30 Times Boomers Gave Advice, But Didn’t Notice That The World Doesn’t Work The Way It Used To
Are you tired of the phrase 'OK Boomer' yet? Originating from the exasperation and futility of arguing with people who approach the world's problems from a position of security and privilege, the meme has quickly morphed into a lame conversation killer, mindlessly and derisively parroted by people who disagree with anyone who happens to be older than them.
I blame the online culture of 'savage putdowns,' 'mic-drops' and 'word murders' for this – we have come to believe that the way to 'win' a debate is to flounce out with a particularly biting or amusing insult, at the expense of logic and reason. 'OK Boomer' is not clever, and it's not even funny anymore. It's smug, boring and counterproductive.
This post highlights the generational divide that we face today, as younger people share the out-of-touch advice that they have received from their elders. Because let's face it, the structural inequality, economic insecurity and environmental destruction that Millenials and Gen X'ers have inherited are a direct result of the selfish, greedy neoliberal policies championed by Boomers over the last 30 years.
Understandably, the younger generations are a bit upset at their comparative lack of opportunities and are even more frustrated by the absence of understanding and empathy shown in useless pieces of 'advice' like this. But it works both ways. Whilst Boomers could better educate themselves as to the realities of the modern world, and acknowledge that the kind of lifestyles they enjoyed are excessive, damaging and no longer attractive or attainable; casually dismissing the opinions and life experience of older people with thoughtless phrases like 'OK Boomer' ultimately achieves nothing but more division and even less understanding.
What do you think? How can we better bridge the gaps between generations to have more useful, constructive debates and discussions? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Image credits: Freeyourmindkid This post may include affiliate links.
Lots of people are putting their heads in the sand on this topic. It's a mystery to me as to why.
Nope. Even the pre-boomer generation wouldn't give you that advice. I'm a boomer but my father always told me to follow the money. If you can get more money working elsewhere then don't hang around and move on.
Making that follow up call makes a big difference. I immigrated, and was applying to tons of jobs online. For weeks I received no replies and no interviews. I then started to call just after each submission. That same day I got two interviews lined up.
i think that's something healthy to keep in mind, boomers were part of the most intense first wave civil rights movements, they protested against wars, and some learned to overcome their own racism, sexism, and homophobia. "ok boomer" is used to insult boomers who refused to change with the times and continue to act like bigotry is acceptable.
Let's reverse that: "If you pay me more I might be willing to work harder."
I like my job, I enjoy going to work. It is possible to,be happy at work.
And even if you don't "love" it, it still pays to find a job that makes you content and that fits your preferences and personality. At the very least, try to avoid your strongest dislikes. If you despise your job regardless of managers and coworkers, you should rethink your career.
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I made my hobby my work. I enjoyed working. Downside however was that I didn't have a hobby anymore.... I'm retired now and I never have been busier.
It's certainly not easy to get a job like that but if you do, then yes, it won't feel like work. I was like that practically all the time I was a teacher. I used to walk through the school sometimes and think "This is my job! I'm being paid for this!"
The vast majority of people are not going to wind up loving what they do to pay the bills. The advice I'm going to give my kids is not what kind of job do you think you'd love, but what kind of lifestyle do you think you'd love? Plan around that.
Can be both. Also, children usually make their own minds up anyway.
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My dad said that work isn't something you should expect to like doing -- that no one pays you to have fun. Can't say he was wrong -- although finding something you're not miserable at is a good idea.
I love my job, but it is still work. Loving my job just makes it easier to work long hours without being miserable.
If you do what you love, it's still work. It's just work you love. The day goes by easier and with less stress than if you did a job you don't love. So, this is not really nonsense. It's common sense. The trouble is, we've all been conned into thinking we have to hate our jobs unless we work for ourselves. Even working for ourselves, we still have to work. We just need to find what makes us happy and do that.
Agreed; I give my daughter the advice: "financial independence first... job you love, later" Does that appeal more? I'm willing to adapt it... #ratemyadvice
I think most people that take issue with this statement is that it seems to imply it is no longer work. If you are required to go in, even when you really don't fell like it (feeling a little under the weather but it's crunch time - whatever that looks like where you work), then you are dragging yourself into WORK, not fun, not your hobby. I love my job a lot. But there are still some days that just objectively suck, even though I'm doing things that I love. Sometimes work is just.... work.
I'm self employed and love what I do. It is work, but work I enjoy and it challenges me. Do what you love, and you'll be able to charge for it.
I taught high school for 32 yeas, loved it. I had to retire due to health, would have taught ten more years.
Actually, this one can still be accomplished. Mostly if you work for yourself.
How is it nonsense? It's possible to love your job. Just because you don't love it, doesn't mean it's impossible. Also, it's not advice it's a statement. It should come with a disclaimer that it does take some luck.
It's still work. If you never went home, I'd believe this were true.
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I'm not saying you should hate your job; from my own experience, I love what I do and when I first started, it was everything I did, all the time. It is important to find balance in life.
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I'm an archaeologist, the job I love. I have never done a day's paid work in the job I spent 6 years training in.
Yeah. Because that's exactly what everyone wants. Zero free time. /full sarcasm.
There's an article out there somewhere, that showed you could pay your way through Harvard on minimum wage with something like an average of four hours work a day, and now you would need to work 72 hours a day to achieve the same (not the exact figures, but something equally crazy).
Lol, it's not like a cat, you can't just leave them with an automatic feeder
They should follow their own advice. Or is this one of those "Do as I say, don't do as I do" things?
Note: this post originally had 96 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
Most of the "boomer" advice, was good advice years ago. Things have changed, and this generation has to make it fit for them. It should not be a fight, but each group learning from each other.
I hate the terms boomer and millenial as they're only ever used as insults now. Can't we just admit that good and bad come in all ages. Most of this advice is just the advice of thoughtless people. I bet there are 30 year olds who say this c**p and plenty of 60 year olds who don't.
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The world is constantly changing and it's our choice whether we want to listen to the people most affected by that change or not. For someone like me (in my 50s), that often means listening to and learning from people who are younger than me. I'm okay with that. Many people aren't.
People seem to forget that, every generation deals with changes from the previous. We learn from them, they are our parents and our grandparents. They made us who we are. You can't blame people for living for what they stood for. Our children and children's children will probably think what we did can be done in better ways. As a kind we need generation upon generation to show improvement. That little tug o war we are always in makes us what we are now. Always room for improvement. Let's hope that there is less blaming and judging and more learning and communicating in the future. It's the boomers that built the internet and many products we take for granted. All because they did sometimes wear a tie or have the women take care of the kids and put a little make up on and went in for an application or not have tattoes or pink hair. And now we do it differently. Hashtag endrant.
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Whole lot of crying going on here. And no I am not a boomer. EVERY generation says the previous one is out of touch and gave bad advise. This just proves that the world is constantly changing each new generation has to find a way to navigate the new world they find them selves in.
You are right except for the crying part. It would be nice if some generation could break the cycle though.
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I think it's possible BP has miscalculated who their key demographic on this site is...
ie people who don't judge an entire demographic for the behaviour of some... and people who recognise that every demographic has both pros & cons to them. The Boomers were not a perfect generation (which one ever is?).... but they did a hell of a lot for the following generations (something that is clearly being ignored by this article)
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I am 72. I most assuredly do NOT recognize myself in this advice. Please do not lump all Boomer into one category. Millennials are individuals as are Boomers,
Just think of the bad advise us millennials will be giving the next generation.
It'll be a whole different kind of bad....I can't wait to see the posts about it.
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I'm not a millenial... I'm not a boomer... I'm that weird shade in between... and I've gotten pretty poor advice from my "boomer parents" as well. The issue is not the initial giving of advice (which can be off the cuff, pulling from their own experiences); it's when you lay out the the paperwork, calculations and spreadsheets showing them **WHY** their advice simply CAN'T work... and they just say "that's not true. You're lying, you just don't want to listen to me" and walk off. THAT is the issue.
So, you're Gen X then. There's a whole generation between the two that everyone leaves out. "Oh well, whatever, nevermind."
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I still think some of the worst advice we get as kids is the whole "You can be anything you want to be" shtick. No mother, I am limited by my place of birth, level of intelligence and the various decisions you and the other adults made for me in my younger years.....Sure I do have many options to choose from...but I can't be anything I want.
An old man came up to me and my four kids in a doctor's waiting room and gave us a twenty minute lecture about how kids lives are being ruined by their devices and kids need to be reading books instead. The devices we all had were Kindles on which we were each reading a book.
When I was a kid I said this to my grandma... Me: I want to be a doctor when I grow up! Grandma: Why don't you be a nurse?
Ah, yes. I got that one. Went to med school. Sorry, gran! ;-P
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I'm a boomer but I know you have to adjust your mindset to what is happening in the present. You make your decisions based on what works for the era you're living in. No one intentionally sets out to make things worse for the next generation.
And yet, boomers made everything worse for following generations like it was their mission in life. They are the 'eff you I've got mine' generation. At least all the boomers I work with, am related to, and live by.
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First, just wait you will have your turn to annoy a younger generation. Second, someone is trying to help you, by giving advice based on their experience. It is the world as they understand it. Third, it must be difficult to see such dramatic changes in the world -- everything you believed worked no longer does. Have a bit of compassion. This boomer bashing is rude and hurtful. Fourth, do it better. When you are the older generation, try not to do the same. As you watch your child struggle, don't offer words of wisdom. When my son struggles, I try to sent current books on handling the problem. He can decide what to do. Often I am simply dreadful. He knows my intention, how this is a garbled way to say I love you. We grew up in the shadow of the previous generations, but I don't remember having such a cruel attitude. We do our best. Be nice.
Um, I don't know how old you are but, growing up in the 60s and 70s, "Don't Trust Anyone Over 30" was something that was said all the time. If anything, there was MORE anger toward the older generation then. BTW, I'd stop sending your son books of advice. It's passive-aggressive. He's a grown up. If he wants your advice, he'll ask for it.
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Some of these are funny but a lot are just people getting offended over nothing. Take responsibly for your life. Work hard. Think before your speak and act. Life will always throw you curve balls but you get to decide how you react to them. Stop making excuses.
"Eat Tide Pods, lick the ice cream and put it back and play Fortnite. People will pay you just to watch."- My kids, when their future children ask for advice.
all those things were generally agreed upon as stupid
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LOUD COUGHING NOISE ... muffled "b******t"! ... stupid has no timestamp ... when I was young, a percentage of my peers were idiots and that trend continues today over 50 years later. Attempting to stereotype all boomers as "out of touch" is as mindless as stereotyping all blacks as gang bang killers!
You idiots, a boomer is "a transient construction worker, especially a bridge builder". Sheesh, you've been dumping on folks in the construction industry all this time!
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While I understand people's frustration with boomers, I think a lot of this hate is unfair. I feel like some of these boomers were legitimately trying to be helpful, but don't know everything about modern culture and experiences. Every previous generation is going to be out of touch with the previous one and vice versa, I don't know why everyone is singling out boomers.
Picking on boomers is so passé. I prefer to pick on the Lost Generation because they're not around to tell me to eff off.
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If your kids resent how you raised them…you did something wrong. They won’t complain about you if you listen to them intently, value them and their thoughts. Emotionally validate them, and of course-be reasonable and don’t spank them or give illogical consequences!
Apparently I'm supposed to get a job in another town to pay for a car I don't want or need because no one in this day and age has only one vehicle except poor people. The last job I worked paid for a car payment and s**t health insurance. Now I'm a housewife and spend a large portion of my day cleaning or cooking or whatever and I'm happy. Why don't older generations want younger generations to be happy? Crippling depression and anxiety ruined my life for twenty years. I forgot what it was like to enjoy life.
My boomer father suggested today that if I wanted to make more money I aught to get my CPA as every CPA he knows make $150k right out of college. I must be just lazy because I don’t want to get mine. I’m currently finishing my MS SCM at Depaul University and then I am moving to Omaha for two years while I get my MSBIA at Creighton University.
I should also mention for the last six years I‘ve worked in finance. I specialise in automation and process improvement.
Load More Replies... I work in finance and have for the last six years. My boomer father tells me if I want a liveable wage I should have gotten my CPA as he believes most accountants make $150k+ right out of I college. I told him the average might be sixty in highly populated areas where the cost of living is also higher.
I actually had a professor tell me that having the perfect resume is the key to getting a great job. This lecture came shortly after reading an article in the Wall Street Journal and our own college website that says resumes are a waste of time as most employers want people to submit electronic applications and that those same employers find resumes redundant.
OMG generations are different!!! Boomers are so mean and out of touch!!! Millenials are so disrespectful!!! Everyone needs to relax. Bored Panda is propagating a dangerous generation gap. Yes generations are different but without those differences we'd know that the world isn't moving forward. The biggest lacking component is respect. Both sides are struggling hard with the concept of respect despite disagreeing. All generations have their faults and how they messed/will mess up the world. I am a millennial, my parents are generation x, my grandparents are boomers, I live with my grandmother in law and she's a silent generation. We would never think of disrespecting each other the way news and gossip rags says we should.
Mother "That guy only wants you to make you pregnant, don't you see he comes from a doctor family? Wake up, you come from a country side family.". Also mother "why are you dating such a country side boy, you will never prosperate in life, I tought you could do better, I'm disappointed" 🤯
Boomer advice from my mother when I was in school and heavily bullied: Copy the popular people and then you will fit in and you will no longer be bullied. Nobody wants to see the true you, they won't like you.
And to all the MIllenials and GenY out there, the world doesn't work the way you think it does either, and likely never will.
so much for Boredpanda being written by, & for people who don't judge an entire demographic for the behaviour of some... and people who recognise that every demographic has both pros & cons to them. The Boomers were not a perfect generation (which one ever is?).... but they did a hell of a lot for the following generations (something that is clearly being ignored by this article)
Some of these defensive comments just remind me of #notallmen.
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On behalf of Boomers, I apologize. Things have changed so much it's like a whole 'nother world + most of us have no clue. (me included!)
It must be very satisfying jknbt to smugly smirk in your self-designated sense of superiority. No one is blaming what is wrong with their life on anyone -- just commiserating about some silly and outdated advice. As an "old person" myself, I'm inclined to say that you are precisely the out-of-touch boomer that's being lampooned here.
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This is not freaking ageism. It's bitching about out of touch older people, something I'm sure you did when you were in your teens and 20s.
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Most of the "boomer" advice, was good advice years ago. Things have changed, and this generation has to make it fit for them. It should not be a fight, but each group learning from each other.
I hate the terms boomer and millenial as they're only ever used as insults now. Can't we just admit that good and bad come in all ages. Most of this advice is just the advice of thoughtless people. I bet there are 30 year olds who say this c**p and plenty of 60 year olds who don't.
Load More Replies... The world is constantly changing and it's our choice whether we want to listen to the people most affected by that change or not. For someone like me (in my 50s), that often means listening to and learning from people who are younger than me. I'm okay with that. Many people aren't.
People seem to forget that, every generation deals with changes from the previous. We learn from them, they are our parents and our grandparents. They made us who we are. You can't blame people for living for what they stood for. Our children and children's children will probably think what we did can be done in better ways. As a kind we need generation upon generation to show improvement. That little tug o war we are always in makes us what we are now. Always room for improvement. Let's hope that there is less blaming and judging and more learning and communicating in the future. It's the boomers that built the internet and many products we take for granted. All because they did sometimes wear a tie or have the women take care of the kids and put a little make up on and went in for an application or not have tattoes or pink hair. And now we do it differently. Hashtag endrant.
Load More Replies... Whole lot of crying going on here. And no I am not a boomer. EVERY generation says the previous one is out of touch and gave bad advise. This just proves that the world is constantly changing each new generation has to find a way to navigate the new world they find them selves in.
You are right except for the crying part. It would be nice if some generation could break the cycle though.
Load More Replies... I think it's possible BP has miscalculated who their key demographic on this site is...
ie people who don't judge an entire demographic for the behaviour of some... and people who recognise that every demographic has both pros & cons to them. The Boomers were not a perfect generation (which one ever is?).... but they did a hell of a lot for the following generations (something that is clearly being ignored by this article)
Load More Replies... I am 72. I most assuredly do NOT recognize myself in this advice. Please do not lump all Boomer into one category. Millennials are individuals as are Boomers,
Just think of the bad advise us millennials will be giving the next generation.
It'll be a whole different kind of bad....I can't wait to see the posts about it.
Load More Replies... I'm not a millenial... I'm not a boomer... I'm that weird shade in between... and I've gotten pretty poor advice from my "boomer parents" as well. The issue is not the initial giving of advice (which can be off the cuff, pulling from their own experiences); it's when you lay out the the paperwork, calculations and spreadsheets showing them **WHY** their advice simply CAN'T work... and they just say "that's not true. You're lying, you just don't want to listen to me" and walk off. THAT is the issue.
So, you're Gen X then. There's a whole generation between the two that everyone leaves out. "Oh well, whatever, nevermind."
Load More Replies... I still think some of the worst advice we get as kids is the whole "You can be anything you want to be" shtick. No mother, I am limited by my place of birth, level of intelligence and the various decisions you and the other adults made for me in my younger years.....Sure I do have many options to choose from...but I can't be anything I want.
An old man came up to me and my four kids in a doctor's waiting room and gave us a twenty minute lecture about how kids lives are being ruined by their devices and kids need to be reading books instead. The devices we all had were Kindles on which we were each reading a book.
When I was a kid I said this to my grandma... Me: I want to be a doctor when I grow up! Grandma: Why don't you be a nurse?
Ah, yes. I got that one. Went to med school. Sorry, gran! ;-P
Load More Replies... I'm a boomer but I know you have to adjust your mindset to what is happening in the present. You make your decisions based on what works for the era you're living in. No one intentionally sets out to make things worse for the next generation.
And yet, boomers made everything worse for following generations like it was their mission in life. They are the 'eff you I've got mine' generation. At least all the boomers I work with, am related to, and live by.
Load More Replies... First, just wait you will have your turn to annoy a younger generation. Second, someone is trying to help you, by giving advice based on their experience. It is the world as they understand it. Third, it must be difficult to see such dramatic changes in the world -- everything you believed worked no longer does. Have a bit of compassion. This boomer bashing is rude and hurtful. Fourth, do it better. When you are the older generation, try not to do the same. As you watch your child struggle, don't offer words of wisdom. When my son struggles, I try to sent current books on handling the problem. He can decide what to do. Often I am simply dreadful. He knows my intention, how this is a garbled way to say I love you. We grew up in the shadow of the previous generations, but I don't remember having such a cruel attitude. We do our best. Be nice.
Um, I don't know how old you are but, growing up in the 60s and 70s, "Don't Trust Anyone Over 30" was something that was said all the time. If anything, there was MORE anger toward the older generation then. BTW, I'd stop sending your son books of advice. It's passive-aggressive. He's a grown up. If he wants your advice, he'll ask for it.
Load More Replies... Some of these are funny but a lot are just people getting offended over nothing. Take responsibly for your life. Work hard. Think before your speak and act. Life will always throw you curve balls but you get to decide how you react to them. Stop making excuses.
"Eat Tide Pods, lick the ice cream and put it back and play Fortnite. People will pay you just to watch."- My kids, when their future children ask for advice.
all those things were generally agreed upon as stupid
Load More Replies... LOUD COUGHING NOISE ... muffled "b******t"! ... stupid has no timestamp ... when I was young, a percentage of my peers were idiots and that trend continues today over 50 years later. Attempting to stereotype all boomers as "out of touch" is as mindless as stereotyping all blacks as gang bang killers!
You idiots, a boomer is "a transient construction worker, especially a bridge builder". Sheesh, you've been dumping on folks in the construction industry all this time!
Load More Replies... While I understand people's frustration with boomers, I think a lot of this hate is unfair. I feel like some of these boomers were legitimately trying to be helpful, but don't know everything about modern culture and experiences. Every previous generation is going to be out of touch with the previous one and vice versa, I don't know why everyone is singling out boomers.
Picking on boomers is so passé. I prefer to pick on the Lost Generation because they're not around to tell me to eff off.
Load More Replies... If your kids resent how you raised them…you did something wrong. They won’t complain about you if you listen to them intently, value them and their thoughts. Emotionally validate them, and of course-be reasonable and don’t spank them or give illogical consequences!
Apparently I'm supposed to get a job in another town to pay for a car I don't want or need because no one in this day and age has only one vehicle except poor people. The last job I worked paid for a car payment and s**t health insurance. Now I'm a housewife and spend a large portion of my day cleaning or cooking or whatever and I'm happy. Why don't older generations want younger generations to be happy? Crippling depression and anxiety ruined my life for twenty years. I forgot what it was like to enjoy life.
My boomer father suggested today that if I wanted to make more money I aught to get my CPA as every CPA he knows make $150k right out of college. I must be just lazy because I don’t want to get mine. I’m currently finishing my MS SCM at Depaul University and then I am moving to Omaha for two years while I get my MSBIA at Creighton University.
I should also mention for the last six years I‘ve worked in finance. I specialise in automation and process improvement.
Load More Replies... I work in finance and have for the last six years. My boomer father tells me if I want a liveable wage I should have gotten my CPA as he believes most accountants make $150k+ right out of I college. I told him the average might be sixty in highly populated areas where the cost of living is also higher.
I actually had a professor tell me that having the perfect resume is the key to getting a great job. This lecture came shortly after reading an article in the Wall Street Journal and our own college website that says resumes are a waste of time as most employers want people to submit electronic applications and that those same employers find resumes redundant.
OMG generations are different!!! Boomers are so mean and out of touch!!! Millenials are so disrespectful!!! Everyone needs to relax. Bored Panda is propagating a dangerous generation gap. Yes generations are different but without those differences we'd know that the world isn't moving forward. The biggest lacking component is respect. Both sides are struggling hard with the concept of respect despite disagreeing. All generations have their faults and how they messed/will mess up the world. I am a millennial, my parents are generation x, my grandparents are boomers, I live with my grandmother in law and she's a silent generation. We would never think of disrespecting each other the way news and gossip rags says we should.
Mother "That guy only wants you to make you pregnant, don't you see he comes from a doctor family? Wake up, you come from a country side family.". Also mother "why are you dating such a country side boy, you will never prosperate in life, I tought you could do better, I'm disappointed" 🤯
Boomer advice from my mother when I was in school and heavily bullied: Copy the popular people and then you will fit in and you will no longer be bullied. Nobody wants to see the true you, they won't like you.
And to all the MIllenials and GenY out there, the world doesn't work the way you think it does either, and likely never will.
so much for Boredpanda being written by, & for people who don't judge an entire demographic for the behaviour of some... and people who recognise that every demographic has both pros & cons to them. The Boomers were not a perfect generation (which one ever is?).... but they did a hell of a lot for the following generations (something that is clearly being ignored by this article)
Some of these defensive comments just remind me of #notallmen.
Load More Replies... On behalf of Boomers, I apologize. Things have changed so much it's like a whole 'nother world + most of us have no clue. (me included!)
It must be very satisfying jknbt to smugly smirk in your self-designated sense of superiority. No one is blaming what is wrong with their life on anyone -- just commiserating about some silly and outdated advice. As an "old person" myself, I'm inclined to say that you are precisely the out-of-touch boomer that's being lampooned here.
Load More Replies... This is not freaking ageism. It's bitching about out of touch older people, something I'm sure you did when you were in your teens and 20s.
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