Home Mashable 'OK Boomer' is the burn that unites generations — even boomers

'OK Boomer' is the burn that unites generations — even boomers

mimisabreena Sunday, November 10, 2019 Mashable

Perhaps it is for the best that not even meme experts know who first posted the generational burn of the year, "OK Boomer." We are told that it is originally a Generation Z joint, and that it started on the current social network of choice for under 25s, TikTok. We know that millennials picked up the torch fairly quickly, carrying the phrase to the highest echelons of Twitter; it was a millennial legislator from New Zealand's Green Party who used "OK Boomer" both to put down a heckler and to go viral on YouTube.

But also I'm here as a card-carrying member of Generation X, the oft-ignored predecessors to millennials, to say that we too feel incredibly seen by this meme. Rolling our eyes at our loud and self-centered predecessors was pretty much the only thing this culturally disparate, hipster-filled generation had in common in the 1990s, other than our love of flannel. A dismissive, sarcasm-drenched "OK Boomer" sounds like it could be a line from Reality Bites, or from an Alanis Morrisette song. Read more...