Boomers' reputation on the Internet

[sbarrera]

From my blog. Boomers are associated with the fading past and with reactionary politics. Not necessarily fairly.

Boomers Invented the Internet, but…

As we all know, it was a Baby Boomer who invented the Internet. Al Gore, to be precise. Ha ha, I jest. But in all seriousness, it actually was a Boomer who invented the World Wide Web. Well, an Englishman the same age as the American Boomer generation. That was when the Internet skyrocketed into public awareness and use (it had been around for decades already in academia and government) and the Boomer generation was still relatively young, and was involved in the grunt work of technology research and development.

Now it's younger generations who are on the leading edge of technology development and the Boomer pioneers are for the most part resting on their laurels. Steve Jobs has been deified and Bill Gates is busy spending his billions on humanitarian projects. Meanwhile, the Millennial generation has taken over Internet culture and formed a hivemind that is whimsical and heartwarming (doggy memes, anyone?), and also unforgiving in its enforcement of social norms (fear the hashtag). Generation X has been ghosted, and Boomers? - well, their cultural reputation on the Internet has not survived in very good shape.

For proof of this last assertion, all you have to do is get on Facebook and join "a group where we all pretend to be boomers." It's easy to do, trust me - I applied and got accepted right away. Here you will encounter the Millennial stereotype of what a Baby Boomer is - basically an old white Christian who supports President Trump, is hopelessly out of touch with modern values and, on top of that, embarrassingly clueless about how the Internet works. Boomers are always posting "MAGA" and "God bless America," misinterpreting what they see younger people doing online, and going to church and to potlucks.

As for posting memes, well Boomers probably shouldn't even try. Their memes are dated in style, atrocious in design, and express antiquated values. They should just stick to GIFs of the minions from Despicable Me, inexplicably a Boomer obsession. The idea of a Boomer meme is something you will also find on the subreddit TheRightCantMeme, where a lame meme by the political right is implicitly associated with the Boomer generation.

This stereotyping, of course, is unfair to the legions of Boomers who are on the political left. Not to mention those who are very savvy to the ways of the Internet. Perhaps these Boomers are not on Facebook so much; my guess is they are on Twitter instead. But this association, by a younger generation, between the Baby Boomers and the reactionary politics of Trump supporters (who are not all Baby Boomers, is my point) clearly marks the Boomer outlook as a fading thing of the past. The Internet - and thank you for it, Mr. Gore - belongs to a new generation.

[David Horn]

Just a quick correction: The World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee. The Internet was invented by DARPA back in the late '60s. Needless to say, the progenitors were not Boomers

[Bill the Piper]

(10-11-2019, 07:11 AM)sbarrera Wrote: From my blog. Boomers are associated with the fading past and with reactionary politics. Not necessarily fairly.

sbarrera Wrote:the Millennial stereotype of what a Baby Boomer is - basically an old white Christian who supports President Trump, is hopelessly out of touch with modern values

I've seen this concept to and it baffles me.

The ideology "cool" Millennials believe in is, basically the post-WW2 Inclusivity meme which was invented by some dissident GIs and Silents in the late 1940s and popularized by radical Boomer students in the late 1960s and 70s. It's surely an oversimplification, but I like to view it as the opposite of fascism. These Millennials are attacking the ground they are standing on.

Of course one is free to reject the post-WW2 ideas and go back to the Missionary worldview. Something the neo-cons did, as far as they stuck to the Missionary "victorious civilization" meme. But very few cool Millennials like neo-cons and the Missionary values. The candidate a stereotypal cool Millennial would vote for in 2020 American elections is Elizabeth Boomer, I mean Elizabeth Warren, the ultimate 1960s radical student.

[David Horn]

(10-11-2019, 07:11 AM)sbarrera Wrote: ...

This stereotyping, of course, is unfair to the legions of Boomers who are on the political left. Not to mention those who are very savvy to the ways of the Internet. Perhaps these Boomers are not on Facebook so much; my guess is they are on Twitter instead. But this association, by a younger generation, between the Baby Boomers and the reactionary politics of Trump supporters (who are not all Baby Boomers, is my point) clearly marks the Boomer outlook as a fading thing of the past. The Internet - and thank you for it, Mr. Gore - belongs to a new generation.

I'm a cohort-47 Boomer, and have been on the Internet since '93. I am not, however, on social media on any kind. I find the platforms -- all of them -- insidious if a bit banal. No, I don't need an algorithm up my butt 24/7, trying to anticipate my every move and feeding me what it thinks I need. I was raised in an era that put that on me to decide, and 'push' tech is anathema to that model. Give my 'pull' tech, and I'm in.

[sbarrera]

(10-11-2019, 08:14 AM)David Horn Wrote: Just a quick correction: The World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee.  The Internet was invented by DARPA back in the late '60s.  Needless to say, the progenitors were not Boomers

I know, that's actually what the post says. I was trying to be tongue in cheek.

[sbarrera]

(10-11-2019, 08:47 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:

(10-11-2019, 07:11 AM)sbarrera Wrote: From my blog. Boomers are associated with the fading past and with reactionary politics. Not necessarily fairly.

sbarrera Wrote:the Millennial stereotype of what a Baby Boomer is - basically an old white Christian who supports President Trump, is hopelessly out of touch with modern values

I've seen this concept to and it baffles me.

The ideology "cool" Millennials believe in is, basically the post-WW2 Inclusivity meme which was invented by some dissident GIs and Silents in the late 1940s and popularized by radical Boomer students in the late 1960s and 70s. It's surely an oversimplification, but I like to view it as the opposite of fascism. These Millennials are attacking the ground they are standing on.

Of course one is free to reject the post-WW2 ideas and go back to the Missionary worldview. Something the neo-cons did, as far as they stuck to the Missionary "victorious civilization" meme. But very few cool Millennials like neo-cons and the Missionary values. The candidate a stereotypal cool Millennial would vote for in 2020 American elections is Elizabeth Boomer, I mean Elizabeth Warren, the ultimate 1960s radical student.

Yeah, like I said it's unfair. Great point that it was the Boomer (and older) generation who gave us the values that "woke" Millennials accept today. But the stereotype fits for the Boomers who *are* Trump supporters. Apparently Millennials want all the credit for the other political option. Or think of non-Trumper older people as centrists.

I couldn't find a good link on Elizabeth Warren's college days, just that she graduated in 1970.

[sbarrera]

(10-11-2019, 09:13 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-11-2019, 07:11 AM)sbarrera Wrote: ...

This stereotyping, of course, is unfair to the legions of Boomers who are on the political left. Not to mention those who are very savvy to the ways of the Internet. Perhaps these Boomers are not on Facebook so much; my guess is they are on Twitter instead. But this association, by a younger generation, between the Baby Boomers and the reactionary politics of Trump supporters (who are not all Baby Boomers, is my point) clearly marks the Boomer outlook as a fading thing of the past. The Internet - and thank you for it, Mr. Gore - belongs to a new generation.

I'm a cohort-47 Boomer, and have been on the Internet since '93.  I am not, however, on social media on any kind.  I find the platforms -- all of them -- insidious if a bit banal.  No, I don't need an algorithm up my butt 24/7, trying to anticipate my every move and feeding me what it thinks I need.  I was raised in an era that put that on me to decide, and 'push' tech is anathema to that model.  Give my 'pull' tech, and I'm in.

I like that idea; the old Boomer Internet was "pull" tech - you take what you want from it and make up your own mind. The new Millennial Internet is "push" tech - you tell it what's on your mind and it gives you what it decides you want.

[pbrower2a]

(10-11-2019, 05:58 PM)sbarrera Wrote:

(10-11-2019, 09:13 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-11-2019, 07:11 AM)sbarrera Wrote: ...

This stereotyping, of course, is unfair to the legions of Boomers who are on the political left. Not to mention those who are very savvy to the ways of the Internet. Perhaps these Boomers are not on Facebook so much; my guess is they are on Twitter instead. But this association, by a younger generation, between the Baby Boomers and the reactionary politics of Trump supporters (who are not all Baby Boomers, is my point) clearly marks the Boomer outlook as a fading thing of the past. The Internet - and thank you for it, Mr. Gore - belongs to a new generation.

I'm a cohort-47 Boomer, and have been on the Internet since '93.  I am not, however, on social media on any kind.  I find the platforms -- all of them -- insidious if a bit banal.  No, I don't need an algorithm up my butt 24/7, trying to anticipate my every move and feeding me what it thinks I need.  I was raised in an era that put that on me to decide, and 'push' tech is anathema to that model.  Give my 'pull' tech, and I'm in.

I like that idea; the old Boomer Internet was "pull" tech - you take what you want from it and make up your own mind. The new Millennial Internet is "push" tech - you tell it what's on your mind and it gives you what it decides you want.

I have limited use for social media. Someone who wants to share a recipe or family photos? Harmless. Politics? Nothing so fosters crankery as do social media. I have seen lots of "Obama isn't an American" stuff and "If you aren't for Trump you hate America" nonsense. The problem with social media is that it is easy to use (as a participant) and impossible to judge politely.

Fake social media are what used to be called black propaganda -- disinformation from entities that misrepresented their provenance. "American" sites such as TennGOP (suggesting that it was from Tennessee) operated from Russia. Some "Blacks for Trump" had Nigerian accents and were not in the United States. Black propaganda can be very effective, as the British showed with the fake German radio broadcasts of Soldatensender Calais (actually from the southeast of England) that broadcast Allied propaganda interspersed with German popular music, sports scores, and even occasional speeches by der Phooey. It worked in America because people were often able to access social media without judging the veracity of political content or news. It is easy to prove that the recipe for gingerbread cookies is good. It is not so easy to figure that pro-Trump material is garbage.

[sbarrera]

(10-12-2019, 11:34 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: ...It is easy to prove that the recipe for gingerbread cookies is good. It is not so easy to figure that pro-Trump material is garbage.

I would think it would be...

[pbrower2a]

(10-13-2019, 02:40 PM)sbarrera Wrote:

(10-12-2019, 11:34 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: ...It is easy to prove that the recipe for gingerbread cookies is good. It is not so easy to figure that pro-Trump material is garbage.

I would think it would be...

The problem is that so many people lack the intellectual savvy to recognize the rottenness of the Trump ideology for what it was.

[pbrower2a]

It's way off topic, but irresistible -- a spoof of Dixie:


Away down South in the land of traitors,
Rattlesnakes and alligators,
Right away, come away, right away, come away.
Where cotton's king and men are chattels,
Union boys will win the battles,
Right away, come away, right away, come away.

Then we'll all go down to Dixie,
Away, away,
Each Dixie boy must understand
That he must mind his Uncle Sam,
Away, away,
And we'll all go down to Dixie.
Away, away,
And we'll all go down to Dixie.

(It is not my creation).

[Bill the Piper]

(10-11-2019, 05:38 PM)sbarrera Wrote: Yeah, like I said it's unfair. Great point that it was the Boomer (and older) generation who gave us the values that "woke" Millennials accept today. But the stereotype fits for the Boomers who *are* Trump supporters. Apparently Millennials want all the credit for the other political option. Or think of non-Trumper older people as centrists.

I always picture the neoreactionaries and Trumpkins in general as either Xers or socially isolated, awkward Millennials. Right-wing Boomers would be evangelicals and/or neocons, like GW Bush who didn't vote in 2016 election because he despised both candidates. Bush would fit the Missionary stereotype quite well, wouldn't he?

Quote:I couldn't find a good link on Elizabeth Warren's college days, just that she graduated in 1970.

I meant what she stands for today.

[pbrower2a]

1. Millennials saw Boomers after their mod, hippie days were over. Millennial adults cannot relate to the Boom Awakening that Boomers shielded them from. Millennial adults in mid-life will see Awakening behavior analogous in many ways to Boomer. Missionary, and Transcendental ways of youth and will be astonished to see such in youth. They will know Idealists, but not idealists defying a staid culture and complacent ideology -- until those youth appear seventy to eighty years after the Boom Awakening. 'Mod' and 'hippie' styles may now seem quaint just as fin-de-siecle styles of the Missionary Awakening seemed quaint as late as the 1950's.

2. Boomer family life after the Boom Awakening became conventional. If it was not quite GI-like it was the sort to foster GI-like attitudes.  Millennials are not chips off the old block, as is shown in their politics. Millennial adults have largely rejected the anti-intellectual tendencies among Protestant Fundamentalists, which is one expression of rebellion. (Some things are so awful, like slavery, fascism, Marxism-Leninism, and Jim Crow practice that to be a good person one must rebel against them!)

3. Millennial kids have not had it good. I see no improvement in their material conditions of life from Generation X.  Civic generations tend to endure hardscrabble childhood by the standards of later times -- in part because the Civic generations do what they must to prevent later generations from experiencing the same. Millennial adults pay the highest real costs in rent and school costs, and  they tend to be underpaid and overworked as demanded by rapacious (mostly Boom) executives. They get more formal education because such is necessary to avoid becoming raw labor that is expendable in the extreme, and gets extremely ill-paid. If there is a difference between Boomers and X, it is that Reactive generations cannot get away with as much whether in crime or economic exploitation. Executive compensation (a significant part of the problem of social inequality, most of it a reward for treating subordinates badly) will not be as high for X executives as for Boomer executives, and taxes will likely soar during the Crisis, especially on what is seen as 'easy money' and stay high to do debt service as efficiently and equitably as possible.

4. Boom executives are the most rapacious and exploitative ever, and most of them seem to have Henry Clay Frick as their model. Boomers will get a bad rap for that. But when those are gone, the Boom culture will still be available.

[David Horn]

(10-11-2019, 05:38 PM)sbarrera Wrote: Yeah, like I said it's unfair. Great point that it was the Boomer (and older) generation who gave us the values that "woke" Millennials accept today. But the stereotype fits for the Boomers who *are* Trump supporters. Apparently Millennials want all the credit for the other political option. Or think of non-Trumper older people as centrists.

I couldn't find a good link on Elizabeth Warren's college days, just that she graduated in 1970.

Not unlike the more radical Boomers in their youth, today's youth think they invented ideas that are really very old. The Luddites are making a comeback, along with the nature-centric Transcendentals. Everything is cyclic on T4T. As to Elizabeth Warren, she was, by her own admission, a conservative Republican until the late '80s. It was the result of her academic work on bankruptcy that she changed her beliefs entirely.

[Eric the Green]

Boomers have long been a divided generation. Divided between liberal and conservative, dove and hawk, and hip or straight. They are also divided by cohort. The oldest Boomers featured a lot of bold idealists and culture creators, but as a whole they lean moderately conservative, having grown up under Ike. Core boomers who grew up under JFK, LBJ and Nixon lean left, while late boomers who grew up during and after Watergate and under Carter lean right.

Today boomers are also divided between those who long for the good old days of their youth when society was white and straight-male-dominated and when heavy industry provided jobs in the Rust Belt, and those who long for the good old days of their youth when ideals were inspiring and we gave each other the peace symbol, smoked joints together and loved planet Earth. But sometimes we boomers like the same old music that appeals to both sides of this divide. But at least we blue idealist boomers can also look to the future, because that's where our ideals would still lead us.

[Bill the Piper]

(10-15-2019, 10:33 AM)David Horn Wrote: As to Elizabeth Warren, she was, by her own admission, a conservative Republican until the late '80s.  It was the result of her academic work on bankruptcy that she changed her beliefs entirely.

Thanks for that   So she's rather like GW Bush who changed from a playboy to conservative Christian after turning 40. Both experienced a rather Artist-like midlife conversion, only they went in different directions.

[David Horn]

(10-16-2019, 05:19 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:

(10-15-2019, 10:33 AM)David Horn Wrote: As to Elizabeth Warren, she was, by her own admission, a conservative Republican until the late '80s.  It was the result of her academic work on bankruptcy that she changed her beliefs entirely.

Thanks for that   So she's rather like GW Bush who changed from a playboy to conservative Christian after turning 40. Both experienced a rather Artist-like midlife conversion, only they went in different directions.

And like most converts, she is fiercely focused on her new reality.  If she wins the Presidency, she'll tolerate little nonsense from anyone.

[Eric the Green]

(10-16-2019, 01:14 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-16-2019, 05:19 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:

(10-15-2019, 10:33 AM)David Horn Wrote: As to Elizabeth Warren, she was, by her own admission, a conservative Republican until the late '80s.  It was the result of her academic work on bankruptcy that she changed her beliefs entirely.

Thanks for that   So she's rather like GW Bush who changed from a playboy to conservative Christian after turning 40. Both experienced a rather Artist-like midlife conversion, only they went in different directions.

And like most converts, she is fiercely focused on her new reality.  If she wins the Presidency, she'll tolerate little nonsense from anyone.

Your predictions are pretty good. This is a startling one about a politician. So if she wins, we'll see.

[Marypoza]

(10-16-2019, 01:41 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(10-16-2019, 01:14 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-16-2019, 05:19 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:

(10-15-2019, 10:33 AM)David Horn Wrote: As to Elizabeth Warren, she was, by her own admission, a conservative Republican until the late '80s.  It was the result of her academic work on bankruptcy that she changed her beliefs entirely.

Thanks for that   So she's rather like GW Bush who changed from a playboy to conservative Christian after turning 40. Both experienced a rather Artist-like midlife conversion, only they went in different directions.

And like most converts, she is fiercely focused on her new reality.  If she wins the Presidency, she'll tolerate little nonsense from anyone.

Your predictions are pretty good. This is a startling one about a politician. So if she wins, we'll see.

-- so what's her score Eric?

[Eric the Green]

(10-16-2019, 02:07 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(10-16-2019, 01:41 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(10-16-2019, 01:14 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(10-16-2019, 05:19 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:

(10-15-2019, 10:33 AM)David Horn Wrote: As to Elizabeth Warren, she was, by her own admission, a conservative Republican until the late '80s.  It was the result of her academic work on bankruptcy that she changed her beliefs entirely.

Thanks for that   So she's rather like GW Bush who changed from a playboy to conservative Christian after turning 40. Both experienced a rather Artist-like midlife conversion, only they went in different directions.

And like most converts, she is fiercely focused on her new reality.  If she wins the Presidency, she'll tolerate little nonsense from anyone.

Your predictions are pretty good. This is a startling one about a politician. So if she wins, we'll see.

-- so what's her score Eric?

Her score is a mediocre 8-7, the same as Mike Pence. I refer to both of them as "wooden" in their style. Bernie is the better choice for progressives, because his score of 14-7 may indicate a chance to beat the Drumpf, whose score is 9-4.

http://philosopherswheel.com/presidentia...ScoredWhat