Today, you’re going to face a truly insidious, horrifying, and all-too-real evil that stalks our modern life. You’re going to face off against a wicked force that’s not only all around you, but runs your banks, your job and your very government. This evil is the single most insidious threat the world has ever faced- yes, today you’re going to be facing off against a Baby Boomer.
The date is 1945 and both Germany and Japan have surrendered to the Allies. The bloodiest war in human history is finally at an end, and in the wake of all that violence, the continent of Europe has been left in ashes. This war has broken the old system, the fighting was so horrific, and so complete, that the mighty European empires which ruled the world for centuries are no more.
Back home in the United States, millions of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines are discharged from service. Well-earned parades are thrown and celebrations ring out across the nation. America, the international underdog, had entered the war reeling from the most devastating surprise attack in its history.
Yet with famous American gumption, the armed forces of the United States quickly mustered and set themselves to help liberate Europe and Asia from the grip of the Axis powers.
The celebrations spill over into bedrooms across the country, and nine months later a wave of victory babies are born to young, budding families across the nation. This trend of euphoric, celebratory baby making would continue on lasting all the way until 1960.
This generation would come to be known as the Baby Boomers, and they would prove to be a scourge on America fouler than Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan ever dreamed it could be.
To fight your enemy you must know your enemy.
What exactly is a boomer?
One cannot understand the Boomer until they understand the world they grew up in. Today’s generations are spoiled with technology, and have a world of convenience at their fingertips- yet no generation in human history has been more overprivileged than the Boomers.
Boomers grew up in the post WWII era, when America stood alone as the only industrialized nation that hadn’t been ravaged by war. Following the war, American factories produced the raw materials and consumer goods that rebuilt Europe, as those nations struggled to get both their industrial base and transportation infrastructure up and running again. American goods were sold across the world, and for years faced no significant competition anywhere in the globe.
This created an economic boom for America that is unparalleled to this day. World War II had devastated the industrialized powers, but quickly after its end, American capitalists birthed the age of globalism.
The huge demand for American goods led to an explosion of well-paying jobs across the country, and this in turn created something that today’s generations talk about only in whispers, the fabled Middle Class.
The privileges of a boomer in early years
Yes, that’s right, once upon a time in the distant pages of ancient history- about 40 to 50 years ago- there existed sea monsters at the edge of the world map, unicorns that lurked in deep woods and granted magical wishes with their enchanted horns, and the most legendary of all beings – the American Middle Class.
This social class stood firmly between the slovenly, unwashed lower working-poor classes, and the esteemed aristocracy. Their incomes allowed them to secure future financial security by purchasing property- an asset that was more certain than gold and the single best financial investment in the world.
We know, you’re probably ready to be furious at us for writing this post, but we promise you that we did our research and yes in fact, there existed once upon a time an American economy where the lay person could afford to buy a home on an average income, and not be a lifelong serf- we mean renter of apartments, though when you think about it can you honestly tell us the difference between a serf and the modern renter? You both own nothing!
You work to pay your lord for the privilege to live on his property! You have no hope of ever changing your financial situation because rent prices keep going up!
Sorry, we went on a bit of a tangent there. Anyway, Boomers were born into this wonderful economy, which not only provided them with great paying jobs, but affordable education that ensured upwards mobility for the average person.
What makes boomers so dangerous?
A boomer could actually work a single part-time job and pay for their college tuition. And to be clear, we’re not saying this was the case for literally everyone in America during this time. The Boomers we’re talking about are the primarily white, Christian, and heteronormative ones who made up the vast majority of the generation we’re talking about, but we wanted to make it clear that we’re aware this wasn’t the reality for many minority groups.
So again, before you flip out, please bear with us, but now back to what life was like for the majority of boomers.
In 1950 the average household income was $3,300, the average home price was $7,354, the average car cost $1,510, and tuition to the University of Pennsylvania was only $600. That means that in 1950 a home cost 222% of a family’s income, a car cost 45%, and tuition cost 18%. Let’s compare that with today’s numbers.
Today the average wage in America is $48,252. The average home costs $227,000, a car costs about $30,000, and tuition to the same University of Pennsylvania costs $57,770. This means that while a home cost 222% of a family’s income in 1950, today a home costs 470%. A car cost 45% of a family’s income and today costs 62%, and tuition has skyrocketed from 18% of income to 119%.
As you consider that last figure on tuition, please try and remember that this does not include the price of books, food, housing, and all other kinds of fees- all fees you’re now expected to pay in order to have a chance at a better life.
Perhaps now you are starting to see why Boomers are such an insidious threat. Not only are they the most overprivileged of generations, but tragically one of the defining characteristics of a Boomer is a genetic defect that makes it impossible for them to realize this.
Much like lions have trouble seeing striped animals on the plains of the Serengeti, a Boomer in its natural habitat is not only entitled due to all the socio-economic advantages they enjoyed thanks to the economy their parents created, but are unable to see how the world has changed and our current reality is not the same they grew up in.
To a Boomer, they were able to afford their low-cost tuition with one job and no loans, so the only reason you can’t afford your tuition is because you’re lazy and eat Tide PODS while scrolling on Instagram all day.
It has nothing to do with how the economy has changed and wages have stagnated for four decades while the cost of everything has increased exponentially- it’s definitely your self-entitlement and all that Twitter you do.
And to be clear, we’re not saying this was the case for literally everyone in America during this time. The Boomers we’re talking about are the primarily white, Christian, and heteronormative ones who make up the vast majority of the generation we’re talking about, but we wanted to make it clear that we’re aware this wasn’t the reality for many minority groups.
Curiously though, Boomers like most wild animals show a keen sense of self-preservation when threatened. Recognizing that the current economy has for a decade and a half been unfavorable for home buyers, most Boomers today are refusing to move and purchase new houses, instead opting to stay living in the same houses they originally purchased with affordable loans backed up with secure, high-paying jobs throughout the 1970s and 80s.
This has served to drive housing prices even further up, and thus even more out of reach of the newer generations.
Boomers are destroying the environment
Boomers aren’t just content to destroy your chances at owning property and establishing financial security though, they’re actively seeking to destroy the very environment that you live in. The same refusal to acknowledge that the modern American economy is not the same economy they grew up in also extends to environmental issues.
Back in the Boomer’s day the Earth was still experiencing environmental stability, and the consequences of climate change were decades away. While a wild animal can sense a change in its environment which could threaten its survival, and thus flee to a new, more hospital environment, the Boomer is completely unable to recognize that not only is its environment changing, but that its own life is now in danger as well, due to that same environmental change.
Worse of all, while the Boomer retains all the leadership positions in government and industry which could today stop or curb climate change, the Boomer is apathetic to the threat as it will die long before the most horrible effects of climate change start to rear their head, saddling today’s generations with even more catastrophic ruin brought about by their apathy. The Boomer doesn’t need to believe in climate change, because it’ll be dead before it has to deal with the consequences.
Boomerus Spoiledbrattus- the scientific name for the Boomer species, is an insidious parasitical life form that leeches the vitality of not just current American generations, but the very environment those generations live in.
The Boomer has a sense of self-entitlement that is completely undeserved, and blinds the Boomer to the fact that the robust American economy they enjoyed and granted them so many privileges, was not in fact of their own making, but built by their fathers and mothers.
Naturally this does not stop the Boomer from taking the credit anyway. Left to its own devices, the Boomer parasite will bleed a national economy dry, concentrate wealth within the top 1%, and destroy the same Middle Class that enabled their current comfortable retirements and financial security, and pretty much just crap all over the environment.
These parasitic life forms will then burden the new generations with the consequences of all their terrible decisions, completely oblivious to the fact that while their own parents left them a robust, healthy economy that afforded opportunity to all, they have left us with a broken market that favors only the wealthy, fails to provide an adequate living wage, and has made tuition costs so prohibitively expensive that even if you pursue higher education to better yourself, you’ll still end up saddled with so much debt that you’ll most likely never be able to rise above your economic class.
Instead of taking responsibility for their past decisions, or acknowledging the new economic reality they themselves created, Boomers will instead look down their noses at younger generations protesting climate change and economic inequality and call them socialists, or spoiled brats who want everything given to them for free.
So, how are you going to defeat the Boomer?
Well, much like anti-vaxxers and people who insist on taking homeopathic treatments, the Boomer has a natural resistance to facts. The natural environment of a Boomer is a fact-free echo chamber of its own creation, where it can feed off other Boomers on popular media such as radio or television who complain all day about kids today being entitled and that if you really wanted a house all you have to do is work hard and squeeze those few extra pennies from your paycheck just like they did back in their day.
You can attempt to show a Boomer, how when you account for inflation American wages have not increased since the 1970s, while medical, housing, and education prices have skyrocketed- but much like a cornered rhinoceros who feels its safety is threatened, the Boomer will not only ignore these facts, but will likely turn aggressively hostile.
Sadly, there is only one way to defeat the Boomer, and it’s not to handwave away whatever forwarded-email-borne argument they’re presenting with the pithy reply of “OK Boomer.”
No, the best way to defeat the Boomers is to simply outlive them. While modern medicine has made the Boomer parasite resistant to the effects of aging, leading scientists believe that the Boomer plague will see a substantial population decrease over the coming decades.
By 2030 most Boomers will be expired, freeing up the leadership positions in government and industry that they have held onto for decades. Only when Boomers are no longer alive and in charge so they can ruin things, can you truly defeat them and start to undo all of the catastrophic damage they have caused to our society and our environment. Let’s just hope it isn’t too late by then.
