Boomers in the 80s and 90s were fucking depressed. They described their lives as a boring, soul-crushing existence where they did the same hollow shit day in and day out. They hated their bosses, they hated their jobs, their kids, their wife/husband. People had "Mid-life crises" where they tried to fill the void with "a fast car and a young hot fling." things capitalism told them would make them happy. It didn't.
Seriously listen to any media made by boomers when they were in their 30s-50s. It's all jokes about how fucking mundane life is.
Even at its peak, life under capitalism was hollow and soul crushing.
They were basically taught "as long as you keep your head down and play the game, we won't hurt you financially"
Sure, (if you were white and male) you had money, but it took everything else away. Community, friendship, family. Trapped them in a gilded cage. Having to watch their children having even that promise of financial stability ripped from them. And don't get me started on how terrible it was if you weren't a white dude.
I have to wonder if the "selfish, childish boomer" stereotype is something of a coping mechanism. Maybe some boomers are like that because thats their jokerfication.
I am old enough to remember boomers making an entire media era about wailing for their receding hairlines and gradual awareness of mortal limits. That era fucking sucked and it was full of sex pest shit like creeping on teenagers as a normalized practice. City Slickers the film is like a period piece summarizing that mentality.
There’s a sex pest movie line that was seared into my brain and occasionally pops back in to make me cringe. I don’t even know what movie it’s from, but it was a popular one.
the line
(dude is spying on girls at a school) “That’s what I like about high school girls. I keep getting older but they stay the same age.”dazed and confused and it's matthew mcconnauheyhey
That makes sense. Be a lot cooler if it didn’t.
mcconnahueydeweylouis
A line like that is also in City Slickers. (CW: sex pest, creepy sex pest joke normalizing kiddie creeping)
spoiler
The CHUD credo: "Everything is sexual deviancy except for actual sexual deviancy, which is fine."
Reminds me of one of my chuddiest relatives who constantly and exhaustingly jokes about SV and is a massive Gambo fan but also ranted nonstop for like an hour one time about how enraged he was that one Gambo episode had a gay blowjob in it and how that could corrupt his small children that he was otherwise fine with being in the same room while Gambo was on.
everything is sexual deviancy unless a white guy does it
I'm in my mid-twenties and I already see high school girls as kids
Yeah, it took me a while to adjust to that because I’d see a senior in high school and think they were like 13. I know it’s not literally true, but they seem to age backwards the older you get.
Same, I remember being 22 and talked to someone who claimed to be in seventh grade and I thought "but you are like little baby, shouldn't you be in fifth at the oldest?"
And then it hit me, I'm now the old guy.
I'm in my early twenties and I know people who are 19 and look like children. I can't even imagine making them pay for their own meal, let alone thinking about sex with them.
American Beauty is the pinnacle of this