Loading ...CNN Loves ‘Boomers Who Love Facebook
By Evan ~ April 13th, 2009. Filed under: baby boomers.
This is why I love CNN. With all this is occurring politically, economically and sociologically in both the United States and abroad, when the world’s population has never had easier, faster access to information from all corners of the globe, the Cable News Network chooses to devote its A1 story to this: older generations are joining social networks.
Come the fuck on. I want to read why the stock market is up or down. I haven’t heard anything about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in a while. Hell, I’d even like to learn a bit more about the Phil Spector trial. Instead, my eyeballs have to endure what amounts to rape. A stupid story with absolutely no purpose. What’s worse, the story is about fucking baby boomers continuing their struggle to remain relevant while trying pathetically to appear hip in today’s tech-savvy society.
“We call [Facebook] our living room,” the 56-year-old mother said by phone from her home in Houston, Texas. “Everybody can tell what everybody else is doing.” Please, stop talking. You should be more worried about your Ancestry.com profile than your Facebook profile, because a solid, accurate family tree could actually benefit your children when you die…which will hopefully be soon. A stupid Facebook profile with Status Updates about what pie you made for dessert does not a legacy make.
Even as rapidly changing online culture begs to leave older generations behind, their stubbornness and selfishness demand that they struggle to keep up. It isn’t enough that they’re leaving a wasteland in place of the fertile garden they inherited, they have to try and co-opt everything new that comes along for younger generations to enjoy, thus driving away their children and grandchildren in an attempt to just get away from them. And of course they’re “taking to the medium at a faster rate than any other age group, according to industry reports.” So great is their yearning to be accepted, and so self-absorbed are the Baby Boomers, they’ll blindly dive into anything new that young people enjoy to take it over and assert their importance. Or, at the very least, imply their gross sense of self-importance.
Stanford University professor BJ Fogg (BJ is short for “Blow Job”, by the way) states, “We’ve reached critical mass where there’s been enough talk about Facebook and people have gotten so many invitations from their friends, they’re going, ‘OK, what is this Facebook thing? I’ve got to get onboard or I’m going to be left in the dust.’ ” This statement more than any other in the article speaks directly to my point: the greatest fear of any ‘Boomer is being “left in the dust.” And until we’re finally able to leave them in the dust, or when their thirst for power and popularity subsides as they finally just grow the fuck up, we will continue to endure their bullshit. They never will grow up, by the way. They’ll keep paying for lap band surgery and Cialis so they can remain adolescent until the day they die. Try as they might, ‘Boomers cannot outrun their fate. That’s the silver lining to this cloud of locusts devours everything in its path. They’ll die soon, and that’ll be that. Then we can start to rebuild this wasteland. And we won’t have to worry about old farts following us on Twitter or adding us as friends on Facebook. We’ll be able to progress as a society, and laugh at all the new and wonderful technological innovations Baby Boomers will never get to experience.
I’m looking forward to it.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:59 am
dude, I just want to thank you once again for skewering baby boomers. This doesn’t happen enough.
April 14th, 2009 at 2:33 am
I love you, Swan Fungus. This is my favourite new blog.
I had a shitty morning, then I found this and your misanthropy attacked mine and swallowed it whole. Thanks, man.
I also quite liked the Grouper and Jackson C. Frank records. Thanks!
April 15th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Young man, you remind me of me when I was your age, and I have been your age many times….
April 20th, 2009 at 4:47 am
I suppose that anyone older than your generation has no other useful function than to “benefit” their children in every way. And you think Baby Boomers are self-centered? Wow.
August 2nd, 2009 at 10:18 am
OK, you want facebook back? Fine, take it. Now give us back Jimi Hendrix, Richard Pryor, Led Zeppelin, surfing, organic foods, political activism, Gonzo journalism, Kurt Vonnegut & the rest of the last of literature, Blue Jeans, and that includes the hip huggers Miss Smarty Pants, Jim Morrison, environmentalism, and all the other late 60s/early 70s cultural artifacts of ours you punks have been playing with, and I emphasize playing with, for the last decade or so.
It’s time for you all to get out and find jobs anyway. By the way, in case you hadn’t noticed? They’re building a fascist state around you and it’s practically complete. If I was you I’d get up and demonstrate or something before it’s too late. Oh, I know, “demonstrate”, how quaint, how passe.
Well, Ms. Smarty Pants you’d better do something. Now in my younger days I’d have done it for you, would even have spent the night in jail after getting tear gassed and smacked around a little by the cops. But now, now the arthritis is acting up again. I’m not sure I could stand up again without help if I sat down in the street to block traffic.
Oh, and about all the stuff? I was just kidding. Go ahead, take it with you. You’re going to need all the help you can get.
August 2nd, 2009 at 10:32 am
first of all, who are you referring to with your “miss smarty pants” comment?
second of all, you can keep vonnegut, jim morrison, environmentalism, surfing, organic food, richard pryor, political activism and all those other 60s/70s artifacts of which you speak. they suck.
blue jeans? i’m pretty sure that was the 1950s, but hey — this certainly isn’t the first time a ‘boomer has attempted to take credit for something of which he has absolutely no claim to.
the so-called “fascist state” that is being built around us by the “they” you mention? THEY are baby boomers, you dumbfuck.
stop the navel gazing, for the love of god. all you want to do is take credit for pop culture bullshit that is completely insignificant. how about you own up to the fucking wars and atrocities that have been committed on YOUR watch, boomer john. THOSE will be your legacy long after you’re dead. not hendrix and surfing.
die.
October 25th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
“We’ve reached critical mass…”
In other words—when a clatch of Boomers meets at Starbucks to discuss the newest trend –like they’re still teenagers–they’ll convince themselves that clicking their keyboards on Facebook is something brilliant. Oh look—we’ve “re-invented” the Internet! These same geniuses will head back to their jobs on Monday to think they know jack about technology and then lecture anybody with an ear. If you can watch–and not get angry–it’s quite tragicomedic.
Btw, don’t credit Boomers for people born before their time, like Hendrix. They deserve full credit for craptastic disco—100% Boomer. Surfing? The Hawaiians invented that in the 19th century…cripes! Activism? Where is the society, the environment, the economy now? Oh yeah…that’s the fault of those born later.
I’ve endured “Boomer brilliance” for the last decade, ever since graduation. I was a dumbfuck to think pandering to their usual self-referential BS would make any difference for my career. Work for the typical Boomer and you know they expect constant praise—even if undeserved. They offer to include you, but keep all the important decisions for themselves. Question anything they do, and they’ll turn on you and threaten to ruin your life. It’s time to tell these people to shut the fuck up already. Go away and play with all the stuff you bought, and let people with ideas try to help the world already.
March 10th, 2010 at 9:23 pm
I dunno. I wholeheartedly agree that the Boomers are the most criminally overrated generation in history. But yet there’s still so many of ‘em. Damn. Plus they are definitely guilty of overestimating themselves and their “accomplishments”. And yes, the icons they genuflected to came from that generation that missed out not only on the Boom, but also “The Greatest Generation Ever”. I don’t think they’re that bad, but they ain’t all that great either.
BTW, the fascist state everybody bitches about has been under construction LONG before the Boomers, however they helped bring it into fruition, I think.