Please don't offend snowflake boomers

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UMiami warns students about using ‘dismissive’ phrase 'OK Boomer'

In other words, it is up to the students to provide a safe space for 60 somethings who haven't grown up. Got it.

I take it it's still fine to refer to millenials and younger as spoiled and such, though... double standards, no?

After all the anti-millennial stuff that was pushed by Boomers, being dismissive of how things are different than it were for them. I think people should continue to keep pushing the envelope. It has been ridiculous seeing the older generation trying to frame the phrase like some sort of slur, like dismissing their opinion on something is so harmful.

I'm a 'boomer' . I don't see 'boomers' as being any better or worse than those from other generations . There are good and kind people in all generations and there are thoroughly nasty ones .

“OK Boomer” is insulting to older folks.

My encounters with Millennials have been similar to my encounters with Boomers: a mixed bag.

People forget that Boomers were probably much more rebellious than Millennials are today. It’s not like we’re all stodgy grampas.

I have no similar insulting meme for Millennials—so let’s cut the OK Boomer crap, unless it’s in jest.

You will never guess what response shot out of my mouth when I read this.

I have never really used it, only really amongst peers as the subject of a joke, by the mere fact that older people seem to take offense to it. It is like being faced by those respect your elders types, that make weird generalizations about young people today, or that everyone is looking at their phones, but they struggle to work a computer and understand the utility and requirements of using internet.

The fact is:

I don’t make generalizations about younger folks. I’m not the “respect your elders” type. College students like me where I work in a college library. I’m a kid myself. I’m barely over 21 maturity-wise.

Your “response” might have arisen from a misconception about me. Or maybe I’m misconceiving. Who knows?

Last edited by kraftiekortie on 05 Jan 2020, 11:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

I'm 67 and I develop web-based applications for a living using Spring Boot and the Angular framework. I'll admit I've had very little involvement with mobile development however as Angular can be used to develop mobile apps I'm certain I'd be quite capable.

I don't need anybody's respect if I haven't earned it. I suppose if I've been a dick to some 30-year old, he can say whatever he wants to me. I would certainly try to avoid that, though.

Finally.

Something to argue about that does not involve TERFS, Trump, and whether or not someone will ever get a girlfriend.

It’s about time!

OK Boomer.

It is not about what Boomers were like in their youth, it is about how people are tired of hearing about how great baby boomers were in their youth. It is about what we have been since and are now and how as referenced in the title and OP of this thread a retort to what members of our generation often say to them.

A statement that all Boomers are selfish basterds is ageist and against WP rules. OK Boomer is usually a retort to a statement by an individual. It is only ageist in a microagression kind of way. If you are a baby boomer you of an age that you should have learned to brush off “insults” like this decades ago.

ME: “You should have a full-time job before you buy a new car.”
HE: ”OK, boomer.” (Buys a new car, which gets repossessed six months later.)

ME: “Maybe you should find out more about this girl before you shack up with her.”
HE: “OK, boomer.” (Shacks up. Comes home one day to find her and all of his valuables have gone missing.)

ME: “If you’ve been drinking, maybe you should call an Uber driver.”
HE: “OK, boomer.” (Drives drunk, passes out, ploughs into 3 parked cars, loses license.)

The phrase “OK, boomer” seems to be used most often by younger people who want to dismiss an older person’s wisdom and do what they want.

It wasn’t so hot for me growing up..as I’m sure it wasn’t so hot for you, too.

The only advantage is that we were “free-range” kids.

Otherwise, it was probably worse for kids who didn’t fit the mainstream.

I think this is more of an age thing than a generational thing, specifically the notion that decades of life experience improves one's judgment over that of somebody younger. I sympathize as I think it's time our society started handing responsibility over to younger folks. Just look at the upcoming federal election in the US. The only four candidates taken seriously by the press are all 70 or older! This has never even come close to happening before.

If the Buttigieg candidacy isn't dead after Iowa and NH I will probably declare myself as one of his supporters. It's about time somebody younger took over. Plus the fact that he catches so much shade from Democratic pundits on line that I have to take him seriously. To me, this is a legitimate reason to suspect somebody knows their business.

I often come across this idea being approached from a political perspective which is wrong. So if you limit your sample to Americans lucky enough to have attended University (we tend to ignore those who haven't anyway) then there is a big dividing line between those who matriculated in the 60s vs. the 70s. The former tend toward very liberal opinions whereas the latter are substantially more conservative. The usual scenario presented is that Millennials are liberal and are at odds with conservative boomers but that generalization is totally unjustified and is primarily used as a convenient provocation.

OTOH I can see how in Queensland maybe there is a major problem with old farts in digger hats sitting on their verandas and yelling at the blackfellas to weed their gardens faster; never having been there I can't say, but it's quite possible that @Bradleigh has a valid point that we ignorant Yanks simply don't get.

I have written a lot of posts and will in the future write about how growing up free range made me better and tougher person. While I am blaming the helicopter parents I can see how that can come off as patronizing blabbering deserving of an Ok Boomer retort.

There were times as a kid when my parents had no effing idea where I was nor what I was doing. It was probably made worse by the fact that I often ranged rather far afield because I had issues playing with the other kids in the neighborhood — I would have stuck closer to home had I been a "normal" kid. And TBH I don't think I discussed all this with my parents nor did they often ask.

When I was 13 I took my bike a couple of times more than 3 miles away** to visit a girl I'd met at camp the previous summer, and I don't think I ever told my parents about those trips.

When I was 14 my parents put me on a bus to visit relatives in Canada, about a 12-hour trip with a transfer at Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan. When I got to the border, they took me of the bus to question me, but after calling my relatives they concluded there was nothing else for it but to put me back on the bus and let me (and the other passengers) proceed.

I happen to think this was extreme and my parents were lucky something seriously bad didn't happen to me. There are limits.

**Please note this was Baltimore City/County not some idyllic rural setting you might imagine