If you’re a thin-skinned baby boomer, maybe you should turn back now. For the rest of us, I thought I should bring to your attention just a few people who hate baby boomers.
The Worst Generation Ever
“Hey Baby Boomers…Hurry Up And Die Already!”
Generational Helots
Die Boomer Die
But we don’t have to let them get to us. Are we going to lay down and die? Nah. We’ll survive.
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August 23rd, 2007 at 2:39 am
I posted a tongue in cheek article a few months ago about why people hate boomers and got this response in my email:
“The Boomers are a generation of emotional-cripples now (Expense-Love, Synthetic Drugs, Bubble-Gum Pop Stars): so self-absorbed, so blantantly ego-centric, that they are tainting the generation after them, passing on their “censored” hang-ups and mental culpas on all of us.
They gotta blame someone right?
August 23rd, 2007 at 5:43 am
These sites were hysterical.
Sounds like another generation blaming mommy and daddy for their problems.
Talk about a need to look at themselves in the mirror.
Complaints from a group that can’t consume new gagets fast enough and feel entitled to spend their work time on MySpace and have personal conversations on their phones in public.
August 23rd, 2007 at 6:44 am
Savvy: What is it with the “self-absorbed” accusation? All of the baby boomer haters use this term. The baby boomers also count among their numbers ecologists, political activists of all stripes, feminists, medical researchers who have brought life-changing innovations to us, and so many more altruistic people.
Nessa: Yes, that gadget thing really gets to me. Why not just have a life? Do you always have to have an electronic device in hand to feel alive? I have an almost 30-year-old friend who, when we’re eating out in a restaurant, actually stops to answer her cell phone if it rings. What’s the emergency?
August 23rd, 2007 at 7:20 am
Meh, they’ll be hated themselves soon enough.
August 23rd, 2007 at 8:53 am
HI Rhea-
Just a suggestion for you. Once this post has been up a while, take down those links so you don’t give these guys anymore attention or google juice than they deserve. People like this thrive on antagonism and negative attention, and frankly, they just don’t deserve any of your attention.
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:29 am
Every generation has some dislike for the one before it. In this case, our having made it possible to more fully express yourself in public has given them the platform to rail against us. Eh. Whatever.
August 23rd, 2007 at 11:16 am
I think its funny that these people dedicated entire blogs to their hatred. That’s a lot of work.
Anyway, Rhea, I’ve tagged you with a meme:
http://momandmama.wordpress.com/2007/08/23/meme-8-surprising-things-about-me/
August 23rd, 2007 at 11:32 am
Just re-affirms my opinion that the younger generations are whiny babies.
August 23rd, 2007 at 2:08 pm
I could not resist, and I gave my “Worst Blog in the World” award* to The Worst Generation Ever. I can hardly wait for the haters to pour in with their denunciations, but of course I will delete their comments. Unless they are really creative, of course.
*modeled, of course, on Keith Olberman’s Worst Person in the World, this award has now been bestowed on several choice blogs.
August 23rd, 2007 at 7:41 pm
I would like to thank all of you for the fun and entertaining day. Why are we so angry? That’s a very good question, one that is not easily answered. We don’t like where society is at and we started wondering how we got here.
There is just a growing number of us out there that have listened to you talk about how great you are for so long that we thought we would start checking into it.
Things we learned along the way:
The fastest growing segment of the prison population is baby boomers.
Per capita the largest segment of the population to declare bankruptcy are baby boomers (in their mid 50’s).
Boomers give less money to charity as a percentage of their assets than either the generation before or after them. They donate less of their time as well.
They have not saved enough for retirement and as a result will be working well into their, “golden years”.
Boomers have a higher divorce rate than the generation before or after them.
Your war on drugs (yes, it’s your war (I was 12 when it was declared)) has caused the prison population to be the highest in the world. We incarcerate 1% of our population and that does not include the people on parole or probation. That is higher than China.
As far as social security goes; I really hope you are not going to rely on it. You should have taken better care of the governmental finances while you were in charge. It seems that the country is on the verge of bankruptcy.
Ironically, I have great respect for previous generations. They did some amazing things. Fought two world wars. Explored and settled a continent. Fought a revolution and founded a country based on the principals of liberty. They based their lives on the ideas of thrift and personal responsibility. Frugality was not a dirty word but an ideal that was exemplified. Debt was abhorrent to all the generations before yours.
Every generation left the country better than they found it. Each generation lowered the national debt and increased the standard of living. Each generation advanced freedoms beyond what had existed prior to it.
Unfortunately you are the first generation in U.S. history to leave the
country worse than you found it. The national debt now stands at $9 trillion. That is money that you have borrowed from your grandchildren. I hope it was worth it.
These are not rants or comments made in hatred. They are facts. There are statistics behind them. The majority of you (not all) have lived for today without regard for the long-term consequences of your actions.
Interestingly, of all the comments I received today, only one was well thought out and well written. Even more interesting it came from a person who was extolling frugality and responsibility. Which is quite an unexpected opinion for anyone to have in this day and age.
In that one comment, they ask about the oil crisis and if that was the boomers fault. My generation did not invent the SUV. We have not been in power for over 20 years.
When you were growing up your parents and grandparents built brand new schools for you. Now, the country is so mired in debt that instead of building schools we use portable classrooms. You had art and music class. Today’s school children do not have those because of budget cuts. Those school children are ours. We cannot give them even the same level of services we received because not only is the money gone but it has been stolen from them well into the working years.
Again, you have been the people in power. If you are not to blame then who is? And, if you can look at the world, the way you are leaving it and not see anything wrong then there is something wrong with that.
To summarize it is not that we hate you. It is that we do not respect you. There is a difference. By examining the actions of your lifetime we hope to learn from your mistakes and not repeat them ourselves.
So there you are. Flame away.
August 23rd, 2007 at 7:46 pm
What older generation didn’t say bad things about the next generation? (i.e. ‘Whippersnapper’)
Or
What younger generation did disparage an older generation? (i.e. ‘Geezer’)
Nothing new here! At 52, I am in that netherworld, neither too old to be a kid nor too young to rot on the vine. What is old? Grandpa finally sold off his business when he was 76. Maybe these whippersnappers ought to define a meaningful definition of ‘OLD’
August 23rd, 2007 at 9:04 pm
I was going to comment here on this but y’all wouldn’t like it too much. Some day I might blog about it wten my blood pressure can take it.
August 23rd, 2007 at 9:15 pm
I think folks who are BBH’s (Baby boomer haters) really admire us. They know that we are smart, lots of rich expertise, many of us are wise and analytical. I mean let’s face it those of us who blog are not rolling over to veg but learning and loving it.
We forgive them and move on doing our thing and many times making a difference that even benefits them.
August 23rd, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Heh. Some serious angst goin’ on over there. I think they’re confused ‘cuz we don’t respond to their joysticks.
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:30 pm
Wow, a lot of hostility toward our generation! I couldn’t resist posting on one of them. I probably shouldn’t give them the satisfaction! LOL!
August 24th, 2007 at 1:04 am
Survive…AND suck the system dry while they’re at it! Woo-hoo!!
August 24th, 2007 at 1:33 am
Aww, shoot, hand ‘em a pair o’ Happy Pants to put on…you know, the ones with the big bell bottoms painted all psychedelic and stuff.
August 24th, 2007 at 6:34 am
Well, I mean, EVENTUALLY we are going to lay down and die..
August 24th, 2007 at 9:09 am
Eh, I’m not worried. There are more of us than there are of them. . .
August 24th, 2007 at 9:11 am
Well, as a member (on the older end of the scale, I’m 39) of Gen X I can say my stomach does turn when I see 60s era cultural icons like Deniis Hopper selling financial products to the tune of “Gimme Some Lovin” on TV.
It does make me think ye hath seen thy time pass into an ugly caricature.
If, 15 years from now someone is selling me membership in the AARP to the sounds of The Cure and U2…
August 24th, 2007 at 10:51 am
We can’t lay down and die without getting at least a couple of good shots in!
I suspect it’s not cool to include urls in your messages here… but I really think this site (ok… it’s MY site) does add a little something to this exchange! Thank you!!!
http://www.ihateyoungpeople.com/
August 24th, 2007 at 11:23 am
Yes, Dennis Hopper is a caricature of his former self. And so are many others. That’s why I love Leslie Nielsen, who makes fun of the notion of geriatric studliness.
August 24th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
I love all this humorous, and other, stuff here! Keep it comin’.
August 25th, 2007 at 9:08 am
Ah, the “generation” wars. A better term would probably be the “generalization” wars, or perhaps “stereotyping” wars. The truth is “generations” are not clubs, there are no members. Each individual does what he or she does, feels as he or she does, and lives an individual life. To blame me, for example, because someone else about my age does something that someone older or younger finds reprehensible is no different than seeing an African-American do some crime, and then saying African-Americans are all criminals. If you are going to call me a “baby boomer” then why not just call me a nigger and get it over with?
August 25th, 2007 at 11:34 am
Life is too short not to have these chuckles. Thanks for sharing!
August 25th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
They’re only jealous, what do they know? BAH!
August 25th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
I’m guessing… twentysomethings, pissed that we’re gonna get all their social security money.
August 25th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Akel and Fathairy: Probably.
August 25th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Without doubt, the Baby Boomer generation is the most worthless one to come down the pike-ever. Just look at the way they behaved in the 60’s;
-”drug-ins”;
-”peace-ins” (eupanism for drug-ins);
-”sit-ins” (yet another way to get high while protesting whatever slight, real or perceived, these babies felt they had experienced);
-”love-ins” (get high AND get laid);
- and all other “ins” that went on and on and on.
But, hey, while the WWII generation had their finest hour in defeating the Axis powers, the finest hour for the boomers shows THEM rolling around in the mud in some drug-induced stupor, while their friends engage in weird hippie dances at a “youth movement” concert. Niiiice.
In that regard, let’s examine the legacy these self-centered crybabies left us, shall we? I certainly don’t recall the below-mentioned social ills being at all statistically prevalent in the 50’s, so please don’t even think of stating that these problems didn’t see their naissance with the boomers.
Remember, for example, when men and women, regardless of their economic background, used to dress decently and carry themselves with dignity? Yeah, me neither! That’s because I didn’t grow up in the 50’s, but I sure as Hell grew up surrounded by the legacy of sloppy and unhygenic dress of the 60’s- you knowm the BOOMERS’ DRESS CODE, which NOW manifests itself in 6 year old girls dressing like hookers and boys wearing clothes that emulate in-custodys.
It’s a little late, but by now, these bonehead boomers probably understand what “those people over 30″ meant when, a long time ago, they tried to explain how once a person or institution loses its standards, it becomes next to impossible to regain them.
In that regard, the social ills we experience today are, without a doubt, thanks to the “it’s all about me” boomers and the complete annilhation of standards in EVERY facet of life. Of course, the ills of the quaintly naive hippie youth movement/counterculture has now metasticized to epidemic and out of control proportions. As with the declining dress code that started in the 60’s, the rest of us now have to deal:
-crassness and vulgarity, especially towards women-but hey, back then it was all about “freedom of expression”, right?;
-broken families;
-college students that can’t locate China on a map (we all deserve an A, so no-one’s self-esteem is damaged);
-overrun rehab centers;
-skyrocketing stds (Free love, everbody!);
-secularism;
-babies being sucked into a sink;
-disdain for the military and anything remotely patriotic;
-hatred for the “pigs” (isn’t that what you hippies used to call them? Yeah, I know, probably not so much now since you’re pushing 70, and need those same “pigs” to rescue you from a home invasion.);
and my personal favorite…
-moral relativism!
Thanks for that gem; As it has been promoted by you self-absorbed losers of the 60’s, there is no such thing as right and wrong-that sort of thinking being so “simplistic” and “old-fashioned”, I know. You boomers, being the “progressive” lot you are, instead focus on whether whatever you’re doing “feels good”, because as we all know, if you’re not happy with yourself, then nothing else really matters, does it?
Again, let’s not forget that NONE of the above social ills were all that statistically prelavent IN THE 50’s. THEY ALL STARTED WITH THE BOOMERS.
You have no idea how much damage you people have caused. As a result of your efforts at indoctrinating future generation with your rejection of good versus bad, while simultaeneously and relentlessly eradicating pesky things like “guilt” and moral absolutes from the American consciousness, it will indeed be a miracle if Western civilization manages to gather the collective judmentalism that will be so critical in defending and preserving itself from the ever-encraoching Islamofacists that seek to return us to the 7th century.
Yeah, I know, I really need to lighten up, don’t I? Just live for the moment! None of this stuff I’ve mentioned is really true, is it? Ar least not in the self-absorbed mind of the boomer.
And boomers wonder why they are so despised. Personally, I will stay home from the office and celebrate the day the last baby boomer dies. Hopefully by then, we responsible members of society will have cleaned up the disasters that they so selfishly left behind.
But, hey-it’s all about you, isn’t it?
August 26th, 2007 at 7:42 am
Narcissa voices some complaints, but fails to even hint that any persons in the “generation” she reviles might have done something worthwhile, whether in terms of art, music, science, technology, charity, literature, or anything else. The great American hobby: dividing people into groups instead of individuals. Makes it easier to rant.
I want to address one of the items in particular which seems to disturb her (and Bill O’Reilly, and others): secularism. It appears none of the people who rant against this perceived evil even know what it means. Our nation is, by definition, a secular nation. Remember the “establishment” clause? To the extent this nation moves away from secularism, it moves towards the evil of religious divisiveness, a prime example of which we see in Iraq. This is not a “Christian” nation (and, in fairness, Narcissa never said it was), again, by definition (establishment clause again). If you look at the history of Christianity up to the time of the American revolution, you are not going to see a history which finds its culmination in the organic documents of our nation. You are going to see absolutism, and deadly force used to deal with “heretics.” Anyone who says the Constitution embodies Christian principles then prevailing is missing some historic perspective.
August 26th, 2007 at 10:38 am
Wow I really did miss all the action… at 29 I’m an x-er right?
August 26th, 2007 at 10:38 am
Back to the 50’s, I say, where discrimination against women and minorities was a given. When there were even more poor people percentagewise than there are today. When the threat of nuclear war hung over everyone. Oh, and the wonderful sexual repression. Girls being sent off to “homes” to have their illegitimate babies or pooling money with their girlfriends to find a safe abortionist. I miss that!
Maybe there was less crap around in the way of cheap stuff and lousy popular culture, but what there was was really, really bad in a good old fashioned way. Try humming along to the song stylings of (say) Theresa Brewer! Read a Reader’s Digest Condensed Book. Listen to a haw haw radio comedy or watch a romantic film of a level of sophistication that no one could descend to today. Fit entertainment for a people whose cultural and educational level was as low as it was then. And those cars! My favorite was the 1957 Chevy gas-guzzler with the rear-end invitation.
Ah, those were the days, my friend. Oh, yes, and everyone smoked! And there were none of those repressive seat belts. You could snuggle right up to your honey in the roomy front seat while he drove with one hand on the steering wheel and the other one around you. Car accidents were the real thing in those days!
It was a great time for snarky young folks like me, lovers of Mad Magazine and Bob and Ray. What can I make fun of now? There is no comparison.
Oh, I’m getting all nostalgic. I think I’ll stop here.
August 26th, 2007 at 10:58 am
That’s the ‘59 Chevy! An unsurpassed example of Detroit Baroque at its height.
August 26th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Thanks, Narcissa and Gerry for all the discussion.
Hattie: I love your exegesis of the 1950s.
24Crayons: Gosh, I don’t know WHAT generation a 29-year-old is.
August 27th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Hattie, excellent points you have made. I too remember that the “good old days” were not so good for a lot of people.
29-year-olds…let’s see, I think it’s either the very end of the X-er generation or what they’re now calling Millennials, which are the up-and-coming young people 18-late 20’s.
Also, I wrote this the other day but had trouble posting it. In response to Narcissa’s post, and that of X-er, see below:
Narcissa, I can’t believe the stereotypes you people are buying into. Not all Baby Boomers did all those things you’re talking about. Most of us grew up, went to college (sure we smoked a few joints but we grew out of it), got married, got jobs, had kids, raised them well, sent them to college, and try to do our best. We care about the environment, we’re members of community organizations, we are serving on zoning boards and town councils. Yes, the “self-esteem” thing did get a bit out of hand, but are you sure it’s our fault? The parents who come to school and complain that their kids are being treated unfairly when the school is just trying to discipline aren’t Baby Boomers last time I looked. I think they’re your age.
X-er, as for you, it’s not my fault George W. Bush has run up this huge deficit. I sure didn’t vote for him. And he was hardly a typical Baby Boomer anyway. Bill Clinton left the country in good shape with a surplus! Don’t tar all Baby Boomers with the same brush. I can’t believe the lack of tolerance you both have for other people. Grow up and get a life. And you call US self-involved???
August 31st, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Any grievance Narcissa (a narcissist? hmmm) may hold against the baby boomer generation is one that may be magnified in her own. I’ve never seen “ignorance is bliss” compounded by a lack of historical knowledge and perspective so succinctly demonstrated, much less illustrated with so little attention to grammar.
We had the Vietnam War; her generation has the Iraq War. While we can’t take the high road on that one, at least we weren’t known for being so self-involved that we believed everything the government said. We also had the attention span to follow through on our protests and reevaluate what was “received wisdom.” I doubt the Gen-X/Gen Y-ers can tear themselves away from their video games and Crackberries for long enough to notice that this world of ours is a lot uglier than it was twenty-five years ago.
September 18th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
Just wanted to give and update and say thanks! Since I posted a message here a few weeks ago with my IHATEYOUNGPEOPLE url in it… the site has kind of taken off. 43 thousand hits in just one day!!!! I’m still stunned. So thank you to all the cool boomers here who checked it out. i really appreciate it!
Rich
September 18th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Rich: Thanks for writing in. Great to hear the news about your traffic!
August 17th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Please let’s not lose sight of the fact that the WWII generation brought us the Nazis and an almost entire Europe rolling over and bending forward for Hitler, who was from the WWI generation. Oh wait, the Hitler Youth were from that generation in between, the so-called ‘Silent generation’. Let-s see, in this country the WWII generation finally got into the war (”Johnny-come-latelys”) after Pearl Harbour, not for any reason other than nationalistic self-interest, and then proceded to confiscate all private property and incarcerate in concentration camps an entire segment of it’s citizenry, the Japenese Americans. After the war, the more than decade of anti-communist witch-hunting of McCartheyism ensued and the cold war. The simplistic-minded haters would have us believe entire generations of people acted en masse to unleash these horrors on the world. Would they also have us believe that “Islamo-Faschists”, American soldiers in Iraq raping their fellow soldiers and little Iraqi girls who are geneXers and genYers are acting as a block with entire generations of people? I think not . This is just too silly. I will say this: There are far too many of us. Collectively we have bred hatred and dicord by over populating , bringing generation after generation of essentially unwanted children into this world, and then abusing and neglecting them exponentially. No wonder there is so much anger. It has been cruel to bring new ones into this world for a very long time. Global warming will be ignored to the demise of everything and all. What I propose is a two-fold solution: Look to your own childhood and honestly address what you individually suffered at the hands of the people who should have cared better for you, and simultaneously find a way out of your gas-guzzling cars, THINK before you bring a new one into this world, stop eating meat, stop flying, turning on air-conditioners and heaters, put pressure on politicians and corporations, wean yourselves away from fossil- fuels. Feel the fear and all your human feelings so you can DO something, before it is too late! I suggest we all start now. I believe we may have time to avert fresh horrors to come. Start by visiting http://www.dominantanimal.org, http://www.350.org, and http://www.wecansolveit.org. And then relax, have a little fun.
March 27th, 2009 at 8:47 am
The boomer-hatred routine isn’t something any of us should shrug off. Nor should any of us amuse ourselves by talking as if these crazy delinquents had a point that deserves discussion.
The “reasons” given by these stupid bastards are exactly the same as the reasons given by Germans in the nineteen-thirties for hating Jews: “They” have all the money; “they” are greedy and lecherous; there’s a depression on and “they” caused it; “their” physical appearance (in this case, the appearance of advanced middle age) is disgusting and reveals a moral disease within. The thing that defines “them” as a group (in this case, age) is a taint, not a trait: any trace of it renders superfluous every other characteristic of the bearer.
We have even reached the point at which the “Boomer question” is supposed to be an acceptable topic of serious discussion. Not accepting this becomes another indictment–What? You won’t have a civil conversation about the Boomer Question? Of course not–you’re all alike.
I believe that the age cohort who really accept this genocidal bullshit are in fact a minority of the young (and recently young), primarily concentrated among the upper and upper-middle economic classes. These parasites consider people in general to be their servants, believe that they are getting lousy service, and regard genocide as a reasonable way of expressing their outrage at the shabby treatment they are receiving.
If a few of these characters want to call themselves “progressives,” this only reflects the incoherence of their mental processes. Sooner or later they will “discover” to their joy that they have always been fascists.
Ironically, these little pricks are only echoing what they have been taught by their Baby Boomer parents.
From a purely intellectual point of view, this illustrates the fallacy of using weak constructs like “generations” as a way of characterizing broad groups. Generations are full of subgroupings who have ultra-radical differences as well as things in common. The differences are far more significant.
As a practical matter, it is unlikely that we will see an overt movement toward genocide. We are seeing a lot of minor violence, but it’s pretty weak stuff–Yuppies pushing and shoving on sidewalks and name-calling. These granny-bashers are hopelessly passive-aggressive, and their only real weapon is treachery.
But we are already seeing a massive and cowardly assault on social justice for the old, and this movement is very close to victory. Never underestimate the weakness of the Democratic Party. Now is the time for action.
Keep your powder dry folks and remember–forge alliances wherever you can, especially with the new post-X generation, and remember that you’re never too old to pull the trigger of a shotgun, particularly not when the odds are that many of you will remain alert and physically strong well into your eighties (by which time many of the Xers themselves will be on Social Security or wishing that they hadn’t abolished it).
December 24th, 2009 at 11:48 am
My mother and father are both boomers, and I love them very dearly. I usually don’t generalize because I agree that it usually is BS, but when it comes to civic stewardship, all of you due bear some responsibility. For the record, I’m a former Peace Corps Volunteer and I’m getting a master’s in non-profit management, so I am at least trying to change things. But I’d like to point some things out to you:
1) You won’t be remembered for environmentalism. Believe me, I grew up on an organic farm. The American Midwest (our breadbasket) has lost over one-third of its topsoil over the past thirty years, which has created a dead zone the size of New Jersey in the Gulf of Mexico. In another twenty to thirty years, your kids and grandkids will start losing the ability to feed ourselves, in addition to the fact that we’ve destroyed most of our aquifers and over-fished most of our coasts. Whether you like it or not, the system of hyper-consumption you instituted negates whatever environmental accomplishments you made in 1970s by leaps and bounds.
2)You will not be remembered for feminism, because you also gave us the horrors of post-modernism, which has pretty much turned our culture into a sea of moral relativism where “Pimp Culture” dominates in our youth, and where sex has been so degraded and cheapened that it has had a “molestation effect” on young girls who are constantly dehumanized by the trash culture you helped to invent. (For the record, pimps are sociopathic predators that beat and rape the women that work for them, and now young girls dance to songs that glorify them).
3)You will not be remembered for Vietnam. Iraq and Afghanistan pretty much shot that to hell. You learned nothing, and you killed and wounded tens of thousands of my generation in the process (including one of my best friends).
4)When you add up social security, medicare, and medicaid, you’ll be leaving us around 55 trillion in debt. You governed for over two decades, you knew how many of you there were, and yet you made absolutely no serious attempt to reform healthcare for the sake of your children and grandchildren. You bankrupted and ruined us. We also can’t really fix the problem because our congressional districts have been completely gerrymandered and elections are dominated by lobbyists and special interests.
You’ve governed horribly. Your children and grandchildren have a right to despise you when they finally realize what you’ve done. And to be honest, the smugness on this thread is eventually going to give way to fear and paranoia. Yeah, there are alot of you, but you’re also old, and eventually, we all reap what we sow.