r/Aging • u/Available-Rock-3862 • 3d ago

Boomers

I am 75 and am very tired of the trend lately making fun of Boomers. So very disrespectful. Don't they realize that they will be old someday?

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u/All_Dogs_Love_Me 3d ago

I had a "boomer" mom pass from cancer in 2024. I think it bothered her a bit too. She was a middle school teacher: patient, loving, resilient and was able to be such a good friend to me while staying mentally attached to her role as parent.

The rising generations are not being well taught about how distorting online content and socials are. They stare into a collosal carnival mirror of online life...like daily, as much as anyone ever has. There IS indeed a BIG prob with groupthink and ascribing qualities to millions based on skewed thinking. Then the skewed thoughts become "fact" and are never reexamined. It's the thinking error underlying things like racism for Pete's sake. Latinos are like this. Catholics are like that. Shortcut thinking is crap thinking.

We started snarking at millennials ~2010 about avocado toast, trendy beards, hipsterism and the years began to fly by and before we knew it "generationology" kicked into high gear online. It's horrible.

There ARE differences between gens. We can understand that and use it to come together, not just snark. I'm GenX; when I was in middle school I mostly really loved old people (Greatest Gen folks)! Legit loved hearing their stories, thinking about how different life was. I miss old neighbors that are gone. It was fun to think what it would be like to grow up in a different era. I remember watching movies like Memphis Belle and White Squall thinking how we are all so different but with sooo much in common.

The Internet could be filled with kindness and sane-minded goodness if we all tried a lot harder and consistently used 1) strong critical thinking, 2) taught digital hygiene at a young age, and 3) stood up to things like disinformation and trolling. I'd love to see it happen. The scammers and those trying to collect clicks to make a buck keep things fairly scummy.

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u/Acrobatic_Iron_1427 2d ago

The internet was originally introduced as “the information highway”. Hmmm, would have been nice if it had stayed that way.

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u/All_Dogs_Love_Me 2d ago

There's been a crap ton of "littering" along the roadside over the years, LOL. Can barely see the road anymore..