This writing is a reaction to this article from someone's web site:
40 Uncool Things that Boomers Won't Give Up
Disclaimer: I know this author is trying (accent on try) to be funny -- and I'm as capable as any boomer of taking a little ribbing -- which is to say, if I were in the same room with this person, I'd step on their cell phone. And since they did not have a "comments" section, I'm forced to pierce their thin little skin with my rapier wit on my own blog site.
Before I proceed with my skewering -- at least my feeble attempt, given my advanced age -- I do want to make a generalization about articles like this, in all seriousness. To me, an attempt at satire that demonstrates,
"...obstinate or unreasonable attachment to a belief, opinion, or faction; in particular, prejudice against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group"
is, by dictionary this definition, "bigotry".
If you were to substitute, say, "Jews" or "Koreans" for "boomers" in the article, you'd see that this is not satire, good natured ribbing, or any other benign form of humor. As humans, we all do some incredibly silly things in the name of fashion: we wear stupid clothes because it's in-style; we listen to (or write, in my case) horrible music because it's "got that beat"; we proudly, and self-centeredly, announce that WE have answers that our preceding generations were ignorant of.
To be fair (a principle that we Boomers ardently adhere to), the article in question (or whatever it is - article, rant, blog, phishing site, click bait) is attached to a web site called "Auto Overload" which deals with Le Mans, Ferrari, Maserati, racing, and other rich-person, energy wasting pursuits -- I don't think there's even a way to reach this except by the link that I posted. There's no writer attribution or or apparent editorial involvement.... so, I don't know who to address this to. (And, as a Boomer, who really doesn't give a crap what anyone else thinks of my likes and dislikes, I'll damn well end sentences with prepositions if I feel like it.)
I'm going to admit, at this point, that I really have no intention to respond to each of the forty topics on that list. Rather, I've already stated my premise -- don't mistake writing that makes fun or demeans a specific group which, by the way, exists only in the mind of the would be judge, as humor or satire. It's just hate speech hiding behind a smile.
PS... this was written one day before my 73rd birthday. In my day, we didn't have no fancy blog sites -- and we LIKED it that way!!!!!
Comments
Post a Comment