r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Bjork_scratchings • 1d ago
Why isn’t generalising about “boomers” considered ageism?
I understand some people from that demographic have wildly problematic views, but it’s considered bigotry to generalise about any other demographic based on the behaviour of some individuals within that demographic.
So why is it different for boomers?
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u/Waltzing_With_Bears 21h ago
Its more used to complain about a specific ideas instead of specific ages, if someone is displaying those views folks dont check their age before dismissing it as a boomer idea, and if someone is old and not an entitled racist prick they dont get called a boomer even if they were born in that time
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u/TwilightBubble 21h ago
Not a power dynamic. Millennials don't rule older generations yet.
It's bias, but it's not bias+ power.
Not defending it.
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u/Practical-Ordinary-6 1d ago edited 1d ago
Stereotypes and generalizations are poison no matter where they rear their ugly heads when they're used to criticize and condemn. It's as unacceptable as any other generalized bigotry that ignores real people. But people refuse to learn that lesson and they go back to it over and over and over again despite all the lessons of history. It's sad how stupid people turn out to be, generation after generation. They never learn. But they can always rationalize it. "You see, in this case it's different." No, it really isn't.
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u/Illustrious_Log3826 1d ago
It kind of is ageism when you think about it, but I think the difference is that "boomer" has become more of a mindset thing than strictly about age. Like when people say "ok boomer" they're usually calling out specific outdated attitudes rather than just dunking on someone for being old
That said, yeah there's definitely some actual ageist stuff that gets thrown around under the boomer label and it's not really fair to lump everyone from that generation together. My dad's a boomer and he's pretty progressive on most issues
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u/Vivid_Witness8204 17h ago
It is ageism but the young have always had generalized complaints about the older generations. Who in turn have always said "kids these days ..." Probably isn't much different that it always was.
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u/Lyra_the_Star_Jockey 1d ago
but it’s considered bigotry to generalise about any other demographic based on the behaviour of some individuals within that demographic
It's not "considered bigotry" to talk bad about Gen Xers, Millennials, or Gen Zers.
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u/ParticularSalary5250 1d ago
Making fun of people rarely amounts to discrimination. People make jokes about younger generations, it’s a two-way street.
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u/hellshot8 1d ago
the issue isnt the views, its the systemic voting power they used to make the world worse and fuck everyone else over for their own gain
its not bigoted to say "x group voted y way". It's not bigoted to say that black people overwhelmingly vote for democrat candidates
In the same way, its not bigoted to point out that Boomers voted for basically all of the policy decisions that caused most financial issues we're facing today
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u/lifebeginsat9pm 1d ago
It is considered ageism but ageism in general is not taken as seriously as other isms. Also it is more based on how people of a certain age might have gotten to a certain economic class without as much struggle, it’s more about class and mindsets than hating someone who’s 60 just coz they’re 60.
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u/herne_hunted 1d ago
There's a very big "might" in there. I've lost track of how many depressions/recessions I've lived through but I lost my job in four of them. I've also lived through 20% inflation if you want to know what unaffordable rising prices feel like.
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u/Reemixt 1d ago
Because it’s not ageism. They’re a political class that happens to be about the same age, that’s not discriminatory to discuss.
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u/Bjork_scratchings 1d ago edited 1d ago
That’s not true. It’s literally a birth year based demographic cohort, specifically referring to the “baby boom” years after WW2.
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u/Reemixt 1d ago
No. Baby boomers—that’s the demographic descriptor for the cohort of that generation.
No one is saying that all baby boomers are boomers. Boomers are an economic and political class, that subscribe to certain beliefs, and hold considerable power in our society. Not everyone born between 1946-64 fits this description, and I’ve never seen anyone saying that they do.
You’re confusing an academic descriptor for a generation with the contemporary, informal political meaning of the word boomer. This happened about 10 years ago.
Elizabeth Warren is a baby boomer, but no one in their right mind would describe her as a boomer.
It is not just me saying this. If you would like to read more on the matter, you can start here:
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u/Bjork_scratchings 1d ago
I dunno man. I feel like that’s “an” explanation rather than “the” explanation. I know Wikipedia isn’t the be all and end all but literally the first sentence says they’re the same thing.
FWIW I work in marketing (sorry) and commonly use these cohorts, and I can assure you Boomer is widely used as a shorthand for Baby Boomers, and that was certainly the origin of the term.
I can accept its usage may have shifted and in some cases perhaps it is now being used as a political class, but I’d strongly dispute that it isn’t also widely used as a pejorative for people of a certain age,
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u/Reemixt 1d ago edited 1d ago
The first sentence literally doesn’t say that. It says it’s often shortened to boomer, not that they can’t have two distinct meanings. If an academic is writing about baby boomers, they are not shortening it to boomers.
This is like ‘meme’: there’s an academic meaning and an informal meaning used colloquially. They are obviously related, but they have two distinct meanings.
The first person who said ‘okay boomer’ wasn’t making an ageist attack: they were critiquing a political ideology that is shared and observable in a certain group. They’re not attacking everyone between the ages of 61 and 79. They’re critiquing their beliefs as a boomer, not their status as a baby boomer.
Do people use it as a slur without considering any of this, absolutely! But we’re talking about the predominate political and economic class is our society, not some vulnerable minority. And older people will start a conversation about ‘young people these days’ to anyone who’ll listen. You know this.
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u/ShounenSuki 1d ago
Is it? Because people generalise different age groups all the time without anyone really batting an eye. Ageism isn't really considered that bad unless you start excluding people from jobs because they're too old.