Every time I hear that phrase I get the cold chill down my spine. It just feels so disrespectful and visceral.

I’m in my 30s and was taught to have basic respect for others. People think my generation is entitled. Man our generation has another thing coming.

I don't like it but I can see some of the tensions that create it. The UK in particular seems to be going down a road where all the political decisions are being made for my generation. This won't work out well in the long term.

Im in my mid 30s, I liked OK Boomer as a meme to let lose some emotion steam but then folks started to take it a little too seriously.

To dismiss ideas outright on age alone is just stupid.

The idea that "ok boomer" is supposed to be dismissive of opinions and personal assertions based exclusively on age is a red herring.

It makes as much sense as asserting that the "Karen" meme is dismissive of women.

That was never the point, was it?

The "ok boomer" meme is dismissive of ideas that are forced onto others based on absurd appeals to authority and in spite of their lack any substance or support or rational basis. We're talking about the type of arguments that boil down to "shut up you little brat I know better than you just because."

Sure, that's the original context. It's just that "ok boomer" is very often used to dismiss an older person [older than the person responding] asking someone to do anything (or giving advice in anything). Just as "Karen" is very often just a coded "bitch", used when an woman [older than the person responding] asks someone to do anything

It's extremely disingenuous to try to assert that the "ok boomer" meme is used to dismiss questions or requests or opinions made by older people, or that the "karen" meme is used to dismiss questions or requests made by women. Its in fact a gross misrepresentation of what those memes are and have always been.

No it's not -- it's not my fault people are misusing the memes! They definitely are heavily used to dismiss in the manner I've described as well as being used in their correct original context. You might not like that people aren't deploying the internet memes the way you think they should be deployed, but it's definitely not disingenuous to point out that's what's happening. It's dismissive and mocking (for good reason!) but it's also something that's blown up, and when that happens the original intent and subtleties get rounded off or lost, so in many cases it's now used in any context, not just the ones where it was originally totally applicable.

> You hear responses from younger generations like "Ok Boomer" to their elders' opinions and it is so cringe-worthy.

The problem I see is that some elders feel that their personal opinions hold some kind of authoritative value over everyone else's in spite of their lack of substance or reasoning or connection with reality just because they were born further in the past.

In fact, the term "OK boomer" originated in elders systematically dismissing and criticizing other people's opinions based on their age. Thus it's quite ironic how that meme is criticized for the very same regrettablr pattern of behavior it criticizes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_boomer

Being alive for longer doesn't correlate with wisdom or knowledge or insightfulness, and if you have a hard time presenting and defending your point of view with rational arguments and facts that you feel compelled to resort to absurd appeals to authority to force your views onto the world then your attitude itself is the problem.

Actually being alive for longer is necessary to achieve wisdom. The problem you are pointing out is that it’s not sufficient.

Wisdom is not a function of age. It's not a present you open on your birthday. You may get wiser as years go by, but that doesn't mean you get to be wiser than those around you. There are plenty of people who are wiser and more knowledgeable and insightful than those who were born earlier. There are also plenty of people that in spite of their age they attained very little wisdom to show for. The "ok boomer" meme originated in cases where this particular blend of people started to rant about younger people basing their attacks and criticisms exclusively on their age difference.

There’s another word for elder “wisdom” - superstition.

I question anything I’m told that doesn’t have proof attached, or singular experiences that are then extrapolated to cover an infinite future.

This always comes up in the same places: - Piss poor processes - Refusal to apply updates - Unverifiable decisions that exist for years

There’s a reason people say, “Ok boomer”.

There's good reasons alright. But as with everything humans adopt, it's also abused to oblivion in many situation where it doesn't even remotely apply.

The meme arose out of the reality that a vast majority of wealth/power has accumulated to the boomers. When they give advice, it is to be taken with a grain of salt, because their life assumptions will be vastly different (and wrong) for the current context of the youth (who are poor, on average).

https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-less-wealth-net-...

The difference, these days, is social media. It acts as an accelerant to prejudice, recklessness, and disunity.

Disrespecting elders is a time-honored aspect of nature. Even critters have it (watch puppies and kittens ignoring their parents).

But puppies don't have a worldwide graph of other puppies that establish feedback loops to encourage each other to eat chocolate.

> Disrespecting elders is a time-honored aspect of nature. Even critters have it (watch puppies and kittens ignoring their parents).

Nonsense. Puppies and kittens are not adults, are they? The "ok boomer" meme originated in people from older demographics criticizing adults in their 20s and 30s based on blanket and entirely baseless assertions that somehow they knew better just because they were born earlier.

If you want to take metaphors out of nature, you can start off by learning how young lions expel older lions from their pride.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW-_KC5wtXU

Its one thing to show respect to everyone around you, but its an entirely different thing to have members of that community systematically insult and aggravate younger members for absurd reasons and using ridiculous arguments, and still in return expect that that sort of antisocial and downright sociopath behavior should command reverence from the community, specially those who are directly attacked by streams of insults.

I think you're replying to someone else. I never mentioned "OK Boomer."

My comment on social media applies to many different things; not just ageism.

And, as is being amply demonstrated by thousands of people all over the world, it's not particularly helpful for people that aren't in a certain class, to dismiss the experience of people that are in a class.

I'm not a woman, black, brown, gay, or disabled, so it is not helpful for me to judge whether or not those folks experience difficulty from people that look like me.

I am, however, an older tech worker, and can confirm, from personal experience, that people like me, get a lot of friction; sometimes, from other people like me (It's not just young folks that engage in ageism).

BTW: I grew up in Africa. I'm familiar with the way lions deal with each other; including the practice of new pride leaders killing all the cubs from the previous pride. I think that may also resonate in our industry.

While I agree with that, I also think there’s a substantial amount of old idiots out there (same as for the younger generation), and I have little issue saying or hearing ‘ok boomer’ instead of ‘ok idiot’, if the topic is relevant enough.