Don't trust anyone over 30. OK, Boomer?
Image by Rudy Anderson from PixabayThis is: A weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids and my great-grandkids — the Stickies — to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.
Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — A Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering. Viewing with a tablet or a monitor is highly recommended for maximum enjoyment.
"At fifty you realize that you are no longer a kid. I ignored forty. It was like I was almost at middle age. Maybe it's the baby boomer thing." -John Travolta
Dear (eventual) Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies (and Gentlereaders),
The phrase OK, Boomer, according to Wikipedia, "...is a catchphrase and meme often used by teenagers and young adults to dismiss or mock attitudes typically associated with people born in the two decades following World War II, ...it has increasingly been used to refer to pre-millennial people in general, regardless of when they were actually born."
[You had to look it up? OK, Boomer. The implicit, eye-rolling sarcasm was over your head, Mr. Obvious? ]
No, Dana, I was already well aware of the significance of this snarky, smug dollop of ageism.
I wish to compare and contrast the meme in question to a meme that was popular among Boomers when Boomers were callowyutes, and memes were not yet called memes.
[Huh?]
Patience.
I looked it up merely because I wondered if my fellow English speakers were inserting a comma betwixt OK and Boomer which I think is grammatically correct. (My grammatical abilities are not what I wish they were.)
Also, I tend to favor color, melody, and rhythm over technically correct and I've found that using commas to "set off nouns of direct address" often looks discordant, Dana, so I was...
[Huh?]
Never mind, it's not you, it's me.
In the sixties, the meme don't trust anyone over thirty was quite popular. I love irony for some reason and...
[It's because you were a cynical old bastard the day you were born!]
That's not true. I was a cognitively dissonant combination of idealism and cynicism for quite a while. Reality has gradually boiled off most of the idealism but it occasionally rears its nieve head when I'm least expecting it. I think it has something to do with having a kid, and grandkids.
As I was saying, I love irony and there's a double dose to be found in comparing these two memes. There's the obvious one, Boomers who sneered at their parents being sneered at by their progeny.
And then there's the less obvious one.
Don't trust anyone over thirty is credited to one of the founders of the Free Speech Movement, Jack Weinberg, a movement that stemmed from an incident on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley in the fall of 1964.
Fast forward to the present era and the epidemic of college students shouting down, and often shutting down, the free speech of the unwoke — including students at UC Berkeley.
Nowadays, no shortage of uncollegial collegiate callowyutes favor restricting free speech if they or one of the high priests of Neojacobinism rule that a given utterance is hate speech since they conflate alleged hate speech with violence.
[Wait-wait-wait. Should Neojacobinism be capitalized?]
Well... Jacobinism is, and from what I can tell the word is usually rendered as Neo-Jacobinism. However, I prefer rendering as one word, as in neoconservative or neoliberalism.
[OK, Boomer but...]
Anyways, even silence is violence if one is not promptly and properly parroting the party line. Somewhere, George Orwell (and some otherwhere, Chairman Mao) are smiling.
[You know, not everyone likes alliteration as much as you do.]
OK, boomer is illustrative of another current phenomenon — the effortless kneejerk reply by uninformed or inarticulate social media mavens with fractured attention spans — one of several reasons why Cranky don't tweet.
For example, suppose I was a Tweeter and posted something like, "I'll wager that the majority of Wokies, particularly younger ones, don't even know what a Jacobite is and why canceling someone is the modern equivalent of sentencing them to death by guillotine without having to get blood on their coke white kicks."
[What are...]
Unblemished sneakers.
[OK Boomer]
No meaningful response is required, not even a link to someone else's meaningful response is required.
[OK Boomer]
Touche', Tweety.
[Hey, wait a second. You've been known to take a shot or three at your fellow boomers.]
True, I've devoted entire paragraphs, and then some, to my contention that unless a given Boomer is as sharp, productive, and relevant as Einshtein at his best it's time to leave the stage — if one can afford to — and mentor a grup or a callowyute if ya' can find one that'll pay attention.
Hint: you may have to do so surreptitiously.
Otherwise, get a new job, or get a hobby, or volunteer to be a volunteer that _______.
[Einshtein?]
Yes, that's how it's pronounced you Neandertal.
[OK, Boomer.]
On a related note
I don't know if Dr. Anthony Faucci is as sharp, productive, and relevant as Einshtein at his best. He has many fans, but also many detractors. I do have a problem with the fact he can dance the Walkback as adroitly as any given politician. That's not an ability that inspires trust and confidence in a scientist in my semi-humble opinion.
Regardless, he's 80-yeas-old and was paid $432,312 in 2020. This makes him the highest-paid employee of the 4,000,000 or so people that work for The Fedrl Gummit.
And yes, that's more than we pay our commander-in-chief.
I can't help but wonder if there's a younger person somewhere out there, a medical genius, that could and would change the world if given the chance.
Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day
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Cranky don't tweet.
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