Friday, November 8, 2019

"ok boomer " or "gas all boomers"

Within the last week or so there seems to have been an explosion of yattering over "ok boomer." Over the last few years in various parts of the internet there was a self-righteous meme pushing "gas all boomers."  Yeah. This never made it to the MSM, I suspect  because it was just too extreme for the MSM to publicize.  But now we have the MSM allover this milder "ok boomer" meme, now a big deal.  I think I have an original view of this,that the "gas all boomers"  is an idealistic millennial view, reflecting their boomer parents. This new milder meme reflects the view of the Gen-Z group, \

My view is that the former nastier "gas all boomers" meme was from the idealistic millennials, strongly rebutting their boomer parents,  We failed them, and them wanted us gassed for our  failures to deliver for them, especially in the Great Recession, which in their view at least of several years ago, was our boomer fault, although that is a pretty weak argument.

But now w come to this milder meme of "ok boomer," how polite.  Word is  that this is coming from Gen-Z sources, a groups younger than the angst-ridden millennials., who seem to have come up with the "gas all boomers" meme that went nowhere.

Obviously younger generations in the US have reasons  for being unhappy. The US economy, along with the  world economy, is slowing down.  Both the milllennials and the Gen-Z group face higher college costs and housing costs than their predecessors.  That the boomer gen is responsible for this outcome is a highly unreasonable view.

The middle portion of the millennials have  indeed been big victims of the Great Recession, and will for the rest of their lives will have lower incomes the MSM, was just too shocking, while arguably idealistic hard core in its formulation

But the new less shocking "ok boomer" meme is  coming from the new rising Gen-Z gen. Most commentary has lumped them in with the millennials, but this is crap.  They are following the "ironic" meme of their  parents, the supposedly loser Gen-X, with their irony.

So indeed that is this new "ok boomer" meme  that  is ironic, coming from the Gen-Z gen, following their  Gen-X "ironic' parents.  This contrasts with the hard line millennial "gas all boomers" view, ironically following the idealistic view of their boomer parents.

Barkley Rosser
 

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

ok boomer

Anonymous said...

"gas all..."

This is a degenerate slogan that I fortunately have never seen and that should never ever have been printed here. Referring to the Holocaust with such a slogan is intolerably profane. Please immediately edit such a degenerate profane slogan.

Please!

Anonymous said...

Apart from the terrible slogan, however, this is a fine and important post.

Unknown said...

I am a boomer. The sobriquet carries no sting as far as I’m concerned. It is like observing that I’m bald; yeah, so what?
Let me disagree a little with you, Dr. Rosser. I do think that we have some responsibility for certain economic disadvantages of younger people. Like other forms of war, the trade war burdens fall on young people. Tariffs bother me little. I have a house full of stuff. I should probably get rid of some stuff. A young family needing more things pays a lot more tariffs than I do. When I got my diploma many years ago, I had no debts because of substantial government underwriting of education. We changed this system, and now graduation comes with a big bill for many.

rosserjb@jmu.edu said...

Unkonwn,

I am hard pressed to see where you and I disagree. I noted that current young people are facing much higher college and housing costs than older generations. I think something can and should be done about the college cost one, with housing more complicated and hard to deal with (and subject to lots of local variations). There does remain this issue of "generational blaming." I understand younger people envious and angry that older ones paid less for college than they do (although for some of them their parents, older people, are paying their college costs). But the cost of college has been steadily rising above inflation for the past half century. Can the blame for this be tied to one generation or another? I find that hard to accept, although I think something should be done about it.

Anonymous said...

"gas all..."

This is the degenerate language of the Holocaust. Understand?

Anonymous said...

"gas all..."

This is a genocidal threat and is intolerable.

rosserjb@jmu.edu said...

Looks A., I am not calling for it. Heck, I am a boomer. You may not have seen it, but I have seen quite a bit of it and have found it disturbing. That is why I am pointing it out. I disapprove of such language. Heck, more generally I find all this blaming specific generations for whatever to be just colossally stupid and indefensible, even if I recognize that some younger people are frustrated with lots of things. But I am alsso analyzing how this much more obnoxious "gas all..." meme seems to have become replaced by the more ironic and less obnoxious "ok boomer."

And, no, i am not going to removed this theed, even if you think it is bad. On Angry Bear it has triggered lot o disussion, more than here, with nobody putting forth your argument that this is genocidal or unacceptable to talk about. You are basically all alone in this view.