- "'Boomer' is the N-word of ageism"?! Oh my god.
He did not just compare the word "boomer" to the N-word.
- And that's the exact situation you would say, "OK, boomer."
(laughs) ♪ (industrial intro) ♪
- (man) The millennials in Generation Z have
the Peter Pan syndrome. - I haven't seen this.
- I love TikTok. - (man) They don't ever wanna grow up.
They think... - Oh. Is this the boomer thing?
- (man) They think that the utopian ideals that
they have in their youth... - OK, boomer. (chuckles)
- (man) ...are somehow going to translate into adulthood.
- Interesting. - (man) ...they're going to create
this utopian society in which everything is equal...
- This is a long TikTok. - Get off TikTok! (laughs)
- (man) You're going to mature... - What you writing? What you writing?
- (man) You're going to mature, and you're going to realize
nothing's free... - Nothing is free.
- (man) ...that things aren't equal....
- Yes. - (man) ...your utopian society
you created in your mind in your youth simply is not sustainable.
- Oh, boy. - (man) It's just a reality.
- Well, whatever we're doing now is not working.
- (man) Hell, even the hippies came to realize their society...
- "OK, boomer." (laughs) - "OK, boomer." I knew it!
I knew it was gonna say "OK, boomer."
- Ah. (claps) There you go. (laughs) Who let this man on TikTok?
- That's funny. I kind of heard about this. I didn't know what it was.
I get it now. - It's almost the joke that you hear
about, like, "Back in my day, blah, blah, blah," and then
the younger person's just like, "Okay," writing, like,
"I don't even care," or "OK, boomer."
That's pretty funny. (chuckles) - "OKboomer out now on twitter.com."
- ♪ OK, boomer ♪ ♪ Okay, okay ♪
♪ OK, boomer ♪ ♪ Okay ♪
- (laughs) Oh my god.
- Oh, no. (laughs)
- ♪ You're all old and racist ♪ ♪ All about the fakeness ♪
♪ Starting at my piercings ♪ - Okay.
- I just wanna like... - ♪ Like the evening news ♪
- Oh my god! (laughs) This would literally play
at a musical festival, though, and everybody would be
going crazy at it. - This is fun. I like this,
'cause it gives us a little tool to strike back to those that always
belittle us millennials. - Forget boomers.
If you want your own generation to hate you, make something like this.
I'm very much a millennial. I'm right in the middle
of the millennials, and I hate you. (chuckles)
This is so obnoxious. - ♪ This one goes out
to all the 65+... ♪ - "Girls should have long hair."
- "Your parents let you look like that?"
- "Why don't you even wear makeup?"
- "This is the women's restroom." - ♪ OK, boomer ♪
♪ OK, boomer ♪ ♪ OK, boomer ♪
♪ OK, boomer ♪
- Is that on Spotify? Can I save that?
- Teens these days have a thing where they take serious [bleep]
and turn it into memes. It's not a good thing at some points,
but it is pretty funny. - "Me minding my business.
Randomly: How adorable that you wear your boyfriend's
football jacket." - "Oh, no. Actually, I play football."
- "Oh, honey. Your body isn't made for that."
- ♪ OK, boomer ♪ - (laughs)
Catch up with the times, boomer. Things are different now.
- We are definitely a very modern generation
of just, like, we change, we evolve, and I think that's good.
And they don't like they change. They're like, "No.
These are your guidelines. Boys and girls do certain things."
- This is self-expression. You know, I think this is teenagers
really letting-- not just teenagers.
This is just people letting people know,
"Don't put me in a box." - "Me minding my own business."
- Grabs your nose ring? (chuckles) - (chuckles)
I don't even know if that's actually happened.
- My aunt did that to me. (laughs) She actually did that to me
at a Christmas party. She said, "What is that?"
And I was just like, "It's a lip ring."
She's like, "Well, take it." I was like, "I'm not taking that out.
It's mine." (laughs) - A lot of baby boomers
do not like piercings or tattoos. They think it's super unprofessional.
- It's hard to imagine that some person would just
walk up and grab your nose ring. If that's happening, I'm sorry.
What is wrong with people that they just invade
your personal space and do that? - "Boomers: Kids these days
need to get more exercise. Also boomers..."
They're older! It's hard for them to work out. Give 'em some slack.
- That's just so funny. They always say that.
"Oh yeah. You should go out more. Do this." And it's like,
"Okay, Grandma." (laughs) "But you're just staying here too."
- It's like that phrase, "When you point a finger
at one person, there's three others that are pointing back at you." Hello!
- I wanna send it to my parents, because my parents are like boomers.
I swear. My stepdad has the dad jokes for real, for real.
My mom is the same way, looking at the millennial pictures
and laughing at them all the time and showing them to me,
so I could be like, "Well, look." (chuckles)
- I always enjoy baby boomer jokes. They think they're right,
and they're not always right. So, I'm glad we're taking
a little jab at baby boomers. It's great.
- "My 13-year-old kid and all her friends
are hanging out and calling each other boomers
every time one does or says something stupid."
- I didn't even know 13-year-olds knew what boomers were.
- This whole meme is so... "Oh, I'm so angsty,"
and like, "Let me post this," and "Someone's gonna think
it's edgy," and it's SOOO not edgy. - See, this is where
I draw the line, kids. The same you consider yourself
to be a human being and you have your rights
and you deserve respect, so do they.
- Now it's turned into you're using a term for a generation as a way
to describe something that's not good.
Now, it's all-- it's gonna go downhill.
- (FBE) So, we have more to show you in a bit, but those were some examples
of the OK Boomer trend. The phrase has become a common reply
used to mock baby boomers and those who are generally perceived
to be out of touch. The phrase is most commonly
being used by those who fall into millennial or Gen Z generation.
The phrase has slowly been gaining traction
across several social media platforms, with mainstream publications,
including the New York Times,
dedicating coverage to the rise... - Whoa.
- (FBE) ...of this generational divide.
- Just like every other trend, they make it such--
it's like, is it that slow at the news room? Are you serious?
- (FBE) This next tweet was by a radio host,
who saw all this stuff, tweeted this out.
The tweet went crazy viral. It got a lot of backlash.
He ended up deleting this tweet. - Okay.
- (FBE) Let's see what you think of this reaction.
- That's the problem with the internet.
You can delete it, but it still lives on.
- Okay, Bob. "'Boomer' is the N-word of ageism."
What?
- He just compared something to the N-word?
And that's the exact situation you would say, "OK, boomer."
(laughs) - "'Boomer' is the N-word
of ageism"?! Oh my god. He did not just compare
the word boomer to the N-word. - If you think about it,
we're just little kids having a little fun
throwing just a word around. But the N-word, that has some history!
- Once you compare anything to the N-word, it lets us know
how insensitive you are. - "If you're comparing
the badness of two words, and you won't even say one of them,
that's the worse word." (laughs) That's true.
You can't just say, "Oh, it's such a bad word,"
but he won't say the other word. - 100% true! (chuckles)
- Ugh. That's so stupid. You're so butthurt, boomer.
- If you have to say N, dash, word... I mean, no competition.
- Clearly, the other one is worse. - "A bunch of boomers
only now getting outraged about the 'OK Boomer'
after it showed up in the news is the most 'OK Boomer' thing
that could've happened." It's just the news media outlet
taking it too seriously. - The only reason they found out
about the term was because they watched the news
and read the newspaper. They would have not have figured it out.
- "OK Boomer" has become this trending joke
that if you take the flip side of it and think about it,
you're making fun of an entire generation
in what you're saying. - It's all in good humor.
It's relatable to a lot of us. But when the boomers get involved,
they make it a whole ordeal of "What the hell?" (laughs)
- I'm getting to a point in my life that I'm right in the [bleep] middle,
you know? And so, I understand both sides, and I like that.
I hope I always stay here. Maybe I should just be 29 forever.
- (FBE) So, everyone in this episode actually falls into the millennial
or Gen Z category... - Oh, okay!
That's fun. - (FBE) ...so we can get a sense
of what your generation thinks of this trend.
- Okay. Cool. Nice! - (FBE) "OK Boomer" has been slung
around memes and GIFs across TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram
for months now, but the trend really started receiving backlash
once major publications started reporting on it.
As a millennial or Gen Z, do you think this is actually
causing a generational divide between your generation
and baby boomers? Or is this all in good fun?
- I think it's definitely just playing up on it.
I don't think-- I'm not taking this seriously.
People shouldn't take it seriously. - The divide's always been there.
They've always been taking their shots at us.
We finally got a shot at them, and they're made, 'cause, you know,
the little kid finally stood up to the bully,
and now they're all pressed. - The most normal thing
our generation does is make a joke out of it
and make it something relatable. And that's exactly what we're doing.
The divide's already there. Their reactions back is making it
spread even more, because it's making us laugh
at them and be like, "What are they saying?"
But I also think it's gonna kill it real quick. (chuckles)
- I think it's stupid, but whatever if they find fun in it.
The fact that news sources would pick it up as actual news,
like, I can't believe that you would waste your time on this.
The whole point of the meme is like, (dismissive) "OK, boomers,"
and they're playing into the meme! It's hilarious.
- (FBE) Over the past few years, there have been many articles
discussing the things that millennials and people from Generation Z
are so-called "killing." You know, we're killing
the housing market. We're killing dating culture
and killing avocados. - Avocados? How are we
[bleep] up avocados? - (FBE) 'Cause we be eating them.
I don't know. - We commercialized avocados.
Are you kidding me? You owe avocados to us!
Are you kidding me?! We made it cool.
- (FBE) Do you feel the response of "OK, boomer" was bound
to happen based on the views other generations seem to have
towards yours? - Yeah, I think we kind of
stayed quiet for a little bit too long.
I think it was the whole "respect your elders."
But I think us saying something back, it wasn't that serious.
It was kind of just more fun. But if they wanna take it that way,
that's their problem, not ours. - Totally.
We feel attacked, literally. If they're always insulting us...
And they don't even realize it. They just think they're being smart.
We don't wanna be disrespectful, so all we're just gonna say
is we're just gonna mind our own business still
and reply, "OK, boomer." - That was bound to happen.
Somebody was gonna say it. If it was not one kid,
it was gonna be the other. I don't like it.
I think it's inconsiderate. I think generalization period,
stereotyping should never be a thing. It's just a selection of words
that will dictate whether something is okay or not. Saying, you know,
"A lot of millennials do this" is different rather than saying,
"Millennials do this." - I don't think millennials
are doing it to spite boomers. I think it's just a natural way
that technology has changed our lives. And boomers, they didn't grow up
with that, so they don't understand. - Even in my lifetime,
I've seen so much happen. And it happened so fast.
I think that's probably the hard part is things are happening so quickly
that it's hard for a lot of people to just ride the wave.
We should ride the wave, because, ultimately, good or bad,
we gotta keep moving forward. If we try to stay in a time
or in a period of, you know, "the good old days"
or however you wanna reference it-- they were great.
They were good old days. But you know what?
We gotta move forward, and we gotta enjoy
whatever's coming at us next and embrace it.
- It's always gonna happen. It's gonna happen to our generation
when we're they're age. They're gonna look at us
like, "OK, Gen Z." I'm gonna wait for that day.
I'm gonna mark this date, give it to my kids,
and let me know when this is a meme.
Hopefully memes are still around by then.
- (FBE) And so finally, as someone who is a millennial
or part of Gen Z, besides "OK, Boomer,"
what message would you like to relay to the older generation?
- Change is okay. (chuckles) Change is the only way
you can progress in life, and it's okay to be open
to new things. - Don't be so offended by everything,
because we're not. I mean, yeah, you can get offended
just a little, but don't take it that seriously
where it's making news. It's not bad tea, people.
It's just a funny joke. - I wish they would understand that,
you know, we're going through it just as much as you guys,
if not more. So just, you know, respect that and try to show
some love here and there and don't be too judgmental.
- Acknowledge that we actually do have a lot of people
in our generation that are doing really positive things
and that are helping not only our own generation
but your generations too. If you tell the younger generation
that they are our future and they can change the world
for the better, then it's empowering,
and I think that's the better way to go.
- Thanks for watching this episode of Millennials and Gen Z React.
And shoutout to ThatRandom. - Subscribe and hit the bell,
so you don't miss an episode. - What should we react to next?
Let us know in the comments. - See you next time! Bye.
- Hi, guys. Josecarlos here, producer at FBE.
Make sure to check out all our other episodes
across all generations. All the links are gonna
be down below. Check 'em out.