...OK Boomer was in response to being overly patronising and condescending.
If you're thirty or forty years older than someone those qualities are practically structural, built in to the relationship independent of what you might say. Just starting off with "When I was your age..." is enough to spark a snowflake tantrum even if you were just trying to give some chronological context to your observation.
That's not the case at all. Millennials have been mocked for not being able to afford housing, things that are beyond their control, things older generations had much easier.
Well that sort of behavior is just stupid. Obviously economic conditions have changed. But people of all ages are subjected to the barbs and calumnies of boors and cretins. I don't see it as age connected at all. The better (universal) response would be, "OK, asshole."
I think "Ok Boomer" has a different (and better) meaning than "Ok asshole". If I as a boomer offered a youngster unsolicited advice and they said "Ok asshole", I'd take that to mean he was a complete jerk. If they said "Ok boomer", I'd take a second to review my tone and advice. "Ok boomer" points out that the boomer is criticizing from a position of privilege with little understanding of the challenges facing the speaker. It is a form of counter critique that is much more specific and less aggressive than calling someone an asshole.
"ok Boomer" is a condescending brush off and nothing more. Like how you would talk to a child interrupting the "adult" conversation. Nothing more, nothing less.
What if a youngster offers a boomer unsolicited advice? And does inhabiting a sixty year old body automatically translate as a position of privilege? I accept your explanation — but I think the underlying problem is people at any age assuming they know what's best and volunteering unsolicited advice.
It would be if millennials hadn't been the target of insults from the older generations for years. Someone responds accordingly and this is what we get. No millennial has ever said "OK Boomer," to me.
Your "universal response" isn't used over here at all.
Hidden in this census data, BuzzFeed News found that 1.4 million American millennials (born 1981–1996) supported their parents in in 2016, the most recent year for which data was available. That number was statistically indistinguishable from the number of boomers (born 1946–1964) supporting their adult children in the same year.
“OK boomer” is not just a pithy retort; it’s totally valid. I’m giddy; maybe you are too. The same number of millennials financially support their parents as the number of boomers who support their grown children.
0 Replies
livinglava
-2
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Mon 11 Nov, 2019 11:03 am
@hightor,
hightor wrote:
I think the underlying problem is people at any age assuming they know what's best and volunteering unsolicited advice.
The problem goes a little deeper, and it has to do with a cultural of authoritarianism where people can't exchange opinions without establishing a hierarchy of who is the boss and who follows orders.
In liberty, individuals exchange advice without worrying about losing their autonomy. In fact, hearing someone else's opinion or advice is helpful in order to know what you might not have thought of, and incorporate that into your own autonomous decision-making process.
In authoritarianism, there is emotional pressure to conform due to social expectations that group authority supercedes individual liberty. So people are struggling against being told what to do, i.e. because they are supposed to obey and they don't want to even though they know they have to in order not to be ridiculed if the advice comes from someone whose status is deemed superior to their own independent authority as autonomous decision-maker.
0 Replies
Finn dAbuzz
0
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Mon 11 Nov, 2019 11:53 am
Age and experience, in general, should be respected and considered. It doesn't mean every Old Fart is a Sage, but young whipper-snappers who dismiss their elders are fools.
Age and experience, in general, should be respected and considered. It doesn't mean every Old Fart is a Sage, but young whipper-snappers who dismiss their elders are fools.
Neither age nor youth nor experience guarantees that a person will be worthy of respect. They should nevertheless be respected, whether they are worthy of it or not; and likewise young people should be respected by older people as well, and not called, 'snowflake,' for example.
If everyone respects each other, there is room for dissent and learning through constructive dialogue. Whenever people want to disrespect and dismiss others' POV uncritically, whether because of their age (old or young) or because of any other superficial aspect of their identity, that disrespect undermines constructive dialogue.
Obviously everyone deserves a certain base level of respect.
There is a reason though that for tens of thousands of years, the elders within a human community have been protected and revered: experience, knowledge and wisdom that very, very few young people have.
Our ancestors cared more about surviving than what seemed cool.
Obviously everyone deserves a certain base level of respect.
There is a reason though that for tens of thousands of years, the elders within a human community have been protected and revered: experience, knowledge and wisdom that very, very few young people have.
Our ancestors cared more about surviving than what seemed cool.
More recently, however, people have chosen to eschew the responsibility of maturation that comes with aging and experience. Today more people are choosing to cling to youth as late in life as possible, and it is making it more difficult to maintain the respect that was automatic in the past because the older people got, the more prudent, wise, and disciplined they grew.
In fact, AARP unwittingly played a role in that last week. Another executive at the group was quoted saying, "OK, millennials. But we're the people that actually have the money."
That, too, went viral under — what else? — the hashtag #OkBoomer.
Later, AARP responded to the meme it inspired, saying social media took the statement out of context. The group said it meant to say: Don't overlook or dismiss boomers. Don't let stereotypes like that divide us.
0 Replies
Linkat
1
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Mon 18 Nov, 2019 05:24 pm
Ok so what am I supposed to do - I am at the tail end of the "Boomer" generation so I just barely make it into the old fart, Ok Boomer group. I have experiences of both boomers and millennials.
So I hate me for different reasons I guess.
But really any generation can be trashed by those traits that are negative of that group or positive depending on what you want to focus on. And really there are Boomers that are very good at computers - some of them might have even been a part of making them what they are today.
I agree you have to look at the individual - I can understand why you might lump generations together because of their general experience of what is going in the world but each individual also has specific personal experiences that can change their perspective.
Any way - But here is something funny - just happened to me at the Apple store - this kid - yeah he could have been 22 maybe, was "helping" with an issue with my teens phone - seems there was a known defect in the Apple phone she had so negotiating how they should compensate us. Don't want to get into the exact issue, but I tried reasoning explaining how Apple should compensate as it was a defect and I did a simple math problem with addition and subtraction - he stared at me as if he did not know simple math. So these guys may be great at tech, but do not ask them to subtract a 3 digit number in their heads.
0 Replies
Linkat
2
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Mon 18 Nov, 2019 05:29 pm
@McGentrix,
McGentrix wrote:
"ok Boomer" is a condescending brush off and nothing more. Like how you would talk to a child interrupting the "adult" conversation. Nothing more, nothing less.
Reminds me when I was typing replies to my daughter - she would send me something and I would just shorten Okay to OK and then to K.
Several months later my daughter said my friend keeps asking me why your mom keeps "k'ing" you. I guess (which I never knew) typing back just K for OK is a brush of. Who would know?
0 Replies
Region Philbis
2
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Tue 19 Nov, 2019 06:14 pm
... personally, i like #OKtrumper
0 Replies
chai2
0
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Tue 19 Nov, 2019 07:29 pm
@tsarstepan,
tsarstepan wrote:
Centuries of respect your elders culture.
And is there something wrong with respecting your elders, in general?
Honestly no one has ever said "ok boomer" to me, and I don't believe I have ever called someone a snowflake.
No, wait. Someone did say ok boomer a couple of days ago to me here, and I didn't know that was a thing.
One reason (among others) I don't call someone a snowflake is that I know if I did, I would get shrapnel embedded in my eye from when the person blew up. I am however, apparantly too old to understand I'm being insulted.
Or, could it be that I know in 15 or 20 years someone younger than them is going to be calling them some yet undecided diss?
And I'm going to quietly smile to myself, because I know in that moment the person being called "ewok" or "nerfle" or whatever the word is going to be, has just realized how stupid they sounded when they did it.
Nihil sub sole novum.
Personally, I like that "ok fucknut" response. It's catchy.
