‘OK Boomer’ rally cry about status, not ageism

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/11/2019 (2147 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Few two-word sentences stop an argument in its tracks quite like “OK, Boomer.”

The phrase has become a rallying cry of Generation Z (roughly, people born in the mid-to-late 1990s and later), spawning memes and merch. And it’s not hard to understand the resonance. “OK, Boomer” is genius in its simplicity. It’s cuttingly dismissive, and plays directly on fears of irrelevance.

Predictably, the trend has made some boomers bristle. An American radio host even referred to it as the “n-word of ageism.” Allow me to quote comedian John Mulaney: “If you’re comparing the badness of two words, and you won’t even say one of them? That’s the worse word.”

Of course, #notallboomers are resistant to change, progress and empathy for young people — though the thin-skinnedness of people who sure like to throw around the term “snowflake” is rather striking. It’s almost as if being dismissed with a condescending head pat feels bad!

This trend is also not about “disrespecting your elders.” The invisibility and neglect of older people is a real societal problem, but it’s not this problem.

“OK, Boomer,” to me, is more about dismissing outdated, harmful opinions — usually spouted by the very rich and very conservative — than it is about dismissing an entire segment of the population because of its birth year. Opinions like, “climate change is a scam” or “kids today” are entitled and spoiled because they want, I don’t know, universal mental-health coverage.

A lot of generational ire is directed at my generation, the millennials, which still seems to be used as shorthand for “young person,” even though the oldest cohort is closing in on 40. Many op-eds have actually credited millennials with “OK, Boomer.”

I can say as an elder millennial that we couldn’t have been the generation behind “OK, Boomer.” We can admire the pluck of it and try to co-opt it for ourselves, but it is a distinctly Generation Z invention. We millennials spent too much time trying to defend ourselves, offering proof to people who didn’t care that we weren’t snowflakes and getting stuck on an endless and unproductive ‘which generation had it worse?’ merry-go-round.

We fed the trolls. We wrestled the pigs. We engaged. The avocado toast was a trap and we fell for it.

By dropping “OK, Boomer,” Gen Z is refusing to engage, because there’s too much work to do to have yet another circular Facebook argument. “OK, Boomer” is often framed up as a “generational war,” but there’s no battle here. The world is on fire. The kids literally don’t have time to fight with you about their humanity, because they need to figure out their future, and whether or not that future will include oxygen. What they are saying, when they say “OK, Boomer,” is you can evolve, or you can die. You can join us, or you can be left behind in an inferno of your own making. Ignorance is a choice. So, too, is irrelevance.

The thing is, boomers know this. This is the generation that came of age during a time of anti-war activism and sexual liberation and feminist organizing and rock music.

It’s human to want your struggles acknowledged, your choices validated, your wisdom consulted. Admitting that some of your most closely held beliefs might be wrong and harmful to other people can be hard. Living in a world you no longer recognize can be scary. I get it, I do, because now I have to Google things young people talk about. (“What is TikTok?”) We were all young once. If we’re lucky, we’ll grow old. We’re all products of our own time.

Whether we chose to stay there, ensconced and immutable like a fly in amber, is up to us.

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @JenZoratti