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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

#101

Post by jhbadger »

mcv wrote: post #92
bcrosby95 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hap…

The 1990s were only "booming" (in the US) towards the end of the decade. The early/middle part of the decade was a recession.

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

#102

Post by mieseratte »

lidHanteyk wrote: post #94
mieseratte wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Nothing about what I wrote "underestimates the power of a meme". Don't forget to practice reading comprehension, lazy millenial.

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

#103

Post by [deleted] »

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?

[deleted]

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

#104

Post by PeterStuer »

Miner49er wrote: post #99
PeterStuer wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

'Homeless people' are in the context of homelessness policy are not a 'shared identity' but an accurate identification of the (mutable) attribute the policy should target. It is the exact opposite of the (immutable) identity politics approach.

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

#105

Post by bredren »

boardwaalk wrote: post #62
bredren wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually this phrase started around October 15th on TikTok. The phrase’s use in related videos grew rapidly and had not existed before. It’s real sentiment. The fault with this article is that it focuses on merchandise. Edit: here’s the first video I saw it trend in comments: http://vm.tiktok.com/553g7w/

I think the point is that this phrase doesn’t mark any sort of new sentiment. Millennials and later have been hating on boomers for many years at this point on reddit etc.

Ah. My point is that it’s manifestation on TikTok specifically is significant.

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

#106

Post by Miner49er »

PeterStuer wrote: post #104
Miner49er wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

'Homeless people' are in the context of homelessness policy are not a 'shared identity' but an accurate identification of the (mutable) attribute the policy should target. It is the exact opposite of the (immutable) identity politics approach.

That doesn't really make much sense. Why should it matter if the identity is immutable or not? What matters is whether or not it is a useful way to talk about an issue and people.

It's immutable that a kid is a kid. It's immutable that some kids have cancer. What's so wrong to use identity politics to say we should help kids that have cancer?

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

#107

Post by MrMember »

Twirrim wrote: post #91
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?

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 b…

>The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.

The above quote comes from ancient Greece.

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

#108

Post by frankbreetz »

Clubber wrote: post #51
frankbreetz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that a much larger percentage of Gen Z believe in global warming than boomers do. Of course, politicians are elected by people so if everyone believes in global warming and votes that way everything will work out. GenY and GenZ tend to vote for more pro-climate policies, many more of them protest for the government to do something. Many more of them on environmental conscience. The big thing you seem to be mi…

>The big thing you seem to be missing is governments should be doing the will of the people, and the will is there for GenZ, but not for the Boomers. I think the main thing you seem to be missing is that's not how it actually works. The will is there for the energy companies but not the people because energy companies pay for campaigns. Do you think boomers really want ridiculously high health care costs? At their ag…

most boomers are on medicare. I think there are some exceptions, but for the most part, the government does the will of the people. I think that most older people think smoking pot should get arrested (another thing that is changing, because of the will of the people...) I don't even know what to say about the tax thing, I guess people vote about more important issues.

You don't what generation I am in, it's not GenZ

Boomers caused the end of Vietnam because of protest, GenZ is trying to do the same with climate change.

If nothing is done about climate change, it is because the voters didn't vote this way, I don't think it will be because they don't know. It is quite publicized these days. But, if GenZ spends there whole life not doing something about climate change it will be there fault.

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

#109

Post by falcolas »

excalibur wrote: post #55
creaturemachine wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mmm there's that word again, "given."

Yes, it would be more appropriate to say "not robbed by their employers."

Funny, my pre-baby boomer dad had his pension raided by the leadership of his employer. Employers abusing employees is a tale as old as time.

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

#110

Post by PeterStuer »

overthemoon wrote: post #59
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.

Generations are ideologically divided. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/20/a-wider-par... https://www.people-press.org/2018/03/01/the-generation-gap-i... https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/09/the-politic...

No they are not. They have statistically differently skewed preferences, but that is a completely different thing.

Divided would mean that e.g. Millennials with few exceptions vote Democrat while Boomers with few exceptions vote Republican. You know their age, you know their vote with few exceptions.

The reality is that if you would 'accuse' a Boomer of having voted Republican you would be wrong 56% of the time, and if you would 'accuse' a Millennial of having voted Democrat you would be wrong 46% of the time.

This means that if you would start guessing DEM/REP voting purely based on cohort, you would on average be wrong 51% of the time! Yet somehow, this is spun as a generational divide? Do you think this warrants supporting a generational 'war' narrative?

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