Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

‘OK Boomer’ Marks the End of Friendly Generational Relations

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 134 posts

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

#111

Post by na85 »

creaturemachine wrote: post #84
na85 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't tell what point you're making, but when my brother left his job at Google our grandmother asked what that was going to do to his pension. As if companies paying pensions was still a thing. These people grew up when a factory job could support a family of four, and companies hired people with no experience and then paid actual benefits. Boomers benefited from very generous circumstances. To suggest they earned t…

My parents, I guess who were boomers, suffered from crushing debt, divorce, poverty, unstable work. Factory work killed two of my Grandfathers, COPD and asbestosis. But go on, tell us how Google ruined your Brother's future.

>But go on, tell us how Google ruined your Brother's future.

I didn't write or imply this in any way.

My point is that many boomers conveniently gloss over the fact that they benefited immensely from the economic climate of yesteryear, and the common refrain of millennials needing to just tug harder on their bootstraps isn't received well because of it.

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

#112

Post by overthemoon »

PeterStuer wrote: post #110
overthemoon wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You're just redefining "divide" to mean something more substantial than I am. Do you think this is so insignificant that it doesn't even warrant a conversation?

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

#113

Post by [deleted] »

MrMember wrote: post #107
Twirrim wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#114

Post by excessive »

mc32 wrote: post #23
johnday wrote: post #15

This is silly. The only party here marking the end of "friendly generational relations" is the NY Times itself. Drawing lines through society is the cheapest and easiest way to look wise without making any meaningful comment.

Yup it’s as if kids didn’t have grandparents and if they do they hold them in contempt. This is just an exaggeration of a pithy retort that people think is funny (and it is). But that doesn’t mean people “believe” in it any more than people believe wearing a LeBron jersey makes them into better players. Some boomer should have some “OK SLACKER” t-shirts printed with the tag, “Have a productive day”

> Some boomer should have some “OK SLACKER” t-shirts

As part of Gen-X, I feel like that's appropriating from my culture. I was proudly on the "slackers" mailing list as an adult in the 90s when the millennials were being born. Give millennials a new pejorative, don't steal ours.

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

#115

Post by notacoward »

dogsgobork wrote: post #28
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.

It's like how class warfare is only when the poor fight back.

The group that's first to offend is rarely aware of it. The same phenomenon is readily observable in race and gender relations where "everything's fine" until the "uppity" out-group starts fighting back. It's a form of privilege, and "old white guy" is like the trifecta with "old" in there for a reason.

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

#116

Post by mc32 »

excessive wrote: post #114
mc32 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup it’s as if kids didn’t have grandparents and if they do they hold them in contempt. This is just an exaggeration of a pithy retort that people think is funny (and it is). But that doesn’t mean people “believe” in it any more than people believe wearing a LeBron jersey makes them into better players. Some boomer should have some “OK SLACKER” t-shirts printed with the tag, “Have a productive day”

> Some boomer should have some “OK SLACKER” t-shirts As part of Gen-X, I feel like that's appropriating from my culture. I was proudly on the "slackers" mailing list as an adult in the 90s when the millennials were being born. Give millennials a new pejorative, don't steal ours.

Eh, don’t fret too much, you’ll be a boomer soon...

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

#117

Post by bredren »

daxelrod wrote: post #60
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/

October 15 of what year? https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ok-boomer identifies it being used on Twitter as early as April 2018, with a surge in popularity in Jan 2019.

The article is about TikTok, so my comment was focused on its first appearance there that I noticed.

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

#118

Post by notacoward »

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.

> The idea that ... financial inequality concerns are generational divided is ludicrous.

Are facts "ludicrous" to you? Older people naturally tend to be wealthier through decades of debt retirement, salary increases, compounded investment returns, and so on. There was already a visible divide between the Me Generation (what "Baby Boomers" were once called and IMO still should be) and my own GenX. It seems the divide between us and Millennials/GenZ has gotten even larger. Student debt loads tend to be much larger as a percentage of income than mine were because inflation of college costs has significantly outpaced inflation generally (plus artificially increased demand). Changes in real estate and job markets have only exacerbated those differences. Maybe age-based inequality isn't as big an issue as race-based, but it's still an issue worthy of consideration.

Post reply on HN