I'm not even sure if I'm a millennial or just on the ass end of Generation X. It really depends on who you ask. Growing up, I was told I was too young to be Gen X. Now, I'm told that I just barely made the cut. I don't know. I was born in 1981.
I've long debated politics on the internet for fun. At least fifteen years. But I have noticed that since around 2015, politics got really nasty. Some people that have researched the issue noticed that it happened right around the time that Gamergate started. I'd probably agree with this assessment, since it was about that time that things just got really shitty. Debating politics had always been fairly ugly, at least online, but it was around this time that the right started offending people simply to be offensive. "Go back to your safe space!", "Snowflake!", and "Aww, you triggered?" were common in the discourse. Racist memes started popping up. Talk about participation trophies. And among all of that, was a shit load of trash talking about millennials.
It wasn't just in the comment sections, either. Clickbait articles about how "Millennials are killing the [fill in the blank] industry" had become so common that they turned into a joke. All of it was related to how we weren't spending money. We would explain that it's a little hard to spend money that we don't have, but then we'd just get called "entitled" by some old asshole in the comment section that probably worked a union job and got to retire with a pension.
Yeah, we're called entitled for wanting to work a full time job and not be poor. To want to be educated without being in a mountain of debt. To want to be able to see a doctor without having to fork over large sums of cash. To survive. We want to have the basics to survive while working full time, and for that, we're called entitled.
One of the worst rants about millennials I heard was a guy who said that we can't afford to buy homes because we're spending money on avocado toast. Think about what that really means. We're being told that we can't afford homes because we're spending money on food. They're mad at us for eating! How fucked up does one have to be to think that's a reasonable thing to say?
The right's political discourse hasn't just been mean, but it's mean because they're trying to offend. Making you angry is the goal. If you're offended, they think they won. They're actively trying to be the biggest pieces of shit possible just for the sake of being the biggest piece of shit.
A while back some millennial noticed that most of the nasty things being said online were by old folks. Mostly people over the age of 40, but definitely older than 50. And so, "Shut the fuck up, Boomer!" entered the discourse on the left. The memes have been pretty nice.
It was a couple of weeks ago that the phrase "Ok, boomer", entered the discourse. Millennials can't take the credit on this one. Generation Z started this one with videos on Tik Tok.
And I'm grateful for it. "Shut the fuck up, boomer" was nice, but there's something so...great...about this two-word phrase. It feels good just to say when someone is doing their absolute best to be an asshole simply for the sake of being an asshole.
"What about black on black crime?"
"Ok, boomer."
"Just get a better job!"
"Ok, boomer."
"Your generation is so entitled!"
"Ok, boomer."
Those two words say it all. "Ok, boomer" just says, "Your ideas are old and outdated. You have no idea what today's working class is going through, and you never cared to know. You're being mean simply for the sake of being mean. Fuck you." Or as one meme put it:
Some of my friends on social media have said that they don't want to join in this because they don't want a generational divide and whatnot. That's fine, but I'm still going to do it for a few reasons:
1. The people you use this phrase on were never going to be reached. They are the ones that are mean for the sake of being mean.
2. I never saw it as a generational thing.
Like I regularly explain on social media, baby boomer is an age demographic. Boomer is a mindset. There's plenty of baby boomers that aren't boomers. You'll regularly see them at DSA meetings. They're often ex-hippies. Decent people who care about others. You might not agree on all their politics, but they are at least caring and kind people.
There's also boomers who are not baby boomers. Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro are millennials who are also two of the biggest boomers to ever have boomed. Depending on who you ask, Jacob Wohl might qualify for Generation Z. He's definitely a boomer. Fuck those boomer fucks.
A friend asked me to explain what a boomer mindset is, and I responded by saying:
Boomers are the types of people who see the working poor and just tell them to get a new job. They call the working class lazy and entitled. They say things like "all lives matter" and post minion memes. They think Clint Eastwood's character in Gran Torino is a role model.
It doesn't matter what your age is, if you do that shit, you're a boomer.
Now the phrase probably wouldn't be as cathartic if all these boomers weren't responding to it so angrily. So, so angrily. And it's making me giddy.
The past few days the internet has been flush with screenshots of tweets saying that "boomer is the n-word for old people!" and other shit like that. I used it against a boomer and he went on a long ass rant about how "MY GENERATION GAVE YOU EVERYTHING!", to which I responded, "Yeah, you gave us the worst recession since the Great Depression, low paying jobs, a crashed housing market, and a student debt crisis." I could've just responded by repeating, "Ok, boomer", and it would have been just as on point.
The same people who for years have been offensive simply for the sake of being offensive, who would tell us to "go back to your safe space" and whined about millennials being offended by everything, are completely losing their shit over two little words! It's glorious!
After years of trying to explain the plight of today's working class to them, only to have them say we're just not working hard enough, or that bigotry isn't real, or any amount of condescending shit that makes you wish you had the power to reach through their computer screen and choke the life force out of them, finding out that two little words can cause them to feel so emasculated and rebuffed feels pretty fucking good. And I am here for it.
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