The phrase “OK, boomer” has become a catch-all put-down that Generation Z–ers and young millennials have been using to dismiss retrograde arguments made by baby boomers, the generation of Americans who are currently 55 to 73 years old.
Though it originated online and primarily is fueling memes, Twitter feuds and a flurry of commentary, it has begun migrating to real life. Earlier this month, a New Zealand lawmaker lobbed the insult at an older legislator who had dismissed her argument about climate change.
As the term enters our everyday vocabulary, HR professionals and employment law specialists like me now face the age-old question: What happens if people start saying “OK, boomer” at work?
Evidence of discrimination
A lot of the internet fights over “OK, boomer” revolve around whether the phrase is offensive or not. But when you’re talking about the workplace, offensiveness is not the primary problem. The bigger issue is that the insult is age-related.
Workers aged 40 and older are protected by a federal statute called the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which prohibits harassment and discrimination on the basis of age.
Comments that relate to a worker’s age are a problem because older workers often face negative employment decisions, like a layoff or being passed over for promotion. The only way to tell whether a decision like that is tainted by age discrimination is the surrounding context: comments and behavior by managers and coworkers.
If a manager said “OK, boomer” to an older worker’s presentation at a meeting, that would make management seem biased. Even if that manager simply tolerated a joke made by someone else, it would suggest the boss was in on it.
Companies also risk age-based harassment claims. Saying “OK, boomer” one time does not legally qualify as harassing behavior. But frequent comments about someone’s age — for example, calling a colleague “old” and “slow,” “old fart” or even “pops” — can become harassment over time.
Gen X is covered, too
And it doesn’t matter if the target isn’t even a boomer.
Generation X was born around 1965 to 1979. That makes its members older than 40 and thus covered by federal age-discrimination law.
Yes, I get that the comment is a retort to “unwoke” elders who cannot be reasoned with. The problem is that the phrase is intended as a put-down that is based, at least partly, on age. If you say it at work, you’re essentially saying, “You’re old and therefore irrelevant.”
Lumping Gen X–ers into a category with even older workers doesn’t make it better. Either way, you are commenting on their age.
Funny or not
I recently watched some of the “OK, boomer” TikTok compilations.
A lot of them were quite funny, like the hairdresser imitating a customer who criticized her tattoos as unprofessional. She responded, “OK, boomer,” while appearing to lop off a huge swath of the customer’s hair.
When I was an employment lawyer, I heard tons of hilarious stories of things people said in the workplace. But that’s the point: The story ended with a lawyer on the other end of the phone.
One of the most famous age-discrimination cases — which made its way all the way up to the Supreme Court — involved a manager who described an employee as “so old he must have come over on the Mayflower.”
“It was just a joke,” in other words, is an awful legal defense.
Tit for tat
To millennials who have suffered through years of being called “snowflakes” by their elders, protests of age discrimination can seem a bit rich. Why didn’t HR ban all those millennial jokes about avocado toast?
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act only kicks in for workers who are 40 or older, which means millennials aren’t covered. For now.
The oldest millennials will turn 40 later this year. So fear not, the millennial jokes may eventually become a legal problem for companies as these workers age.
Also, a few states, including New York, ban age discrimination for all workers over 18, and employers in those states probably should have done something about the millennial jokes.
Why older workers need protections
Boomers might seem really powerful, and yes, they might be your boss’s boss’s boss.
But older workers are more vulnerable than they seem. Older workers are expensive — by the time they’ve worked their way up the corporate ladder, their generous salaries start to weigh on the balance sheet. And management may have trouble envisioning spectacular growth and innovative ideas from them years into the future, even if they are ready and willing to deliver.
That’s why Congress thought it was important to extend protections to those workers. It wanted employers to treat them as individuals who shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand because of their age.
And in many ways, that’s what young people seem to want as well: a little respect for what they bring to the table. After all, that meme didn’t make itself.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
The boomers will all be dead when the results of these millennials’ worthless policies and political support really come home to roost in starvation, mass murders, and other wonderful society-positive things. Fuck them. We will all get the last laugh.
Right, but my kids… and hopefully grandkids.
Are going to need to correct the mistakes of their own generation. You can only do what you can do. Clearly the majority of them simply don’t want to even listen….except to CNN.
The article asks – “As the term enters our everyday vocabulary, HR professionals and employment law specialists like me now face the age-old question: What happens if people start saying “OK, boomer” at work?” .
The answer of course is what should be the answer to all questions like this – nothing, let the person being “insulted” deal with it themselves.
I do not understand why all HR drones, and people in corporate / government positions feel they need to always “do something” about every little human interaction.
If I am your boss, and you are a millennial, and I tell you something needs to be done. I have no problem with cogent arguments against why we should not continue to do things a certain way. Change is good, when it MAKES FUCKING SENSE. But change, just because some millennial dumbshit thinks they are “woke” or that the policy or procedure is “discriminatory” because someone may be “offended” is going to get that millennial fired. Why? Because I sign the goddamn paycheck, that is why! If you don’t like it, go start your own company, and then compete against me in the marketplace….
These HR types always think that they can somehow “legislate morality” on people, and somehow they can make utopia by getting in between tow human beings. Not going to happen, and the fact that they even ask these questions makes me not even see the rest of the article as worth reading.
Boomers have just found that they can vote themselves the coffers of the treasury, and the crooks in Washington – boomer or not, are just sponging off of the robbery of the rest of us – in purchasing power through money printing, and through taxation (theft at gunpoint). Nothing new here, and no particular “group” to blame. Just the same things as always – greed and stupidity.
Boomers have just found that they can vote themselves the coffers of the treasury,
Good morning, sir. They found out long ago. That is why we are where we are today.
yeah says generation voted for a senile old farts like Biden trump make this country a third world shithole. Why don’t you go watch your lying media since all can do useless boomers.
Ok boomer why do you go kill yourself grandpa it is your fault America is dying no one will miss your generation and call us snowflakes again and see what will happen to you bitch as ageist piece of garbage. Go to Mexico we do not need you geezers here.
Just another excuse for those hippy boomers to practice age discrimination they got enough of them as it is. Companies have enough on their plate without having to deal with more whiny boomers getting offended over stupid things good grief boomers have to start growing up. So I am a snowflake am I going to cry and to my employer saying he is discriminating against me no because we gen yers know to act our age not our shoe size unlike boomers we do not let stuff bother us.
ok boomer why don’t you go to nursing die worlds better off without you hate of us who doing everything to pick up your mess you did since you too lazy to do that no offense.
so true too busy watching lying media to fix their mess who idiots thumb downing this comment it true or they just boomer lovers
What policies and political support does the Millennial generation ascribe to? So far as I can see, they don’t even have a sense of generational “culture” at all. That’s why there’s so many “reboot” shows/music et. al. that are enormously popular right now.
You do not know culture of it bit you in the ass old geezer so shut up
How many boomers does it take to screw in a lightbulb none they too stupid go fuck a wrinkled prune old geezer cause that is what you look like. I never seen a generation so stupid until I met yours
no mention of the boomer’s policies seeing as how they have been firmly in the driver’s seat for the last 40 years? if the millenials are a failure much of it is because of their boomer parents. your generation is the most entitled and self-centered the world has ever known. the world around you is collapsing and still you take no responsibility. never has a group of people been given so much opportunity, had so much potential, only to fail so spectacularly as the american boomer. you are exactly like the internet actually. fortunately for us the zoomers are polar opposites of you, having been raised to observe first hand what decades of central banking, infinity shitskins and perpetual war have wrought. there is so much disdain for your own offspring. my only hope is enough old-timers recognize the situation so they may be the cannon fodder instead of their grandsons.
–
fyi for you geriatrics, the original meme was ‘shut the fuck up, boomer’ but some where over the last two years it was sanitized and brought to the normies.
–
I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.
John Adams, Letter to Abigail Adams (12 May 1780)
Amen about time someone call them out. Their fault we got a regard as president now too. Get a real president in there not a senior old fart that has the iq of a sloth
sounds like kid a spoiled brat got handed everything to them i talking about kids not so fortunate have rich parents to spoil them not all us have that luck it unfair to assume we do not deserve to have proper policies to help them like you spoiled boomers got.
Says the old fart that on his last life right now you do not gave much time to live why you do something useful instead of coming on here and bitch about us cool gen yers grandpa who done more for you babies then you done in a life time useless piece of garbage generation
Boomers are scum of earth instead use their money inherited to help us young people they use to ruin this country for rest of us by electing idiots like trump and bidden both senile stupid and fat.
I was “let go” by my employer at close to 60 years of age, despite having an excellent work record. I filed a claim for age discrimination with the EEOC. After a year, my claim was found to have no merit. As a white heterosexual male, I guess that I was the “wrong color”.
There is no shame to being fired. At all.
But as far as I am concerned employers should be able to fire anyone for any reason. It is a buy/sell arrangement. If the buyer no longer wishes to buy a particular product, for any reason, why should there be a law forcing him to keep buying?
“Hey, you gotta buy that loaf of bread. You bought it last week, you have to buy it this week, and next week, too!” “But that loaf is old and stale, and I don’t want it this week!” “Too bad for you, buy it anyway.”
What a load is shite. Employers generally act rationally. I do not fire profit-making employees. But I reserve the right to employ those that make me the most money, and to get rid of those that make me the least. It is up to the employee to keep skilled and work hard. Older folks tend to slow down, so they need better skills and to work smarter.
So if an older person is let go, the question they need to ask themselves is why? Are they better skilled and smarter than the young? If so, it is irrational to let them go. If not, then not.
BTW – I have long hired heavily experienced employees. They are better employees generally.
It is not as much the employees that are the problem as the laws that protect them from having to provide any value.
It wrong how these boomers think we do not deserve good paid job too rather look down on us because not experienced enough in field to point its ageist and illegal. Just because a worker inexperienced does not mean he cannot learn its your inept lazy attitude and poor hiring going to make you miss some of best workers out there. Millennials are literally in poverty having to live with their parents have hundred thousands dollars of school debt you your generation have audacity to refuse to hire young this is out right atrocity no wonder so many unemployed millennials out there because of your selfish attitude.
The wrong color hah how stupid are you they fired you because your old and slow down the company gramps plus they save money hiring someone young and better then you that will not bitch he not getting paid enough. By the way boo hoo want me to play the world’s smallest violin for you because no one cares about you old smelly geezers
oh you poor thing boo hoo want me to play you the worlds smallest violin you little spoiled entailed little turd
Wait until they realize Granma and Grampa can leave them out of the Will. An O! Shit! moment to behold.
Better yet, spend the money doing fun things.
better yet i put spoiled entitled old fart butt in nursing have them suck all their money out them
I feel I must congratulate you on your selfless priorities. Every shitty parent should have that licence plate. Yet you wonder why you are never allowed to see your grandchildren…?
So you have to bribe your kids so as to see your grandkids.
Nice job you did rearing your children.
no one want their money anyway especially from spoiled wrinkly old fat generation thinks world revolves around them
Generation Boomer has got a lot to answer for: this is the generation that pumped up the market so that is floats like a cloud on nothing but air. This generation spent the next generation’s money and resources in an effort to stay in power forever. The rock and roll generation introduce free love and race quotas, they danced to disco and drank lattes. The hovered over kids and fought teachers when junior acted up so the teachers put junior on ritalin instead of insisting the boomer parents discipline the brats.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Generalize much?
“Generation Boomer has got a lot to answer for: this is the generation that pumped up the market so that is floats like a cloud on nothing but air.”
Stocks and bonds: This has been standard mainstream investment advice and practice for centuries. What the hell else should they or, in most cases, their pension funds have invested in?
Granted, we we should all have been allocating a portion of our savings to gold as well, but it had been vilified by FDR and essentially outlawed until the late 70’s IIRC.
In any case, stock market booms and crashes were caused by the machinations of the (( Federal Reserve )), not by any particular generation.
“This generation spent the next generation’s money and resources in an effort to stay in power forever.”
Odd statment. My parents neither expected, nor received, a significant inheritance from my grandparents. And I never felt that the money my parents earned somehow belonged to me. Nor, as adults, did my sisters and I ever feel that they were morally obligated to pass it all to us. As it turned out, they were able to leave each of us a modest inheritance, but this was their gift, not our entitlement.
If instead you are referring to government indebtedness and the banking system that enables it, well…the ((Creature from Jekyll Island)) was spawned long before the boomers were born.
And the useless Gen X’rs did what to turn all this around?
The more I get to know my own generation, the more disgusted I am with them. We went along with everything and then doubled down.
The X’rs ‘cancelled’ a slew of brands and stores. They have powers and abilities beyond those of normal men. They are going to tear down the Boomer construct, wait and see. All this squeamy-meemie whining by Boomers means their back is up against the wall.
You poor little thing too stupid to not follow long perhaps says yoda
Sad but true no one done anything worlds full of selfish ignorant people do not give a shit found this out hard way so why care about them when do not give a damn about us
Amen stupid hippies ruined our kids. A generation of entitled spoiled people that got everything we steal you money when your dead and we pull the plug on your life support hah old geezer
I’ve had experience with age discrimination. I sat back and held my tongue for a long time until my younger “superior” ran his mouth not once but several times to the point of his going to his boss and that’s when that call I made stirred up a shit storm. Those youngins’ (Millennials) have a problem of keeping their mouths shut and that tendency is their weak link that can lead to them getting a royally deserving keister screwing.
No offense gramps you need to shut yours cause your next to be fired you did that shit at my work place you be gone no one likes a spoiled brat that what you sound like when you did your hissy fit like a baby cause that is what you are to us young people do not like it take a hike boomer.
I would fire you too since you do not seem to know how to shut your trap old fart you think you got the power you got nothing geezer
contrary to what your think world does not revolve around you boomers just because your older you expect us to respect you. We work ass off we do not deserve shit we get from you. I hear all time how we are spoiled entitled excuse me who spoiled entitled ones since your generation got affordable housing free health care and practically free collage while rest of us are still in debt paying off our school loans. we lucky if get to be free of debt by 50 no thanks to your greedy generation too selfish to lend a hand. Thanks to you turds we do not need to give you respect especially got everything handed to you on silver plater did not share that wealth instead you used it to fuck us up royally.
If someone said “Okay, boomer” to me, I’d shrug at the lamest insult I’ve ever heard and get on with my day. People who get offended by that must themselves be snowflakes. Don’t we have enough real problems without making them up?
Okay…
And this is the sort of shit that third world nations don’t give a flying fuck about. We waste so much time and effort consoling people’s hurt feelings instead of doing our fucking jobs and then wonder why the third world is slowly overtaking us. Another crappy problem bought to you by effeminate HR departments the western world over.
I am sure that somewhere in the Constitution there is a right to not be offended. If there is not, some judge will find it.
Hahahahahaha. So true. From an Australian perspective though, it’s not enough that we give everyone else the advantage of much cheaper labour, we also have to give them extra free kicks with this ridiculous shit.
Fatman – we talked about the HR restrictions and complexities before. There is a lot more than just labour costs at work – Oz has red tape on steroids everywhere. I looked at the mfg award pay scales the other day – there were LITERALLY 47 pages of pay scales. Not the Award, mind you – just the pay scales. And there are many awards, and many pay scales. It is all bullshit.
Gday mate.
You are so right that we have so much bullshit that needs cleaning up its not funny. We have WH&S which only became uniform nationwide recently and 8 state and territory Awards and to add further insult we have federal Awards, EBA’s etc etc . Maybe a plain English individual contract with severe consequences for breaches (the crux of my end of the previous discussion) on both parties could go a small way to help fix this mess, yet you, the rest of the world that can smell bullshit and I know, that it would never happen as there are to many useless eaters in the middle.
Yet the shit that the article is written about is so culturally ingrained now, that any competing entity be it nation, state, corporation or SME that doesn’t have this bullshit is so advantaged.
I roughly calculate the cost of finance, manpower and general inconvenience in your manufacturing SME, of having the extra burden of either having to have a HR idiot as a permanent employee or having to contract one and shake my head, while your East Asian competitor would probably give the complainer a snap kick to the head and tell him to fuck off with no severance pay.
Good God, when I started work in the early 80’s any of this shit was taken around the back of the shed and sorted very quickly. Ahhh the good old days.
exactly grow up America
Amen grow up America. China will beat us in everything if we continue. bullshit like this.
If I were on a jury and a boomer were accused of shooting dead someone who said “hey boomer”, I would vote to acquit.
Back in the day, we had a saying:
Sticks and Stones may break my bones,
but words will never hurt me.
Today, everyone is wearing their feelings on their sleeves.
One hears the phrase by the lame stream media all the time “Words matter!” All I think of is “Actions speak louder than words” and they should all grow a pair and get off the steroids that are making their skin so fucking thin!
Enjoyed reading all the comments and the back and forth. But as I’m out of here within the next few years I give zero f—s what anyone thinks about what I should have done or who I should have been. Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’ as the saying goes. Move on with life. It’s been like the blink of an eye. Move on.
Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’ – Indentured Servant
That’s a nice slogan but it’s dumb. If you can read it, it means you are living. There is actually a book titled We The Living that makes the same assumption. As for ‘get busy dyin’ – most of us are busy trying to stave off dyin’.
Faith and Works
…15Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16If one of you tells him, “Go in peace; stay warm and well fed,” but does not provide for his physical needs, what good is that ? 17So too, faith by itself, if it is not complemented by action, is dead.…
When I was a kid… ten-twelve… a baby boomer was someone born between 1945-1950. Now a boomer may be a person born twenty years after the war ended. Absurd, new age nonsense. I was not a boomer as a kid, born fifteen years after the war, but now am. Thank you for the label snowflakes, but if it can’t take the stress of time and maintain consistency the label is shit. By the way, OK Boomer is fine with me, though it indicates your very much expected ignorance, so, there’s that…
Bruce Jenner was not a female as a kid but now he is.
I know, I was born in ’58. I missed the 60’s in CA. but I also missed going to Nam. 70’s were great for free love, no aids or herpes yet. Not sure how I ended up a boomer. I have never made government policy, rarely vote, and when I do vote, after I got burned in 1981 have never voted for a tax increase or more free stuff. I have been called far worse that ‘get over it boomer’ sometimes I scrapped over the insult, sometimes not. Go ahead and blame us for all your woes. Eventually you will get to my age and realize we are nearly powerless on the big stage, we are however gods in our own corner of the world.
For as much shit as the millenials have received, I was hoping they could do better. Ironically, they don’t even insult well.
They will be changing your diapers at the old folks home.
this too will become outdated, just like saggy pants, spitting in public, and Valley Girl hair. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you-
“they stepped so fine and they made their bugles ring-we stood beside our cotton bales and didn’t say a thing”
How can the US compete in international trade when companies are bogged down in legal minutiae such as this? The time and resources spent on such nonsense is a huge drain on productivity. Bureaucracies are in control of both the public and private sectors of the economy.
“How can the US compete in international trade when companies are bogged down in legal minutiae such as this?”
Replace Humans with robots. That’s the plan. When paid paternity leave, extended paid maternity leave and FMLA (Family and Medical leave), which includes leave to attend to a pet or anything else, became an entitlement, my crew was ecstatic. Little did they realize, if the operation can go on without you, it CAN GO ON WITHOUT YOU. Slowly, but surely, robotics began making its way into the operation.
I don’t understand why Generation X (the only nickname with the word generation actually a part of it) is afforded only 14 years in this article. A generation is 18 years. So Gen X-ers would have been born from 1965 through 1983.
Do you know what a double standard is? How about what goes around, comes around? If you don’t talk shit you don’t get hit. It’s really that simple.
OK boomer what you going to do about you old fart that smells and reeks of piss and shit all day. You people are so stupid thinking your going to get respect it is not going to happen diaper face. All you people do is poop you pants bitch how unfair your life is compared to ours and watch news and becoming a drooling moron. You are just a bunch of adult babies in diapers that kick and scream until you get what you want. why don’t you shut up suck your pacifier and be quiet your all going to die soon anyway why care about a generation slobbering drooling idiots that got everything they wanted and ruined the American dream for the rest of us. Screw you boomers hope you rot in your feces for the rest of your pointless lives.