These days, it’s pretty hard to miss the phrase that’s made “old people” everywhere angry. It first took root in the dark corners of Twitter and Reddit in early 2019, but exploded into mainstream culture when a video mocking an old man for his criticism of Millennials and Gen Z went viral on TikTok in October.
Since then, “OK Boomer” has sparked confused looks and controversy alike from its targets. Major news organizations like the New York Times have called its popularity “the end of friendly generational relations.” It’s fair to say that by now the meme has sunk from its peak popularity, but its cultural aftershocks warrant deeper consideration. So: what was all the fuss about, and why did such a phrase gain so much attention?
The short and perhaps obvious answer is that Gen Z is angry. History is full of examples of older generations criticizing their descendants. Back in 428 B.C.E, Greek philosopher Plato described his era’s youth as the “tyrants, not the servants of their households” because they “disrespect[ed] their elders.” In 1947, a high school principal criticized the kids in the Silent Generation for “talking back nowadays without even knowing it” and “carrying too much money.” Later still came the headlines bashing Millenials for killing the phrase “Merry Christmas,” the real estate industry, and the economy itself.
The consistency of generational criticism isn’t a coincidence. Studies have found that as we age, our perception of what “kids these days” are doing becomes increasingly compared to traits that we have in adulthood. For example, an adult who is very intelligent is more likely to complain that kids nowadays aren’t as smart as they used to be. Of course, those adults are wrong -- IQ scores have actually risen quite steadily over time, a trend called the Flynn Effect -- but the so-called “Kids These Days” phenomenon persists.
Though fleeting, “OK Boomer” marked one of the first multigenerational responses to this so-called “youth bashing,” but thousands of tweets, TikToks, and articles later, generational relations seem to have only worsened. (In all honesty, that’s what you would expect from such an unapologetically dismissive phrase-- I mean, who’s saying that sort of thing to bridge the generational divide?) A quick Google search will tell you that it reverberates still, in subtler forms. For a meme, that’s not too unusual, but perhaps it’s time for “OK Boomer” to finally die.
If history and science tell us anything, Gen Z, too, will fall victim to human psychology, and we’ll soon become the youth-bashers “OK, Boomer” seeks to mock. Boomers will be boomers, and eventually, so will everybody else.
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