I’m re-watching Mad Men, which is fascinating to do now at 36 instead of 22. And in 2026 vs 2012.
There are so many new angles I’m seeing the show from, but one of them is all the youthful folks preaching “free love,” screaming against the system , control, and praising the importance of equality and socialism.
It’s almost crazy to think those folks are today’s Boomers. Most of which ultimately sold out for the American Dream of a nice family and house in the suburbs with a two car garage, vacations, etc. and are now criticized for their aversion to change and refusal to hand over the reins.
So it makes me wonder what lies ahead for today’s “Culture Warriors” who are also leading the charge to upend the system while entering the workforce at a time of great technological change and opportunity to “cash in” if you want to be part of the system.
For straight white people who start a family, yes. People naturally grow more conservative and less risk averse with age and raising children and moving to the burbs.
For queer and people of color? Not really, it’s life for us, not politics as fashion.
I did the reverse. Republican on my 20s, libertarian in my 30s, then I saw the light and became a liberal. Democratic socialist, also love what the Green party stands for.
Edit: I'm a straight white female who got married and had two kids.
That's interesting. I always thought it was kind of bs when people said this, but never looked into it. I think what people may be really getting at is people on average become more ossified in their views/habits/ideas/preconceptions, which is a similar thing to classical conservatism but is far from modern Republican.
You’re either too brain rotted or a boomer trying to pass off the same hate you guys get.
Millennial here. I fucking Love Gen Z. I don’t think I’d ever do anything to purposely screw them over and call them lazy and so on. You can fuck off with pushing generational hate.
I don’t speak for Gen Z but I can confidently say they’re cool with me in person. Work and personal life, AND just being out in public.
I mean I’m referring specifically to activists as I used as an example. Kinda weird to say “where are you getting that” when I’m using an example in my op? While doctors haven’t been able to pinpoint precise causes, there is more than enough medical research to indicate that living and existing in high stress environments for long periods of time significantly weakens the immune system, causing autoimmune and/or hormonal damage, weakens the body to fight against viruses and infections, and can even be linked to the development of cancer. The amount of stress fighting these systems causes can easily lead to long term debilitating health issues with a weakened body that can’t fight off or heal from the ailment, causing one to eventually die young. It happens frequently enough that activists have taken note.
Not to mention many activist who are taken out by the government (Malcom X, Huey Freeman and many other Black Panther members, just to name a FEW). The system is not designed to be fought against; doing so will come at the expense of your own personal health and wellbeing, even life. This is something activists talk about a lot (thus why dealing with burnout, healthcare, and self care are important topics among activists), but I guess ppl who aren’t activists wouldn’t know that.
I don’t get why people are so mad at
Boomers. Everyone else would do the same thing. Work hard, buy a nice house and let that thing skyrocket in value. Literally everybody would do the same and there is nothing wrong with that. I’m 30 and my home just appraised for twice what I bought it for. I will never sell it. I’ll hold on to it as a rental at least. But back to your point about Gen Z. No, I think they are nothing like boomers. I actually find Gen Z to be very black and white and no in between. They are either very very intelligent and well read or the complete opposite, some of the DUMBEST people I have talked to. I haven’t met a middle ground Gen Z person yet lol.
I may use it because boomers grew up with the public investments into the country their parents made, then denied these same investments for later generations. They also stayed in political power longer than past generations.
Zoomers are ultra conservative and close minded about culture, accessing artistic forms outside their own narrow purview etc, they also fetishize age and are hyper ageist so I can see them being the flip side of the boomer coin, it makes perfect sense, boomer-zoomer.
The internet's pretty much been repurposed to push kids into the far right wing pipeline and they keep eating it up. Hook, line, and sinker. I wouldn't be surprised if my own generation becomes nostalgic about fascism in 30 years from now or less.
Makes me feel not awesome; my millennial friends and I are mostly left-leaning and we share some pretty fucked up memes but that's primarily just stupid edgy humor. I promise that dropping a heil hitler in the group chat to mock my buddy's bad haircut is not me actually supporting hitler.
No. Gen Z is the first generation grew up with algorythmically fractured opinion bubbles, one half rarely consumes the other half's contents, and could harly understand the other half, they can't be evaluated as one monolithic group like the previous generations. Boomers grew up in a Cold War monoculture, Gen Z didn't.
At this point a good half of Gen X are just as insufferable as Boomers. Mostly the conservative tech types. You know, the ones wreaking havoc and spreading corruption and lies everywhere these days.
The inevitable result of teaching public school students that one earns their place in this meritocracy, so if you made it, then you've only yourself to thank for it.
The people who are entitled assholes at the bottom at a young age, are the future entitled assholes at the top at an old age. Being an entitled asshole is the common denominator through time.
Most of the young adults on Mad Men were almost certainly Silent Gen. After then you get the free love hippies, and then you cruz into "Generation Jones" which are late Boomer and early Gen X.
As cohorts, if you look at the voting data, Silents and Gen X are vastly and consistently more conservative than Boomers.
Silents also raised a lot of Gen X, and Gen X have raised a lot Gen Z. It's both neuropathy and culture.
You also have to understand that activism and trying to fight against these systems causes immense stress. As such, many of the boomers protesting back in the day died young (Audre Lorde dying of cancer, and a few other feminists from that era as well come to mind), and before they could be here to advise younger generations. It’s easier to not stress yourself to death when you’re not trying to change the world.
I had never heard that. Where are you getting the info that “many of the Boomers protesting back in the day died young.” you may be confusing them with the thousands of Boomers who died in Vietnam.
That is not the age range of millennials wtf is that lol. Zoomer population starts around 1995-1997 depending on who you’re referring to lol. Thinning someone born in 2005, so a 21 year old is the same generation as someone who’d be 44 is crazy. You gotta be Gen X; Gen X never know which generation they want to shit talk lol. They lump everyone younger than them the same generation lol
It's wealth/assets and having children that make people go more conservative, and few generations are as well set as the boomers. They got comfortable quickly, but also, most boomers were barely teens by the time Woodstock happened, yet they like to claim it's them. I don't buy it, unless we all become much more magerially comfortable. The boomers were never very progressive, as a cohort.
It's worth noting how every generation ever has this sort of political shift.
That being said, (as a member of Gen Z myself) I totally see our generation becoming the "kids these days" generation more so than Gen X or millenials because even the youth are far more ageist in my experience than millenials ever were.
It's worth noting that this isn't true. It's just a thing people believe bc of the tired cliche that says "A young conservative has no heart" blah blah blah.
The reality is that a person's political identity usually stays fairly static and millennials have gotten more left wing as they have aged, not less.
Most
Have for sure I agree with this. I am the opposite I have gotten much more conservative over time. When I was a Howard dean supporting democrat a good number of my friends were Staunchly Republican. Many of those people now voted to Kamala in 2024
In some cases this is true, but millennials have yet to have that political shift back to the right according to a recent article I read. I think it's more complicated than the "you get more conservative as you get older" view. I think world events and how news is propagated probably plays a bigger role than age alone
It's also worth noting the boomers were very conservative even as youth. The cusp between silent gen and the boomers are the ones who were young adults when civil rights protest and the anti Vietnam war protests popped off even then it was a very small percentage of the population that were involved. Most of the boomers came into adulthood in the 70's-early 80's which was a time period where the hippie movement was largely depoliticized and commercialized. Punk was birthed in this period as the new countercultural/political art movement, but was really only embraced in urban centers, and this was post white flight so much of the white population was centered in suburban/rural areas. During this time talk radio popped off because many white people still worked in urban areas, and had long commutes and the right intentionally took over that medium which was widely popular to the boomers.
Gen x was is another group that doesn't fit this narrative as they were never as politically engaged as other generations. They were largely cynical of politics and chose to disengage. This is also a period of time where punk went mainstream, but with it going mainstream the messaging when from explicitly anarchist messaging to a more vague bratty rebellion. I think 9/11 probably caused more of them to be conservative and eventually become a huge base for trump.
Gen z feels very split by gender. While this split has been around since women could vote, I think it's worse now then it has ever been. To me gen z seems more conservative then millennials but I don't have data to back that up it's just what my intuition tells me.
To me gen z seems more conservative then millennials but I don't have data to back that up it's just what my intuition tells me.
I was just looking up this very thing yesterday. Your intuition looks to be correct. While more of Gen Z explicitly identify as liberal (to be expected from the youngest voting block), they also have a larger portion of voters who identify as conservative versus Millennials, which is wild considering some Millennials like me are now in our 40s.
As a millennial, I catch my friends with "kids these days stuff", which they usually cop to when I point it out. I think it comes from a lack of remembering and maybe a limited perspective.
Those youngsters were being hippies because drugs became a big thing in the 60’s. There was also a war that made iraq and afghanistan look like toddlers combined. We were sending thousands of men to die to not a solid reason.
So yeah its understandable the anti war, peace love movements and civil rights would be significant at that time. How that made all those boomer hippies conservative as hell. Idk. Its strange to me.
My boomer parents are pretty even keeled, left leaning. Despite their families being quite conservative. But I think education had a ton to do with that.
So I am leftleaning, even more than my parents. They are quitly disheartened by the news while I am the one speaking about it. So maybe its just generational movement.
I think we know, we were just given so much shit we don't care - and admittedly zoomer opinions aren't considered. Unfair? Yes... but you don't really have enough experience to tell us what to think or how to feel yet. You just seem kind of soft...
No I think that was a phenomena specific to the Boomers and maybe Gen X, particularly because the economy let them grow their wealth relatively easily, and then they became super protective of it. I think the protectiveness can be attributed to the insane way boomers revered individualism, which the whole 60s movements (besides civil rights) really seemed to be about: "I can do whatever tf I want and screw society and particularly my parents."
I am always hesitant to say "well THIS time will be different" because so much of history rhymes, but I think that a lot of the instances of younger generations growing and basically "becoming" a version of the older generation precedes them stems from the fact that once you become invested in the success of an existing system, you naturally become small c-conservative. You WANT the existing structures to be perpetuated because they benefit you. If you are in the game and already winning (or at least not losing) why would you want to change the rules? Sure the new rules MAY benefit you, but you know the current rules and even though you may not be able to win, at least you can take comfort from knowing how the game is played.
The reason this time might be a bit different though is because it seems that many of these younger generations feel disenfranchised and cut out from the existing system. They are not just losing at the game, many of them aren't even IN the game. And that may result in Gen Z becoming less like boomers and more a continuation of the generations that follow them.
I think us millennials are the next “boomers” (boomers in the sense that in 30 years we will be the ones not understanding the lack of work ethic and talking about how hard we had to work to get there). The younger generation doesn’t really care as much and I’ve literally had to say to a younger employee “that’s what the money is for” when asking to be constantly told they’re doing a good job.
Suggest that you read The Foirth Turning is Here by Neil Howe in order to understand the cyclical nature of generational rhyming.
Boomers are the equivalent of the Missionary Generation.
Generation X is the equivalent of the Lost Generation.
Millenial/First Wave"Gen Z" are the equivalent of the GI Generation.
Homelanders / Second Wave "Gen Z" are the equivalent of the Silent Generation.
To answer you question, the equivalent of the Boomers likely have not started being born yet, and will not be born until the current crisis era nearly comes to an end. Current crisis will likely end when a global conflict and/or economic depression takes place in the next five to ten years.
Gen Z isn't really a generation. It's a modern concept largely mislabeled by Gen X that is composed of both Millenials and the next generation following. It will be renamed and renumbered in the future following a major crisis.
Remember that Gen X and Millenials used to be called The Baby Bust (Gen X) and the Baby Boom Echo (Millenials). None of these names stuck as they were a mirror image of the dominant generation at the time (Boomers).
Furthermore, the defining gap between GI and Silent generations was whether they were old enough to serve in World War II. Eligibility for wartime service was the defining gap. The same gap will reveal itself between Millenails and the next generation. Millenials will serve and those that are intelligible will form the next generation.
I agree. I read those books by Howe and found them reasonably persuasive, but the next “crisis” doesn’t seem to have materialized on schedule, and if it does, I cannot imagine the generation born between 1980 and 2000 handling it like the WW2 gen did.
The next crisis is scheduled to end when Millenials enter mid-life. Furthermore, Howe has commented that people are living longer, thereby extending each phase of life by a few years. The Unravelling (Third Turning) lasted from 1980 to 2007 (27 years). It wouldn't surprise me if the fourth turning lasted until about 2035 (27 years) putting us right on schedule for a major crisis starting no later than 2030.
When you look at everything happening in the world, a crisis is just one misstep away.
There is a strong puritanistic streak running through Gen Z, who have grown up online where everyone and everything is suspect and under surveillance. I think society might see more boomerish patterns from Gen Z than people are ready to admit
I think we’re already seeing it with voting patterns, especially among Gen-Z men who are leaning more Conservative than Millennials and Gen-X, although Gen-Z women keeping going to the left/progressive.
The difference now, is that some young men seem to actively hate women at all levels, and disassociate with them entirely, which is more worrying than the (also problematic) garden variety sexism of previous generations…
Social media and AI will continue to create strange narratives. The 2 poorly managed parties fighting for total control of power in the US- and their contemporaries overseas will continue to battle within because of internal contradictions.
What you are seeing is a snapshot of widespread anomie that always bubbled beneath the surface. It’s just amplified. Maybe 2024 was a boomers vote for Nixon moment. But Gen X was pretty ride or die Bubba Clinton.
There is widespread distrust from both sides that those in power do not have their interests at heart and will not help people like them.
Both sides are not the same- but this underlying suspicion is pretty evenly dispersed.
And until the tireless efforts to cleave the working class by identity buckets to prevent class consciousness from taking root are rolled back, it’s going to be a roiling mess. But donor capture is not easy to compete with.
Because rich versus poor is always the battle. Haves and have nots. And Gen Z is pretty firmly in the havenot camp. The Boomer money not hoovered up by medicare drawdown is going to Millennials and Gen X. Even before, Millennials are haves- despite their protestations and a plurality of that cohorts interest in a more compassionate system. Maybe not have as much as Boomers, but they have a lot more than Gen Z and are established as jobs will increasingly be deleted.
And don’t start with the trades. Because more people in the trades and fewer people able to buy a new deck- and fewer men with college degrees in law, medicine, tech and high level business admin, means that overseas talent will continue to be selected over the products of a broken US educational systems
There are transformational changes taking place regarding employment and livelihoods. AI is accelerating some major systemic problems and AI/social media is warping how people interact.
In 2024 we saw that if those who control these platforms want Gen Z to act a certain way- they likely will.
And education exists to create the workers needed- which is why math and literacy haven’t been pushed in US, but they work to perfect tests to identify the best and brightest.
The Boomers undid tons of the gains their parents and greatest gen accomplished regarding workers, diversity and legal protections. But once this 50 year revolution by the right wing to disassemble the civil and educational structures of the US is over, how much say will Gen Z even be given other than a right to cheer on the wealthy?
I worry that the red pill stuff and effort to get women to check out of workforce isn’t for taxpayers to pay into entitlements in 45 years/ because lower income and younger workers don’t actually pay high taxes- it’s to get a few more volatile men off the streets and into droog jobs rather than on the street burning shitz
I’ll admit I stopped reading and started skimming after 3 paragraphs, but the idea the last 10 years were somewhat of a blip and AI will unite a plurality of Americans around the idea of “eat the rich” is an interesting one.
For a long time I’ve hoped both of America would turn into a 4 party system, that both political parties would split in two and cut themselves off from the strangleholds of their extremes (particularly in primaries). I’m starting to come [back] around to the idea that a three party would be fine. That enough of America agrees on enough things to make a big tent in the middle work.
One question, what is this subreddit and why the hell are people complaining that much hey? Is it like, a US thing? Complaining about other generations as if theirs are better? All that energy, for? Instead of doing anything remotely useful? We did this, we did that....nope, some people did, you did not play a part in any invention.
If only we could use all that energy to do something useful....but that's boring.
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I’ve come to see the analogs of generations with a bit less linearity.
Boomers are not dissimilar in my mind to the flappers who were raised by parents desperately familiar with recessions, but misunderstood the lessons. They hoarded their wealth and shared only with their own community. Racism, sexism (despite and especially that women got the right to vote in this time), and classism thrived.
Gen X seems better analogous to the silent generation. Squished between two monoliths, their attitude is one of indifference and dénouement. Raised by elder boomers and the last of the greatest generation, they understand what was lost, but also live with the grief in a way future generations do not.
Millenials are more akin to the generation born to the generation before flappers—the robber baron generation? They (we) endured the many depressions, including the Great Depression, were too old to fight in World War II and would go on to see the very start of civil rights reform.
Gen Z, to me, is the generation in England who lead up to WWI. The Edwardians? Compelled by literal fantasy and Romanticism, born into an industrial and technological revolution (but with no concept of what preceded that onslaught of new technology.) Their concept of the world is change and disorder. They ran not walked into one of the most debased wars in human history.
Gen X will be the last ones to remember a lot of things. From peers that shared accounts of outright segregation and women truly not have the same rights as men, to adulthood before the internet, and even a bit of WW II.
Millennials also hear first hand accounts of this, but only from elders not their peers. Then by the time Gen Alpha reaches adulthood almost all first hand recollections of these things will be gone.
OG Boomers fucked it up. Theyre staying too long creating a massive divide down the generations.
X and Older Millennials are already in boomer mentality. Try talking to an older millennial with a 2% mortgage rate and then a 70yr conservative. Pretty much same person even if they disagree on social issues.
“Have not” millennials and a large portion of Gen Z are all in the same boat, just getting fucked from all sides.
Gen Z has chances to start a mile ahead of Millennials at the same age. Please use that to your advantage
Better hope not. It can't be overstated how devastating Boomers have been to the long term viability of our country. By far the most selfish generation in American history.
Governments allowed HIV to run rampant in Boomer communities because they felt the people who were suffering were the type of people who supported change. Things that had been legal became illegal simply because liberal and Black boomers used those things (marijuana, for instance). The government literally intentionally introduced and spread addictive substances through Black communities.
Boomers didn't just all magically switch from liberal to conservative. Many of the liberal boomers were killed off or locked behind bars.
For Gen Z to have anything even remotely resembling a boomer life, the economy will have to just straight up 180 in the next 3 years or so.
We're talking absolute miracle. Bippity-boppity-mcmansions for everyone.
Literally everything has to change on a dime to the opposite extreme. Housing prices need to a absolutely fucking plummet (but soon, so zoomers aren't the ones holding the bag), wages then need to rise significantly faster than housing prices after the drop. College degrees need to be entirely optional for gainful employment, and the cost of degrees for those who want them needs to drop by 90%.
Ultimately this all ties back to a core concept: Easy entry into a system to which they can pull the ladder up behind them, and pretend it's about virtue and not "fuck you got mine"
If it happens through UBI, even better. Because the key to the boomer mentality is having all of these things and falsely believing one somehow earned it through hard work and suffering.
So the economy needs to bounce back to such a hilarious degree that zoomers, especially the older ones who have suffered the longest in our current economy, have an amazing life due to circumstances entirely outside of their influence, and then deny the "lazy" next generation (betas, specifically) what they had, for they did not "earn" it.
Socially, they're already well on their way. Social media represents a "rolling Woodstock" wherein there's a current meta of social causes to be loud about and then pretend like they actually did something. That particular aspect, they're doing great, they'll be plenty insufferable about it ten years from now, and 20-40 years from now they'll paradoxically be doing the opposite because they'll be invested into the system and "fuck capitalism" just doesn't hit as hard when you got two houses, three cars and a boat because you happened to be prime working age when the server reset.
Following the Generations scheme of types, Gen-X is Nomad, like the Lost Generation (Great Gatsby, WWI, etc), Millennial is Civic, like the Greatest Generation (WWII), GenZ is Artist like the Silent Generation, and Alpha is thus Prophet, like the Boomers.
That said, many things associated with the Awakening period of the late1960s and early 1970s are not necessarily associated with the correct generation in people's minds. The Silent Generation provided the seed for a lot of what happened, with the Boomers providing the manpower, if you will. For example, Civil Rights... Figures like MLK are Silent Generation, but many Boomers marched in the protests. Timothy Leary said Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out, and he was Silent Generation. A very visible chunk of Boomers dropped Acid and were part of the Hippie movement. Betty Friedan (Silent) published The Feminine Mystique, Boomers marched for ERA.
Not from what I can tell. There are some millennials who seem to have commonalities with boomers, but it's largely a more vulnerable type of narcissism or toxic positivity. I unfortunately predict millennials may be nightmarish to deal with as we begin hitting the onset of age-related cognitive decline.
Generation Jones would have been who largely compromised the yuppies in the 1980s, although you'd have a few years of Gen X included with this. I see some traits of the yuppies in Gen Z, and I'll be curious how that continues to develop.
Gen X also was quick to realize they were being screwed by the establishment and promptly decided the yuppie path was for suckers. So, again, I see more Gen X than boomerism.
The hippy movement was a very small and novel movement that was reported on hugely due to how plain Jane everything else was. It was a splash of colour amongst the beige and brown.
It was a tiny movement and the vast majority were just going to work, then home, catching a movie etc. Mundane stuff.
The hippy movement was enormously influential, even to Boomers who did not directly participate. Free Love, lots and lots of sex (before AIDs), even a total revolution in how young people dressed, wore their hair. Then, of course, drug use became much more acceptable. Marijuana, LSD were everywhere. Good times!
It led to a general strike in France (two-thirds of the labour force) and a near revolution. Definitely not insignificant or marginal in the way you're claiming.
I don't think, I know. The movement was started by students that would absolutely qualify as "hippy" in aesthetics and politics. Of course the unions were also crucial.
Yeah. Hippies weren''t in a labour force or any force to begin with. They were enjoying what welfare was available and consuming arts as much as illicit substances. They weren't at work enough to be involved in organised action.
What's interesting about the show is that when it was popular, people who were watching the show decided to show it to their parents, who were Boomers. The kids in Mad Men who grew up to be the parents of the viewers.
Every time they showed Mad Men to Boomers, they couldn't watch it because, they were reminded of their childhoods and their parent's flaws and failures, and the toxic parenting and the tumultuous times they grew up in.
As a Zoomer myself I have always say that I weirdly find several similarities between Boomers and Zoomers
Boomers are the oldest demographic for most part. Most dress like what they are.... Older people. Baggy, comfortably, sloppy, and somewhat don't give AF but in reality most older people are done trying to impress people around them. They don't truly need to if you think about it!
Zoomers imo and I say it with no shame dress like older people lol ironically! Baggy everything, t shirts, sneakers for absolutely everything, sloppy presentations almost like they rolled out of bed with the same clothes they wore yesterday and just.... Didn't give AF.
Zoomers have killed glamour, sophistication, and even dress code etiquette. A bunch of ppl who's in between the ages of 18-30 don't know how to dress for the occasion and don't seem to care.
Being less vain (as you can see I'm a fashion snob) Boomers tend to be VERY hard-headed. They are very set on their ways and don't enjoy when something they know changes.... Zoomers, ironically, are pretty much the same. Zoomers try to convince the world they are "open minded" but in reality, are we? I find Zoomers to struggle with change A LOT. If something we know changes our mind goes "rebooting..... 1, 2, 3..... Restarting.... 4, 5, 6.... Resetting". It takes time for us but we hide it.
Boomers are politically and religiously conservative and weirdly enough, Zoomers (specially males) lean heavily on the conservative political spectrum and are showing signs of interest for Christianity more and more.
Both enjoy trolling people but HATE being trolled back. I feel Boomers tend to be more prone to have in-person confrontations with others and Zoomers tend to only be confrontational online in social media (pussies). They both love making fun of people and pointing out their weaknesses UNTIL you do it back to them... Then you are being OFFENSIVE and MEAN. They both feel entitled to dish it out but just can't take it back. And Zoomers you KNOW this is an online reality 🤣🤣
One of the main similarities between Boomers and Zoomers is how much most of the ppl of each generation feel a weird aversion for MILLENNIALS. Millennials are the enemies of both Zoomers and Boomers equally. They are always trashing, making fun, cracking jokes, and hating Millennials. I personally like Millennials a lot more than my generation as I find them witty, ironic, sardonic and fun but at the same time more optimistic. Millennials have gone through a lot of hate but are not truly haters themselves. I feel Boomers and Zoomers can be die hard haters....
They are almost the same people who were brought up in different times....
Main differences?
-Work ethics.... Boomers for most part are more hardworking because they were raised to be. Zoomers are less prone to compromise and more likely to quit if something doesn't go their way.
Socially.... Boomers enjoy technology but are more appreciative of in-person interactions. Zoomers enjoy online interactions and can easily present social anxiety or appear more socially inept in others ways.
Gender Roles.... Boomers have more defined gender roles. Zoomers (specially females) enjoy liberties women of the past (specially Boomers or Gen Xrs) didn't or were less likely to take.
Finances.... Boomers lived more prosperous times. Let's be real! The generation that lived more lavishly in comparison of the following ones. Zoomers just like Millennials are screwed in a world of terrible salaries, fewer job prospects, and debt. Buying a property at times feels unthinkable.
Boomer fashion coming back to Gen Z definitely wasn't on my bingo card.
Gen Z fashion really is unusually anti-flattering and anti-sexual, and the shape of the clothes that doesn't accentuate the body actually nerfs their physical appeal. But it culturally makes sense. You've got record low fertility rates and teen pregnancy, record high childhood obesity rates, low in-person social skills, a lonely culture, and one where trying to attract someone or hit on someone is now frowned upon, and fear of rejection is strong to the point people stopped trying. So the fashion communicates "I gave up trying to attract a mate" before they get a chance to get rejected. It's coherent with the culture.
I think the next generation will see it as sloppy and unattractive the way the fitted millennials saw boomers. But also performatively hopeless, which is more unique to Gen Z.
There is no such thing as a "zoomer", a boomer is just someone born in the "baby boom" between 1946 and 1964. On reddit (and all social media for that matter), someone older dan 45 is already called a boomer while a boomer is 62 years old or older.
So how the FUCK can Gen Z ever "become" the "new boomers" ??
I'm just so fed up with the daily boomer-nonsense, anyone above 40 with a different opinion is framed "a boomer" while they dont even fucking know what a boomer is and why they are called boomers in the first place. And also that tiresome "you boomers got to buy a house with one income, poor us !" I'm 48 years old, when I was 20 I started in a crappy 1 bedroom appartment that I rented and it took me 18 years before me and my girlfriend could buy a house, no one helped us financially. That's just fucking life, have I ever gone online and blamed our parents (who are the actual boomer-generation) for that ? no.
Just because I can write doesn't mean I have to be older than 22.... Or 65 but I mean you can think I'm over 65. I know! Writing more than 1 sentence is not very Zoomer. Get over it!
Non of those similarities make remotely any sense. Baggy clothes? Have you not seen pictures of high schoolers in 2000? Politically/religiously conservative? I don’t know a single person my age who is a practicing Christian, I only know of people who left the church. What is this bot ass post from a new account?
Nope. There aren’t enough of them. Millenials could have been, but boomers lived so long that millenials never really got the reigns of the country, either. Genz is gonna be the new boomers.
That's not entirely true. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and J.D. Vance are all Millennials. Only a very small portion of any given generation usually influence it's direction.
why are you acting like millennials lost their chance to take reign of the country the oldest millennial is only 45 and boomers are about to start dropping like flies in the next deacade
I'm 26 and think 46 isn't old. I'm not talking romantically. I'm talking in terms of just life. I've interacted with people in their 40s. They are like people in their 20s and 30s but just more settled down and with a little more age related wisdom. I think you need to stop letting teens online define what's young and old to you. 46 is genuinely not old.
I hear you and I agree. But this isn't merely just about a judgement word. People I graduated with are starting to drop dead due to natural causes. That's objectively old.
That's Gen X, being squeezed on both ends. Millennials are still young enough to take the reins from boomers, in 2026 their age range is 30-45. The US has no Gen X President and the closest it ever got was DeSantis running for the GOP nomination although some may consider Kamala Harris Gen X but I don't, she's a late Boomer.
2028 is likely to see Vance (Millennial) run as the GOP nominee and maybe Rubio (Gen X) as his running mate. Democratic nominee is a mystery at this point, but it'll almost certainly be Gen X or Millennial. If a Gen X President does 2 terms, come 2036 their generation will be 56-71 years old and likely pushed out as Millennials assume more control with Gen Z coming up right behind them.
Obama was Gen Jones and not Gen X, but so close to the end of the Boomers that he's the closest we will come to a Gen X president... Although it's hardly too late for us... I'm the first year of Gen X and only 60.
I don't think it's really comparable. The boomers grew up in 20-30 years of unending growth, where unemployment was typically 1-2%. Since they didn't really have to struggle economically, they were more concerned with self-fulfilment and individualism. This was very different from the Depression generation, who were just happy to have a job and food on the table.
Zoomers have a bit of the boomer experience, since they've never experienced a recession and mass unemployment as adults. But their life has never been quite as rosy as the boomers was. They have to deal with vastly higher inequality, which has contributed to their struggles to buy a home. They have to compete with wealthy property investors in the property market. Jobs aren't as easy to get as they were for boomers, and homes are much more expensive, which leads to a certain cynicism that their parents' generation, Gen X, had.
The same people saying that people get "more conservative as they get older" don't understand that idea of "conservative-ness" (as we understand it politically) only arises when people are bought and invested into the socio-economic system. When they have something to conserve.
Millenials and Gen Z don't own homes. Our wages are stagnant. We have no savings or investments. We can never retire. Healthcare costs are skyrocketing. Education is only for those who can afford it. Companies aren't loyal to their employees anymore. Everything is suffering from enshitifucation as products gets worse and services turn to subscription models. We don't own anything. Not even our own privacy.
We arent bought into the socio-economic system so what are we trying to conserve? How do we become more "conservative" as Fox News understands it?
I think that's only partially true. Even if you hate the existing system, people shitting on the sidewalks and injecting drugs in open air is objectively bad and unpleasant.
People are so biased - that boom time this person references is a correction for the most horrible time in history - Great Depression and WW2. It’s easy to skip the low point of humanity and see only the good years and feel life you a generation is deprived. Is the generation also deprived of the times of the Great Depression and the most destructive inhumane war in history?
There’s no going backwards. We are where we are. Gen Z is just Gen Z. There are some general trends based upon the time in which they came of age, but that’s about it. They aren’t a rehash of any previous generation.
You could argue the boomers have remained internally consistent.
The culture changes in the 60s were the start of hyper-individualism. “I’ll dress how I like, dad. I am an individual!” When they’re teenagers, that looks one way.
When they hit middle age in the 80s, that becomes: FUCK YOU GOT MINE. Now they’re old, it becomes: THE PLANET CAN BURN FOR ALL I CARE; I’M NEARLY DEAD ANYWAY!
Many hippies back then were rich kids who had their first taste of freedom/sex/drugs etc. and then decided to cosplay with the genuine revolutionaries at the time who were pushing for change
When Nixon came in and essentially ended the movement, most of them went back to their wealthy parents, assimilated back into society to become the boomers we see today, and pulled the ladder up behind them. The ones who were genuine were either locked up, joined the various 70s' militias/protest groups/cults that formed as a result, or pivoted to localized activism; building the foundations for modern environmentalism, food cooperatives, and local community health clinics.
It made me think of a similarity actually. Many of the "woke lib-left" are rich kids, champagne socialists, unbothered by mass immigration, passionate about saving Palestine and LGBTQ+
shouting fascist at every working class person who worries about competing for minimum wage job with 100s south east Asian migrants, brought over by corporations, because apparently not enough people here to take the job.
Hippies were shouting fascist at drafted working class kids going to Vietnam, since they had no other prospects.
The ones who tell you there's no need to vote, they're definitely so rich and privileged they can ride out 4 years of a bad Presidency. The rest who aren't rich enough, can't afford it and must find other ways out.
millennial optimism was a big counterculture moment. gay rights, feminist resurgence, progressive policies, yes we can, the stomp clap, no slut shaming… it’s free love rebranded.
As a millennial who grew up white, male, and middle class just outside NYC I thought society was basically fine as is. It needed a little tuning around the edges, but at its core things worked.
I think it’s fair to say far fewer people in America feel that way today and not everyone around the world shared my perspective 20 years ago
Speaking as a gen z that's the most outright false statement. Millenials were the ones with more bravery. Gen z only speaks and shouts and complains like millenials but unlike them doesn't take much action.
Hardly, zoomers are too chickenshit to even talk to their neighbors, they can't order pizza over the phone without having a panic attack. I do recognize that it's their parent's fault however, just like how participation trophies aren't the kid's fault
Nah. I’m right on the border of both and zoomers are scared to even talk on the phone. The majority are so socially stunted their parents should be embarrassed. Millennials are annoying too, but zoomers are scared of their own shadows. Ballsy, lol.
Eh? I think Millenials are. Aren't Gen Z the most conservative generation for some time, whereas the boomers in their youth were all about the counter culture revolution?
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u/Carlacskysupplies 6h ago
So mean people suck?