Ok, Boomer

Touchy, touchy. Some regard it as the first shot marking the end of friendly relations among generations, the equivalent of the n-word applied to ageism. "OK Boomer" first surfaced as the response to a video posting on TikTok of an older man spewing epithets at Generation Z and Millennials, you know, them Snowflakes (click: OK Boomer - The New York Times).

The catchphrase exploded at Internet speed and the meme has become a rallying cry for disaffected youth. It can be seen on stickers, shirts, posters, water bottles, greeting cards, and was even heard as the casual blow-off response by a 25-year-old New Zealand lawmaker to an older member of Parliament who interrupted her while she was giving a speech supporting a climate crisis bill. Such an elegant put-down: screw you, your mindset, and your condescension -- you who are responsible for where we find ourselves today. It's our world now.

But is it fair? We've discussed the whole subject of generational archetypes (Intergenerational Embrace, MM 11/19/18) and the way history creates generations just as generations create history. One "finding": each generation is a product of the generation that spawned it (and, for that matter, such previous generation spawned by the preceding one, etc.). That's why history is said to rhyme and why no generation can rightly be "judged."

But we'll judge anyway. Discuss: the collective we (yes, am a Boomer myself) represents the most overprivileged, pretentious, self-righteous, self-important generation alive today. Yes, the Sixties had a core of nobility and tragedy but, somewhere along the line, idealism became clueless and narcissistic as the generation worked its way upstream. Boomers inherited an industrial strength post-WWII balance sheet only to squander it like some trust-funder. Their political ascendency translated into tightening controls and stricter regulations hampering the younger while sparing the older (click: The Boomers Ruined Everything - The Atlantic). The egocentricity that's said to characterize this generation is, in fact, the very quality that drives the tragedy of the commons (Tragedy Of the Commons, MM 6/11/18). While this is just one perspective, it's the one animating the meme.

Oh, please, this is nothing more than a good fun digital eye-roll. Maybe. But perhaps it reflects more of an underlying resentment on the part of the young, summarized by this exchange:

Boomer: "You know what Gen Z's problem is? They were given participation trophies! This gave them unrealistic expectations about the real world." Gen Z: "I think we're upset because you have systematically dismantled all the systems of support that contributed to your success, have increased wealth inequality, have created the climate crisis, have criticized the youth for issues you know nothing about and, by the way, who was it that handed out those trophies in the first place?"