Thoughtful Vocabulary: ok boomer

The Old vs. Young battle has to go back at least as far as the Titan Kronos swallowing his kids to prevent being overthrown, and Zeus being like, “eat lightning, DAD.”

I know I’ll never forget sitting in Latin class in high school, reading a letter written by a Roman father two thousand years earlier. The father complained that all his son (and all young men, seemingly) cared about were fast chariots and girls. Not like back in HIS day. There’s no recorded response from the son that I’m aware of, but if such a letter was ever written, it would probably be a perfect Latin translation of the phrase, “ok boomer.”

“ok boomer” is a catch-all phrase for dealing with someone whose views are outdated, particularly if those views are hypocritical. As responses go, it’s pretty elegant. The deliberate all-lowercase spelling makes the tone sound witheringly nonchalant when written. “Boomer,” of course, refers to the Baby Boomer generation, the Americans born post-WWII who reaped the benefits of an intensely strong economy for the majority of their lives, including cheap post-secondary education, widespread upward mobility, and remarkable advances in healthcare. Of course, Baby Boomers, or at least the ones who went on to be political leaders, largely ignored the devastating effects of climate change and have played little part in trying to reverse income inequality. To say “ok boomer,” is to connect the dots between whatever you just heard and the many low points of the past 70 years.

The term was first recorded on internet cesspool 4chan back in 2015 before catching on in a big way around 2018. Once it entered the mainstream, the theorizing began. The New York Times wrote an article in 2019 called: “‘OK Boomer’ Marks the End of Friendly Generational Relationships”. First, note the incorrect capitalization. Second, note how ridiculous it is to pretend that generational relationships were fine BEFORE 2018. As it turns out, people didn’t JUST notice climate change and income inequality, any more than older generations JUST started to feel like these young whipper-snappers had suddenly become rude. Young and Old always disagree. If that disagreement is more stark now, it’s only because the lifestyle of the past 70 years has been unsustainable, a fact that’s becoming increasingly obvious. And it’s hard to begrudge Gen Z a completely sarcastic response to the Baby Boomers when the Boom-Boom politicians, at least, have completely ignored or mocked calls for change.

And it’s a good reminder for people of my age to listen up when young people express concern about the world, lest we repeat the age old cycle…