Recently on various social media platforms, a new “meme” is trending which pokes fun at the generation of people born between 1946 and 1965. This generation is also known as “boomers,” and Vox.com says that the meme was created to prove that this demographic is “out of touch.” The trend was popularized on Twitter this year.
“‘Ok, boomer’ is hilarious,” said Marcos Nuchurch, a junior political science major. “It began on social media as a response to typical baby boomer talking points.” He believes it was born out of frustration from millennials and Generation Z who want to be taken more seriously by older generations. “Instead of those generations trying to prove their point with the boomers, they’ve dismissed it with the phrase ‘ok, boomer’.”
But is this trend offensive to the demographic that this is targeting?
Susan Higgins, professor of psychology and social learning, has been teaching at Milligan over 40 years. Higgins, who is part of the boomer generation, said that this meme is quite funny to her and not at all offensive. ‘“I thought a couple of them were pretty funny.”
Nuchurch is curious if any professors at Milligan are actually insulted by the trend. “I think the professors at Milligan are far too intelligent to be genuinely hurt by this saying,” he said.
Nuchurch said he thinks the trend’s backlash is “perfect.” He gave his opinion saying: “People are taking offense to it, enough to call it a slur. I can’t see how it can possibly be offensive, as it is simply the name of the generation.”
Higgins also thinks that other people will have a different take on it. “You can find a bunch of people and some of them will be offended, some of them won’t care, and some of them will find it funny,” she said.
As for the people making these memes, there is a broad range of people making them for different reasons. “You can probably find people all across the spectrum,” Higgins said. “I think some people who make these view it as harmless and fun, but some people do make it sarcastic.”
As for how long this will stay trending, both Nuchurch and Higgins predict that it will not last very long. “With slang, who knows what else will catch on, but I think it is really hard to predict how long something will stay around, that’s the nature of social media,” said Higgins.
Headline photo: Illustration by Lauren Kolesinskas for NBC News.