In the past year I have reported on this spot in the newspaper as a kind of correspondent from Zoomerland, the online habitat of Generation Z. What always struck me is that the relationship between this generation and that of the baby boomers is at odds. There are constant recriminations; the young ‘live in their screen’ and the elderly ‘have demolished the housing market’. In their humor too, the generations do not succeed in coming closer together.
Let’s first interpret boomer humor through the eyes of the zoomers. When Zoomers visit Facebook sporadically, it seems that boomers there are merely complaining about ugly or lazy husbands, the loss of old values, ‘woke culture’ and iPhones. Often the jokes are sprinkled with a layer of misogyny and wrapped in an ugly and grainy design.
In a boomer-popular picture, a boy with a newspaper in his hands asks, “How do I turn this thing on?” Young people already start to roll their eyes when they see this.
In the online land of zoomers, they can also laugh at the humor of their elderly. But not because they think the jokes are so successful. They think they’re so bad that they’ve created a whole meme culture around it, which revolves around making fun of boomer jokes.
There are dozens of groups on Facebook where young people pretend to be boomers. There they celebrate the social and digital awkwardness of their elders. One such group of nearly 4,000 members is filled with posts with typos, which also eagerly use the caps lock key – the boomer’s trademark. Someone asks in large print whether there is a product that resembles mayonnaise but is less spicy. Often they confuse their Facebook message with Google and write them: “Okay Google, what’s the weather?”
Cringe comedy
On the forum website Reddit you will find the largest fictional Boomertown. The page r/boomershumor knows nearly 260 fake baby boomers. These are not only zoomers, but also millennials. After all, they are the OG (Original Gangster, term used for important figures in a certain field) in making fun of boomers. A common feature in the shared posts is the misogynistic humor in the humor. on a picture can be seen that a woman has her husband tied to a lie detector and asks him if she looks fat in her outfit.
Who doesn’t love a little cringe comedy? The British Comedy Series The Office is loved by many elderly people, while the American version starring Steve Carell is experiencing a renaissance during the youth pandemic. Both generations actually like the vicarious shame they feel, because fortunately they are not part of the shameful scenes themselves.
Still, there is a deep frustration behind all these boomer memes. In 2019, the meme OK Boomer was wildly popular on social media. With this meme, zoomers decided that they no longer wanted to argue with the elderly. To what they thought were wrong comments – often about politics – they responded with: “OK Boomer. You are well.”
Zoomerland and Boomertown seem to be growing further apart with the memes. Perhaps the generations should spend a season of The Office look to come closer together through a shared sense of vicarious shame.
#Boomer #humor #meme #fodder #zoomer