On a car ride next to his one year-old granddaughter and me, his twenty-something kid, my Dad blurted out that he plans to vlog, coyly with his signature nervous laugh. My jaw must’ve dropped but I’ve mastered the art of concealing my expression –thanks to becoming a mom of a toddler.
“What do you want to vlog about?” I asked. Well, I know he recently got so into marathon, but I never thought that THAT was the intention.
“I want to inspire people my age to get moving,” he said, plainly. Oh, wow, I can barely get out of my seat to grab a proper meal let alone exercise and here he is, well into his remaining fifties, talking about moving and how he might have the platform to do so.
It got me thinking about what the internet has done to his generation.
OK, Boomer
According to a quick Google search, Baby Boomer is the generation born between the early to mid-1940s and the mid-1960s, came of age in an era before on-demand media.
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Baby Boomer is often associated with the cynical group of older people that think Millennials and Generation Z are entitled brats that never have the taste of hard work, being born and living their adulthood in the age of technology. The image stands to the point of the respective age group hating each other’s guts become normalcy, with the younger thinking the older outdated and cocky.
The term “OK, Boomer” was a viral sensation overnight when on November 4, 25-year-old New Zealand politician Chloë Swarbrick used the phrase as a rebuttal to one of her older colleagues in Parliament after the man heckled her during a speech about climate change, Vox reported.
Swarbrick then made herself clear in a following essay for the Guardian, that the meme represents a wealth of generational political concerns. “My ‘OK boomer’ comment in parliament was off-the-cuff, albeit symbolic of the collective exhaustion of multiple generations set to inherit ever-amplifying problems in an ever-diminishing window of time,” she quoted writing, pointing on the climate change issues that Boomers are known to dismiss.
Tracing it back, the hit phrase didn’t just happen overnight. It was TikTok that set the tone for the phrase to become a symbolic meme. It was sung by Peter Kuli & Jedwill in a rebuttal of baby boomers’ rants about kids these days.
The song titled “OK BOOMER!”, defines boomers as racist, fascist Trump supporters with bad hair, amplified by Gen Z’s users on the platform that rides on the song to share their own annoying encounter with the older generation.
Despite what you think about the phrase, in itself, the phrase carries the ageism undertone as well as a more complex issue such as calling out political indifference and jarringly different views on urgent matters like climate changes.
Ironically, it doesn’t exclusively put all Boomers in the same box of Millennials-haters, as the knowledge of the phrase itself shows that they’re -in fact- avid social media users that keep up with what’s going on.
Back to my Dad
How exactly my Dad came up with the idea to video himself and spread the body movement message is what I was intrigued to explore.
In the Think With Google’s piece, I found that Google has done some research about Boomers’ YouTube’s behaviour and it ticks all the boxes with my Dad.
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First of all, yes, they watch YouTube, even more often than we might guess. My Dad, when he’s not entertaining my kid, his face is glued to his tablet with a headset on and you guessed it: He’s on YouTube.
Some factors that make Millennials and Boomers have more in common in their YouTube behaviors actually caused by stark differences in the time they’re now living and the facilities that in their heydays were still impossible.
The article’s first point emphasises on how Baby Boomers turn to YouTube to save time as they’re in the dawn of retirement.
One of the Baby Boomers that Google interviewed explained the logic behind it. The 63-year-old lady preferred YouTube to commercial programming that she said takes too much of her time. Also, with YouTube at hand, reading instruction suddenly becomes a drag.
The same thing happens with my Dad. There’s interactivity in typing keywords of a video you wish to find on YouTube rather than receiving what regular programmes on TV offer you for the day, and that speaks volumes, especially because Baby Boomers didn’t have the luxury of internet access in their youth.
Compared to the older generation, Baby Boomers possess both the awareness and the pride that they now have the power to information with YouTube, enough to learn things by browsing.
The information they video-searched also varies, from researching about product or service’s details before making a purchase, or in my Dad’s case, daily news, often times the absurd ones so he can parade his findings to his WhatsApp friends.
From the survey, Google recorded that 68 per cent of Baby Boomers say they watch YouTube videos to be entertained, with entertainment, music, and news as the most-watched categories on the platform.
It’s not exclusively about Millennials
My Dad saying he’s interested in a future as a vlogger says a lot about how significant the Boomers generation still is.
The Think With Google’s piece also reveals that people over the age of 50 account for 51 per cent of consumer spending, ultimately creating opportunities for brands that can think beyond impressing only younger generation and can also deliver a relevant message to the bigger spenders.
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My Dad was in the know about the latest GoPro camera that he apparently has favourited to someday really purchase. For now, he said, he plans to master marathon and becomes regulars in races, slowly increasing his kilometres and building the marathoner lifestyle.
“Only then,” he continued, “I can confidently vlog about my journey.”
Boomers vlogging is not a mere trend. I bet if I make a quick search now on YouTube, I would find a channel run by Baby Boomers that I wouldn’t otherwise know if it wasn’t for my Dad’s fascination over vlogging.
Brands, businesses, and startups should start doing their homework of addressing the 50 something and include them in campaigns.
It’s time to embrace that Boomers, the ones off the media, are not the hopeless enemy of Millennials. They’ve just caught up with technology and has started sprinting to hone their digital skills, not to get competitive, but to taste the ease.
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Image Credit: unsplash.com/idoevolve
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