Bill Wolfrum had post up on Shakesville this morning damning the Baby Boomers. It's been taken down, but the post is still over on his blog. I'm not going to link to either.
I weighed in on the thread a few times, but it wasn't until I went out to get lunch today that I realized that part of the problem with his post is that boomer isn't a neutral term. It's a pejorative and it's broad. There's no way to use it as a club, then say, "Oh, don't make it about you! If the shoe doesn't fit . . . " because boomer is about aperiod of time, a mythos (largely driven by commerce) around the age, and a demographic bulge. If you're born in the window, you're a boomer. It doesn't matter what your life has been like, what sort of work you have or haven't done, what sort of politics you hold, if you hold any, whether you marched for peace or beat up hippies, you're a boomer.
And just because Baby Boomer is a big, messy sack, making claims about the whole group is just wrong. And making an aggressive attack is on thei miscellaneous crowd going to piss people off.
And I am pissed off. I am pissed off at the commercials that play Classic Rock to sell luxury cars. I am pissed off that a junkie's song advertises a cruise line. I am pissed off at the concept of Classic Rock, FFS. I am pissed off that a demographic oddity, combined with advances in media, technology, and commerce has combined to form this monster called the Baby Boom.
I am annoyed at these generalizations that erase the real lives of real people.
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