about this boomer thing

[kali Wylder]

I've been entertaining myself googling OK boomer and I am more confused that I was before I started.  I think the OK boomer slur is kind of misguided.  There are all kinds of Boomers out there.  There are Republican, Democrat, and Independent boomers.  There were jocks and geeks and hippies and greasers and beatniks and and intellectuals and paparazzi and soldiers and draft dodgers, members of the NRA and the SDS; Christians, Pagans and Atheists; gays and straights and stoners and lots of rebels. Many of them fit into more than one category. How can you generalize a generation? Any generation?

quietly steps off soap box....

[Dano Seale]

I prefer it to what these young 'un's used to call me....nasty little scrotes they are!!!  😡

[Mollymews]

OK Boomer is not so much a slur as a response to a behaviour

like a younger person explains a situation from their pov.  An older person then gensplains. Younger person: OK Boomer

gensplaining, like other forms of splaining, is where the older person doesn't actually listen. OK Boomer is a response to the gensplaining

[Tolya Ugajin]

It's the same with any stereotype, so why would one about age be any different.  It's just the latest version of young people saying, "but ma, you don't understand!" as if mom was never young herself.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

18 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

OK Boomer is not so much a slur as a response to a behaviour

like a younger person explains a situation from their pov.  An older person then gensplains. Younger person: OK Boomer

gensplaining, like other forms of splaining, is where the older person doesn't actually listen. OK Boomer is a response to the gensplaining

Molly is dead-on here. "Ok Boomer" was, originally at least, almost always used as a response to someone from that generation acting in a condescending manner to someone younger. It's not, or was not in its inception, as Molly says, an attack on all Boomers: it's a response to a particular kind of behaviour.

I don't know if that's changed at all . . . but my basic advice to any Boomer: if you don't want to hear this directed at you, stop being insulting, condescending, and dismissive to "Millennials" or others younger than yourself. Treat them with the respect they merit, and I'm fairly confident you won't find this flung back in your face.

[kali Wylder]

15 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

OK Boomer is not so much a slur as a response to a behaviour

like a younger person explains a situation from their pov.  An older person then gensplains. Younger person: OK Boomer

gensplaining, like other forms of splaining, is where the older person doesn't actually listen. OK Boomer is a response to the gensplaining

Well that makes sense. 'Splaining is very condescending unless it's in response to a request for information and even then it's kind of tricky. I guess the thing that surprised me was that Boomer was being used as an insult, where I've always been kinda happy to be a boomer. I admit that our moment in the sun got quite clouded over in the 80s when we went all yuppie and took way more than our share of everything on the planet, at a time when the planet was running out of all the good stuff and and couldn't keep up with the cleaning required for the bad stuff we made.  Yeah, sure, some of us started talking about ecology, all the while gassing up the SUVs, but our good intentions were far outweighed by our greed.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

Pondering the implications of the word "boomer" is one of the most boomer things to do.

Edited May 9, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Garnet Psaltery]

5 hours ago, kali Wylder said:

I've been entertaining myself googling OK boomer and I am more confused that I was before I started.  I think the OK boomer slur is kind of misguided.  There are all kinds of Boomers out there. 

I agree with that.

3 hours ago, kali Wylder said:

 I admit that our moment in the sun got quite clouded over in the 80s when we went all yuppie and took way more than our share of everything on the planet, at a time when the planet was running out of all the good stuff and and couldn't keep up with the cleaning required for the bad stuff we made.  Yeah, sure, some of us started talking about ecology, all the while gassing up the SUVs, but our good intentions were far outweighed by our greed.

Now you've begun generalising, so you've undermined your own beginning stance.

No, we didn't all succumb to greed, or hypocrisy.

[Sassy Kenin]

I thought he retired from thr NFL?🤔

[kali Wylder]

48 minutes ago, Garnet Psaltery said:

I agree with that.

Now you've begun generalising, so you've undermined your own beginning stance.

No, we didn't all succumb to greed, or hypocrisy.

yeah, but it all seemed so profound to me at the moment, but that might have been the vape talking

[Tolya Ugajin]

8 hours ago, Mollymews said:

OK Boomer is not so much a slur as a response to a behaviour

like a younger person explains a situation from their pov.  An older person then gensplains. Younger person: OK Boomer

gensplaining, like other forms of splaining, is where the older person doesn't actually listen. OK Boomer is a response to the gensplaining

Gensplaining is generally a response to young people with an inflated sense of wisdom and experience who don't listen and look like idiots when they roll their eyes at advice 😛

[Bree Giffen]

To be honest, when I first read about this phenomenon I thought to myself that the term is simply, ""ok", a term of acknowledgement, and "boomer" a common description of people of a certain age range. Boomers often refer to themselves by that term.  My initial reaction was, "well that's kind of boring let's see what's on you tube now".

[Theresa Tennyson]

1 hour ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

Gensplaining is generally a response to young people with an inflated sense of wisdom and experience who don't listen and look like idiots when they roll their eyes at advice from older people with an inflated sense of wisdom and experience who don't listen and look like idiots when they give advice predicated on their perception of a world that no longer exists and very possibly never did.

FIFY

[LittleMe Jewell]

The young versus old has always been a thing.  The older generation likes to pass on what they consider to be wisdom and advice, things learned over many years.  The young, typically think that their viewpoint is correct, that their way of new evolved thinking is superior.  This has been going on for generations.  It was the same when I was in my teens, and again when I was in my 20s, 30s, etc....  Sometimes the older ones really are correct and sometimes the younger ones are.  (yes, lots of generalizations there)

I typically saw my mother in a negative light anytime she offered any advice on a situation when the advice differed from whatever I was doing.  Looking back, as older ones tend to do, sometimes she was right and sometimes not.  Yet we were both sure of our own viewpoints at the time.  That didn't make either of us gensplaining to the other or being condescending just because we refused to agree -- or because we just flat out couldn't understand/see the other point of view.  Disagreeing with the point of view of someone younger/older than us or expressing our point of view is not necessarily 'gensplaining'.

Regardless of how 'OK, Boomer' started out, it has become a total put-down, a complete dismissal of the other person and their viewpoint. Anyone using the phrase, at least in forum arguments, loses respect points in my eyes -- and yes, I know that many don't care about that either.  (side note - ditto for anyone referring to another person as 'Karen' if that is not truly their name).

 

Edited May 9, 2020 by LittleMe Jewell
spelling

[Tolya Ugajin]

39 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

FIFY

Spoken like a true millennial.

I've been in the workplace long enough to see my own and 2 succeeding "generations" enter it.  Each time, the older generations call the new generation lazy, full of unrealistic expectations, foolish, they don't listen, yadda yadda yadda.  And each time the new generation claims the older ones just don't understand being young, they ruined the world for them, they're going to do it better, it's so much harder now, their world no longer exists, blah blah blah.

The only real difference is, the older generations have actually gone through what the younger generation thinks they know so much about, but really don't, and the younger generations don't realize this until they catch themselves sounding just like their parents.

Don't worry, you'll get there, Junior.

[Tolya Ugajin]

Just now, LittleMe Jewell said:

The young versus old has always been a thing.  The older generation likes to pass on what they consider to be wisdom and advice, things learned over many years.  The young, typically think that their viewpoint is correct, that their way of new evolved thinking is superior.  This has been going on for generations.  It was the same when I was in my teens, and again when I was in my 20s, 30s, etc....  Sometimes the older ones really are correct and sometimes the younger ones are.  (yes, lots of generalizations there)

I typically saw my mother in a negative light anytime she offered any advice on a situation when the advice differed from whatever I was doing.  Looking back, as older ones tend to do, sometimes she was right and sometimes not.  Yet we were both sure of our own viewpoints at the time.  That didn't make either of us genplaining to the other or being condescending just because we refused to agree -- or because we just flat out couldn't understand/see the other point of view.  Disagreeing with the point of view of someone younger/older than us or expressing our point of view is not necessarily 'gensplaining'.

Regardless of how 'OK, Boomer' started out, it has become a total put-down, a complete dismissal of the other person and their viewpoint. Anyone using the phrase, at least in forum arguments, loses respect points in my eyes -- and yes, I know that many don't care about that either.  (side note - ditto for anyone referring to another person as 'Karen' if that is not truly their name).

 

Where the heck did this "Karen" thing come from, anyway?  I don't actually know a single person named Karen.

[Dano Seale]

It started out in the same way as people said to somebody explaining something technical - "yeah, yeah. Thankyou Albert Einstein!".....basically, sarcasm!
Now it's the new term for  - "STFU you old b*****d!"!  

[Theresa Tennyson]

Just now, Tolya Ugajin said:

Spoken like a true millennial.

I've been in the workplace long enough to see my own and 2 succeeding "generations" enter it.  Each time, the older generations call the new generation lazy, full of unrealistic expectations, foolish, they don't listen, yadda yadda yadda.  And each time the new generation claims the older ones just don't understand being young, they ruined the world for them, they're going to do it better, it's so much harder now, their world no longer exists, blah blah blah.

The only real difference is, the older generations have actually gone through what the younger generation thinks they know so much about, but really don't, and the younger generations don't realize this until they catch themselves sounding just like their parents.

Don't worry, you'll get there, Junior.

I should hope so - I've been heading there for over fifty years now.

Oops, did you make an assumption about my age?

[Tolya Ugajin]

1 minute ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

I should hope so - I've been heading there for over fifty years now.

Oops, did you make an assumption about my age?

Nope, I just know that you sound like someone who hasn't reached the point where they start sounding like their parent.

Oops, did you make an assumption that I was talking solely about chronological age?

[Dano Seale]

3 minutes ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

Where the heck did this "Karen" thing come from, anyway?  I don't actually know a single person named Karen.

Same place as "bye Felicia" I think!

[Tolya Ugajin]

Just now, Dano Seale said:

Same place as "bye Felicia" I think!

I'm not all that hip, but didn't that come from some movie like Boyz in the Hood?

[Theresa Tennyson]

Just now, Tolya Ugajin said:

Nope, I just know that you sound like someone who hasn't reached the point where they start sounding like their parent.

Oops, did you make an assumption that I was talking solely about chronological age?

Considering that you used the term "Junior" and said that I was speaking like a member of group of people defined by their chronological age...

[Amina Sopwith]

3 minutes ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

Where the heck did this "Karen" thing come from, anyway?  I don't actually know a single person named Karen.

I do and unfortunately they fit the stereotype. Which obviously doesn't make it true or ok. But it's kind of funny because I don't like either of them.

[Dano Seale]

1 minute ago, Tolya Ugajin said:

I'm not all that hip, but didn't that come from some movie like Boyz in the Hood?

Yeah, basically "America"!

[Amina Sopwith]

Just now, Tolya Ugajin said:

I'm not all that hip, but didn't that come from some movie like Boyz in the Hood?

No, it came from Bye Felipe, which itself came from online messages in which men become abusive after women turn them down. There was a particularly famous one from some plank called Felipe, if memory serves.

And they say millennials don't know anything useful.