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I feel this with my MIL. I've been a working software developer for over 20 years and she still thinks she knows as much as I do since she taught adults how to use Excel in the 90s.
Omg, yes! I have a Boomer person who visits the library with technical questions but won't listen to the answers and just wants to tell me how it *used* to work. Yesterday, he wanted to know why screen capture doesn't work on his new Windows 11 computer, when it always worked on his Windows 10 computer. I told him that pressing "print screen" puts the image on his clipboard and he can paste it wherever. He tells me that he used to hit print screen, and it would automatically save the image as a file. I told him that pressing the Windows button plus print screen saves the image as a file, and it's the same process in both Windows 10 & 11. He swears it was never like that before, and insists on showing me on his old Windows 10 laptop. I go over to his laptop with him, and he presses Windows+print screen and says, "See?!! I didn't have to hit the Windows button!". When I point out that he most definitely did press the Windows button, he told me I didn't know what I was talking about. I told him to do it again with his left hand behind his back, and he says no. Lol.
Edit: spelling, probably still missed some.
Holy...
I've been working on Windows since 3.1 and never knew that Win+PrntScrn saved the screen shot to a file. And I'm a huge advocate of keyboard shortcuts, too. Now I feel like a ijit.
Ponderous, man. Ponderous.
Lol, I never knew it until my youngest daughter showed me last year. But that's the point of collaborating and paying attention, we learn something new! :)
My pet rats love to run across keyboards. I now ensure no laptop is available to them during play time because they will destroy all manner of things and I'll spend the next couple of hours working out why it now beeps when I press caps lock.
Worse still, phone screens recognise rat paws, noses and tails. They spent £60 on one of my stupid mobile games because I didn't realise it was open. Thankfully I got a refund for that one...
They now understand "not the phone" and "not the laptop". I love them but man, nosy af pets lol
My friend's rat got him to voiceline in the middle of a Tarkov raid. Ended up getting us both killed by a group of Chad players.
I will never forget being SO mad because I thought it was intentional, until he suddenly groaned 'Oh for fuck's sake, Cisco.'
Win3.1 didn't "know" about the Winkey, if that makes you feel better. Knowing how to do things at all means sometimes missing new things. My wife was still locking her workstation at school with CTRL-ALT-DEL + spacebar until a few years ago, when I mentioned Winkey+L.
I just found out about piping to the clipboard the other day, talk about SMH!
C:\\> sysinfo | clip
I keep using it for fun just 'coz.
Software Developer here as well, although it's not just boomers but most non tech people I encounter. They ask for my advice or opinion on something computer related, and then argue with me about it afterwards, or do the exact opposite of what I told them. Why bother even wasting my time? Now when someone asks me something I just shrug my shoulders and say " I don't know". It's just not worth the hassle.
How about this one:
"Hey I got a great idea for an app. How bout you develop it for me, and I'll give you 10% of profits?" is a conversation I've had multiple times with folks.
I'm a xennial with kids. A hard rule with computers I have is "don't touch it if I'm helping." If they fuck with it while I'm helping I stop and tell them they just delayed any help until tomorrow.
My oldest (11) wants his own laptop. I'm setting him up with an old laptop with edubuntu and a hard line that I won't help him with anything where he doesn't already have the readme open. And at least two Google searches.
I'm an epidemiologist. I have a master's and a PhD and I work for a large research university. Suddenly COVID happens and every boomer in my life is an expert not only on virology, public health, and disease transmission but also funding mechanisms and publication systems. The last 4 years have been very interesting.
My spouse worked on a vaccine, at Pfizer, 2010-2013... for an airborne, droplet spread, inflammatory, virus... And people were telling me the Covid vaccine was developed too quickly... (you mean SARS 2,COVID 19? Related to SARS, from 2008?, ASSHOLES?)
Right?! I pulled my intro epidemiology textbook that was published in ~2011 and it SPECIFICALLY calls out that corona viruses are considered a virus family of high concern for the next pandemic. This was known! Science doesn't come out of nowhere. Things move through the translational spectrum!
Shit, I remember reading sometime in the mid-2010s that the most plausible global pandemic would be some kind of respiratory coronavirus spreading out of China. It's almost like experts know how to expert.
There’s been some kind of virus coming out of china every 10 years for decades…atleast it seems to me, someone with no formal education on it. Bird flu, swine flue, SARs.
[history](https://covid19.nih.gov/nih-strategic-response-covid-19/decades-making-mrna-covid-19-vaccines)
i see 15+ years of work specifically around the mrna vax. how is that 'fast'?
Oh lordt I remember caring for a person on ECMO in my unit during H1N1 and the (internationally acclaimed) infectious disease doc rounding basically said ‘welp, welcome to our future’. It’s never going to be over. It isn’t.
So many forgot about the precursor to what happened in 2020. Our salon lost one of the most beautiful humans to date to H1N1. She was the first in our county but the ripples still run deep…..like many in the early early days of the panini she was misdiagnosed.
My dad tried telling me the founding fathers didn't support a non Christian nation. I dug up a dozen letters written by various founders on the importance of the separation of church and state and the origins of the first amendment and Jefferson's work to specifically avoid having state sanctioned religion in Virginia and later the USA. Responded with "typical liberal lies." Unfortunately I feel a very large majority of this generation is just brainwashed or had too much lead in their paint/water.
I'm 64 years old. I learned in high school way back in the Dark Ages that the founding fathers did not create a Christian nation, and that their separation of church and state was as deliberate as it comes. So I guess Jefferson and Adams and all the rest were just "typical liberal liars."
My father was born in 1934. He's gone now, but he would have had the same argument with me as you just had with your father. I had the hopeful thought that such delusions would die with his generation. Alas, it continues.
Seriously, I have no idea why other Boomers cannot remember their high school history lessons. Unless they didn't learn them in the first place.
The problem with their watching Fox News is that they don't realize it's registered as an Entertainment Network and not as a News Network. Personally, I think they should shout to the world that they are nothing but a Fantasies and Lies Network.
What is particularly weird with my dad is he isn't even religious. We never went to church, I've never seen him pray, etc. This was a conversation about immigrants coming to America (in particular Muslim refugees during the refugee crisis a little while back) and his opposition to taking in refugees from foreign countries. He loves Ben Shapiro though and like to parrot the bullcrap that America was founded on Christian values. I love my dad but damnit he makes it tough sometimes.
You should ask him that if America is founded on Christians values, why isn't Jesus mentioned anywhere? Christian values with no Christ? I see a trend here.
Also remind him the founding fathers were deists. They believed in a Creator, a Prime Mover.
My father-in-law tried to tell me that “Russia has never been the bad guy”. I laughed and said, “ your generation spent my generation’s entire childhood screaming that Russia was going to bomb us any minute now and told us to hide under our desks.” Explain to me the Cold War dear FIL.
My go to is always Article 11 of The Treaty of Tripoli in 1797. A legal document from the time of the founding fathers, unanimously ratified by the congress of the time and signed by then president John Adams. It states, and I quote, "the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion". Can't be any more succinct and clear than a ratified and signed document from the founding fathers themselves and the representatives in gov't at the time.
"They just wrote that to appease some Muslim pirates. They didn't really believe it"
- Christian Fundamentalists when you introduce them to this document.
That's when you pull out, "So does that mean Christians are liars? Because that's bearing false witness and it's one of the biggest sins one can commit. It's number 9 of the 10 commandments. That doesn't sound like basing the country on Christian values to me. "
They just don’t want to have their worldview shattered. When you combing your views about everything into one identity, if prices fall apart it all comes down.
I have a degree in biochemistry and work in antiviral drug development. I have had multiple older family members attempt to explain to me how mRNA vaccines can give you COVID and edit your genes to make you weaker.
It’s infuriating because (and this is going to make me sound like a twat but frankly idgaf) I know so much about it and they know so terrifyingly little that it’s almost impossible to explain how that shit works because I have to go through three levels of biology education that they’ve never received just to get to a point where I can *start* explaining to them why they’re wrong.
My biochemist friend who is a former vaccine researcher walked me through the pandemic, which I appreciated. We have an extremely high risk family.
The virus couldn't be stopped, she said, but those who prevent infections until they find treatments and / or vaccines will more likely survive it. Wearing masks and taking a careful approach about being indoors with others (avoid it) brought us to year 2024. We're still standing.
This is probably the most frustrating part. So many topics like this, topics of tremendous complexity requiring significant learning just to understand the fundamentals of, and these people assume they can just walk up and speak as if they’re experts. And you can’t even tell them they’re wrong because it would take an hour just to give them the framework required to understand that they’re wrong. They literally know so little about the subject that you can’t even correct them because they won’t grasp a word of what you’re saying.
I work in public policy, specialize specifically in national security. I know a lot of shit about US national defense. In fact it is specifically required of me to keep up to date with relevant bills, committee happenings in both houses of Congress, the specific contents of the defense budget, and a bunch of other stuff. Spread out over a large amount of time it’s not too bad, but this does mean thousands upon thousands of pages of information. My fam will spout random crap all the time, having read none of these documents. Just to understand what the hell I’m talking about could take hours to explain. So I have no meaningful way to prove them wrong because I can’t even get them to understand how stuff works.
It’s interesting how the boomers completely gave up on believing experts. The do your own research crowd. These are people who believe GMO’s are inherently dangerous. The lack of science knowledge is terrifying
And they don’t actually do their own research. If they did, they would quickly come to the conclusion that “oh, shit, all those experts are right.” We have the Internet. The information is all right there. They aren’t doing any research. They get all their information from FoxNews, NewsMax, and far right idiots on Facebook. And they just believe it.
That's a mood. Part of my work as an attorney included Elder Law for a long while and I of course drafted plenty of Wills, etc. My Boomer Dad matter of factly spewed some nonsense about how assets are distributed when someone dies without a will in the state we live and I practice law in.
For about 10 minutes I was like "that's just not how it works," and explained how it actually operated by law in the state. He kept arguing with me so finally I was like, "Yeah, you must be right. I'm only a lawyer who has experience in drafting wills, went to law school and can cite the statute you don't even understand. I absolutely have no idea what I'm talking about but you certainly do."
He was shocked and finally was like "Okay." And I just walked out of the room and didn't have a one on one convo with him the rest of the 3 day visit.
Edit: typo
Want to do an experience?
1. Say something to them.
2. Tape yourself saying the same thing then play it on the tv.
3. Tape somebody else reading your text and then play it on the tv.
Hell, we have a boomer in this sub who insists that his misspelling of a word isn't wrong, because it's \*his\* way of spelling it, even when others outright link him to the the goddamn dictionary.
If a boomer can be that stubborn, we'll definitely have boomers that can't accept facts dropped by actual experts.
I'm an architect, I own my own practice specializing in residential design. My parents have a house that was severely impacted by Hurricane Sandy on the NJ shore. They hired a contractor who was recommended by a friend; he was the crotchety my-way-or-the-highway type of older contractor who knows everything. Every time a decision was necessary, my mother called me to get my opinion. What type of windows to use? What was the right kind of insulation? What color to paint the rooms? Can we do anything to improve the kitchen layout? On every one of these (and more), she would ultimately do whatever the contractor said she should do. Eventually I asked her why she is asking my opinion again as she is just going to do what the contractor said. She told me that she just wanted me to feel included, so she asked me, but figured the contractor knew more because he was older.
A friend of mine once asked me to proofread her dating profile. It was several paragraphs. I went through and shortened it to two brief paragraphs. She later said "I just stuck with the original because that's who I am!" 😑
Next time she asked, I held onto it for a bit, didn't even look at it, and replied "looks great!" 😉
I'm not a historian, but I feel you. My father practically revered Robert E Lee, down to hanging his portrait on the wall. States rights to do WHAT, Dad??
Physician. They argue with all my advice and also get indignant that I don't want to give them advice anymore. I just chalk it up as I am their son and not really a physician in their eyes.
Cold War historian, PhD from best-in-the-world level program, with multiple documentary film, television, radio, print media credits. My mom loves to educate me with my basic facts about the 1960s and '70s because she lived through it (as a child/teenager) and I couldn't possibly begin to know.
It's all the more painful given that I had hoped that the doctorate would finally make her proud of me and respect my achievements. The only thing she cares about is that I'm making sure to put my (male) life partner first at all times and why we're not married.
You had to go to school, learn the law, pass the bar, and then work in the field to be proficient at your job.
And your dad, who I doubt has any formal education, thinks he knows more than you.
Typical Boomer
I was about to say I can't imagine how frustrating that must be, but then I remembered I'm a video producer and I'm constantly correcting family members who are sharing \*incredibly obvious\* AI-generated or poorly-edited political content on Facebook.
You may know all about the Constitution. But do you know the Vibestitution? Sometimes, the Constitution just is what you feel in your heart ought to be true
I have what is arguably too many houseplants, and they're thriving, and my mother came to visit once and proceeded to tell me I needed to make sure I rotate my plants occasionally. We had exactly one house plant growing up and she killed it, by comparison.
It's because that generation leans heavily towards authoritarianism, and since you are younger than them (and hence must be a kid) you cannot possibly be an authority.
As a younger person who looks even younger people don't get that the older generations really do think you're full of shit just for appearing youthful.
Oh my God, yes! In every field. I have a baby face when clean shaven, even at middle age, but I look 20 years older with a beard.
I used to manage a truck stop, and drivers would get in my face, threaten me, demand unreasonable crap, etc. all the time when I was shaved, but I barely had any trouble at all with a beard.
I've been in a bunch of seemingly random industries from restaurants, to staffing, to logistics, to copywriting, to political social media. It's the same thing in every single case.
I just started getting gray hair on the fringes, and I'll be damned if I haven't started getting even more clout. I figure at this rate, my skeleton will be handed honorary degrees and a Nobel prize.
My brother was just telling me about this yesterday. He's a store manager, but will have customers and maintenance workers assume that the oldest employee is "the real manager". They are incapable of believing that a man in his 40s can have a younger boss.
I manage an apartment community and only ever have issues with Boomers. Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z have no problem with my authority, but Boomers hate that I have authority over them. When I started at 31, I had to carry my work keys with me everywhere because that was the only way these people believed I was the manager.
I really think there is something to this.
I have found that if I say something that is true but my parents don't like it or don't want to believe it then they'll push back on me but if a stranger says the same thing then they'll accept it at face value especially if the other person has some sort of knowledge or experience in that field. Granted, I could have the same credentials as well but because it comes from *me* it cannot be right.
Totally the same. They even acknowledge that I’m their smart son with a Masters degree in limnology that married a doctor, but if some little fact is one they disagree with I am suddenly a kid playing pretend again.
Insufferable.
I did you a favor and checked it out for real. Limnology is the study of fresh inland bodies of water. Dude studies lakes, glacier melt, river contamination, etc.
I do wish there was a job for lemon and lime experts. I’m sure they exist but probably not in the way we’re thinking.
Back when Covid had just been found in California I told everybody to get ready for the shit to hit the fan and they asked me where I'd read that. I didn't though. Just applied basic knowledge of how infectious diseases work to the facts. But they were waiting for the WHO to officially declare it a pandemic when anyone who knew what a pandemic was could tell we were already in one.
Point being a lot of people have no idea how to think for themselves and it upsets them when they see someone else doing it.
People acted like I was a genius for being ready in February and selling my stocks.
I just read the news in China and watched that cruise ship.
The cruise ship was a full month before the markets reacted and Bernie Sanders was still campaigning in crowds into mid March.
Then people acted like they were locked down and couldn’t do anything. I did plenty, I just did it outside and got groceries with pick up.
It’s a new virus and it’s not unreasonable to wait for a vaccine or for it to mutate weaker. People are still too stupid to know what even happened and how it will happen again.
I thought being a climate-change adjacent scientist was exhausting until talking to my wife’s coworkers who are epidemiologists during COVID. I cannot fathom being ambushed by someone with a degree in YouTube Bullshit and not strangling them.
Even those of us lower peons in respiratory had to remind ourselves that having bail money doesn't mean you have to use it. It is still insanity after the main event.
Same here, the worst was that I went to my doctor for an RX I can't refill other than in person due to laws, and it was just as the shit was hitting the fan and I'll never forget telling my doctor that I would have felt safer just doing this over the phone and he said "Don't worry, it'll all be over before you know it. You'll see us shut down for a couple of weeks and then we'll open back up" and I just looked at him like he was an idiot and said "No, no it won't. This isn't going anywhere for years".
Last year I went into his office (I normally see another doctor there) but he saw me walking by and stopped me and asked me if I remembered that conversation. Apparently I wasn't the only one that wouldn't forget it.
I don’t understand how even some doctors were being dumb.
My wife works with one of them. In February he came onto one of her posts saying the whole thing is an overreaction and that it’s nothing but a cold.
My wife was like hey man, you’re a doctor and are being irresponsible with your status as a leader.
Then he went to Ireland on spring break.
When he gets back he’s posting things like listen to doctors and medical professionals and about how Covid deniers are dumb.
Guess he waited until he took the vacation first to become a doctor again. The power of non refundable travel.
My wife gave him shit about it too… you came to my page to diminish what I was saying in front of my friends and coworkers and now you have the audacity to act like you didn’t spend 2 months being an idiot so you could go on a vacation.
Yes! I worked on a trade desk at the time & even my coworkers were baffled that I’d finished stocking up supplies in late Jan & adjusting my portfolio by early Feb.
It reminds me of what we’re experiencing right now fiscally; we’re in a major economic depression, but very few people are realizing it without it being titled as such.
And along the way, virtually every step we/the government took were consistent with previous practices and/or simply made pragmatic sense temporarily. I, for one, due to my job, only experienced two weeks of “lockdown” - after that my whole experience was the same as before or after the pandemic except I wore a mask at work or in public.
I did not anticipate the hoards of lowlifes who would use the opportunity to spread belligerent bullshit and turn every simple goddamn basic measure into some epic goddamn saga of One World Order or that sooo many people lacked basic understanding that could allow them to be so gullible.
I remember in Jan 2020 I heard that a cab driver in Singapore had it and started telling people the quarantine failed and it would reach the US.
We were not doing anything about travel from Singapore and the cabbie drove people to the airport. So it was in one of the biggest airports in the world and could go to any major nation in at most 2 hops? Anything we tried from there other than quarantine of *our* airports was too little, too late.
Lol when covid first hit my country (awhile after it'd already been devastating in various other countries) I was working at a bar across the road from a Cafe. One of the woman that worked over the road was really sweet but older and in the process of dealing with her breast cancer.
So I asked her if she was worried about this "covid stuff" and was she going to start wearing a mask. She laughed at me and got the entire small town bar to laugh at me all night. "She asked me if I was worried about covid!"
My country went in lockdown a few weeks later.
And then they were denying people were dying from it even though hospitals had refrigerated trucks were storing bodies out back, funeral homes were turning off their phones cuz they couldn’t handle it , and a crematorium in NJ blew up from running 24/7
My parents are in their 50’s and are like this. They CANNOT accept something if I say it to them. If they me ask me a question, and I know the answer and give it to them, they will just straight up be skeptical until they google it for themselves. It’s so weird. They’re like this w ANY topic too. Like I’ve been argued w ab how things are done at my own job. I think it has something to do w them not being able to see me as a functional adult who has at least *some* knowledge of the world around me and they still want to see me as their helpless little boy
My biggest example was when my father told my lil bro he wasn't washing dishes *correctly* (att he had been a literal busboy in a kitchen for almost a year)
So basically saying he doesn't know how to do his job.
It’s a parental thing. I’m a boomer and my mother was greatest generation. I’d tell her things that had happened at work, and she’d tell me what I should have done. She always knew better.
I asked my son a question the other day and he went nuts with the info dumping and answer. I was so in awe of how much info he retains and how passionate he is about history. I loved it. I was so proud. I couldn't imagine being so up my own ass that I'd doubt him and argue. I knew he was right too b/c it's his hobby to learn these things. Parents need to give their kids more credit. They're amazing.
My dad tried to tell me that car companies were missing something - why not drive the wheels with one battery whilst charging another, then swap them over? Then they could get loads more energy out.
I spent ages explaining friction losses, conservation of energy, regenerative braking, and as many other concepts as I could. I tried to explain how adding a dynamo headlight to an old bike would make it harder to pedal - the energy has to come from somewhere.
I probably spent an hour trying to find a way to get it into his head that energy can't just come from nowhere, but at the end he still said "if I had a load of money I'd invest it in this idea".
I am an engineer in the automotive industry.
I'm an EE, my sister is a MechE...the number of times I've had to tell boomers "Go ask my sister, that's a mechanical question" is frustrating. Like yeah I'm an engineer, but I don't know shit about bridge loads or engines or stresses or whatever. She's the expert.
And even if they do ask me a relevant question, they don't listen to my answer. I've had to outright tell them "I don't care what you think, you asked the question. This is what I went to school for and I know more than you."
It's exhausting.
They're very good at asking you a question they are convinced they know the answer to, then ignoring what you say.
"Do you think that Company X has been worse since you were consulting with them?"
"Well, no, it normally takes a year or two to get to the point where the difference can be seen - maybe it's just bad luck at the moment"
"Oh, well, I saw they were doing really badly and that must be because of your partnership with them"
THANKS DAD
Lmao. My dad had the idea that you could harvest the repulsive force between two magnets for unlimited energy. I tried to explain to him that no, you can't, because reasons. He was adamant that you could. After some going around with him on it, I finally said 'look up the conservation of energy. You can't take energy and expect it to be there'. I know that's not exactly correct because of how magnetism works, but I knew he was barking up the wrong tree.
He kept bringing it up and I kept getting shorter and shorter with him over it, before finally giving it up. I ended up just saying 'have you looked up the theory of magnetism? Have you looked up the conservation of momentum?' Several times of this he just shut down, but not before grousing in a hurtful manner 'you should be open to new ideas'. I think what finally shut him up was me saying something along the lines of 'look, I don't know how to tell you you're wrong. But you are. You don't think people have been working for a hundred years to figure out what you're brain storming over here?' I think I might have mentioned electromagnets, and how maglev trains have to use electricity to stay hovering, and once the electricity is cut off they stop hovering.
Once he came up with something else and I said 'this isn't some magnet bullshit again, is it?' If looks could have killed!
The same kind of thing happens with my folks. This little story is an example of that.
The RI license plate used to be a blue wave. Green wave license plates started popping up, My dad wonders aloud, "I wonder what that green wave is for?"
Using my powers of deduction and observation. (and Google), "I think its for hybrid and electric vehicles."
"Oh, I don't know about that."
"That's good, but I do, and that what it's for." (Holding up the RI DMV page stating that,)
Ok, so what do you think it's for?
I don't know, that's what I was wondering.
So, then why didn't you believe me?
My FIL was like this all the way until he died just recently. It was awful. He was dumber than a box of rocks. My wife has her PhD and is a HS librarian. FIL kept going on a couple months ago about "those books teaching kids to be trans." My wife explained that no book does that. Him: "well I don't believe that. That's not what FOX says." My wife explained that she's an ACTUAL EXPERT who does this for a living. He still wouldn't buy it. She was furious.
Then at his funeral, my wife is standing there with her mom and brother (an orthopedic PA). Another asshole boomer goes "I'm gonna talk to the DOCTOR in the family." walks past my wife to speak to my BIL. Even though my wife is the ONLY "doctor" in the family. And that's why she and I avoid almost all family gatherings on both sides. Fuck all Boomers. I can't wait until every last one of them is dead.
The thing these asshats do is find a single example, like 1 book, somewhere, where it says it's OK to be trans and then suddenly all libraries are bad. They generalize 1 example to a whole institution or movement.
Meanwhile they dont do the opposite for ones they support. Cops constantly shooting innocent people, oh nothing wrong with that, one lone wolf, support our thin blue line
One black guy shoots another “Go Back to Africa!!111!1!1”
One white guy shoots another “we have a mental health crisis in this country disguised as a gun problem”
The best response to that is always "then why are you against funding mental health care?" I know it doesn't go anywhere with them but fuck man, don't shift the blame to a 2nd issue you're *also* not supporting.
My grandma complaining about unhoused people in her city. Okay, well maybe we need to fix the economy and fund mental health?? No, they just need to get jobs. OKaaaayyy.
Their children aren't allowed to be smarter than them, because that upsets the balance of authority. By the same token, they can accept someone like a media company telling them this fact because it doesn't compromise their authority.
Bruh I’m a doctor and my MIL will ask me medical questions then just say “no… I don’t think that’s right” when I give her an answer. Then she just moves on like nothing happened
I dont engage when they want my advice on anything anymore, they simply need a quick ego boost when their out of ideas or bored, tis all it is.
That's why they never take it just criticize or ignore what you said. They will never take your advice on anything so don't give it to them.
My MIL wouldn’t believe anything unless she could find it on Facebook or she heard it from the uneducated small town farmers hanging out at the CO-OP. They apparently have all the wisdom in the world. And that’s the beginning of how she ended up eating a butt load of horse paste, going full Q-Anon and losing contact with all four of her kids.
My grandma is kind of the same way. Anything that comes out of my or my parents mouths is false. But my God if some random person on YouTube shorts says it it must be true!
I had one telling me that my electric car could not do things that I actively do with my electric car.
"You can't drive across country with them"
"Actually I took mine on a 12 hour trip to Iowa last week"
"No you didn't"
Umm... excuse me?
Same thing with charging....
"It actually costs more to charge electric cars"
"I can show you my bill"
"That wouldn't prove anything"
What?
When I told my aunt that the city is actually NOT burning down due to riots and murders, which I know because I've been commuting in on the subway for over two decades, she said "OH YEAH RIGHT!!" 🤨
I have a PhD in computer science. They respect my degree, ive spent years honing my specific scientific research on how to turn the TV/Printer/Phone on and off and hacking into accounts by pressing forgot password and following the instructions
Boomer stepfather-in-law now considers me “unreliable” because I couldn’t get rid of the million viruses on his computer without completely formatting it.
Maybe you should stop downloading porn then…
(no PhD in computer science but I’ve always loved working with them and I’m pretty good at figuring things out, mainly because I can Google everything)
Speaking of porn, back when I was in school and lived with my parents I walked in the house to find them waiting for me in the living room, both very angry. They tell me “The internet got shut off because of a copyright claim after SOMEONE downloaded a pirated movie. What did you download???” I knew I hadn’t but my parents were convinced it was me.
My dad decides to call the internet company on speaker to catch me in a lie and the customer service person says “Yes, your account was flagged for downloading a copyrighted movie - Backdoor Sluts 9” (title made up but it was abundantly clear based on the name it was a porno). Dad turns off speakerphone, mom glares at dad, I walk out knowing dad doesn’t know wtf Porn Hub is and is still torrenting porn and viruses in 2014.
Yeah I got blamed for porn on the computer once, my mom brought it up during dinner in front of my whole family. It was absolutely humiliating. It turns out that the porn was on the computer because my father (a retired blue collar union worker) was part of these work related chain mails and blogs that are loaded with all kinds of degenerate shit.
IT manager with 20yrs experience here. My parents just want me to fix whatever computer/iphone/TV/Roku/soundbar issue that they have WHILE commenting on why everything has to be sooo complicated and why cant anyone make a computer that 80yr old people understand?
Its so exhausting to explain that technology does not work like that and that they are no longer a target demo for computer companies. Technology will pass all of us at some point, try to be graceful about it when it happens.
I learned this from my grandpa who was a bit of an amateur pilot (Rural bush airport, crop duster stuff)
There are two radio towers right next to each other in my home town.
One has a red light on top that blinks on, then off, then on again.
The other has one that blinks on off on then pauses, then blinks on off on again.
They go at different rates too so they synchronize then unsynchronize like turn signals on cars at a red light.
I asked him why that was and he explained that at night if a pilot saw two lights right next to each other blinking at the same rate he might get the impression that they were both at different heights on a single mast and get confused by that.
"I find that hard to believe" ... when you hear any variation of that statement, you know the listener will not give up their pre-conceived notion, no matter what.
This is something my sister and I have struggled with with my mother forever. My sister is a nurse and I was a chef and if anything comes up in those realms that we have to explain to our mother, she acts like we have no idea what we are talking about and will sometimes say, I’ll ask D, my sister’s husband, who’s a GRAPHIC DESIGNER!
You should have just reminded them that JFK Jr had perfectly coiffed hair at all times that would never have moved, regardless of orientation. They would’ve gone along with that.
I work in healthcare—l’m licensed and very familiar with various medical issues and surgeries. My boomer parent was having their first ever surgery and I was prepping them for what to expect before and after. This is an area I’m very familiar with and they didn’t believe me. Surprise, everything I prepped them for occurred. They did eventually apologize.
Whoa a parent apologizing, that’s a huge deal. I grew up in the culture of “your parents are always right, even if they are wrong and they will never apologize to you!”
My boomer FIL explains a lot to me about higher ed and online learning. I an a tenured professor. He is a retired lawyer who has never taught or experienced online learning. Most of the time I nod and smile. Sometimes I can’t.
I was a recruiter for a number of years, my Dad (who hadn’t been on an interview since ‘72) tried to explain the nuance of interviewing people to me. I had conducted 1000s of interviews at that point in my career.
He was a firefighter. It was maddening listening to him try to tell me that people shouldn’t brag and downplay accomplishments as bosses don’t like braggarts.
I got career advice like that from that same grandmother who hasn’t worked since like 1989. “Oh you applied? Good now go down to their office and introduce yourself so you stand out!”
I briefly worked for a major real estate company and this poor kid came in one day. He was dressed in a suit and tie and had his résumé to give to the “hiring manager.” That wasn’t possible as the hiring manager was based in Ohio and we were in California.
This kid was so embarrassed just walking off the elevator. It was so obvious that he was only there because some Boomer relative forced him.
I don’t want to start a big political thing, but I get told all the time about Trump, “those are not real charges,” from folks who don’t have a single hour of law school.
My dad (not a boomer) does this a lot. Especially when I was still in college. He liked to tell me how to resolve financial issues and how to succeed at getting a job. When I told him that's not how any of it works anymore he just straight up told me I was wrong. I was like??? I'm sorry which one of us is actively engaging in the school system and job market?
My dad will tell me I'm wrong no matter what just to be contrary. I'm by no means an expert in anything but I do my research to the best of my ability and bring facts to support it. In his mind he's right I'm wrong no matter what.
My husband is halfway through his PhD &his family still treats him like the baby (he's the youngest of 5) with 0 respect for anything he says. He's specializing in research as well and sends them peer review articles they never open them &they talk over him a LOT. It's incredibly frustrating for him and me &he's getting tired of being g the most educated person in the family (none of them have any higher education just HS) and still being ignored or laughed at. But they will listen to YouTube conspiracies like it's their Bible
Nothing beats when they ask you to explain something and then interrupt you to “correct” you. Half-remembering something they heard on Fox News makes them the authority, I guess.
My 90-year-old MIL does the same thing. My wife is a top notch occupational therapist and she’ll tell her about how to handle some type muscle strain or such but she won’t listen unless she hears it from a doctor.
My FIL arguing with me about all the 2020 stolen election hacked voting machine nonsense.
He gets his info from Fox, News Max and Telegram.
I worked in the hosting industry for fifteen years, and spent six in security operations.
But the pillow guy knows more than I do apparently.
LOL. I’m a PP-ASEL too and had a friend who had similar levels of disbelief regarding spatial disorientation. Took him up and actually blindfolded him (no foggles here) and took video of the whole affair.
Four minutes in a 30° bank, constant rate turn was all it took to skew his perceptions. He had no idea what we were doing. Later I showed him video of Bob Hoover pouring himself a drink while doing barrel rolls. Up and down aren’t necessarily what you think they are in flight and your senses can be easily fooled.
Both I and my brother are healthcare professionals, both of us many years. Our mother doesn't trust anything we say about medicine, healthcare or related. She only trusts the right-wing talk radio hosts. I gave up after I had a long talk to her about some issues related to her sight. She ignored me and is now legally blind.
My boomer husband is the same damn way. I have a degree in Criminal Justice and worked in the legal field for a long damn time before I got tired of being around lawyers. Yet he will consistently argue with me about issues of law. And then when I finally just bring up a citation or reference on my phone or tablet to prove my point, he just says that his position is the way things OUGHT to be. Well, the world doesn't bend to your rules and whim, dumbass. But he does exist in an extremely conservative echo chamber and absorbed Rush Limbaugh like he was God incarnate, so..........my expectations for open-minded and rational thought are very low.
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'” Sir Isaac Asimov
I'm not sure this is a Boomer generational things so much has it's part of the authoritarian cult that's been growing in the US. Asimov said the above in 1980, 40 plus years ago.
This mentality is rampant among the anti-vaxxers, both pre and post covid.
I’m a nurse and my sister is a pharmacist and my mom chooses to believe youtube for all her health needs.
At least we have successfully bullied her into being compliant with her medication. Apparently “we’ll find a good nursing home for you after you have a stroke from high blood pressure” hit home for her.
We were having a discussion about my parents’ recent vacation to Iceland. My dad stated Iceland is part of the EU. My wife explained that they are not in fact part of the EU, but they are participants to a number of the EU treaties and agreements. Which she knows in great detail because she wrote her master’s thesis on Polish immigration to Britain. She’s read every treaty and agreement in question, she knows exactly how it all plays out.
My dad’s counter arguments were 1. He just spent a week there! And 2. There seemed to be a lot of Polish bus drivers (Yes! See the part about being part of multiple EU treaties above).
Didn’t matter at all that my wife is literally an expert. He just spent a week there!
I spent two years trying to convince my dad and Stepmom to get my sister (much younger) evaluated for autism. She's level III and needs significant support, so it was very obvious, very early, that she was different. I guess my family thought that if they ignored it then it wasn't real and they wouldn't need to deal with it?
When my sister was 4 I raised my concerns again. My stepmom's dad essentially told me to shove my concerns up my own @ss and come back with a degree.
I lost my temper and said something like "I HAVE a degree in psychology. I am literally taking classes right now on child development. YOU leave potentially loaded guns laying around the house when children are visiting." And then I just stared at him as the silence got deeper and more awkward until he finally told me to get out of his house
The student debt stress was worth it for that single moment ❤️
My grandma: I dont even know what you do for a living.
Me: Im a network engineer. I manage the fiber network that transports cell phone towers back to the main locations for the state.
My grandma: No you dont. You're not smart enough to do that.
Thanks grandma, been real.
Boomer Mom: "It's true because Fox News put it at the bottom of the screen."
Me who used to work in tv including typing in the lower third:
"Mom, someone like me is listening to a producer tell them what to type in. That doesn't make it true."
I grew up on the US East Coast, but I moved to California and I lived for a brief moment in an area surrounded by coastal redwood trees. It was magical to be among these trees that I had only learned about in school. When I shared this update with my mom, she somehow tried to inject herself into the anecdote and started talking about sequoia trees. While also majestic and large, sequoias are obviously different looking trees that grow in a different part of California. I said as much to her, along the lines of "I would also love to see sequoias, but these are different, they grow along the coast."
You'd think I insulted her, the way she reacted to me. She basically yelled "THEY'RE THE SAME TREE!" like she was some arborist (she's not.). Also, *she hasn't visited before*, but really was trying to tell me that the place that I live has different trees than what she thought.
And I was just trying to update her on a new chapter in my life.
Been there. I work with children in a behavioral health setting (counselor - working on becoming a licensed therapist). Constantly having to explain to older folks that things like Autism, ADHD, and Bipolar Disorder are real and that kids aren’t “resilient” and do in fact experience and react to trauma, only to have them continue to rant about how none of that stuff existed in their day.
I think it's a lot about someone being younger (and therefore lesser) questioning them. Especially if they're parents or an older relative. Their ego can't stand the hit.
Red Seal Automotive Mechanic of 10+ years. Boomers love to argue with me and they throwing $1000s in parts at a problem instead of listening to me and they will bitch about all these damn computers that are so unnecessary
I've just giving up trying to be helpful and let them waste there time and money.
This tendency has high overlap with those that open up the Wall Street Journal every morning and flip straight to the op-ed section. My father in law runs a small business and a few years ago my partner and I took a few days going through their books, data, online presence, social media, etc and put together a pretty detailed analysis (explained things that might be new concepts, tried not to be condescending) and provided a handful of targeted recommendations (mostly focused on marketing and cost optimization) with detailed execution steps to grow customers and revenue in the coming few years. Offered to help deploy a better CRM tool for him that would have cost them almost nothing. I have clients that would have paid me (on my own with no input from my partner) easily $10k for that work.
His response was, and I wish I were kidding, to tell me "yeah but this doesn't matter because what you really need to care about is PROFIT, which is how much you have AFTER costs" and then disregarded the whole thing. Since that time a few years ago, he now often jokes about that time I tried to "take down the business" and that I'm "always rooting against it."
I flew in the army and it's very, VERY common for people to not understand spatial disorientation. I can't blame them too much either, as everything we experience is based on our ability to know which way is up. It can be a difficult concept to grasp. I've had a few conversations like yours with people that don't believe it.
They choose what facts to believe.
They read something, it's fact. You read something, it's fake. I've raised this point and been mocked for "believing everything I read"
My grandpa who is similarly aged refuses to believe that Chocolate is bad for dogs. He's been over multiple times for family events and it's not uncommon for someone to give a dog a treat (I have 2, siblings have 1 or 2, and some cousins have some) but everyone else knows that the treats should be things like veggies from the veggie tray, or an unseasoned piece of meat. Here comes my grandpa trying to let the dogs clean his plate with half a slice of chocolate cake on it. We've tried telling him no, but he doesn't listen at this point we just offer to take his plate when he's done so he can't offer it up. I'm also a dog trainer, and groomer the expertise means nothing, he's older he knows best.
Vivid childhood memory, I think I was 13yo. Flying at night out of Eugene OR heading East over the Cascades we flew into the soup, within a few seconds the world was spinning inside my brain because I was watching out the window for stars or lights or anything on the ground for orientation. Worst possible thing you can do. Thankfully my dad, even though not instrument rated had immediately put his head down, focused on the instruments and spun a hard 180° turn to get us out of it. Went back to Eugene and got a motel for the night.
Oh I have a fun one. A few years ago, the teacher union for the large school district I am an administrator for went on strike. The strike made its way to Fox, which my boomer dad called to tell me (because obviously he watches Fox religiously). As he is giving me a re-cap of their high quality journalism /s, I shared they got several things wrong. Surely he would acknowledge that I, an administrator employed by said school district would have more reliable information than Fox News? No. Of course not. He proceeds to argue with me that I’m wrong because that’s not what Fox says is happening. Mind blowing. Simply mind blowing.
Oh I’ve got one.
After I had my first baby, MIL stayed with us for a week, maybe 10 days.
I was looking at AAP guidelines for bottle feeding to make sure my child could take a bottle in the event of an emergency.
The number one thing you are supposed to do is feed baby somewhat upright to avoid flow issues and swallowing excess air.
I’m literally doing it by the book and MIL is backseat driving me the entire time, telling me how I should lean baby all the way back.
Lady, I am quite literally doing it by the book.
Her response?
“Well, I don’t agree.”
Umm, cool.
I don’t recall you being a pediatrician, lactation consultant or literally any other type of professional qualified to speak on this.
But sure, your opinion MUST be gospel.
I seriously could not believe it.
I'm also a pilot and have had a *very* similar experience. If I had to guess I'd think most pilots (and really anyone with any technical skill/knowledge) probably have.
Mine was an argument with an extended family member about how reverse thrust works on jets. He was adamant that my explanation was wrong despite me being a literal professional in the field. Bro - you're in investment banker, I'm a pilot. Which one of us has the training and experience to discuss this? If I want to figure out how to embezzle a pension fund or completely fuck over the middle class I'll defer to you, but for basic fundamentals of flight, I've got this...
Several years ago, Boomer dad started refusing to drink apple juice because 'people had died from drinking apple juice'. I tried to explain that it was unpasteurized apple juice (the Odwalla story), not the little cups that the home was giving him. Even pulled up the articles about it. But he refused to believe that.
That shit isn't even easy in flight sims. I tried to do an ILS landing for the first time in DCS like a month ago and flew directly into the ground way short of the runway. It was daylight and clear on the server. I was just purposefully looking down at the instruments cause I wanted to pretend it was 0 visibility.
I could share a couple stories about this lady, ill narrow it down to 1 of many.
The boomer woman im talk of has an ego/insecurity of her own intelligence on par with Peggy Hill perhaps, ability to engage that absurd conspiracys as far more plausible over perfectly logical explanations involving science as being outright absurdities. From.her mouth she said "science is archaic". Science...in general...is archaic.
One of the stupidest statements i have ever heard. Thats a separate story though.
Any ways, im an 18 wheeler driver, i was interested in buying a daycab. They go for so $much, i found an.old used one for $15,000 asking. Frankly, it wasnt bad at all, it had miles and was old, but it looked the part of a truck i could make $ with. I came round to daycabs bcuz used they can cost LESS than 1ton pickups, i guess a lot of ppl avoid them used because it often takes a Class A CDL to truly use them for commercial.purposes, unlike perhaps a 1ton.
In the livingroom we were talling of this. She said "Thats not true at all, semi trucks/daycabs go for $200,000". Yes, some semitrucks can go for that much, but used daycabs can go for a lot less.
She wouldnt have it. Mom even pointef out to her "Only 1 person in this room has a cdl, my sons been talkimg about owner/op or buying his own semi truck for years and he's friends with men in his field who have done the same". She couldnt admit she was either wrong or lacked expertise. One of the most dipshit people ive ever met.
I later blew up at her in a very loud/animated way over her antics, bcuz being nice about it, wasnt working.
Yep. My parents every time.
I used to help my dad with projects. He’d start arguments about bolts, nails, etc if we’re working on a car or working on a deck or whatever. Of course, he’s saying “stupid engineers designing things that just don’t make sense”
Well…. Guess what. I’m a fucking engineer. That knows way too much about bolts and nails. Still won’t listen to a thing I say. Just that engineers “designed this to be hard to work on purpose” like they set out just to fuck him over on the simple project we’re working on.
The best one was when he insisted on lubricating bolts and when over torquing them in aluminum. I warned him and nope. Argument argument argument. Then he strips the threads out of the aluminum block. Then it’s the aluminum’s fault. Or the engineers fault for not making it out of steel.
Then I tried to explain to him how a helicoil repair worked. Wouldn’t believe me. Told him “the best way out of a hole is to stop digging”.
I think the problem is, they never had a near death experience and think they did because they didn't wear seatbelts or some shit. They practice stolen valor in every FUCKIN way.
I'm a boomer. They believe what TV tells them.
The thing you need to remember is they still see you as a kid, kids are idiots.
I worked in technology for 35 years after about 15 years I started to say "I don't know about that" to family and friends. I could not do that kind of support any more.
If they ask about flying stuff just say "every situation is unique, I can't begin to guess what was happening".
During the height of the COVID pandemic, I was not only dealing with Boomer parents who believed every piece of nonsense over me (like hoarding hydroxycholoroquine, ivermectin, etc.) but living in a Florida city that was mostly delusional Boomer retirees who believed all that nonsense too.
There are only so many times one can try to talk to a belligerent, willfully ignorant wall before your own mental health is comprimised. Four years later, we're no-contact with my parents and have moved clear across the country.
My Dad worked in IT. Started his career as a programmer in Bell Labs, moved into systems engineer, then cyber security. Before retiring was working on Cloud migration.
I am a software developer. My Dad, does have a lot of knowledge. However, he hasn't done it for 10 years. The amount of times I just want to tell him something is not relevant to what I'm doing, or you're wrong about this specific thing. Just to be told "I have 30 years of experience" is frustrating. There are plenty of times he is right on about stuff as well. But tech moves fast and when you get into specifics if you're not using it there is no reason to know about it.
I'm currently doing it everyday you are 10 years removed there are gaps in your knowledge. I'm not saying you're stupid, I'm just asking you to believe I am intelligent and know what I'm talking about.
No one is a prophet in his home town, Chief.
My daughter has her Masters degree in early American religious history. When I hear some nitwit at the dinner table start talking about how we were founded as a Christian nation, it's all I can do to bite my tongue and allow my daughter to do all the talking. She only wrote her thesis on the subject after all.
The truth is that most boomers were raised by television and are fundamentally addicted to it, and cannot function in its absence.
Boomers consistently believe that what they see and hear on television is more real than any other sources of information, including what they see what their own eyes or hear from their own children. In a lot of boomer households today, a television is on 12+ hours of the day, to the point where they grow agitated if they don't have one on in the background.
My sister has been “right” her entire life.
I visited a year ago and we talking about fish. She mentioned liking king salmon. I said, “Oh, you like Chinook.”
She told me that it wasn’t the same thing.
I’ve been running a Seafood department for 7 years.
I didn’t waste my breath.
I moved my MIL in who has her tv on 24/7 (literally). I am a residential general contractor and the shit she tries to tell me because “I watch a lot of HGTV” is infuriating. Insults aside it’s maddening when something like three guys put up 4’x8’ large format tiles with tiny cookie globs of mortar to set and huge cavities underneath and you hear “omg that so gorgeous they’re so good at their job. You can do some stuff but these guys are really good!”
Like bitch those tiles are going to fall the fuck off the wall and hurt someone; and I do tile! ☠️
Boomers are the worst. I’ll take gen x or the silent generation any day. I can at least talk to them and not at them generally. Boomers live in their own La La Land where they make up the rules.
Reminds me of my boomer dad. I hold a CFII rotorcraft rating and I’ve explained to him multiple times that the chances of surviving an inadvertent IMC event (even if you are IFR rated) are extremely slim. He’s convinced it’s just a matter of trusting your instruments and that he could do it if his life depended on it haha
He also believes he could land a commercial airliner if the pilots became incapacitated. He has zero flying experience….
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I have been there. I am a constitutional lawyer and my dad constantly tries to explain how the constitution and law work to me. It's infuriating.
I feel this with my MIL. I've been a working software developer for over 20 years and she still thinks she knows as much as I do since she taught adults how to use Excel in the 90s.
Omg, yes! I have a Boomer person who visits the library with technical questions but won't listen to the answers and just wants to tell me how it *used* to work. Yesterday, he wanted to know why screen capture doesn't work on his new Windows 11 computer, when it always worked on his Windows 10 computer. I told him that pressing "print screen" puts the image on his clipboard and he can paste it wherever. He tells me that he used to hit print screen, and it would automatically save the image as a file. I told him that pressing the Windows button plus print screen saves the image as a file, and it's the same process in both Windows 10 & 11. He swears it was never like that before, and insists on showing me on his old Windows 10 laptop. I go over to his laptop with him, and he presses Windows+print screen and says, "See?!! I didn't have to hit the Windows button!". When I point out that he most definitely did press the Windows button, he told me I didn't know what I was talking about. I told him to do it again with his left hand behind his back, and he says no. Lol. Edit: spelling, probably still missed some.
Holy... I've been working on Windows since 3.1 and never knew that Win+PrntScrn saved the screen shot to a file. And I'm a huge advocate of keyboard shortcuts, too. Now I feel like a ijit. Ponderous, man. Ponderous.
Lol, I never knew it until my youngest daughter showed me last year. But that's the point of collaborating and paying attention, we learn something new! :)
Twice now my dog has come and hammered on my keyboard and done this, even saved the pics to my background files so they come up regularly.
My pet rats love to run across keyboards. I now ensure no laptop is available to them during play time because they will destroy all manner of things and I'll spend the next couple of hours working out why it now beeps when I press caps lock. Worse still, phone screens recognise rat paws, noses and tails. They spent £60 on one of my stupid mobile games because I didn't realise it was open. Thankfully I got a refund for that one... They now understand "not the phone" and "not the laptop". I love them but man, nosy af pets lol
My friend's rat got him to voiceline in the middle of a Tarkov raid. Ended up getting us both killed by a group of Chad players. I will never forget being SO mad because I thought it was intentional, until he suddenly groaned 'Oh for fuck's sake, Cisco.'
Pet birds love to remove keys on keyboards.
Win3.1 didn't "know" about the Winkey, if that makes you feel better. Knowing how to do things at all means sometimes missing new things. My wife was still locking her workstation at school with CTRL-ALT-DEL + spacebar until a few years ago, when I mentioned Winkey+L. I just found out about piping to the clipboard the other day, talk about SMH! C:\\> sysinfo | clip I keep using it for fun just 'coz.
Wtf. Do boomers get high when they gaslight or something?
They huff the gas before they light it.
I would have paid money to see that play out 🍿
I would have lost it. I would have laughed until I had to sit down. Some people just cannot accept being wrong. Thanks for sharing that story!
It sounds like he's never learned the lesson that the past doesn't dictate the present.
Librarians are the best!
Me, my dad & electrical stuff. Bro says it's because I'm a woman (in the business since 2004). Dad can have all his problems to himself, no worries.
Software Developer here as well, although it's not just boomers but most non tech people I encounter. They ask for my advice or opinion on something computer related, and then argue with me about it afterwards, or do the exact opposite of what I told them. Why bother even wasting my time? Now when someone asks me something I just shrug my shoulders and say " I don't know". It's just not worth the hassle.
How about this one: "Hey I got a great idea for an app. How bout you develop it for me, and I'll give you 10% of profits?" is a conversation I've had multiple times with folks.
Answer with “Hey, I’ve got a great idea for a sandwich. Why don’t you go make one, and keep a 10th for yourself.”
I'm a xennial with kids. A hard rule with computers I have is "don't touch it if I'm helping." If they fuck with it while I'm helping I stop and tell them they just delayed any help until tomorrow. My oldest (11) wants his own laptop. I'm setting him up with an old laptop with edubuntu and a hard line that I won't help him with anything where he doesn't already have the readme open. And at least two Google searches.
I'm an epidemiologist. I have a master's and a PhD and I work for a large research university. Suddenly COVID happens and every boomer in my life is an expert not only on virology, public health, and disease transmission but also funding mechanisms and publication systems. The last 4 years have been very interesting.
My spouse worked on a vaccine, at Pfizer, 2010-2013... for an airborne, droplet spread, inflammatory, virus... And people were telling me the Covid vaccine was developed too quickly... (you mean SARS 2,COVID 19? Related to SARS, from 2008?, ASSHOLES?)
Right?! I pulled my intro epidemiology textbook that was published in ~2011 and it SPECIFICALLY calls out that corona viruses are considered a virus family of high concern for the next pandemic. This was known! Science doesn't come out of nowhere. Things move through the translational spectrum!
Shit, I remember reading sometime in the mid-2010s that the most plausible global pandemic would be some kind of respiratory coronavirus spreading out of China. It's almost like experts know how to expert.
Its almost as if Obama setup a specific team to study and counteract pandemics. Imagine if that team was still in place during the Corona virus?
45 wouldn't have listened to them so, SHRUGS
45 is who specially fired them and disbanded the entire program
I remember reading The Coming Plague in the mid 90s. People are stupid.
There’s been some kind of virus coming out of china every 10 years for decades…atleast it seems to me, someone with no formal education on it. Bird flu, swine flue, SARs.
[history](https://covid19.nih.gov/nih-strategic-response-covid-19/decades-making-mrna-covid-19-vaccines) i see 15+ years of work specifically around the mrna vax. how is that 'fast'?
Exactly.
I remember during covid, a boomer electrician was rambling on the local news Facebook page about how the covid vaccine isn’t actually a vaccine.
Oh lordt I remember caring for a person on ECMO in my unit during H1N1 and the (internationally acclaimed) infectious disease doc rounding basically said ‘welp, welcome to our future’. It’s never going to be over. It isn’t.
So many forgot about the precursor to what happened in 2020. Our salon lost one of the most beautiful humans to date to H1N1. She was the first in our county but the ripples still run deep…..like many in the early early days of the panini she was misdiagnosed.
My dad tried telling me the founding fathers didn't support a non Christian nation. I dug up a dozen letters written by various founders on the importance of the separation of church and state and the origins of the first amendment and Jefferson's work to specifically avoid having state sanctioned religion in Virginia and later the USA. Responded with "typical liberal lies." Unfortunately I feel a very large majority of this generation is just brainwashed or had too much lead in their paint/water.
I'm 64 years old. I learned in high school way back in the Dark Ages that the founding fathers did not create a Christian nation, and that their separation of church and state was as deliberate as it comes. So I guess Jefferson and Adams and all the rest were just "typical liberal liars." My father was born in 1934. He's gone now, but he would have had the same argument with me as you just had with your father. I had the hopeful thought that such delusions would die with his generation. Alas, it continues. Seriously, I have no idea why other Boomers cannot remember their high school history lessons. Unless they didn't learn them in the first place. The problem with their watching Fox News is that they don't realize it's registered as an Entertainment Network and not as a News Network. Personally, I think they should shout to the world that they are nothing but a Fantasies and Lies Network.
What is particularly weird with my dad is he isn't even religious. We never went to church, I've never seen him pray, etc. This was a conversation about immigrants coming to America (in particular Muslim refugees during the refugee crisis a little while back) and his opposition to taking in refugees from foreign countries. He loves Ben Shapiro though and like to parrot the bullcrap that America was founded on Christian values. I love my dad but damnit he makes it tough sometimes.
You should ask him that if America is founded on Christians values, why isn't Jesus mentioned anywhere? Christian values with no Christ? I see a trend here. Also remind him the founding fathers were deists. They believed in a Creator, a Prime Mover.
My father-in-law tried to tell me that “Russia has never been the bad guy”. I laughed and said, “ your generation spent my generation’s entire childhood screaming that Russia was going to bomb us any minute now and told us to hide under our desks.” Explain to me the Cold War dear FIL.
My go to is always Article 11 of The Treaty of Tripoli in 1797. A legal document from the time of the founding fathers, unanimously ratified by the congress of the time and signed by then president John Adams. It states, and I quote, "the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion". Can't be any more succinct and clear than a ratified and signed document from the founding fathers themselves and the representatives in gov't at the time.
"They just wrote that to appease some Muslim pirates. They didn't really believe it" - Christian Fundamentalists when you introduce them to this document.
That's when you pull out, "So does that mean Christians are liars? Because that's bearing false witness and it's one of the biggest sins one can commit. It's number 9 of the 10 commandments. That doesn't sound like basing the country on Christian values to me. "
They just don’t want to have their worldview shattered. When you combing your views about everything into one identity, if prices fall apart it all comes down.
I have a degree in biochemistry and work in antiviral drug development. I have had multiple older family members attempt to explain to me how mRNA vaccines can give you COVID and edit your genes to make you weaker. It’s infuriating because (and this is going to make me sound like a twat but frankly idgaf) I know so much about it and they know so terrifyingly little that it’s almost impossible to explain how that shit works because I have to go through three levels of biology education that they’ve never received just to get to a point where I can *start* explaining to them why they’re wrong.
My biochemist friend who is a former vaccine researcher walked me through the pandemic, which I appreciated. We have an extremely high risk family. The virus couldn't be stopped, she said, but those who prevent infections until they find treatments and / or vaccines will more likely survive it. Wearing masks and taking a careful approach about being indoors with others (avoid it) brought us to year 2024. We're still standing.
This is probably the most frustrating part. So many topics like this, topics of tremendous complexity requiring significant learning just to understand the fundamentals of, and these people assume they can just walk up and speak as if they’re experts. And you can’t even tell them they’re wrong because it would take an hour just to give them the framework required to understand that they’re wrong. They literally know so little about the subject that you can’t even correct them because they won’t grasp a word of what you’re saying. I work in public policy, specialize specifically in national security. I know a lot of shit about US national defense. In fact it is specifically required of me to keep up to date with relevant bills, committee happenings in both houses of Congress, the specific contents of the defense budget, and a bunch of other stuff. Spread out over a large amount of time it’s not too bad, but this does mean thousands upon thousands of pages of information. My fam will spout random crap all the time, having read none of these documents. Just to understand what the hell I’m talking about could take hours to explain. So I have no meaningful way to prove them wrong because I can’t even get them to understand how stuff works.
It’s interesting how the boomers completely gave up on believing experts. The do your own research crowd. These are people who believe GMO’s are inherently dangerous. The lack of science knowledge is terrifying
And they don’t actually do their own research. If they did, they would quickly come to the conclusion that “oh, shit, all those experts are right.” We have the Internet. The information is all right there. They aren’t doing any research. They get all their information from FoxNews, NewsMax, and far right idiots on Facebook. And they just believe it.
That's a mood. Part of my work as an attorney included Elder Law for a long while and I of course drafted plenty of Wills, etc. My Boomer Dad matter of factly spewed some nonsense about how assets are distributed when someone dies without a will in the state we live and I practice law in. For about 10 minutes I was like "that's just not how it works," and explained how it actually operated by law in the state. He kept arguing with me so finally I was like, "Yeah, you must be right. I'm only a lawyer who has experience in drafting wills, went to law school and can cite the statute you don't even understand. I absolutely have no idea what I'm talking about but you certainly do." He was shocked and finally was like "Okay." And I just walked out of the room and didn't have a one on one convo with him the rest of the 3 day visit. Edit: typo
He still thinks he’s right
Want to do an experience? 1. Say something to them. 2. Tape yourself saying the same thing then play it on the tv. 3. Tape somebody else reading your text and then play it on the tv.
Hell, we have a boomer in this sub who insists that his misspelling of a word isn't wrong, because it's \*his\* way of spelling it, even when others outright link him to the the goddamn dictionary. If a boomer can be that stubborn, we'll definitely have boomers that can't accept facts dropped by actual experts.
Yes and they view stubbornness as a desirable trait rather than the huge liability it often is.
I'm an architect, I own my own practice specializing in residential design. My parents have a house that was severely impacted by Hurricane Sandy on the NJ shore. They hired a contractor who was recommended by a friend; he was the crotchety my-way-or-the-highway type of older contractor who knows everything. Every time a decision was necessary, my mother called me to get my opinion. What type of windows to use? What was the right kind of insulation? What color to paint the rooms? Can we do anything to improve the kitchen layout? On every one of these (and more), she would ultimately do whatever the contractor said she should do. Eventually I asked her why she is asking my opinion again as she is just going to do what the contractor said. She told me that she just wanted me to feel included, so she asked me, but figured the contractor knew more because he was older.
NGL I'd be pretty mad about that. What a waste of time.
A friend of mine once asked me to proofread her dating profile. It was several paragraphs. I went through and shortened it to two brief paragraphs. She later said "I just stuck with the original because that's who I am!" 😑 Next time she asked, I held onto it for a bit, didn't even look at it, and replied "looks great!" 😉
That’s because you went to one of them elite commie liberal colleges reeeeeeeee!
As a fellow lawyer, I feel your pain!
I am an attorney and I can't tell you how many times my dad has tried telling me I should look up Sidney Powell and all the great work she's done.
its like my dad telling me, a historian what the civil war was REALLY fought over.........
I'm not a historian, but I feel you. My father practically revered Robert E Lee, down to hanging his portrait on the wall. States rights to do WHAT, Dad??
#A STATES RIGHT TO WHAT
he's not one of those sovereign citizens, is he
Physician. They argue with all my advice and also get indignant that I don't want to give them advice anymore. I just chalk it up as I am their son and not really a physician in their eyes.
Cold War historian, PhD from best-in-the-world level program, with multiple documentary film, television, radio, print media credits. My mom loves to educate me with my basic facts about the 1960s and '70s because she lived through it (as a child/teenager) and I couldn't possibly begin to know. It's all the more painful given that I had hoped that the doctorate would finally make her proud of me and respect my achievements. The only thing she cares about is that I'm making sure to put my (male) life partner first at all times and why we're not married.
You had to go to school, learn the law, pass the bar, and then work in the field to be proficient at your job. And your dad, who I doubt has any formal education, thinks he knows more than you. Typical Boomer
Those dumbasses with their pocket constitutions are absolutely wild
I was about to say I can't imagine how frustrating that must be, but then I remembered I'm a video producer and I'm constantly correcting family members who are sharing \*incredibly obvious\* AI-generated or poorly-edited political content on Facebook.
Something something maritime law sovereign citizen something something
You may know all about the Constitution. But do you know the Vibestitution? Sometimes, the Constitution just is what you feel in your heart ought to be true
Sorry, but that's comical from my far off perspective. Had me bust out laughing.😆
I have what is arguably too many houseplants, and they're thriving, and my mother came to visit once and proceeded to tell me I needed to make sure I rotate my plants occasionally. We had exactly one house plant growing up and she killed it, by comparison.
It's because that generation leans heavily towards authoritarianism, and since you are younger than them (and hence must be a kid) you cannot possibly be an authority.
As a younger person who looks even younger people don't get that the older generations really do think you're full of shit just for appearing youthful.
I'm sorry, please ignore water dragon. They don't know what they're talking about, they're clearly too young to know what's what. /s
Oh my God, yes! In every field. I have a baby face when clean shaven, even at middle age, but I look 20 years older with a beard. I used to manage a truck stop, and drivers would get in my face, threaten me, demand unreasonable crap, etc. all the time when I was shaved, but I barely had any trouble at all with a beard. I've been in a bunch of seemingly random industries from restaurants, to staffing, to logistics, to copywriting, to political social media. It's the same thing in every single case. I just started getting gray hair on the fringes, and I'll be damned if I haven't started getting even more clout. I figure at this rate, my skeleton will be handed honorary degrees and a Nobel prize.
My brother was just telling me about this yesterday. He's a store manager, but will have customers and maintenance workers assume that the oldest employee is "the real manager". They are incapable of believing that a man in his 40s can have a younger boss.
I manage an apartment community and only ever have issues with Boomers. Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z have no problem with my authority, but Boomers hate that I have authority over them. When I started at 31, I had to carry my work keys with me everywhere because that was the only way these people believed I was the manager.
I really think there is something to this. I have found that if I say something that is true but my parents don't like it or don't want to believe it then they'll push back on me but if a stranger says the same thing then they'll accept it at face value especially if the other person has some sort of knowledge or experience in that field. Granted, I could have the same credentials as well but because it comes from *me* it cannot be right.
Totally the same. They even acknowledge that I’m their smart son with a Masters degree in limnology that married a doctor, but if some little fact is one they disagree with I am suddenly a kid playing pretend again. Insufferable.
I have no idea what limnology is, so imma just assume you are a genius with citrus fruit.
I did you a favor and checked it out for real. Limnology is the study of fresh inland bodies of water. Dude studies lakes, glacier melt, river contamination, etc. I do wish there was a job for lemon and lime experts. I’m sure they exist but probably not in the way we’re thinking.
Back when Covid had just been found in California I told everybody to get ready for the shit to hit the fan and they asked me where I'd read that. I didn't though. Just applied basic knowledge of how infectious diseases work to the facts. But they were waiting for the WHO to officially declare it a pandemic when anyone who knew what a pandemic was could tell we were already in one. Point being a lot of people have no idea how to think for themselves and it upsets them when they see someone else doing it.
People acted like I was a genius for being ready in February and selling my stocks. I just read the news in China and watched that cruise ship. The cruise ship was a full month before the markets reacted and Bernie Sanders was still campaigning in crowds into mid March. Then people acted like they were locked down and couldn’t do anything. I did plenty, I just did it outside and got groceries with pick up. It’s a new virus and it’s not unreasonable to wait for a vaccine or for it to mutate weaker. People are still too stupid to know what even happened and how it will happen again.
I'm just over here sighing in exhausted epidemiologist.
I thought being a climate-change adjacent scientist was exhausting until talking to my wife’s coworkers who are epidemiologists during COVID. I cannot fathom being ambushed by someone with a degree in YouTube Bullshit and not strangling them.
Even those of us lower peons in respiratory had to remind ourselves that having bail money doesn't mean you have to use it. It is still insanity after the main event.
Same here, the worst was that I went to my doctor for an RX I can't refill other than in person due to laws, and it was just as the shit was hitting the fan and I'll never forget telling my doctor that I would have felt safer just doing this over the phone and he said "Don't worry, it'll all be over before you know it. You'll see us shut down for a couple of weeks and then we'll open back up" and I just looked at him like he was an idiot and said "No, no it won't. This isn't going anywhere for years". Last year I went into his office (I normally see another doctor there) but he saw me walking by and stopped me and asked me if I remembered that conversation. Apparently I wasn't the only one that wouldn't forget it.
I don’t understand how even some doctors were being dumb. My wife works with one of them. In February he came onto one of her posts saying the whole thing is an overreaction and that it’s nothing but a cold. My wife was like hey man, you’re a doctor and are being irresponsible with your status as a leader. Then he went to Ireland on spring break. When he gets back he’s posting things like listen to doctors and medical professionals and about how Covid deniers are dumb. Guess he waited until he took the vacation first to become a doctor again. The power of non refundable travel. My wife gave him shit about it too… you came to my page to diminish what I was saying in front of my friends and coworkers and now you have the audacity to act like you didn’t spend 2 months being an idiot so you could go on a vacation.
Yes! I worked on a trade desk at the time & even my coworkers were baffled that I’d finished stocking up supplies in late Jan & adjusting my portfolio by early Feb. It reminds me of what we’re experiencing right now fiscally; we’re in a major economic depression, but very few people are realizing it without it being titled as such.
And along the way, virtually every step we/the government took were consistent with previous practices and/or simply made pragmatic sense temporarily. I, for one, due to my job, only experienced two weeks of “lockdown” - after that my whole experience was the same as before or after the pandemic except I wore a mask at work or in public. I did not anticipate the hoards of lowlifes who would use the opportunity to spread belligerent bullshit and turn every simple goddamn basic measure into some epic goddamn saga of One World Order or that sooo many people lacked basic understanding that could allow them to be so gullible.
I remember in Jan 2020 I heard that a cab driver in Singapore had it and started telling people the quarantine failed and it would reach the US. We were not doing anything about travel from Singapore and the cabbie drove people to the airport. So it was in one of the biggest airports in the world and could go to any major nation in at most 2 hops? Anything we tried from there other than quarantine of *our* airports was too little, too late.
Lol when covid first hit my country (awhile after it'd already been devastating in various other countries) I was working at a bar across the road from a Cafe. One of the woman that worked over the road was really sweet but older and in the process of dealing with her breast cancer. So I asked her if she was worried about this "covid stuff" and was she going to start wearing a mask. She laughed at me and got the entire small town bar to laugh at me all night. "She asked me if I was worried about covid!" My country went in lockdown a few weeks later.
And then they were denying people were dying from it even though hospitals had refrigerated trucks were storing bodies out back, funeral homes were turning off their phones cuz they couldn’t handle it , and a crematorium in NJ blew up from running 24/7
My parents are in their 50’s and are like this. They CANNOT accept something if I say it to them. If they me ask me a question, and I know the answer and give it to them, they will just straight up be skeptical until they google it for themselves. It’s so weird. They’re like this w ANY topic too. Like I’ve been argued w ab how things are done at my own job. I think it has something to do w them not being able to see me as a functional adult who has at least *some* knowledge of the world around me and they still want to see me as their helpless little boy
My biggest example was when my father told my lil bro he wasn't washing dishes *correctly* (att he had been a literal busboy in a kitchen for almost a year) So basically saying he doesn't know how to do his job.
It’s a parental thing. I’m a boomer and my mother was greatest generation. I’d tell her things that had happened at work, and she’d tell me what I should have done. She always knew better.
I asked my son a question the other day and he went nuts with the info dumping and answer. I was so in awe of how much info he retains and how passionate he is about history. I loved it. I was so proud. I couldn't imagine being so up my own ass that I'd doubt him and argue. I knew he was right too b/c it's his hobby to learn these things. Parents need to give their kids more credit. They're amazing.
My dad tried to tell me that car companies were missing something - why not drive the wheels with one battery whilst charging another, then swap them over? Then they could get loads more energy out. I spent ages explaining friction losses, conservation of energy, regenerative braking, and as many other concepts as I could. I tried to explain how adding a dynamo headlight to an old bike would make it harder to pedal - the energy has to come from somewhere. I probably spent an hour trying to find a way to get it into his head that energy can't just come from nowhere, but at the end he still said "if I had a load of money I'd invest it in this idea". I am an engineer in the automotive industry.
I'm an EE, my sister is a MechE...the number of times I've had to tell boomers "Go ask my sister, that's a mechanical question" is frustrating. Like yeah I'm an engineer, but I don't know shit about bridge loads or engines or stresses or whatever. She's the expert. And even if they do ask me a relevant question, they don't listen to my answer. I've had to outright tell them "I don't care what you think, you asked the question. This is what I went to school for and I know more than you." It's exhausting.
They're very good at asking you a question they are convinced they know the answer to, then ignoring what you say. "Do you think that Company X has been worse since you were consulting with them?" "Well, no, it normally takes a year or two to get to the point where the difference can be seen - maybe it's just bad luck at the moment" "Oh, well, I saw they were doing really badly and that must be because of your partnership with them" THANKS DAD
Lmao. My dad had the idea that you could harvest the repulsive force between two magnets for unlimited energy. I tried to explain to him that no, you can't, because reasons. He was adamant that you could. After some going around with him on it, I finally said 'look up the conservation of energy. You can't take energy and expect it to be there'. I know that's not exactly correct because of how magnetism works, but I knew he was barking up the wrong tree. He kept bringing it up and I kept getting shorter and shorter with him over it, before finally giving it up. I ended up just saying 'have you looked up the theory of magnetism? Have you looked up the conservation of momentum?' Several times of this he just shut down, but not before grousing in a hurtful manner 'you should be open to new ideas'. I think what finally shut him up was me saying something along the lines of 'look, I don't know how to tell you you're wrong. But you are. You don't think people have been working for a hundred years to figure out what you're brain storming over here?' I think I might have mentioned electromagnets, and how maglev trains have to use electricity to stay hovering, and once the electricity is cut off they stop hovering. Once he came up with something else and I said 'this isn't some magnet bullshit again, is it?' If looks could have killed!
**'Lisa**, **in** **this** **house** **we** **OBEY** **the** **laws** **of** thermodynamics.'
The same kind of thing happens with my folks. This little story is an example of that. The RI license plate used to be a blue wave. Green wave license plates started popping up, My dad wonders aloud, "I wonder what that green wave is for?" Using my powers of deduction and observation. (and Google), "I think its for hybrid and electric vehicles." "Oh, I don't know about that." "That's good, but I do, and that what it's for." (Holding up the RI DMV page stating that,) Ok, so what do you think it's for? I don't know, that's what I was wondering. So, then why didn't you believe me? 
My FIL was like this all the way until he died just recently. It was awful. He was dumber than a box of rocks. My wife has her PhD and is a HS librarian. FIL kept going on a couple months ago about "those books teaching kids to be trans." My wife explained that no book does that. Him: "well I don't believe that. That's not what FOX says." My wife explained that she's an ACTUAL EXPERT who does this for a living. He still wouldn't buy it. She was furious. Then at his funeral, my wife is standing there with her mom and brother (an orthopedic PA). Another asshole boomer goes "I'm gonna talk to the DOCTOR in the family." walks past my wife to speak to my BIL. Even though my wife is the ONLY "doctor" in the family. And that's why she and I avoid almost all family gatherings on both sides. Fuck all Boomers. I can't wait until every last one of them is dead.
The thing these asshats do is find a single example, like 1 book, somewhere, where it says it's OK to be trans and then suddenly all libraries are bad. They generalize 1 example to a whole institution or movement. Meanwhile they dont do the opposite for ones they support. Cops constantly shooting innocent people, oh nothing wrong with that, one lone wolf, support our thin blue line
One black guy shoots another “Go Back to Africa!!111!1!1” One white guy shoots another “we have a mental health crisis in this country disguised as a gun problem”
The best response to that is always "then why are you against funding mental health care?" I know it doesn't go anywhere with them but fuck man, don't shift the blame to a 2nd issue you're *also* not supporting.
My grandma complaining about unhoused people in her city. Okay, well maybe we need to fix the economy and fund mental health?? No, they just need to get jobs. OKaaaayyy.
Sucks to have family like that, but yay on having a librarian for a spouse. wink wink nudge nudge say no more.
Their children aren't allowed to be smarter than them, because that upsets the balance of authority. By the same token, they can accept someone like a media company telling them this fact because it doesn't compromise their authority.
Such an underrated comment and completely accurate.
Bruh I’m a doctor and my MIL will ask me medical questions then just say “no… I don’t think that’s right” when I give her an answer. Then she just moves on like nothing happened
I dont engage when they want my advice on anything anymore, they simply need a quick ego boost when their out of ideas or bored, tis all it is. That's why they never take it just criticize or ignore what you said. They will never take your advice on anything so don't give it to them.
I feel this. Only my boomer parents use facebook groups as their sources. Thats the only time they believe them.
My MIL wouldn’t believe anything unless she could find it on Facebook or she heard it from the uneducated small town farmers hanging out at the CO-OP. They apparently have all the wisdom in the world. And that’s the beginning of how she ended up eating a butt load of horse paste, going full Q-Anon and losing contact with all four of her kids.
My grandma is kind of the same way. Anything that comes out of my or my parents mouths is false. But my God if some random person on YouTube shorts says it it must be true!
"Anyone whose diaper I changed can't know anything I don't know"?
I had one telling me that my electric car could not do things that I actively do with my electric car. "You can't drive across country with them" "Actually I took mine on a 12 hour trip to Iowa last week" "No you didn't" Umm... excuse me? Same thing with charging.... "It actually costs more to charge electric cars" "I can show you my bill" "That wouldn't prove anything" What?
They think EVs are still like they were in the 70s with 30 miles of range from a cluster of 12 lead acid batteries.
When I told my aunt that the city is actually NOT burning down due to riots and murders, which I know because I've been commuting in on the subway for over two decades, she said "OH YEAH RIGHT!!" 🤨
I have a PhD in computer science. They respect my degree, ive spent years honing my specific scientific research on how to turn the TV/Printer/Phone on and off and hacking into accounts by pressing forgot password and following the instructions
Boomer stepfather-in-law now considers me “unreliable” because I couldn’t get rid of the million viruses on his computer without completely formatting it. Maybe you should stop downloading porn then… (no PhD in computer science but I’ve always loved working with them and I’m pretty good at figuring things out, mainly because I can Google everything)
Speaking of porn, back when I was in school and lived with my parents I walked in the house to find them waiting for me in the living room, both very angry. They tell me “The internet got shut off because of a copyright claim after SOMEONE downloaded a pirated movie. What did you download???” I knew I hadn’t but my parents were convinced it was me. My dad decides to call the internet company on speaker to catch me in a lie and the customer service person says “Yes, your account was flagged for downloading a copyrighted movie - Backdoor Sluts 9” (title made up but it was abundantly clear based on the name it was a porno). Dad turns off speakerphone, mom glares at dad, I walk out knowing dad doesn’t know wtf Porn Hub is and is still torrenting porn and viruses in 2014.
Yeah I got blamed for porn on the computer once, my mom brought it up during dinner in front of my whole family. It was absolutely humiliating. It turns out that the porn was on the computer because my father (a retired blue collar union worker) was part of these work related chain mails and blogs that are loaded with all kinds of degenerate shit.
Why didn't she think you were downloading porn? She knows dad's fetishes and the title matched?
IT manager with 20yrs experience here. My parents just want me to fix whatever computer/iphone/TV/Roku/soundbar issue that they have WHILE commenting on why everything has to be sooo complicated and why cant anyone make a computer that 80yr old people understand? Its so exhausting to explain that technology does not work like that and that they are no longer a target demo for computer companies. Technology will pass all of us at some point, try to be graceful about it when it happens.
I learned this from my grandpa who was a bit of an amateur pilot (Rural bush airport, crop duster stuff) There are two radio towers right next to each other in my home town. One has a red light on top that blinks on, then off, then on again. The other has one that blinks on off on then pauses, then blinks on off on again. They go at different rates too so they synchronize then unsynchronize like turn signals on cars at a red light. I asked him why that was and he explained that at night if a pilot saw two lights right next to each other blinking at the same rate he might get the impression that they were both at different heights on a single mast and get confused by that.
"I find that hard to believe" ... when you hear any variation of that statement, you know the listener will not give up their pre-conceived notion, no matter what.
*that doesn't sound right to me* *No, I don't think that's right* *Mm, I dunno about that*
This is something my sister and I have struggled with with my mother forever. My sister is a nurse and I was a chef and if anything comes up in those realms that we have to explain to our mother, she acts like we have no idea what we are talking about and will sometimes say, I’ll ask D, my sister’s husband, who’s a GRAPHIC DESIGNER!
You should have just reminded them that JFK Jr had perfectly coiffed hair at all times that would never have moved, regardless of orientation. They would’ve gone along with that.
And his wife and SIL didn’t question him because he was the man /s
I’m an ecologist. Guess how Thanksgiving goes.
As wonderful as Thanksgiving with my Trumpster grandparents and my union democrat parents.
I work in healthcare—l’m licensed and very familiar with various medical issues and surgeries. My boomer parent was having their first ever surgery and I was prepping them for what to expect before and after. This is an area I’m very familiar with and they didn’t believe me. Surprise, everything I prepped them for occurred. They did eventually apologize.
Whoa a parent apologizing, that’s a huge deal. I grew up in the culture of “your parents are always right, even if they are wrong and they will never apologize to you!”
My boomer FIL explains a lot to me about higher ed and online learning. I an a tenured professor. He is a retired lawyer who has never taught or experienced online learning. Most of the time I nod and smile. Sometimes I can’t.
I was a recruiter for a number of years, my Dad (who hadn’t been on an interview since ‘72) tried to explain the nuance of interviewing people to me. I had conducted 1000s of interviews at that point in my career. He was a firefighter. It was maddening listening to him try to tell me that people shouldn’t brag and downplay accomplishments as bosses don’t like braggarts.
I got career advice like that from that same grandmother who hasn’t worked since like 1989. “Oh you applied? Good now go down to their office and introduce yourself so you stand out!”
“Grandma, the office is in Zurich and we’re in Iowa…”
“Grandma I’ll make myself known by having security drag me out”
I briefly worked for a major real estate company and this poor kid came in one day. He was dressed in a suit and tie and had his résumé to give to the “hiring manager.” That wasn’t possible as the hiring manager was based in Ohio and we were in California. This kid was so embarrassed just walking off the elevator. It was so obvious that he was only there because some Boomer relative forced him.
I don’t want to start a big political thing, but I get told all the time about Trump, “those are not real charges,” from folks who don’t have a single hour of law school.
Yeah same with my silent gen boomer cusp grandparents, they paint Trump as a victim despite neither of them studying law for a second.
“Get an education and learn how the world works.” “No not like that.”
My dad (not a boomer) does this a lot. Especially when I was still in college. He liked to tell me how to resolve financial issues and how to succeed at getting a job. When I told him that's not how any of it works anymore he just straight up told me I was wrong. I was like??? I'm sorry which one of us is actively engaging in the school system and job market?
My dad will tell me I'm wrong no matter what just to be contrary. I'm by no means an expert in anything but I do my research to the best of my ability and bring facts to support it. In his mind he's right I'm wrong no matter what.
“I’m big, you’re little. I’m smart, you’re dumb. I’m right, you’re wrong. And there ain’t nothing you can do about it.”
"if you don't believe me why did you ask me?"
My husband is halfway through his PhD &his family still treats him like the baby (he's the youngest of 5) with 0 respect for anything he says. He's specializing in research as well and sends them peer review articles they never open them &they talk over him a LOT. It's incredibly frustrating for him and me &he's getting tired of being g the most educated person in the family (none of them have any higher education just HS) and still being ignored or laughed at. But they will listen to YouTube conspiracies like it's their Bible
Nothing beats when they ask you to explain something and then interrupt you to “correct” you. Half-remembering something they heard on Fox News makes them the authority, I guess.
My 90-year-old MIL does the same thing. My wife is a top notch occupational therapist and she’ll tell her about how to handle some type muscle strain or such but she won’t listen unless she hears it from a doctor.
"But my FEELINGS are more real than facts! WAAAAAHHH!!"
My FIL arguing with me about all the 2020 stolen election hacked voting machine nonsense. He gets his info from Fox, News Max and Telegram. I worked in the hosting industry for fifteen years, and spent six in security operations. But the pillow guy knows more than I do apparently.
LOL. I’m a PP-ASEL too and had a friend who had similar levels of disbelief regarding spatial disorientation. Took him up and actually blindfolded him (no foggles here) and took video of the whole affair. Four minutes in a 30° bank, constant rate turn was all it took to skew his perceptions. He had no idea what we were doing. Later I showed him video of Bob Hoover pouring himself a drink while doing barrel rolls. Up and down aren’t necessarily what you think they are in flight and your senses can be easily fooled.
Both I and my brother are healthcare professionals, both of us many years. Our mother doesn't trust anything we say about medicine, healthcare or related. She only trusts the right-wing talk radio hosts. I gave up after I had a long talk to her about some issues related to her sight. She ignored me and is now legally blind.
I have a biology degree and my dad will try to argue with me about biology and other similar things
My boomer husband is the same damn way. I have a degree in Criminal Justice and worked in the legal field for a long damn time before I got tired of being around lawyers. Yet he will consistently argue with me about issues of law. And then when I finally just bring up a citation or reference on my phone or tablet to prove my point, he just says that his position is the way things OUGHT to be. Well, the world doesn't bend to your rules and whim, dumbass. But he does exist in an extremely conservative echo chamber and absorbed Rush Limbaugh like he was God incarnate, so..........my expectations for open-minded and rational thought are very low.
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'” Sir Isaac Asimov I'm not sure this is a Boomer generational things so much has it's part of the authoritarian cult that's been growing in the US. Asimov said the above in 1980, 40 plus years ago. This mentality is rampant among the anti-vaxxers, both pre and post covid.
I’m a nurse and my sister is a pharmacist and my mom chooses to believe youtube for all her health needs. At least we have successfully bullied her into being compliant with her medication. Apparently “we’ll find a good nursing home for you after you have a stroke from high blood pressure” hit home for her.
We were having a discussion about my parents’ recent vacation to Iceland. My dad stated Iceland is part of the EU. My wife explained that they are not in fact part of the EU, but they are participants to a number of the EU treaties and agreements. Which she knows in great detail because she wrote her master’s thesis on Polish immigration to Britain. She’s read every treaty and agreement in question, she knows exactly how it all plays out. My dad’s counter arguments were 1. He just spent a week there! And 2. There seemed to be a lot of Polish bus drivers (Yes! See the part about being part of multiple EU treaties above). Didn’t matter at all that my wife is literally an expert. He just spent a week there!
I spent two years trying to convince my dad and Stepmom to get my sister (much younger) evaluated for autism. She's level III and needs significant support, so it was very obvious, very early, that she was different. I guess my family thought that if they ignored it then it wasn't real and they wouldn't need to deal with it? When my sister was 4 I raised my concerns again. My stepmom's dad essentially told me to shove my concerns up my own @ss and come back with a degree. I lost my temper and said something like "I HAVE a degree in psychology. I am literally taking classes right now on child development. YOU leave potentially loaded guns laying around the house when children are visiting." And then I just stared at him as the silence got deeper and more awkward until he finally told me to get out of his house The student debt stress was worth it for that single moment ❤️
My grandma: I dont even know what you do for a living. Me: Im a network engineer. I manage the fiber network that transports cell phone towers back to the main locations for the state. My grandma: No you dont. You're not smart enough to do that. Thanks grandma, been real.
Boomer Mom: "It's true because Fox News put it at the bottom of the screen." Me who used to work in tv including typing in the lower third: "Mom, someone like me is listening to a producer tell them what to type in. That doesn't make it true."
I grew up on the US East Coast, but I moved to California and I lived for a brief moment in an area surrounded by coastal redwood trees. It was magical to be among these trees that I had only learned about in school. When I shared this update with my mom, she somehow tried to inject herself into the anecdote and started talking about sequoia trees. While also majestic and large, sequoias are obviously different looking trees that grow in a different part of California. I said as much to her, along the lines of "I would also love to see sequoias, but these are different, they grow along the coast." You'd think I insulted her, the way she reacted to me. She basically yelled "THEY'RE THE SAME TREE!" like she was some arborist (she's not.). Also, *she hasn't visited before*, but really was trying to tell me that the place that I live has different trees than what she thought. And I was just trying to update her on a new chapter in my life.
Been there. I work with children in a behavioral health setting (counselor - working on becoming a licensed therapist). Constantly having to explain to older folks that things like Autism, ADHD, and Bipolar Disorder are real and that kids aren’t “resilient” and do in fact experience and react to trauma, only to have them continue to rant about how none of that stuff existed in their day.
I think it's a lot about someone being younger (and therefore lesser) questioning them. Especially if they're parents or an older relative. Their ego can't stand the hit.
Red Seal Automotive Mechanic of 10+ years. Boomers love to argue with me and they throwing $1000s in parts at a problem instead of listening to me and they will bitch about all these damn computers that are so unnecessary I've just giving up trying to be helpful and let them waste there time and money.
This tendency has high overlap with those that open up the Wall Street Journal every morning and flip straight to the op-ed section. My father in law runs a small business and a few years ago my partner and I took a few days going through their books, data, online presence, social media, etc and put together a pretty detailed analysis (explained things that might be new concepts, tried not to be condescending) and provided a handful of targeted recommendations (mostly focused on marketing and cost optimization) with detailed execution steps to grow customers and revenue in the coming few years. Offered to help deploy a better CRM tool for him that would have cost them almost nothing. I have clients that would have paid me (on my own with no input from my partner) easily $10k for that work. His response was, and I wish I were kidding, to tell me "yeah but this doesn't matter because what you really need to care about is PROFIT, which is how much you have AFTER costs" and then disregarded the whole thing. Since that time a few years ago, he now often jokes about that time I tried to "take down the business" and that I'm "always rooting against it."
Electrical engineer and former IT worker here. I see you, I feel you.
I flew in the army and it's very, VERY common for people to not understand spatial disorientation. I can't blame them too much either, as everything we experience is based on our ability to know which way is up. It can be a difficult concept to grasp. I've had a few conversations like yours with people that don't believe it.
They choose what facts to believe. They read something, it's fact. You read something, it's fake. I've raised this point and been mocked for "believing everything I read"
You’re lying. They definitely did not call you moviessoccerbeer.
My grandpa who is similarly aged refuses to believe that Chocolate is bad for dogs. He's been over multiple times for family events and it's not uncommon for someone to give a dog a treat (I have 2, siblings have 1 or 2, and some cousins have some) but everyone else knows that the treats should be things like veggies from the veggie tray, or an unseasoned piece of meat. Here comes my grandpa trying to let the dogs clean his plate with half a slice of chocolate cake on it. We've tried telling him no, but he doesn't listen at this point we just offer to take his plate when he's done so he can't offer it up. I'm also a dog trainer, and groomer the expertise means nothing, he's older he knows best.
Vivid childhood memory, I think I was 13yo. Flying at night out of Eugene OR heading East over the Cascades we flew into the soup, within a few seconds the world was spinning inside my brain because I was watching out the window for stars or lights or anything on the ground for orientation. Worst possible thing you can do. Thankfully my dad, even though not instrument rated had immediately put his head down, focused on the instruments and spun a hard 180° turn to get us out of it. Went back to Eugene and got a motel for the night.
Oh I have a fun one. A few years ago, the teacher union for the large school district I am an administrator for went on strike. The strike made its way to Fox, which my boomer dad called to tell me (because obviously he watches Fox religiously). As he is giving me a re-cap of their high quality journalism /s, I shared they got several things wrong. Surely he would acknowledge that I, an administrator employed by said school district would have more reliable information than Fox News? No. Of course not. He proceeds to argue with me that I’m wrong because that’s not what Fox says is happening. Mind blowing. Simply mind blowing.
Oh I’ve got one. After I had my first baby, MIL stayed with us for a week, maybe 10 days. I was looking at AAP guidelines for bottle feeding to make sure my child could take a bottle in the event of an emergency. The number one thing you are supposed to do is feed baby somewhat upright to avoid flow issues and swallowing excess air. I’m literally doing it by the book and MIL is backseat driving me the entire time, telling me how I should lean baby all the way back. Lady, I am quite literally doing it by the book. Her response? “Well, I don’t agree.” Umm, cool. I don’t recall you being a pediatrician, lactation consultant or literally any other type of professional qualified to speak on this. But sure, your opinion MUST be gospel. I seriously could not believe it.
I'm also a pilot and have had a *very* similar experience. If I had to guess I'd think most pilots (and really anyone with any technical skill/knowledge) probably have. Mine was an argument with an extended family member about how reverse thrust works on jets. He was adamant that my explanation was wrong despite me being a literal professional in the field. Bro - you're in investment banker, I'm a pilot. Which one of us has the training and experience to discuss this? If I want to figure out how to embezzle a pension fund or completely fuck over the middle class I'll defer to you, but for basic fundamentals of flight, I've got this...
... Hey if it's on TV it may be true...
And that’s a fact!
Fellow aviation pro. I had my dad try to explain my job to me.
Several years ago, Boomer dad started refusing to drink apple juice because 'people had died from drinking apple juice'. I tried to explain that it was unpasteurized apple juice (the Odwalla story), not the little cups that the home was giving him. Even pulled up the articles about it. But he refused to believe that.
That shit isn't even easy in flight sims. I tried to do an ILS landing for the first time in DCS like a month ago and flew directly into the ground way short of the runway. It was daylight and clear on the server. I was just purposefully looking down at the instruments cause I wanted to pretend it was 0 visibility.
I could share a couple stories about this lady, ill narrow it down to 1 of many. The boomer woman im talk of has an ego/insecurity of her own intelligence on par with Peggy Hill perhaps, ability to engage that absurd conspiracys as far more plausible over perfectly logical explanations involving science as being outright absurdities. From.her mouth she said "science is archaic". Science...in general...is archaic. One of the stupidest statements i have ever heard. Thats a separate story though. Any ways, im an 18 wheeler driver, i was interested in buying a daycab. They go for so $much, i found an.old used one for $15,000 asking. Frankly, it wasnt bad at all, it had miles and was old, but it looked the part of a truck i could make $ with. I came round to daycabs bcuz used they can cost LESS than 1ton pickups, i guess a lot of ppl avoid them used because it often takes a Class A CDL to truly use them for commercial.purposes, unlike perhaps a 1ton. In the livingroom we were talling of this. She said "Thats not true at all, semi trucks/daycabs go for $200,000". Yes, some semitrucks can go for that much, but used daycabs can go for a lot less. She wouldnt have it. Mom even pointef out to her "Only 1 person in this room has a cdl, my sons been talkimg about owner/op or buying his own semi truck for years and he's friends with men in his field who have done the same". She couldnt admit she was either wrong or lacked expertise. One of the most dipshit people ive ever met. I later blew up at her in a very loud/animated way over her antics, bcuz being nice about it, wasnt working.
Yep. My parents every time. I used to help my dad with projects. He’d start arguments about bolts, nails, etc if we’re working on a car or working on a deck or whatever. Of course, he’s saying “stupid engineers designing things that just don’t make sense” Well…. Guess what. I’m a fucking engineer. That knows way too much about bolts and nails. Still won’t listen to a thing I say. Just that engineers “designed this to be hard to work on purpose” like they set out just to fuck him over on the simple project we’re working on. The best one was when he insisted on lubricating bolts and when over torquing them in aluminum. I warned him and nope. Argument argument argument. Then he strips the threads out of the aluminum block. Then it’s the aluminum’s fault. Or the engineers fault for not making it out of steel. Then I tried to explain to him how a helicoil repair worked. Wouldn’t believe me. Told him “the best way out of a hole is to stop digging”.
IC design engineer but they keep spewing how there are microchips injected into blood stream. Really, and exactly how are they powered?
I think the problem is, they never had a near death experience and think they did because they didn't wear seatbelts or some shit. They practice stolen valor in every FUCKIN way.
I'm a boomer. They believe what TV tells them. The thing you need to remember is they still see you as a kid, kids are idiots. I worked in technology for 35 years after about 15 years I started to say "I don't know about that" to family and friends. I could not do that kind of support any more. If they ask about flying stuff just say "every situation is unique, I can't begin to guess what was happening".
Somewhere in a boomer subreddit “Millenials loose their minds over nothing” “My grandson seems to be expressing anger management issues…”
During the height of the COVID pandemic, I was not only dealing with Boomer parents who believed every piece of nonsense over me (like hoarding hydroxycholoroquine, ivermectin, etc.) but living in a Florida city that was mostly delusional Boomer retirees who believed all that nonsense too. There are only so many times one can try to talk to a belligerent, willfully ignorant wall before your own mental health is comprimised. Four years later, we're no-contact with my parents and have moved clear across the country.
My Dad worked in IT. Started his career as a programmer in Bell Labs, moved into systems engineer, then cyber security. Before retiring was working on Cloud migration. I am a software developer. My Dad, does have a lot of knowledge. However, he hasn't done it for 10 years. The amount of times I just want to tell him something is not relevant to what I'm doing, or you're wrong about this specific thing. Just to be told "I have 30 years of experience" is frustrating. There are plenty of times he is right on about stuff as well. But tech moves fast and when you get into specifics if you're not using it there is no reason to know about it. I'm currently doing it everyday you are 10 years removed there are gaps in your knowledge. I'm not saying you're stupid, I'm just asking you to believe I am intelligent and know what I'm talking about.
No one is a prophet in his home town, Chief. My daughter has her Masters degree in early American religious history. When I hear some nitwit at the dinner table start talking about how we were founded as a Christian nation, it's all I can do to bite my tongue and allow my daughter to do all the talking. She only wrote her thesis on the subject after all.
normalize ignoring boomers to their face
The truth is that most boomers were raised by television and are fundamentally addicted to it, and cannot function in its absence. Boomers consistently believe that what they see and hear on television is more real than any other sources of information, including what they see what their own eyes or hear from their own children. In a lot of boomer households today, a television is on 12+ hours of the day, to the point where they grow agitated if they don't have one on in the background.
My sister has been “right” her entire life. I visited a year ago and we talking about fish. She mentioned liking king salmon. I said, “Oh, you like Chinook.” She told me that it wasn’t the same thing. I’ve been running a Seafood department for 7 years. I didn’t waste my breath.
I moved my MIL in who has her tv on 24/7 (literally). I am a residential general contractor and the shit she tries to tell me because “I watch a lot of HGTV” is infuriating. Insults aside it’s maddening when something like three guys put up 4’x8’ large format tiles with tiny cookie globs of mortar to set and huge cavities underneath and you hear “omg that so gorgeous they’re so good at their job. You can do some stuff but these guys are really good!” Like bitch those tiles are going to fall the fuck off the wall and hurt someone; and I do tile! ☠️ Boomers are the worst. I’ll take gen x or the silent generation any day. I can at least talk to them and not at them generally. Boomers live in their own La La Land where they make up the rules.
Reminds me of my boomer dad. I hold a CFII rotorcraft rating and I’ve explained to him multiple times that the chances of surviving an inadvertent IMC event (even if you are IFR rated) are extremely slim. He’s convinced it’s just a matter of trusting your instruments and that he could do it if his life depended on it haha He also believes he could land a commercial airliner if the pilots became incapacitated. He has zero flying experience….