "rebellion" apes the worst of the '60's counterculture created by the Boomers they disdain. Hysterical protesters enacting dumb street theater, clothes and hairstyles meant to be "shocking" rather than aesthetically pleasing, pot consumption elevated to the status of basic human right and mystical experience instead of being viewed simply as just another indulgence.

The Z's are carrying the countercultural revolt (which is no longer a revolt, since the cultural Establishment is now "woke") to ever more extreme and absurd levels. If they really wanted to be rebellious, they'd tar and feather their socialist professors and vote for Trump.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

tcrosse said...

Also, in the less fashionable parts of Milwaukee a boomer was a fart.

Well, if you need to spell it out you know where you can always go for advice.

rcocean said...

Boomer:

White - but talks about how "cool" black people are.
still looks down on the 'burbs
Tears up when you talk about Selma or Emmett Till
Back in 'Nam
We closed the school down, man.
Thinks smoking MJ is cool and edgy
Uses the word "hip"
Can tell you every verse of every Beatles song
has 100 books on JFK assassination.
Kurt Vonnegut - now there was a genius
Still has copy of Catcher in the Rye
2001 - the greatest movie ever
Goes to Star Trek Conventions. Talks about "The Shat".
Still sneers at the "the repressive 50s"
Makes jokes about Leave it to Beaver
Upset when people trash John McCain - he was a War Hero.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I hate the pooper generation. bastards.

Kay said...

My favorite thing about all this is the constant association with Monster Energy Zero Ultra.

Kay said...

daskol said...
That's just VSCO girl talk.
10/29/19, 5:23 PM


Lol

Ken B said...

I was emphatically not the Woodstock Generation. I was spared that ignominy by a few years. But I have mocked them all my life, tie-died moonchildren, so I have a wee bit of sympathy for this. Not much, but not zero either.

Anonymous said...

"...it can apply to whoever is bitter toward change.”

I've only heard "Boomer" applied as a pejorative not toward old farts who don't like change, but toward the sort of clueless, sanctimonious, well-off, and self-satisfied old farts who're oblivious to how much things *have* changed for the younger generations, particularly in regard to prospects for well-paying, stable employment and achieving financial security. (Some entries in that list do allude to all that.)

"OK, Boomer" is pretty funny, though.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

One of the most memorable family feuds of my childhood occurred at Christmas dinner '69 or '70 when my hippie first cousin got into it with her dad and told him how square and boring and against equality he and his generation were. She finally stomped out of the house (although not before finishing dessert.) I was 9 then and sided with her, since she had cool clothes and he seemed kinda grumpy. It wasn't until much later that I realized that my uncle, a WWII vet who had served with Patton's Army, had done a bit more for freedom and equality than any of his offspring.

What comes around, goes around...

Sal said...

Ha ha, kids say the darndest things.

Tommy Duncan said...

I thought Boomer was an NFL quarterback who played for the Bengals, Jets and Cardinals.

Kay said...

Ken B said...
Not much, but not zero either.
10/29/19, 5:57 PM


How about Monster Energy Zero Ultra?

Anonymous said...

exiled: I'm a late boomer and I remember hearing the term when I was still in grade school. (For the record, I've always considered the older boomers - the ones who came of age in the late 60's - to be the "real" boomers.)

Lol, yes. Those of us on the tail end of the cohort resent being lumped in with older boomers. Those guys, what a bunch of assholes. Nothing like us...

Seeing Red said...

i had no money when I was in my 29s either. Why should they be speshul?

BTW...Lucianne:


House Democratic leaders are walking back a planned vote Thursday that would officially endorse impeachment proceedings and say that the resolution would merely address the process of holding public hearings on the matter. “This is not an impeachment resolution,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters Tuesday morning. “I don’t know what an impeachment resolution is.” (Snip)Hoyer said the resolution “addresses moving from the investigatory phase to the hearing phase” of the impeachment proceedings, entering the public phase. Hoyer, who controls the floor schedule, would not fully commit to holding the vote on Thursday. “We are going to have to consider whether or not it is ready to go on Thursday,”

Michael K said...

The newer generation have some justification for resenting Baby Boomers who elected a Congress that spent their Social Security surplus to buy votes, leaving the younger generation with the check. They also hollowed out education and filled the schools with Marxists who teach the free lunch theory of economics.

Seeing Red said...

has had steady office job for over a decade

-wine and dines at Olive Garden or Applebee’s


Which is why they have money.lololololol

Mark said...

Actually, most baby boomers couldn't give a rat's ass about what dumb-ass trendy millennials -- too many of whom have deep-throated all the worst things that progressivism tries to shove on the rest of us -- think of them.

Ice Nine said...

The greatest gaggle of clueless dipshits this country has ever seen called me "boomer"? That's devastating.

PluralThumb said...

An old fart as opposed to a young fart, a fart is not a horse ofcourse, but horses fart also. Irrelevant battlecry. I'm afraid that teenagehood may have to be changed to until 30. We did not fight for a Country, we did not walk to school, we did not pay 5 cents for coffee, cigar or a cola. We are bored and we secretly love you but you boomers are way too coded with history that we either have no patience for because Science and nature say so. I'll consider apologizing in my 40's for calling a calling a boomer, well, a boomer. Sorry.

wildswan said...

They know you're a boomer if you give their little kids juice instead of water to drink or if you get the kids Gogurt or regular (sweetened) applesauce or you can't put in the car seat. It's the little things that can betray you when you are trying to pass, even if you talk the woke. (Put two hands on your iPhone texting.)

Yancey Ward said...

We can certainly add to this list:

Can change a flat tire without calling AAA.
Can replace the water control assembly in the toilet without calling a plumber.
Can find an address when the GPS goes on the fritz.
Can change a light fixture without calling an electrician, or killing ourselves.
Can throw anything without looking like an girl.

Any others?

Bob Boyd said...

Who's a Boomer?
How about Al-baghdadi?
Now there's a Boomer.

Rick said...

Gen Z has finally snapped over climate change and financial inequality."

Only people who know they can't compete want to be paid equally instead of for the value they create.

And a point of fact: qualified applicants are so rare even kids who can't find their ass with both hands can get excellent starting jobs. Not only are kids snotty they're wrong on the facts as well.

Birkel said...

It's fun to reject the wisdom of older generations while using cell phones inside cars and houses paid for by other people.

n.n said...

Semantic evolution, progression, corruption, change.

Heartless Aztec said...

Being a boomer I finally came to the sad conclusion that not only were my parents right but my grandparents were right too. Sigh.

todd galle said...

Don't know where I might fit. Born in 1964, and have always despised hippies. I don't think I fit the mentality of Boomerism, and I think there should be another age grouping. I got sent to the principals office in the late 70s because I brought the Sex Pistols album in to music class where we were allowed to play a song after instruction. I think 'God Save the Queen' was on for about 30 seconds before I was banished, and my record was confiscated if I remember right.

Lurker21 said...

How much of what made baby boomers so distinctive in the 1960s has remained in today's Boomers. Not much? Anything? Nothing? That's not surprising since the politicized boomers who come to mind first were only a minority of the actual baby boom generation.

Are they really sitting around listening to Simon and Garfunkel records and remembering Woodstock? I don't think so. Not most of them. "Sixties people" locked in the past are only a small subset of the generation. It's funny that a generation assumed to be grass smokers ended up as "Get off my lawn!" oldsters, but that happens to everybody sooner or later.

Even if you're a late boomer or no boomer at all, the thought of a world where nobody understands or remembers our distinctive culture - Gilligan's Island, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, The Munsters, The Brady Bunch, etc. can be depressing.

Sprezzatura said...

Sksksksksksk

And I oop.

rcocean said...

"Bye Bye Miss american pie"

If you love this song. You're a boomer.

Sprezzatura said...

Boomers hate turtles!

Kathryn51 said...

Ken B said...
“Never trust anyone over 30”

Yeah, my first thought as well. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Millenials are just as smug as my boomer generation was back in the 60's.

And they will grow out of it - only it will be another decade for them since they are determined to delay adulting as long as possible.

Michael K said...

We can certainly add to this list:

Can change a flat tire without calling AAA.
Can replace the water control assembly in the toilet without calling a plumber.
Can find an address when the GPS goes on the fritz.
Can change a light fixture without calling an electrician, or killing ourselves.
Can throw anything without looking like an girl.

Any others?


Hey, that's us preboomers.

My wife was changing a light bulb at a friend's house in Boston in November 1965. She put the new bulb in and the lights went out. She thought she had done something to the fuse box until she was driving home and heard on the radio that the whole northeast was out.

stevew said...

Yeah, i need more ways to eye-roll, dismiss, and disparage the people I engage with on a daily basis. Or not.

Big Mike said...

Nothing new. Back when I was in my fifties I read something in the Post where they were complaining about "Baby Boomers in their seventies." I was born in 1946 -- the first year of the Baby Boom -- so people in their seventies would have been born at least fifteen years too soon to be Boomers. Now they're trying to expand the Boomers to include our children.

Assholes.

khematite said...

Millennials' grasp of grammar is apparently so shaky that they believe that Boomers wouldn't cringe at the use of a phrase like "would’ve went."

Rockport Conservative said...

The only OK Boomers I recognize are the Oklahoma boomer Sooners!

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

this cracks me up.
Who said cats are useless?

Unknown said...

Good to see Gen Z worries about leaving a good lay for Gen AA, the kids they won't have.

They need to think about the 3rd world peasants coming through their open borders.

Climate Change is a hoax.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

boomer ideas: We must go broke in order to have free health care - delivered by the government.

tim maguire said...

Typical of millennials that they can’t be bothered to learn what they’re talking about. Using the wrong word? It’s so boomer to care about meaning!

stephen cooper said...

Michael K - you had a wife in 1965?

Props, dude.


You remind me of me (from true grit)

DavidUW said...

Millennials think x ers are boomers because math is hard

Laslo Spatula said...

Help the aged,
One time they were just like you
Drinking, smoking cigs and sniffing glue...

I am Laslo

iowan2 said...

I hit some of the markers, not a lot.

But I did get a bitchin lawn mower this year before mowing season startes.

A Walker. Best ZTR on the market. Cut is the very best. But still not a boomer

Wince said...

The real truth will be known once they start inheriting Boomer wealth.

Laslo Spatula said...

Every Generation must decide if it will deconstruct its Deconstructionalists.

Everything else is haircuts.

I am Laslo.

effinayright said...

doctrev said...
Watching boomers try to deflect the hostility against their insufferably smugness with, "what the youth -really- mean is Gen X" goes a very long way to explaining why teens hate boomers.
*************

Never mind that those teens live lives of luxury, safety and ease never before experienced by any people on Earth.

Why not tell us, doctrev, what *you* fault us for?

effinayright said...

khematite said...
Millennials' grasp of grammar is apparently so shaky that they believe that Boomers wouldn't cringe at the use of a phrase like "would’ve went."
********

The rot on grammar goes pretty deep. I've seen Mara Liasson say "should've took" more than once.

and don't get me started on the subjunctive.

Laslo Spatula said...

And I do find it funny that TikTok Girl is wearing a vintage retro dress.

I have a theory about her not shaving her pubic hair.

I am Laslo.

stephen cooper said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Stu Grimshaw said...

I saw an OK Boomer T-shirt and like Rockport Conservative, my first thought was a self-identifying Oklahoma Sooners fan. Boomer Sooner!

Stu Grimshaw said...

Also, reading thru the comments I see rcocean and his list of boomer attitudes. One of which is a reverence for Kurt Vonnegut (so true!). Scroll down to read a poster named Ice Nine ripping on clueless dipshit millennials.

Perfect.

rightguy said...

Calling post-boomers "boomers" maybe a tell that millennials don't know enough history to understand the term "baby-boomer".

Assistant Village Idiot said...

Highschoolers and college kids have always been very concerned about staying cool, and signalling the superiority of their age cohort. For many of them, the attitude remains the same as they age, perpetually locked in pursuing acceptance from the cool kids and keeping the others out.

stephen cooper said...

I never get any credit for anything

that is how I roll

don't feel bad for me

CWJ said...

"We can certainly add to this list:

Can change a flat tire without calling AAA.
Can replace the water control assembly in the toilet without calling a plumber.
Can find an address when the GPS goes on the fritz.
Can change a light fixture without calling an electrician, or killing ourselves.
Can throw anything without looking like an girl.

Any others?"

And finally the ne plus ultra -

Can make change.

Bob Smith said...

As one of those pre-war guys who doesn’t have a generation (yay) it was disappointing to find out that the guys and gals ten years my junior weren’t like the guys and gals my age and didn’t: A. Show up every day. B. Be honest about their numbers. C. Treat their employees with respect. I could write all night.

Lewis Wetzel said...

The millennials are just jealous because their music is crap.

Unknown said...

Why use your PHD in basket weaving to land that Barista job

When you can SAVE THE WORLD by eating pea protein burgers and using one square of toilet paper

Generation NEUROTIC is owed.

stephen cooper said...

Bob - please tell us more.

I think I know what you are trying to say,and I would love to hear you explain what you are saying in more detail.

If you choose not to, that is ok too, but I would love to hear you go on and on as long as you want.

DavidUW said...

Let's get this generation crap sorted for once:
1) Boomers are those born to the WWII generation. Period. That, for the mathematically challenged means those of the birth years 1946 (mid-46) to the end of those couples' child-bearing years, approximately 1964-1966.
These were years characterized by high birth rates. optimism for the future, but with the shadow of the recently concluded WWII and its aftermath in Korea, Vietnam, etc. Biggish families.

2) Gen X. Those born to early Boomers, early in their couple hood. Now there was a set of early Boomers, who married "early" and started families "early" like their parents. There weren't many. And many of those starter marriages ended in divorce. Hence all the Gen X angst and stuff. Life sucks, Nirvana, blah blah. Reagan will nuke everyone.
Birth years: 1967-1982, approximately, but with the nadir of the birthrate being 1975. First borns, first borns in divorced/mixed families etc.

3) Millennials. Those born to mid/late boomers, in the prime childbearing years, hence a larger generation than Gen X. Second marriages/late first marriages. More stable family dynamics. Snowflakey because parents want to do better in second marriages. Bleeds over into old Gen Xers first kids with similar dynamic, we're going to do better than our divorced parents blah blah.
1982-2000 birth years roughly.


Kevin Walsh said...

14 or Fight!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRLwV2xafpk

Lurker21 said...

And when the kids grow up and leave us
We'll sit and look at the same old view
Just we two
Darby and Joan who used to be Jack and Jill
The folks who like to be called
What they have always been called
"The folks who live on the hill"


Circle of life.

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!''


There's a wild ironic appropriateness in a generation that wanted to die before it grew old turning into their parents (or by now grandparents).

As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment,
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered. …
Old men ought to be explorers


Old age - wear it with pride. Like those pants you've hiked halfway up your chest.

Michael K said...


Blogger stephen cooper said...

Michael K - you had a wife in 1965?

Props, dude.


You remind me of me (from true grit)


I had a wife in 1960. My older son was born in 1965. Had dinner with him tonight along with his sister (1967) and my DIL.

Yancey Ward said...

Michael K wrote:

"My wife was changing a light bulb at a friend's house in Boston in November 1965. She put the new bulb in and the lights went out. She thought she had done something to the fuse box until she was driving home and heard on the radio that the whole northeast was out."

Sounds like your wife caused the Great 1965 Blackout!

LYNNDH said...

Boomers, particularly those like me born pre 1955 (1946 for me) and do have issues with the technology because we really don't give a damn about being on the phone all the time, or texting just because we don't need too, remember that these that mock us will one day be mocked themselves. Yes, Karma is a Bitch.

Unknown said...

I was born seven years into the boom, and I have this to say. You people, yes, I said you people get up way too early. When I go to bed at about 5am, I check in to Althouse. She already has a couple of posts up, WITH comments. WTF. By the time I get up, there's no point in commenting. BTW...yesterday's posts and comments were phenomenal. Man,. I get a kick out of this blog. People stay up later. Sleep in.

Pat said...

We have become what we despised as youngsters, largely because we didn't have a sufficient world picture back then. Or maybe we've sold out to "the man" often enough that we became "the man."

stevew said...

Born in 1957 so I'm technically a Boomer but because I entered my teen years in 1970, past the Boomer heyday, I've never considered myself part of that cohort.

Paraphrasing Groucho: I Don’t Want to Belong to Any Club That Will Accept Me as a Member.

Robert Cook said...

I think they're using "Boomer" as a synonym for "bourgeoisie," i.e., older, comfortable, self-satisfied, complacent.

Robert Cook said...

"And finally the ne plus ultra -

"Can make change."


At 16, I got a job working in a Mr. Swiss (a sadly long-defunct hamburger chain, superior by far to any you can name, then or now). My primary job was to cook hamburgers--(cooked to order, never precooked!), but the first thing they taught me was how to make change. This is because everyone that worked there would eventually be expected to be able to work the cash register. It is a necessary skill for anyone, but one few are taught, especially today, where computerized registers calculate the change for the cashier.

Robert Cook said...

"The millennials are just jealous because their music is crap."

This statement is the sure sign that the speaker is a decrepit old fart, and is an opinion held by every generation about the music of the generation(s) younger than they.

Craig Howard said...

Can make change.

Yeah, if you want revenge on a know-it-all kid, just give the cashier that penny after she’s already keyed in the tender.

Then stand back and enjoy.

Robert Cook said...

"There's a wild ironic appropriateness in a generation that wanted to die before it grew old turning into their parents (or by now grandparents)."

Of course, that's exactly what Townshend's lyric was all about: the young person's fear of the inevitability that he would turn exactly into his parents, which the young person will always see as a living death: pinched and burdened by responsibility and obligation, concerned about banal daily minutiae, no longer carefree, their youthful dreams, passions, and ideals stifled and forgotten. (Of course, it also reveals the young person's inability to see the satisfactions of maturity and acceptance of one's own humble place in the universe. The young are grandiose; elders are more measured, content with what they have accomplished, even if short of what they, in their own youthful grandiosity, had dreamed of.)

Tom Ault said...

Doom as a classic video game? I'm so old, I can remember when Pac-man and Donkey Kong were classic video games. Or when thete were no classic video games.

Heck, I'm so old, I can remember when my gene3 had all the answers to the world's problems.

khematite said...

Not surprising that Progressive Insurance's advertising tagline for the past year or so has been is "We can't protect you from becoming your parents." We're mock solemnly warned that the best the company can do is to protect our homes and cars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zvzcOZGr2E

Anonymous said...

RC: This statement is the sure sign that the speaker is a decrepit old fart, and is an opinion held by every generation about the music of the generation(s) younger than they.

True, just as every old fart is convinced that society was in much better shape is his day, and is now going to hell in a handbasket.

But sometimes the music is crap, and sometimes society really does hit the skids.

I don't look for/follow such things, but I do have faith that there are talented young people out there producing great, innovative pop music right now. I also think, though, that the case can be made that contemporary Top 40 (aka CSP - Corporate Shit Pop) in every genre is really awful, relative to even the real stinkers of previous decades. (So the "but you just remember the good stuff" argument doesn't hold, because, boy, do I remember the crap.)

I grant that this perception may be colored by the nearly universal Forced Really Shitty Music environments that we're subjected to today, in addition to my being, well, an old fart. (A poor sick body can't even escape this Orwellian torture in a doctor's waiting room, let alone any restaurant or retail establishment.) In My Day CSP wasn't pumped out in every conceivable public space, indoor *and* out, so it remained a minor, ocassional annoyance, not an ubiquitous maddening stressor.

LA_Bob said...

exiledonmainstreet said, "(For the record, I've always considered the older boomers - the ones who came of age in the late 60's - to be the "real" boomers.)"

This is the flaw in generational designations. Someone born in 1961 has more in common with someone born in 1968 than they do with someone born in 1946

LA_Bob said...

Laslo Spatula said,

"Help the aged,
One time they were just like you
Drinking, smoking cigs and sniffing glue..."


From a slightly pre-Boomer musician (with the ironic last name of Young, a song that most boomers will recognize:

"Old Man, look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were....."

LA_Bob said...

"Of course, that's exactly what Townshend's lyric was all about:..."

Shorter Cookie (but great comment nonetheless):

Youth is wasted on the young.

Martin said...

Wonderful, more progress in turning us against each other. Now it is no longer merely Silents against Boomers against Xers against Millennials, now we are carving those generations into ever smaller groups that can detest each other.

Just great.

stephen cooper said...

Michael K said - "I had a wife in 1960."

Well I gotta say, you are just about the most eloquent person on the internet who can say something like that.

I mean, I can say I have been good friends - cor ad cor loquitur - with people who were too old to fight in WWI, according to the silly draft board folks who got to make the decisions back in 1915 - but that being said, I did not yet have a wife in 1960 (although .... well, let's just say lots of women have been in love with me, and some of them were quite beautiful in 1960 ,,,, just saying).

Not that I remember all that well anyway 1960 was a confusing year for me.

Thanks for all your interesting comments over the years!

Unknown said...

I learned to make change in 3rd Grade. It was part of the curriculum. I got paired with Karen Johnson. I'd give her whatever change I thought was funny. She never knew the diff. She was pretty, though, so I don't think she ever had to make change at a job.

Katleen Garcia said...

“OK Boomer” highlights the unwillingness of Gen Z-ers and Millennials to communicate with members of a different generation. The widespread prevalence of this phrase brings the larger issue of intergenerational differences and communication barriers into the foreground.