Millennials, baby boomers and humour

By Tony Deyal

(My Caribbean people are now increasingly “Baby Boomers” and “Millennials.” It is important for all of us in this region to get these two groups at the forefront of our developing society. Barbados prime minister, Mia Mottley, has expressed a strong focus on bridging the generational gap between baby boomers and younger generations, emphasising shared responsibility to secure Barbados’ future. She highlights the need to protect the work of older generations while providing massive opportunities and interventions for young people.)

When I went to Canada on a scholarship, it was a mix of working hard and playing harder: while managing a family, studying, and writing a column, I still found time to work two jobs. This caused my colleagues to call me, “Canuck” (slang term for a Canadian), and I replied, “Uck Off” (Cleaning Wipes). It was in Canada that I began to understand the term “Baby Boomers” (people born between 1946 – 1964) and, later, “Millennials” (those born between 1981-1996). The differences in each generation’s humour showed how differently they saw the world.

For “Millennials” humour was a coping mechanism for a difficult, often unfair, world and “Boomers” targeted things they disliked, such as the follies of the younger generations and changes in technology. Worse, while Millennials often looked at Boomer humour as outdated, Millennials’ humour was sometimes seen as equally grating by other generations. So, as a teacher, having to explain these groups to students, I started by asking, “Why can’t Millennials take a joke?” And they responded, “Because the jokes always hit a little too close to their parent’s house.” Then I asked, “How do Boomers change a lightbulb?” When the students said they didn’t know, I told them that they didn’t know anything at all and all they did was talk and boast about how great the old one was.

But I’ll get back to Boomers, who popularised the infamous, hilarious “dad jokes”, and completely ignore Generation X (1965-1980), the lost generation, who would prefer being left out of the conversation anyway. I explain more to my class about the importance of Millennials, especially in light of the generation immediately following them: Generation Z or Zoomers (1997-2012). Millennials were defined by the advent of the Internet and digital communication. They were the first generation to grow up with smartphones, personal computers, and social networking, leading them to be tech-dependent. They were shaped by the 9/11 attacks, the 2008 recession, and the rise of the Internet in the 1990s.

Millennials are often recognised as “life bad” humour, focusing on sarcasm, self-deprecation, and memes about crippling debt, existential bread, and how life is unfair. Generation Z (Gen Z or Zoomers), who followed Millennials, are true digital natives who never knew a world without high-speed, mobile Internet, hot stuff like “mobile technology” and “social media,” which has advanced to be highly visual and integrated into daily life.

They were defined by a Post-“9/11” world, shaped by the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, characterised by heightened security, the “War on Terror,” increased geopolitical tension, growing awareness of climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to a focus on security, innovation, and social change. What was interesting about these two groups was that while all other generations had improved upon their predecessors, the millennials were the only generation shown to be sharper and smarter than the younger cohorts that followed.

Despite being the top of the group, Millennials had been hated by everyone. Worse, they had a special brand of online humour that is more earnest and less concerned with being “cool” and taking photos of food at restaurants. In the United Kingdom, researchers found that at least seven out of ten people born in the millennial generation would be overweight or obese, before they reached middle age. My kids in the class would add, “And you, Sir, you make the other ten by yourself.” I can laugh at myself, but some Millennials can get really upset when people joke about them.

My class might say: “We are getting so sick of Millennials and their attitude!” Why class? “That’s because they always walk around like they rent the place.” If I ask the question, “Why do Millennials always type in lowercase?” The entire class would shout, “Because they reject capitalism.” Another older group made it clear, “People say Millennials are entitled…But have you tried to tell an old lady her coupon has expired?” There have been questions and answers like, “Why don’t cannibals like to eat Millennials?…They’re too salty.” I also heard people say, “Why do Millennials get for doing nothing?…A trophy.” – “Why are Millennials so odd?… Because they can’t even.”

Some arguments suggest Boomers are much funnier than Millennials due to hardships and experience, creativity in adapting to new things, and the ability to laugh at their own self-absorption. Unlike them, Millennials seem to have had more humour aimed at them than the other way around, and with greater effect, although they do have the odd zinger: “If I had a dollar for every time older people complained about Millennials?… I could fix the economy they broke.”  Zoomers have their“life bad” jokes, observational humour about technology, and traditional sitcom-style jokes.

Of all of these generations, Boomers are my favourite group for humour with, “Why did the boomer have a no-coins policy in his store? … He couldn’t tolerate change.” – “How many boomers does it take to change a lightbulb? … None – they’ll all resist change even if it makes the world a brighter place.” – “How many Boomers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? … They won’t do it – they’re retired. Those lazy millennial lightbulbs need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and screw themselves in.” – “What do you call a 66-year-old man who is just figuring out what he wants to be? … A late boomer,”  and one for the ending: “What’s the difference between a baby boomer and an avocado? … One is a soft, wrinkling vegetable. The other is an avocado.”

Unfortunately, from my early days in Canada and the US, I found out that Millennials and Boomers make up a significant portion of the population in Trinidad and Tobago, as well as the wider Caribbean. They operate within a rapidly aging society, with the Caribbean region’s population aged 60 and over growing significantly. In other words, we in the entire region are experiencing a rapid demographic shift with a median age around 38.6. In fact, just to put it in the region, Boomers in the Caribbean are often seen as the wealthiest generation, focused on retirement and health, holding traditional views on work and using traditional media. The Millennials, especially in T&T, are adapting to technological shifts, navigating high living costs, and entering the workforce with higher education.

With the “Trinis” especially, their jokes are about boomers versus millennials, including “old school” parents dismissing modern struggles, the “back in times” versus “nowadays” music, and the dramatic, humorous parenting style of old generations. Those in the past claim they lived through hardship and even walked 10 miles to school. There were jokes about parents not understanding smartphones or trying to use technology, while some are unable to function without it.

Then there are parents who have no patience compared with “modern” parenting, and other parents who remind everyone that everything in the house, including the food you eat, belongs to them, despite your age. However, the ones that Trinis love most are the witty lyrics of old calypso and soca. What they hate are the “raw” lyrics of today. What they have a lot of are the jokes between the Boomers and Millennials. For example, “A Boomer tells a Millennial, ‘When I was your age, I bought a house on a single income!’ The Millennial replies, ‘When I was your age, you were working there and still haven’t retired.’”

 *Tony Deyal was into the toast again when he heard that Millennials could not buy houses because they spent all their money on avocado toast, unlike Boomers, who bought houses for the price of a toaster in 1976.

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