Why Everyone Hates Boomers
Finally explained.
Why does everyone hate Boomers?
Let me explain.
Boomers are the generation born immediately after World War II. Returning GI’s came home and started families by the hundreds of thousands.
At the same time, American industry was awash with productive capacity left over from the war. These factories soon began producing consumer goods- and hiring Americans to run them. The Middle Class was born.
But this article isn’t about how the Boomer generation came to be. It answers a different question: why does everyone hate Boomers today?
Simple: narcissism.
The Boomer generation was a generation of narcissists.
Originally, the Boomer generation was called the “Me Generation.” That’s the name Madison Avenue came up with for corporations trying to market to this new demographic.
The name “Me Generation” was apt. Even in these early days, the narcissism of the Boomer generation was evident.
Everything was about them.
Their wants, their feelings, their preferences took precedence.
When the Boomers came of age in the 1980s they hit their peak narcissistic stride. They became the Yuppies: the “young urban professionals” whose defining attributes were naked self-interest and conspicuous consumption.
For a yuppie, superficial appearances were everything. The car you drive, the house you live in, the food you eat. All must convey a certain message to those less fortunate.
The message is simple: the yuppie is better than you. The yuppie has better taste, better income, and a better life.
The superficial Boomer gave rise to the “latchkey kid” of the 1980’s (the cohort that would later become known as Generation X). Mom and Dad were too busy working their corporate jobs so they could earn money to buy fashionable gizmos. They didn’t have time to take care of their own children- so they turned their own offspring into gentrified “street kids” who had to fend for themselves.
The Boomer generation gave rise (albeit indirectly) to two styles of music. The first was punk rock. The children of Boomers were largely ignored by their parents, because narcissistic parents don’t pay attention to their kids. The angst of this abandoned generation was felt in the directionless, destructive anger of the punk rock music they created.
The second genre of music indirectly spawned by the Boomer neglect of their own kids was grunge. Like punk rock, it embodied a disaffected, cynical view of the world. Unlike punk rock, some grunge was actually good music. Grunge became a hallmark of Generation X, those unlucky children of narcissistic boomer parents.
Boomers went on to wreck the US economy in ways that are still being felt today. Young Boomer MBA’s pioneered the “greed is good” decade on Wall Street in the 1980’s, when junk bonds and leveraged buyouts caused devastation to the US economy- all so yet another pinstriped young banker could earn yet another million dollar bonus.
It’s safe to say that Boomers are the most disliked generation in American history. It stems from the fundamental narcissism they displayed at every turn: their greed is good, me first mentality that originally led them to be called the “Me Generation.”