Generational politics are bull because there were Boomers who took bullets for Civil Rights, told troops to go fuck themselves, and built unions under Tricky Dicky. Some of those who threw bricks at cops at Stonewall are still around. It’s always an issue of class and class interests.

The Black Panther who shot FBI agents isn’t the same person yelling at you for not comping their meal because you only refilled their drink 5 times instead of 6.

It’s the lead, it accumulates in the bones during childhood, as boomers grow older their bones become more porous, releasing the accumulated lead into their bloodstream for the second time in their lifetimes

Millions of boomers are literally walking around oblivious to the fact they have acute Plumbism, this state of affairs should’ve been labeled a global public health emergency years ago

Instead we’re living in the lamest version of the Night of the Walking Dead

20 years spent in retail and I agree.

I am back working dangerous hard labor taking down trees with my stepdad for $20 under the table and could not be happier.

My dad had an aneurysm semi-recently and face planted in cement, broke some ribs, his arm and lost most use of said arm. This is from years of eating like a pig, not working out and not taking his health seriously.

In the hospital, well-aware of his bullshit, a forever MAGA into the second term, I offer him some “tough love” because he is stubborn and never listens to anyone. “You will kill yourself if you continue to eat poorly.” The entire time he’s whining about how the hospital food is bad.

His only response was timidly but broodingly “I will never change.”

I genuinely cringed, and a light flashed before my eyes where I saw images of Anakin Skywalker turn on his red lightsaber, Shadow the Hedgehog pointing a gun at the camera, American eagles with tears in their eyes in Evil Knievel attire riding dirt bikes and blinding patriotism to something they half remember in a movie.

My idiot edgelord father. It’s weird that my dad was someone who I thought was really intelligent growing up, was actually a stubborn bigot with a small world. Painfully, the minute I recognized his limitations, I saw myself as he was the one who raised me.

Well at this point boomers are really old, which means the class character of their generational cohort is skewed heavily towards wealth. The boomers that weren’t horrible cretins are mostly dead by now, the survivors are mostly people with money and property.

In that sense, generational politics kind of exists.

A lot of surviving boomers are wealthy, the problem is wealthy people are generally self-centered. Boomers were exposed to the biggest anticommunist campaign in history, and grew up insulated from outside perspective for the most part.

However leftist boomers did and do still exist. I’ve met the nice ones, and it’s kind of feels bad thinking that the ones who are trying their best against an evil system get lumped in with the bad ones. There are many boomers that inspired me into leftism. Like it or not, they were some of the first to crusade for the environment (ended DDT, CFCs and are the reason the ozone layer is healing, lgbt rights, women’s rights, protesting apartheid in South Africa, etc). Sure, you could say it wasn’t enough, but considering there was no internet to give them an outside perspective, they could have done worse. It’s a shame that particular part of their legacy is being overshadowed by just the worst, bigoted assholes surviving for the most part (due to capitalism).

I also think the inherent tribalism involved with generation stereotyping is that it lacks nuance and is used to gaslight people into hating each other and being distracted from the actual problem. Look at how people treat millennials, we’re the poorest generation in a long time, nearly ever millennial I’ve met has been absolutely fucked and burntout and have messed up bodies from overwork. Believe it or not, most people before us were not this worn out in their 30s and 40s. Yet still that myth that millennials were treated as special and coddled persists, despite all we did with the fuck all we got. We already have the reputation of being failures (even though we’re still alive and doing shit). So much so that Zoomers are terrified of ending up like us. We didn’t do capitalism right and deconstructed a lot of traditions and are now used as example of what happens if you don’t get in line, like the black sheep of an abusive family.

Then look at Zoomers, people are trying the same gaslighting trick with them and calling them soft too! They get so much shit. Just as much as we did. You will get you really cool leftist zoomers and your really terrible mini boomer zoomers too. None of the generations are a monolith. Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Elon Musk and Mark Zukerberg are all from different generations and they all suck, not because of when they were born, but because of their class interests.

Generarion warfare is at it core, reactionary. The right loves it when the generations keep shitting on each other and loves stoking those flames. Each generation has its Rush Limbaughs, it’s Ben Shapiro’s and it’s Charlie Kirks constantly crying about how a certain generation is too soft and we need to do evil shit to toughen them up. It works. It gets the everyone defensive and self conscious and distracts from the class issues. (They are like this because they’re from the shitty generation, capitalism isn’t the fault, it’s their personal failings!) It takes the blame away from the system and places it onto individual shortcomings.

So yeah, I see the pattern of rude boomers too, but I try to remind myself that it’s a class thing, less the cool boomers catch strays.

I used to work retail, I feel your pain. It sucks, you get the worst people.

Lead. In the gas. In the pipes. Maybe.

Dinosaurs will die comrade, and take their bullshit with them. I deal with a lot of boomers at work. Boomer men in particular. Boomer men seem to feel more free to let some nasty shit leave their mouths when in the freedom of their own homes, in particular. Ive had some downright hateful things said to me. I’ve walked out on a few service calls over the years. A few jobs too. Solidarity, Conrad. Some days are shit, some days are even shittier than that.

I try not to judge old people, but having worked in customer service for three years, the overwhelming majority of shitty customers - like over 90% - are over 65. Such a large proportion of them are unbelievably selfish and rude, and they abuse minimum wage workers because they know we just have to take it.

Also, so many of them are just so stupid and lazy. I work in a food truck, and the amount of them that don’t bother looking at the menu, and just say “burger” to me is unreal. So many of them just approach and treat me like a vending machine, not a person. Also, how the fuck do they STILL not know how card machines work??? There is seriously no excuse, this technology has been widespread for at least 15 years and more and more places prefer card over cash. I see so many old people drag their card over the machine or try to press the end of the card against it, instead of just holding it for a second.

Tangential rant, when I worked in a bar, there was a man who would come in every morning, have four or five pints of Guinness with a shot of whiskey each, then totter off to work. He didn’t know his own pin and asked ME what it was (???). Then he spent like an hour going to the bank to find out his pin, and the next time he saw me, he had forgotten, and expected me to remember it for me. Like dude. How do you function

as an “old soul” i can say it’s not a generation thing, it’s an age thing. You’re 65, working all your life taking crap from everyone else, now you paid your dues to society and want to live your golden years. everything hurts, your joints are as stiff as your neurons and you simply cannot give a shit about what everyone else thinks. hot take but millennials will be worse.

Something about being born in that era makes you an entitled, impatient dickhead.

They must’ve been taught it somehow. I’ve heard this sentiment so much even from people who otherwise believe generational politics is bs.

As a college student working in retail, I’ve dealt with groups of immature middle school kids who are often loud and annoying yet never ill-intentioned, and somehow far more reasonable and respectful to retail workers than the endless stream of nasty, malicious ass boomers

The problem with generational politics is that it is generally a distraction from class struggle and a materialist understanding of politics. Not that some generations don’t suck more than others.

Also Gen X seems similarly bad. Note that we’re basically describing the generations that had basic economic security and a larger amount of reactionary trappings. Also they’re getting older and less patient as a result. And as others mention, lead exposure.

Give every customer service worker a chelation gun.

Hard agree. Just glad I’m no longer FOH in retail. Did it for way too long.

I’ve dealt with some shitty gen-x/millennial customers too but boomers are the only ones that I’ve ever genuinely questioned the sanity of. Like a younger person might be rude, imposing, or upset but a boomer will do genuinely unhinged shit.