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‘OK Boomer’ Marks the End of Friendly Generational Relations

nytimes.com

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Re: ‘OK Boomer’ Marks the End of Friendly Generational Relations

#91

Post by Twirrim »

hmschreck wrote: post #33
lawlessone wrote: post #20

Really? i thought i ended when everyone was talking about how millennials are ruining companies by not buying affordable products. Or saying millennials are poor because they like avocados. Or saying millennials are entitled for demanding a living wage.

This is pretty much it. My generation has been called entitled, lazy, selfish, etc, for wanting the same things our parents were given, like a living wage, affordable college, or career stability. In what world is that friendly?

And the boomer generation were called entitled, lazy, selfish by their parent's generation too. Think about the attitudes of the war generation to the hippies, recreational drugs etc.

This shitting on the next generation thing has been going on for a long time.

There's solid evidence going back 150 years of older generations complaining about school kids being undisciplined, not respecting their teachers ("not like back when I was at school"), and some slightly more anecdotal evidence going back some 2000 years of the same.

We always find it hard to reconcile the negative aspects of our old behaviour with our current mindset, and it's way easier to just reduce in our minds the severity or scope of our actions. We learn from our mistakes, and try to make them seem as small as possible in our minds.

Re: ‘OK Boomer’ Marks the End of Friendly Generational Relations

#92

Post by mcv »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #77
hmschreck wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty much it. My generation has been called entitled, lazy, selfish, etc, for wanting the same things our parents were given, like a living wage, affordable college, or career stability. In what world is that friendly?

Our parents. Are you talking of Gen X? The boomer generation? In general, your statement seems to apply to Gen X. But not really the boomer generation - e.g. they didn't have affordable college like Gen X did. Gen X seems to have been at the crossroads of things shifting and kind of got the best of all worlds. And for Millennials, some have it rough but some don't. College was cheap and affordable for some of them -…

Yeah, I feel like a lot of the things Boomers and Millennials are blaming on each other, actually apply to Gen X (and I say this as a Gen-Xer myself). We got the best education deal before (admittedly Boomer-) politicians started to undermine education. We were the slacker generation. We're the generation that refused to grow up. We got jobs in the booming 1990s.

But sure, let Boomers and Millennials fight. We're happy to stay out of this (just know that I'm on your side, Millennials!)

Re: ‘OK Boomer’ Marks the End of Friendly Generational Relations

#93

Post by lawlessone »

enriquto wrote: post #42
lawlessone wrote: post #20

Really? i thought i ended when everyone was talking about how millennials are ruining companies by not buying affordable products. Or saying millennials are poor because they like avocados. Or saying millennials are entitled for demanding a living wage.

wait, what's the problem with avocados?

oh you're in for a treat.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/may/15/austral...

Re: ‘OK Boomer’ Marks the End of Friendly Generational Relations

#94

Post by lidHanteyk »

mieseratte wrote: post #61
lawlessone wrote: post #20

Really? i thought i ended when everyone was talking about how millennials are ruining companies by not buying affordable products. Or saying millennials are poor because they like avocados. Or saying millennials are entitled for demanding a living wage.

> Really? i thought i ended when everyone was talking about how millennials are ruining companies by not buying affordable products. I think it's important to differentiate between "media-driven narrative" and real-world relations, though that line is a bit blurry. It seems the former often creates the latter. Right now I'm not sure that "Ok Boomer" is anything more than a meme.

"Remember the USS Maine" was just a meme too. Don't underestimate the power of memes, boomer.

Re: ‘OK Boomer’ Marks the End of Friendly Generational Relations

#95

Post by PeterStuer »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #82
PeterStuer wrote: post #12

The idea that climate change and financial inequality concerns are generational divided is ludicrous. To me this framing reeks as just another divisional front the promoters of identity politics, who btw are also not generational divided, would like to inflict on us all. P.S. I'm not Gen Z by a long shot and deeply concerned about climate change and financial inequality.

Look at politics today, though. The party that is speaking out vociferously against climate change and inequality is the Democratic party, whose voters are statistically much younger, more educated, more urban, less white, less religious, more female. Now look at the GOP, which handed out huge tax breaks to the rich/corporations, and who denies climate science...GOP voters (and the politicians themselves)_are older,…

That is not the nature of 'quick and dirty articles'.

That is precisely the nature of identity politics, which treats everyone not as an individual with a personal identity and personal believes and responsibilities, but as a generic instanced clone of some immutable class assigned by birth, all members of which need to prostrate to a perpetual divisive ideological war.

Re: ‘OK Boomer’ Marks the End of Friendly Generational Relations

#96

Post by Frondo »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #77
hmschreck wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty much it. My generation has been called entitled, lazy, selfish, etc, for wanting the same things our parents were given, like a living wage, affordable college, or career stability. In what world is that friendly?

Our parents. Are you talking of Gen X? The boomer generation? In general, your statement seems to apply to Gen X. But not really the boomer generation - e.g. they didn't have affordable college like Gen X did. Gen X seems to have been at the crossroads of things shifting and kind of got the best of all worlds. And for Millennials, some have it rough but some don't. College was cheap and affordable for some of them -…

I'm not sure that's true about the boomers having access to affordable college. I had an ex whose boomer grandfather lectured us endlessly about how he worked hard all summer long to save up for college -- which, for him, meant a 40 hour work week during the summer, to afford a year of university, with room and board -- and why couldn't anyone else do the same these days?

No matter how often we pointed out that college is, in general, vastly more expensive, and summer jobs comparably less well-paying, he'd just repeat himself. "I just don't get it, you go work for the parks department, you work all summer long, why isn't that enough? It's your iphones, your cell phone plans, etc." when, you know, yeah we're paying $20 a month for cheap cell phone plans and five-year-old iphones, but the reality is that working three months at, say, $15 an hour, nets you what, $5-6k? That might cover a year's tuition at a community college if you live at home, not a year living at a state-run four-year university.

Re: ‘OK Boomer’ Marks the End of Friendly Generational Relations

#97

Post by croon »

TheHypnotist wrote: post #25
rco8786 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps those elders forgot that respect happens in two directions.

Right, hasn't lazy millennial been beaten to death enough?

Yes, which is why we've moved on to Gen Z now as the scapegoat du jour.

Re: ‘OK Boomer’ Marks the End of Friendly Generational Relations

#98

Post by Frondo »

swalsh wrote: post #36
lawlessone wrote: post #20

Really? i thought i ended when everyone was talking about how millennials are ruining companies by not buying affordable products. Or saying millennials are poor because they like avocados. Or saying millennials are entitled for demanding a living wage.

On a side note related to this idea, I wonder if Millenials overcompensated by going to the extreme on the opposite side of the triangle (quantity, price, quality). On Saturday I went to a beer/wine store that's in a predominately young professional/student neighborhood. When I lived in the area about 8 years ago there were maybe 20 craft beer brands. Beer came in 6-packs, and was priced at about $11-15. Today, there…

I don't know about that. My millennial friends, when we're buying beer, go for the 24-pack of keystone light. The craft beer's always a treat, like something you might get a four-pack once a month.

Re: ‘OK Boomer’ Marks the End of Friendly Generational Relations

#99

Post by Miner49er »

PeterStuer wrote: post #95
WhompingWindows wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at politics today, though. The party that is speaking out vociferously against climate change and inequality is the Democratic party, whose voters are statistically much younger, more educated, more urban, less white, less religious, more female. Now look at the GOP, which handed out huge tax breaks to the rich/corporations, and who denies climate science...GOP voters (and the politicians themselves)_are older,…

That is not the nature of 'quick and dirty articles'. That is precisely the nature of identity politics, which treats everyone not as an individual with a personal identity and personal believes and responsibilities, but as a generic instanced clone of some immutable class assigned by birth, all members of which need to prostrate to a perpetual divisive ideological war.

Identity politics is just a useful way to refer to groups of people. You can't really have (useful) politics without identity politics.

For example, how do you talk about helping homeless people, without using their shared identity (the fact that they are homeless)?

Obviously it's not always a useful thing, and grouping people by shared identities can be messy. I don't understand how it can be avoided though, unless you just want the world to stay exactly the same it is.

Re: ‘OK Boomer’ Marks the End of Friendly Generational Relations

#100

Post by jhbadger »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #77
hmschreck wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty much it. My generation has been called entitled, lazy, selfish, etc, for wanting the same things our parents were given, like a living wage, affordable college, or career stability. In what world is that friendly?

Our parents. Are you talking of Gen X? The boomer generation? In general, your statement seems to apply to Gen X. But not really the boomer generation - e.g. they didn't have affordable college like Gen X did. Gen X seems to have been at the crossroads of things shifting and kind of got the best of all worlds. And for Millennials, some have it rough but some don't. College was cheap and affordable for some of them -…

No, GenX didn't get the "best of all worlds". If you were too young to remember the period, the famous documentary "Slacker" (1990), describes the period well. We had the same frustrations that Millennials and now GenZ have in terms of lack of opportunity.
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