About a year ago, I, perhaps somewhat naively, wrote an article expressing my surprise at the disdain the older community expressed towards Generation Y, or the infamous ‘millennials’, if you will.
Born in a sort of generational gap, towards the end of the 90s, I will be the first to admit that my understanding of age gap friction was disdainful at best. I was unsure as to how much of this tension could be chalked up to sensational journalism positing youth culture as some sort of sinister ‘enemy’, and how much was actual, lived experience.
However, through my first-hand encounters with this kind of thought process, I became all too aware of the prevalence of opinions which place the blame for a fair proportion of societal ills on the increase in familiarity with technology, and a turn away from tradition.
Of course, to me, this is a very outlandish and somewhat perplexing conclusion to come to. Whilst technology undoubtedly faces its issues, the very presence of baby boomers on social media seems to undermine any kind of argument that suggests the older generations are vehemently rejecting new means of expression and communication.
Admittedly, us millennials are not an entirely innocent party. With our adeptness at all things internet, it is pretty easy to gain amusement from the cack-handed, awkward attempts of baby boomers tackling social media. Whilst they have their lives together elsewhere – able to get on the property market, have an excellent work to leisure ratio, and not fret over the crippling effects of climate change – we must endeavour to win small victories. After all, you’ve got to start somewhere.
But for every young person who has cringed at a poorly put together meme, a message on a Facebook wall which was clearly intended to be private, or a close-up selfie taken from an awkward angle, there is this: ‘The Facebook Group Where We All Pretend to be Boomers’.
The group went viral on Twitter towards the end of last month, after a thread from @manhattanna, and proved to be absolute comedy gold. At the time of writing, the group has close to 280,000 members, all of whom must vow to stay totally IC (in character) as a boomer when entering the private group.
Many millennials have fled the original Social Network after claiming that it is now rife with the boomers who make the site unbearable. To witness this same generation now role-playing as their older, maladroit, counterparts is a strangely satisfying notion – an activity which seems to reclaim the autonomy lost by the infiltration of the older generation onto a platform originally run and established by millennials.
It must be admitted that not all baby boomers are inept at social media use, but this group seems like a fun, harmless tit-for-tat. If millennials are going to be placed into one homogenous, criticised group, then why can’t ‘we’ have a bit of fun right back?
Upon joining the group myself, I was floored at how textbook the posts were, and indeed, how familiar. From comments underneath pictures that seem to always come back to politics no matter how irrelevant it is to the original conversation, to extremely personal messages that are clearly intended for direct messages, I’ve seen this all before, and in abundance. Indeed, when the posts first started appearing on my timeline, I often had to pause to check whether they were legitimate Facebook entries from my friends list, or humorous gags from the group.
A particularly humorous, yet somewhat overlooked part of the Boomer Group is the events section, which includes pages such as ‘Attack younger family members for wearing ripped jeans’, ‘Joke that ‘I guess it’s free’ when an item doesn’t ring up’ and, my personal pet peeve, ‘Clapping when the plane lands’. It is clear that this group is a very adept way of satirising older people – often those with particularly unsavoury political and social opinions.
Poking fun at baby boomers ultimately achieves absolutely nothing. And I’m sure that some boomers upon discovery of this group will find a way to express that this is symptomatic of lazy millennial life – an ironic comedy within itself. With the world seemingly going to hell in a handbasket, the Boomer group is a reprieve from the annoyances of day-to-day life, an outlandishly plotted caricature, with endless rich seams of humour to mine. But if you ‘snowflake liberals’ are looking for a ‘safe space’ to vent your frustrations, the Boomer Group will welcome you with open arms – as long as, of course, you bring your own dish, and take your shoes off at the front door before you step in.
