OK Boomer Meme, How it Started, When it started and what it is about
OK Boomer Meme: This is a catchphrase and meme used by teenagers and young adults. And it is to dismiss or mock attitudes typically associated with people born in the two decades following World War II, known as baby boomers.
In this article, you shall learn more.
The phrase first drew widespread attention due to a November 2019 TikTok video in response to an older man. However, the phrase was actually coined years before that.
Considered by some to be ageist, the phrase has also been used commercially to sell merchandise, and there have been multiple trademark applications submitted for the phrase.
The Origin OK Boomer Meme
“OK boomer” was popularized as a reaction to a video on TikTok of an unidentified older man, in which he declared that millennials and Generation Z have the Peter Pan syndrome. Also, they don’t ever want to grow up. Also, they think that the utopian ideals that they have in their youth are somehow going to translate into adulthood”.
The video inspired the phrase “OK boomer” as a dismissal of the ideals of past generations. And the first recorded instance of the phrase “OK boomer” appeared in a Reddit comment on 29 January 2009.
This was a decade before it became popular. However, the term’s more recent usage can be traced back to 2015 on 4chan. But it started to become popular in January 2019. Also, the term gained media popularity in early November 2019 when articles about the phrase were published.
The phrase has been used as a retort for perceived resistance to technological change, climate change denial. Also, The New York Times wrote that “teenagers use it to reply to cringe YouTube videos, Donald Trump tweets, and basically anything condescending about young people.
OK Boomer is an Instantly Relatable Cry of Frustration to Many People
As earlier mentioned, the earliest mentions of OK boomer can be traced as far back as 2015 on 4chan. And this was where the phrase was used as an insult by the forum’s anonymous users. This was aimed at other anons who seemed out of touch.
Sometimes, the complaints teens are referencing in the Ok Boomer videos are typical generational conflicts. But more often, they’re politicized, And this is with teens reacting to adults who are judging things like their gender expression, their financial choices, their approach to job-hunting, or their leisure activities.
Also, the broader background to all of this resentment is the perceived irony that while boomers nitpick and judge younger generations for their specific choices. But it’s the boomers’ own choices that created the bleak socioeconomic landscape that millennials and Gen Z currently face.
Also, the broader socioeconomic aspect seems to have gotten lost as the meme spread throughout the mainstream. Many people thus have become aware of OK boomer through the October New York Times article. Which focused on teens who had taken the meme offline and were turning it into merchandise and fashion statements.
Why are People calling it “Ok Boomer?” in the First Place?
Long story short, some millennials and members of Gen Z feel that though Baby Boomers hold nostalgia for their younger years. Also, they do this for their political and financial actions will ultimately harm future generations.
It believed that “everybody in Gen Z is affected by the choices of the boomers. And that which they made and are still making. 18-year-old Nina Kasman, who sells “Ok Boomer” swag” told the New York Times:
Those choices are hurting us and our future. Everyone in my generation can relate to that experience and we’re all really frustrated by it.
However, the most notable use of “Ok Boomer” was by 25-year-old New Zealand politician Chloë Swarbrick who said it in response to a heckler who interrupted her speech about climate change. He said:
My ‘ok boomer’ comment in parliament was off-the-cuff, albeit symbolic of the collective exhaustion of multiple generations set to inherit ever-amplifying problems in an ever-diminishing window of time, she wrote in an essay for The Guardian.
With the above information, we believe that you have gathered some vital knowledge about OK Boomer. Thus, now you know how it all started and what it is about.
CSN Team.
