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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy old people will always complain about young people
Prediction: Todays OK boomer Gen Z will complain about the youth one day. Blame human memory.
The old and young are feuding yet again.
Its safe to assume this is an immortal aspect of human society: Young people always exist, and older people will always complain about them. Young people, in turn, always say, Ugh, old people just dont get it.
Recently, that Ugh, old people just dont get it has metastasized into the viral OK boomer meme.
If youre just tuning in: OK boomer is a clapback for the rising Generation Z to call out older adults on their collective lack of inaction on climate change, for their (overall) resistance to progressive policies, and for the condescending tone older people tend to use when describing the kids these days. The boomers, well, havent taken too kindly to the phrase. One conservative radio host called it the n-word of ageism.
Heres a prediction: These OK boomer young people are going to get older and start complaining about the youth of the future. Theyll probably use the same insults, complaining the kids of the 2050s and 60s are more entitled, more narcissistic, and less self-sufficient than those of generations past. Theyll pay a weird amount of attention to controversies on college campuses and write opinion columns for the New York Times on how those controversies are indicative of a looming societal collapse.
Thats because the kids these days is an ancient form of remonstration, going back to antiquity, and probably earlier. Its a cycle were doomed to repeat.
But why? It seems like there is a memory problem, says John Protzko, a University of California Santa Barbara psychologist. A memory tic that just keeps happening, generation after generation.
kids these days
fuhgeddaboudit!
fuhgedd what?
Older people have been saying the same things about young people going back thousands of years. There's good stuff in this piece about biases affecting perception.
It feels satisfying to deal with feelings of inadequacy by looking down on others as even more inadequate. But people are getting called out for racism and sexism these days, so might as well go all in on ageism.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)Remember when you discovered your parents didn't know everything? That, in fact, they were actually frequently wrong?
It was probably around the same time your parents started complaining about you and your friends.
robbob
(3,514 posts)attributed to Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain:
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.
Arkansas Granny
(31,484 posts)Each generation faces their own set of problems and they will have to find a way to deal with the problems of their generation as we did and as our parents and grandparents did.
I do, however, take offense at this whole "OK boomer" thing. For one thing, it's ageism and for another, boomers did their share of social awareness in their day. Many of us were very involved in civil rights, women's rights, equal rights and environmental issues. We were also very politically aware and pushed for an end to the war in Vietnam. To blame boomers as a group is very unfair and counterproductive.
If we didn't leave a perfect world for future generations, it wasn't for lack of trying, but I would like to feel that we made some important strides. Hopefully, the young people today will be able to pick up what we started and build on that to make a better world for all of us.
IronLionZion
(45,267 posts)The generalizations are often because boomers are disproportionately conservative for various reasons, including the fact that wealthier people tend to live longer.
Indeed it would be unfair to blame a whole generation for society's problems but not give credit for successful social progress in other areas.
world wide wally
(21,719 posts)What we called "rock", they call "classic rock".
Skittles
(152,967 posts)from the definition:
"OK boomer" is a derogatory phrase used primarily by the next generations to show their indignation towards older people deemed indifferent to their concerns.
I think younger folk are disgusted by people who cannot see the obstacles they face, and that they are far different from the ones we faced. I know some of these indifferent folk myself, you know the ones who say stuff like, "I didn't live with my parents until I was 25". It was a lot easier to be living on your own back then, for sure.
Skittles
(152,967 posts)I cannot imagine ever living in a "retirement community" - I would never want to be around ONLY people of my generation, any more than I would want to be around only white folk.
The memory theory is correct: I think too many people simply forget what it was like to be young, or else are very jealous.
LakeArenal
(28,729 posts)And lately on DU and I find there are just as many complaints about old people.
I find both groups have grounds for complaint.
defacto7
(13,485 posts)It's the evolutionary necessity for independence. It's an eons old survival trait that exists in most species where nurturing becomes the push out of the nest and the offspring push away to create their own offspring. The young survive to produce and the old die to reduce. Humans live too long now and the dichotomy is greater. 500, 1000, 10,000, 50,000 years ago boomer aged humans would have been long dead.
misanthrope
(7,405 posts)the concerns of Gen Z will be far more perilous. The downstream effects of climate change will be worse than what are proving to be conservative estimates.
Climate affects weather, which affects resources. The response from humans has historically been chaotic and violent.
trof
(54,255 posts)Oh wait, that was me.
Mendocino
(7,431 posts)I have friends that are in their 20's, I'm 62. It's not the age difference, but common experiences and shared thoughts that brought us together.
But the music was still best before 1975!
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)from certain younger types, and most indulgences are specifically neither nice nor insightful.
A big difference I see, because we know a lot of older folk, is that most of those enjoy talking about their children, grandchildren, their greats, their friends, and the different realities of their lives these days. Their droll wonderings, criticisms, and sometimes sad resignation, are typically combined with some understanding, and sympathy also for the various angsts of the young, because they once were them.
That's a huge advantage the young don't have. How many look at grandpa and think, "I'll also have learned absolutely nothing in 50 years when I'm his age because I share his limitations?"
When I see blanket, bigoted condemnations of older people and rejection of older candidates as inferior because of age, they almost always make me wonder what those posters' own elders and family life are/were like. There are two general possibilities: One their parents and grands deserve such severe criticism, contempt and even rejection, and two, they don't. Neither possibility speaks well, though, for this type and what they inherited, or didn't.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)MissMillie
(38,459 posts)A couple of weeks ago the kids next door were playing some music outside.
I kid you not, the lyrics were "that dumb-a$$ b*tch been f^ckin' with me!"
I instantly knew I was old.
IronLionZion
(45,267 posts)tblue37
(64,982 posts)pecosbob
(7,511 posts)Yesterday is unlikely to be able to see the best solutions to the problems it has created. Today is the one that must make the decisions of today if Yesterday has the vision and courage to let them. Tomorrow will repeat Today, tomorrow.