The youth have been mocked by elders for years about being whiny children who have become lazy and reliant on technology.

To that, we simply say, “OK, boomer.”

The phrase, originally coined on the social media app TikTok, has become the quick response of millions of those in Generation Z who are fed up with the constant negative comments made by older generations.

Since then, millions of TikToks and plenty of memes have been made using the term to mock older people and the attitude they tend to hold toward the youth. 

As of late, however, some older people have taken offense to the phrase.

In a tweet that has since been deleted, radio host Bob Lonsberry, 60, said, “‘Boomer’ is the n-word of ageism.” 

In the words of the great John Mulaney, “If you’re comparing the badness of two words, and you won’t even say one of them, that’s the worse word.” 

That’s not the only time the phrase has been ridiculed by the older generation.

Steve Cuozzo, columnist for the New York Post, published a column titled “Millennials’ extreme hatred for Baby Boomers is totally unjustified.”

In the column, Cuozzo complains about Greta Thunberg, laziness and the use of avocado and kale. 

Hypocritically enough, those angered by the use of the word ‘boomer,’ like Cuozzo, are the same people who used ‘millennial’ to demean the younger generation complaining about debt, livable wages and climate change. 

They’re the same individuals who said millennials and Gen-Z are oversensitive “snowflakes” that need to toughen up. Now, they’re incensed about two little words. 

Unbeknownst to those taking offense to the phrase, Gen-Z and our millennial allies don’t hate old people. The phrase simply calls out close-minded opinions in a way that suits Gen-Z humor.

Jonathan Williams, the 20-year-old college student who wrote and produced the song, “ok boomer,” told the New York Times that anyone can be a boomer.

“You don’t like change, you don’t understand new things especially related to technology, you don’t understand equality,” he said. “Being a boomer is just having that attitude, it can apply to whoever is bitter toward change.”

On Halloween, Piers Morgan, 54, tweeted a picture of a basketball with ‘I identify as a PUMPKIN’ written on it amongst pumpkins. The tweet simply stated, “Happy Halloween.”

Scrolling down reveals that most of the 8.9K comments are “OK, boomer,” along with plenty of boomer memes. 

25-year-old New Zealand lawmaker Chlöe Swarbrick was heckled by an older member of the parliament while giving a speech supporting a climate crisis bill. 

She cooly responded, “OK, boomer,” and continued on, unfazed by the interjection. 

In a text message conversation with New Zealand’s Stuff, Swarbrick said the phrase is a “simple summarisation of collective exhaustion.” 

The definition posted by Dictionary.com sums the phrase up perfectly.

“It’s as if OK boomer says, ‘OK, you baby boomer. Go ahead and just keeping thinking your backwards, irrelevant thoughts that we’re just spoiled, tech-obsessed children when you’ve wrecked our job prospects and planet,’” the article states. 

To put it simply, stop bagging on Generation Z and millennials. We are simply working with the world that’s been given to us. 

We’re just doing our best to get by, the same way generations before us have done. Just because we haven’t been around as long, doesn’t mean our opinions are uneducated and don’t matter.

Stop calling us entitled snowflakes and we’ll stop thinking you’re an out-of-touch antique living in a different decade. 

If not, ok boomer.