For a long time now, the cross-generational dialogue between baby boomers and millennials has been built atop several recurring themes. If anything, teens have been subjected to even harsher rhetorical maligning. OK boomer is meant to be cutting and dismissive. It suggests that the conversation around the anxieties and concerns of younger generations has become so exhausting and unproductive that the younger generations are collectively over it.
OK boomer implies that the older generation misunderstands millennial and Gen Z culture and politics so fundamentally that years of condescension and misrepresentation have led to this pointedly terse rebuttal and rejection.
Rather than endlessly defend decisions stemming from deep economic strife, to save money instead of investing in stocks and retirement funds , to buy avocados instead of cereal — teens and younger adults are simply through. But that misreading also feeds the meme — because baby boomers failing to understand the point of OK boomer is, well, the point of OK boomer.
But the phrase really took off this year on TikTok, as a rebuttal to angry rants by baby boomers about kids these days. Sometimes, the complaints teens are referencing in these videos are typical generational conflicts. This broader socioeconomic aspect seems to have gotten lost as the meme spread throughout the mainstream, however. Many people became aware of OK boomer through the October New York Times article, which focused on teens who had taken the meme offline and were turning it into merchandise and fashion statements.
Almost immediately, people rushed to sell OK boomer merchandise and attempted to trademark the phrase, and brands began to use it on social media — completely missing the inherent critique of capitalism that the meme enfolds, which led to more eyerolling. In the Washington Post, history professor Holly Scott reminded everyone that boomers were once activists too. This response helped further cement the meme as a dismissive retort to boomer condescension — and as it spread, its political aspects became more pointed.
The moment occurred just as she was discussing the urgency her generation feels to prioritize and deal seriously with the problem, and explaining her frustration that previous cycles of lawmakers have failed to do so. And many baby boomers seem to be making her point for her by misunderstanding what OK boomer is about. In a very real sense, that same tension between condescending, older authority figures and younger ones who reject them is at work in the OK boomer meme.
Adults who are more well read say kids today are a lot less interested in reading than they used to be. It used to take years for neologisms to filter from place to place, through vessels like letters.
Now they can bubble up from subcultures and flood the zeitgeist in a period of weeks, leaving confusion and FOMO in their wake. Dictionaries have traditionally been much slower moving, waiting years before writing about a new word so that its meaning has time to settle and it can prove to be a lasting addition to the language. But that is changing. The latest example comes from Dictionary. Now within Dictionary. That layered phrase exemplifies just how complex this endeavor is, a fact that is not lost on the team.
It took painstaking research to produce. We are two Democrats, one of us a baby boomer and the other a millennial.
His views mirrored theirs, but they were purer, less Boomer -indulgent. Whether he is or whether he is not a wine boomer would not ordinarily be a query of agitating importance.
Holding the light over his head he peered forth into the inky darkness surrounding the boomer 's temporary camp. Listening with strained ears, the boomer heard the deadly thing sliding slowly from rock to rock, coming closer at every movement. Both Pawnee Brown and Dick did as requested, and the cowboy boomer began to haul in with all the strength at his command.
New Word List Word List. Save This Word! We could talk until we're blue in the face about this quiz on words for the color "blue," but we think you should take the quiz and find out if you're a whiz at these colorful terms.
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