Okay Boomer: The First Generational Gap

Throughout history generations have always been closely knit. Three generations living under the same roof and sharing their culture. And for the most part kids were seen as small adults, they would work and labor in the same farms or factories as their parents. That is until the mid 19th century.

Increasing standard of living allowed families to feed themselves without sending their children to work. And advancements in child psychology found childhood to be a state of development and molding for the future. Schooling became government mandatory and slowly children began to separate more from the older generation. By the 1900s youth had created their own culture. Without the strict overhead of their parents and the social opportunities of school they began to create a culture separate from their parents. They could dictate popularity, fashion, and even language. By 1920 Hollywood and the press started idealizing the youth and advertisers started targeting their culture for selling products. This only furthered the gap between child and parent as the youth started to model themselves after Hollywood stars instead of their parents. This marked the first generational gap, a distinct line between the cultures of the parents and their children.

By 1945, World War II has ended and the second generation begins to form. Baby boomers, the second noticeable generation and the largest. Nearly 76 million babies are born into their generation. Thus begins a generation of boomer hating. The mass production and efficiency born of the second world war lead to a huge growth in productivity and an undeniable increase in living standard for the boomers. Major advancements in science and technology and huge booms to toy and comic book markets made the lives of boomers a paradise. Their parents who suffered the great depression and fought in the war subsequently saw their children's lives as easy and idyllic. This, coupled with the separation that they saw with their own parents resulted in a collective jealousy for the boomers. The boomers who were already seeing negative views from older generations began a culture of rebellion. Starting with the civil rights movement, feminism movement, and the anti-war movement, boomers embodied everything their parents hated. While their parents fought in World War II and retired with government paid pensions. Boomers were burning their Vietnam draft cards and engaging in non-connubial sex. They were assaulted politically and socially for their radical beliefs and anti-government sentiment.

But the boomer hate didn't stop there. The next generation, called millennials, saw their parents create lower wages and a decrease to the market as a part of consumerism. Boomers then blamed their children for being lazy and self-obsessed. They accused millennials of a "me generation", a culture focused too much on the self rather than society as a whole. These accusations were, ironically, the same ones used on boomers themselves by their parents who saw their easy life, hippie culture, and anarchistic tendencies as cultivating "laziness and entitlement". So it's no wonder that the millennials hated their parents. This hate continued to grow as boomers became out of touch with new technology and their cultural values continued to drift apart. With the birth of Gen Z came the popular meme Okay Boomer. A sentiment that seemingly embodies all the hate and anger towards boomers in just two words. All the hate fits together in a weird way: boomers were resented for being hippie drug addicts, and now their children hate them for being undeserving corporate sellouts.

It is said that every generation believes themselves to be smarter then their parents and wiser than their children. Inter-generational hate is not a new concept but the recent gap in generations along with the rise of social media and instant communication has only exacerbated the hatred between the groups. So just remember kids: boomer isn't an age, it's a mindset. Don't be a boomer.

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwLHaCU-GaM

https://www.ajc.com/business/personal-finance/baby-boomers-are-less-likely-than-previous-generations-retire/uyOI5AYJH3o0Q0xcS8UIfL/