• jaselle@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 day ago

        Right – but this is in reference to baby boomers. It’s used to indicate the person is going to die in a couple decades and so their opinion doesn’t matter. If it’s used on someone other than a boomer it’s probably an exaggeration or intentional misidentification meant to make the phrase even more provocative.

        Hate to have to overexplain, but yeah, ok boomer is absolutely derived from baby boomer.

        • MoreZombies@quokk.au
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 day ago

          I hear you, but as you just said it can be adapted to be used as an exaggeration, generally to indicate the person is out of touch in opinion.

          A similar pattern with our speech is how terms for mental disability (eg idiot or some of the modern terms recently deemed a bit more hateful) were adapted in our language to become insults.

          • jaselle@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 day ago

            The main difference is that I just don’t see young people referring to each other as boomers very often. but i could be out of touch.

            • Euphoma@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              1 day ago

              When I was in highschool a couple years ago that is how we used it. Its not a popular term anymore though. I hear some people using it self deprecatingly though