OK BOOMER has become one of the most frequently used catch-phrases by millennials when addressing an older generation
that - to them - seems disconnected from the times we're living in.
But, what makes one a boomer really?!
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In this Sunday motivational video, we’ll be addressing the generational gap and even help some of you identify yourselves - if you're not so sure.
You probably heard of Baby Boomers before, generally those born between 1946 and 1964.
Outside of the technological progress, statistically, this one one of the best times in history to be born
and in this video, we’ll be breaking it down for you.
Here are the 15 Signs You’re a boomer!
Basically, the war was over, soldiers came home and everyone was celebrating them.
That celebration resulted in you being born.
Because the war was won, your parents got to enjoy the spoils of a cultural and power shift happening.
The old European empires were now in shambles and the US was now ready to become the center of the financial world.
This period lasted for roughly 20 years.
Basically, the US was the only industrialized nation that wasn’t ravaged by war.
While everyone else was rebuilding the US had a massive competitive advantage in industry which lead to an exceptional standard of living.
Us factories were producing the resources needed to rebuild Europe and money started flooding in.
American goods were being sold throughout the world and because of the economic environment, there were very few competitors.
Because of this high demand in production, there was a short supply of workforce
which lead to the highest paying jobs in world history when you correlate them to the cost of living.
Basically, getting a job was incredibly easy and it paid incredibly well.
Cost of education was also at an all-time low at that point,
so the majority of the population got to enjoy a competitive edge when it comes to white-collar jobs as well.
Just an example: the average boomer could afford to pay for college by taking a part-time job while they were at the university.
Most of you probably grew up playing outside because frankly, there weren’t any other options.
TVs became popular in the late 50s and you remember what it was like when your parents brought one home for the first time.
Playing outside forced you to build a minimum set of social skills, although parenting at the time wasn’t that great either.
Everyone was doing so well, that you were expected to obey your parents and be grateful for the food they put on the table.
The military experience was brought into the family and you learned to deal with it.
You looked up to your dad as your personal hero, and most of his behavioral traits got passed down to you.
Growing up wasn’t the same for everybody, especially minorities which went through nationwide discrimination.
In order to keep this video generally relatable, we focused on the percentage of the population who made up the majority.
Unsurprisingly, this was made up by white Christian men and women, in what is considered traditional families.
Although you don’t like to admit it, you’re unlikely to look at everyone as equals, and this was driven mostly because of the economic boom.
When groups of people are doing well, they look down on those who aren’t and this is still happening today:
the US vs Mexicans, UK vs Eastern Europe or migrants and so on.
Because of the strict parenting style, you grew up under, you were told that men should suppress their feelings and act in a certain way.
The reverse of the coin also applies to women.
You had clear expectations of gender roles and how a person should behave and know their place in society.
However, today, the world has evolved beyond that primitive mindset and the new generation is growing up understanding the diversity in our social-web.
Because of the way you grew up, it’s hard to accept that things are different and feel threatened by change, so you do your best to suppress it.
There were also advantages to that type of mindset.
Growing up under military discipline, you learned early on to be organized and keep putting one foot in front of the other.
You learned punctuality and how to deal with life when it doesn’t go your way.
As long as you kept doing what you were supposed to be done, things figured themselves out.
Discipline became your middle name.
Even to this day, this behavior of better safe than sorry is still visible.
How many of you show up 3 hours before a domestic flight takes off, just to be certain you make in on the plane?!
You probably also walk in a restaurant or shop 5 minutes before closing because the sign says it’s open until 10.
Although this mix might be funny sometimes, it definitely served your generation well.
Millennials and Gen-Z grew up assaulted by notification, distractions and custom-tailored marketing
which lead to them unable to focus and maintain a steady course of action.
This is why to this day one of the most valuable videos on our channel remains the be: 15 steps to Self-Discipline,
which you can check out by clicking in the top right corner.
Something happened when you realized you have more years behind you than you have ahead of you!
You almost started to panic.
The world is changing so quickly, technology is evolving, people want different pronouns and you can’t deal with it all.
You know you lost your youth but growing up you believed you will live forever,
so now you’re doing everything in your power to extend anything that makes you feel alive.
You know that your generation had it good when the number one way of acting out your midlife crisis is buying a more expensive car
or joining another country club.
Before you scratch the inside of your ear with the brand new car keys, you have to take a step back and make peace with yourselves.
There are cycles in life and you have to learn to make the most out of the cycle you’re in.
This generic idea of respecting your elders was a really good thing back in the day
when nobody had access to information and the threat of war was all around us.
Historically, older people knew more about the world than the youth, but this is simply not a reality today.
The average 15-year-old has a deeper understanding of current events on a global scale than everyone in your generation did by the time they were 40.
This is because of this technology revolution we’re experiencing where everybody is connected and information flows quickly in 140 characters or less.
The second argument for respecting your elders comes from their involvement during the war,
when your grandparents fought for you to enjoy the spoils of your current life.
War changed as well with the technology revolution and now we have drones and significantly fewer horses to ride into battle with the adiacent tribe.
This doesn’t mean the younger generation should respect those worthy of respect, it’s just that they look at it differently.
The new generation offers respect based on current actions, not because you feel entitled to it because of your age.
So before you walk around the locker room with your jewels on display, maybe you should consider how you’re making everyone else feel.
As a generation, there was this emphasis put on projecting “toughness” at all costs.
You were unable to discuss openly about your feelings because you were “A MAN”
so your children grew up cherishing the 2 or 3 times in their entire childhoods when they had a real connection with you.
You probably understand this now and are making an effort to compensate for it.
This has led an entire generation of adults to be filled in by stress, negative emotions and worries that they were unable to share with anyone else.
You see, the culture most of the boomers are complaining about today,
is the direct result of this - ughhhh hate to be using the phrase but it's - toxic masculinity, that was used to compensate for the lack of real connection.
First of all, good for you!
Owning property is one of the smartest things anyone can do and your generation had the perfect opportunity to get in on it early.
Let’s talk some facts:
In the 50s, the price of a house was a little bit over 2.2 times the average income of a boomer family.
Today, the average millennial household needs to put almost 5 times their income in order to buy a house.
The fundamentals are simple: prices of everything are going up, while wages aren’t going up as quickly.
Which brings us to the second problem: Boomers purchased the main real-estate back in their day around city centers because it was so affordable.
Businesses are also located here, making the interest in living near work be a deciding factor on where to purchase.
Since the homes in the city are owned by boomers, the new generation has slim pickins but high demand,
so property prices are shooting up once again.
All of these lead us to the 3rd and final problem: Because property prices were so low, the boomer generation purchased a lot of it.
They purchased & developed huge properties worth a lot of money in today’s economy.
The issue is, nobody has the money to afford them.
As of right now… the real estate market in the US gets flooded with ultra-expensive properties owned by the boomer generation.
These mansions were a status symbol back in the 60s, 70s and 80s, but now, almost nobody can afford to splurge 20 million plus for your property.
So as a society we’ve reached a stalemate.
All this housing bubble led to the 2008 financial collapse.
Suddenly, reality hit everyone that an economy can turn if it is mismanaged.
Times are changing super fast aided by technology and the current economy is being run by your generation,
one that has little understanding of what it takes to remain competitive.
It is not your fault, because historically all you had to do is show up and work and put in the hours and value keep adding up,
but this is no longer viable in a global economy.
Unfortunately, this is the truth.
We’re living in the age of the internet governed by people who don’t understand it.
If you don’t believe us, just take a couple of minutes and watch the Senate hearing with Mark Zuckerberg which took place last year.
These are the people who are in charge of focusing on the digital economy for the benefit of the population.
In the process of continuous financial growth, you sacrificed the future for gains of the moment.
Back in your day, there was little interest in what makes sense for the planet or future generations,
because you were all churning money at a cost you were not going to pay for.
The problem is, you are very much aware of this right now, but it still feels bad getting called out on it.
But hey, you’re not the only one screwing it up.
The new generation despises Boomers for destroying the housing market, but Young people in the future will hate Millenials for destroying their privacy.
Statistically, you’ve got 30 years or so to live.
You probably have young grandchildren or expecting soon and they are likely to be the ones having to solve this mess.
If you’ve been an Aluxer for a while you might be familiar with Yuval Noah Harrari,
he’s an author we’ve mentioned several times on our channel.
His latest book 21 lessons for the 21st century is a must-read by everyone who wants to understand the world we will be living in.
We know you like free things, so if you go to alux.com/freebook and this is the first time you sign up,
you will get the audiobook version for free thanks to our friends at Audible.
Your generation has the experience, the new generation has insights into technology maybe there’s still time to redeem yourselves.
We strongly believe that education is one of the next industries to be completely disrupted.
Higher education used to be an investment.
You put this much money in, did your time and at the end, you secure a high enough paying job that the investment is worth it.
Then education changed into something more similar to INSURANCE:
imma get educated because I need the security that I will be able to feed myself once I’ve finished my studies.
Today… we’re dealing with unprecedented inflation of education.
Everybody gets educated at a mind-boggling price, without any real prospects.
Today, education is seen more like a service you pay for than and investment or insurance.
You simply take out a massive loan that you have to carry with you for a good portion of your life
and in exchange, you receive a piece of paper and 4 years of partying.
Let’s talk numbers, shall we?
Here, let’s take Yale for example:
You don’t have to be a Yale graduate to understand that the cost of education increased 20 times while the average wage barely increased 5 times.
As a boomer, you only had to work 4.8 hours per day to afford your tuition.
As a millennial or gen-z: you need to work 17.5 hours per day.
As a boomer, you could afford your tuition by taking a part-time job and right now, a full-time position isn’t enough.
As of right now, your generation is behind the wheel of society.
The system was designed so that each generation gets its turn when the time is right.
It worked incredibly well in the past because problems never had an exponential growth curve.
But, right now, a large portion of the population is denying climate change,
including the current President of the United States,
a serious problem that 98% of the scientific community agrees is one of the most dangerous threats to us as a species.
Yet, it's denied.
The truth is current politicians lack the understanding and skillset to deal with the problems that govern society today.
Healthcare is a disaster.. We have live footage from space of the polar caps being completely melted,
the climate is out of control due to the increase in temperatures
and every military is pouring billions of dollars into creating the first advanced AI to have the upper hand in the technology wars…
and at the realm of it all you have people who can’t rotate a PDF.
We don’t hold the answers, but a shortsighted approach is simply not going to work with what we’ll have to deal with.
We get it. Robots are scary because Terminator came out when you were in your prime.
Technology was slow, it was expensive and you got around without having to worry about it.
Today times have changed dramatically.
We don’t put the remote on top of the tv anymore.
We’re super comfortable with self-checkout and the majority of our time is spent online because that’s where everything is.
You find a job online, you pay bills online, you find a partner online and so forth.
Keeping up with technology is a choice if you want your thinking to remain relevant.
While the boomer generation is requesting faxes and years of experience for unpaid internships,
the new generation has embraced the internet to the point of no return.
Be honest for a moment, not with us, but with yourself:
back when you were growing up, it was socially acceptable for your parents to smack you.
You’re the generation that got triggered when people of color drank for the same water fountain as you, so getting a beating wasn’t that big of deal.
They wear “being beaten by their parents” like a badge of honor.
Even to this day, there are people out there who think this is something normal and should even be promoted as an effective disciplinary tool,
because you turned out fine didn’t you?
Daniel Shipwrek put it perfectly on twitter when he said:
You might think this generation is soft, but at least they can look their kids in the eye and tell them they love them.
For some reason, the boomer generation believes that this is a sign of care.
This is their version of leveraging technology for the most boring and useless aspect of the holidays.
Nobody likes receiving them.
They love to call others for anything, even when a text would have sufficed...
What else do boomers do, that doesn’t make sense? Let’s see:
They can’t tell fake news from what’s real.
They spend their whole lives being indoctrinated into a single political movement.
They identify as a group.
Use AOL and yahoo email.
Love having everything stored on paper in case it might come in handy.
Still pay for cable; think bar soap is better...
Put linoleum or carpet over hardwood floors… what else?
They love their ring-tones, Facebook games, cough without covering their mouths and so on..
You know the drill...
Before you slowly type with your index finger a negative comment on this video, we’re letting you know that next week,
we’re doing the Gen-Z, Millennial video, so you can feel better about yourselves.
But now, we're opening up the floor to you guys:
Let us know in the comments and we'll be sure to heart the best ones.
And, as a bonus for watching this video until the end, you get a bonus boomer sign:
First of all, if you’re offended by this, you’re just proving how fragile your ego is.
No… Ok boomer isn’t the N-word for old people, cut it out.
It’s not ageism, you’re not a victim here.
It’s just a response, the young generation came up with to address situations where,
you wouldn’t understand something because of your outdated mindset and disconnect from the reality of today.
"Ok boomer" is the reverse of "You'll understand when you're older"
This piece of advice applies to everyone.
You need to be grateful for everything that the previous generations made for you and be wise enough to plant trees in the shade of which you’ll never sit!
At the end of the day, we’re all specks of dust on a tiny rock trying to survive in the emptiness of space.
Our mission goes beyond you and I.
We want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who’s made it this far into the video,
please write the word BOOM in the comments next to your reply to today’s question, that’s how you know you’re still finding value in these pieces.
Thank you for spending some time with us Aluxers.
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