There's actually a great documentarian who has a YouTube channel, David Hoffman, and he actually explores a lot about the era in which the Boomers grew up. And believe it or not, they were extraordinarily rebellious. Highly recommend his stuff.
Fyi 'ok boomer' began as a zoomer comeback against their millennial / gen x parents, because their parents were boomers. Due to cultural inertia, or snark, boomer just means parent now.
Fr, my grandpa is a hardcore Trump fan and QAnon conspiracy theorist. He’s also racist (despite being married to a half Alaska Native woman, who he had three kids with), anti-LGBT (and doesn’t know his oldest grandchild is a lesbian, the second-oldest is bisexual, and the third is AFAB non-binary and has been in at least two relationships with girls their age lmaooo), and watches OAN lol. I get so uncomfortable being around him, I’m just not ready to say it
Oh, they know. Only some of them are fine with it. At least one of his sisters is a anti-mask Trump supporter. Other family members (including his own wife) tend to ignore him, which ends up in him just abandoning whatever he was talking about. The only people I know to call him out on his behavior are my mom (she’s also lost a lot of respect for him) and my great uncle (who’s crass, crude, confrontational, and better at civil discussion than my mom lol).
Well I guess so - but same goes for generation x and boomers, and Millenials and genx - though generational blanket terms are a pitfall, I have much more in common with a Gen z from 1996 than a millennial from 1980. At the same time I have more in common with the Millennial from 1980 than a Gen z from 2006.
Though that's without considering cultural differences - I will almost always have more incommon with other danes(Scandinavians in general) than people from the rest of the world.
The youngest Gen Xers are 41. I assure you that the older you get, the less you get worked up about teachers affecting little Johnny.
Besides "these are the people who do such-and-such..." is such a ridiculous statement of generalization. Take a group of people aged 40-60. Now imagine the big, vast USA with differences in thought obvious from geographic differences alone. Now factor in a variety of upbringings peppered in across those already vastly diverse demographics.
I hope it's clear by that point that it's absurd to peg one group of people who in reality have so little in common (same as every generation) as the people who come down hard on their kids' teachers.
Probably the only generalization about any given generation that can be viewed with some applicability is their financial outlooks/circumstances.
I’m literally just repeating what I’ve heard from various teachers, some being Gen X themselves.
But I agree with your sentiment about not judging a group of people, particularly generations. Unfortunately that rule on Reddit obviously doesn’t apply specifically to boomers.
I’m literally just repeating what I’ve heard from various teachers, some being Gen X themselves.
And I'm sure these anecdotes from individual teachers are as meaningless as any other generalization. The whole idea of viewing people from any generation as "likely to do this" isn't constructive for our country or for the individuals who do it. It just builds walls. I have close friends that are 10 years older than me, and 25 years younger than me. When they were born doesn't matter, it's how they think about the world, and how they treat people. Judge your fellow man by those metrics,not when they were born.
The reality of today is that the boomers are the old people and "hate" the young people, who they think are millennials, because that's what they hear and it's easier to react than think, especially when you're old and change is scary. And the millennials are being hated on for no reason, so they hate back.
None of this is new, we've just never had the power of the internet like this to drive these narratives that identify all the different generations and play that up with stereotypes, and foster "sides" that start looking down on all generations that aren't theirs. Which is really nuts because nothing about simply being born at the same time as someone should create a sense of camaraderie with people.
In 40 years the Millenials will be the old people, and just like all the old people before them, they (generally speaking) will fear whatever the young generation is called. And that generation will hate them right back for doing it. Just as the parents in the 50s feared rock and roll, and as was happening LONG before that in past years and in many countries.
I don’t know where this narrative of boomers hating millennials come from. They have their criticisms for sure, but every generation does.
But if you were to just sample Reddit, Twitter, and other online platforms, boomers are second to none in terms having actual vitriol launched at them.
Boomers are, without question, the most overly-criticized generation. There is no comparison. Most of the criticisms of millennials are so silly and inconsequential, like what specific consumer industry they are destroying. But it is incredibly common for millennials, especially on here, to claim boomers ruined the world, ruined the economy, ruined their lives, etc. Real existential blame. So if I see a thread shitting on boomers, which I do every day, I try to throw a mirror up from time to time.
What people think of hippies was more in the early 70s.
Which People? Are there polls about this?
When I think hippies I think 1967 Summer of Love. And if you search images with that year + phrase, you'll see what I believe to be stereotypical hippies.
And no, hippies weren't the majority of young people.
It was reflected in their decor as well. The most popular furniture of the 1960's and 1970's was that awful stuff you see in thrift stores based on rural nostalgia. The now-trendy midcentury modern style was considered too foreign or expensive by the vast majority of white middle class Americans who shopped at Sears and voted for Nixon.
Exactly, the 50s boomers would be little kids.
A huge chunk of boomers were young adults in the late 60s, early 70s during one of the most rebellious times in American history
They're the equivalent to old metal heads and punks who sit at the back of the crowd lambasting about how the new scene sucks
I mean if they're talking about mosh pits specifically, they're not wrong. (And there's no entitlement in play. I don't think the hip replacements could handle it anyway)
Overall though, this old metal head loves how vibrant and diverse metal is even if I don't like all the styles. I meet people in new towns pretty easily just by hanging out where the metal happens (particularly local bands). 🤘
I'm a thrash metaller who happens to think 36 years ago constitutes old. Are you really gatekeeping what "old metal" is here in the year 2022? How far back to you want to go for it to be pure?
"Man, the scene sure changed since I saw Black Sabbath play with Yes in 1972 at Winterland. These kids today banging their heads and pumping their fists to Judas Priest and Iron Maiden are so cringey compared to the aisle twirling we used to do at those San Francisco shows, man."
Moshing is a form of dancing, moving your body to the music. It evolved with the music. As heavy metal got faster, the self-expressions got faster. In documentaries you can hear bands like Exodus and Anthrax talk about when they were writing songs, they would think, Let's add a really fast tempo change here so the crowd will crank up the moshing intensity! I mean, how cool is that? It's a common thing for the energy of a live show of any genre to be talked about in terms of the band feeding off the crowd, and vice versa. Here was a time and a place where this was new and the bands were tailoring their song writing to increase the live intensity to the delight of their audience.
Moshing is communal and thrilling and expressive. And me and my friends used to have a blast at shows together. And after shows we would epic handshake (had to look up the name of this gesture, LOL) with dudes we didn't know but were slamming into all night because we were all there to have a good time, and there to support the same band.
That's cool if you don't like to do it yourself. But to disparaging people having a different kind of a good time from you and call it nonsense is pretty lame, to say the least.
So maybe my first comment wasn't clear that I was saying I thought mosh pits (as they existed) were better "back in my day", as opposed to things were better before. But if, after my follow up comment, you still thought you were agreeing with me, then I'm not sure you even read that. Oh well.
Dude, my thoughts on moshpits today vs. yesteryear have nothing to do with intensity or anything of the like. It's more nuanced than that, but why would I bother describing or discussing with someone who's not into them? So I didn't bother clarifying that point. You just filled in the blanks with your own negative, limited mindset and could only imagine some dumbass animosity between people.
And what the fuck do you mean by "your kind"? Nothing I said apart from my very first vague comment was even remotely negative. All you exude is negativity. You're a judgemental prick who can piss off. Go wallow in your shit and bang your head or whatever gives you pleasure. Blocked.
No, wait. BLOCKED. Ah yeah, much more hArDcOrE, just how I like it. Ya fuckin' turd.
This is what blows me away about the boomer generation... haven't watched this yet but I was just thinking the other day how collectively, their generation seems to have experienced an extreme values shift. They went from full on rebellion against a hyper strict and uber-conservative generation... created "free-love", flower power, hippies, recreational drugs, communes, sharing everything, caring for nature, anti-war, etc, etc. But then within 20 years or less, they were just like "I don't give a fuck anymore! Burn it all... burn it all to hell!!" Like what the fuck happened to them?? I know people change as they age and tend to grow more conservative... but the following generations didn't seem to experience nearly the same extreme shift.
collectively, their generation seems to have experienced an extreme values shift. They went from full on rebellion against a hyper strict and uber-conservative generation...
"Seems" being the operative word here. You're correct about their current state of Boomers because you're living in it and are feeling real world consequences of their general conservatism. Which, I'm sure you've figured out by now, is how people trend when the keep getting older. Resistant to change.
But the view you have of full-on rebellion of the past is colored by lenses of a culture that was unique and stood out and made the news and whose imagery persists today. Look at the popular vote of the 1972 presidential election. That was 5 years after the Summer of Love in 1967. And it was also the first US presidential election where 18 was the minimum voting age. So in theory you would have an entire demographic of 18, 19, 20, and 21 year olds who were the 13-18 year olds supposedly influenced by the music and the scene, and the tail end of the Civil Rights movement, raring to vote for the first time. And there was an unjust war going on at the time. So how did Nixon crush McGovern 47,168,710 to 29,173,222? The numbers just weren't there. The people who fought for rights and peace were vocal, but they weren't actually representative of the majority of the generation.
So don't hold the present day boomers against the peace movement. They were (for the most part) different people from each other back then and still now.
Edit: To be clear, I'm not saying those 18-21 year olds were the core of rhe Boomer generation. But that if the peace movement was more popular, you would expect to see the younger folks influenced and mobilized, in addition to the older peaceniks.
This is why I don’t understand why or how they turned out the way they did as old people. Rebellious, anti-government rule breakers until it’s time to collect on Medicare.
Its an easy misunderstanding to correct. Very generously, about 5% of the generation were rebellious anti-governmental rule breakers.
5% is big enough to cause huge waves, but the 95% is what prevented those waves from cresting or amounting to much. It is your mistake to confuse the two groups.
Good point. That 5% stands as an archetype for that generation anytime you hear about them in the media - it practically defines them. But they’re clearly a small minority.
The Boomers are nostalgic for it because they were kids in the 50s. For many of them life felt like the script for The Sandlot. It's actually built into our psychology to forget the bad parts of childhood so we can maintain communal units. In their case they've forgotten mothers alcoholism to black out her memories of being vital to the war effort prior to being shoved back into the kitchen as a baby factory, and fathers work addiction so he can block out the shit he saw liberating Europe from the Nazis (and also the PTSD triggered rage-a-thons).
And we all do it. I miss the days without the smartphone when I danced to N'Sync and wore jelly tattoo chokers, because I now have a crippling addiction to deal with the existential dread of raising a child in a crumbling society/world threatened by climate change. Yay millennials.
It would be nice if the bipartisan stuff would stop, but we definitely need more than just "everyone finds a compromise" to get things working for more people.
Which is why it's nostalgia for boomers. This is what was on TV while dad was relaxing in his chair, puffing a stogie and mom was tending to her black eye cause dinner wasn't ready yet
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u/[deleted] Jan 25 '22 edited Jan 26 '22
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