Having just turned 55 (and belated happy birthday), Terry Teachout links to an item in the Wall Street Journal that explores how boomers, as they get older never like to be called…old.
As Terry writes, “I read a sobering piece the other day about how boomers are so reluctant to admit the fact of their inexorably increasing age that marketers have been forced to accommodate them by resorting to what can only be described as systematic euphemism:”
The generation that sent diaper sales soaring in the 1960s, bought power suits in the 1980s and indulged in luxury cars in the 2000s is getting ready to retire: The oldest boomers turn 65 this year. To accommodate their best customers’ needs, American companies are overhauling product lines, changing their marketing and redesigning store layouts.But there’s a catch: Baby boomers, famously demanding and rebellious, don’t want anyone suggesting they’re old.
Advertisement“We don’t do anything to remind boomers that they are getting older,” says Ken Romanzi, North America chief operating officer at Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc., which has targeted the health-conscious generation as its primary consumer base….
Bathroom-fixture maker Kohler Co. struggled to come up with a more palatable word for “grab bar,” which boomers resist. It introduced the “Belay” shower handrail–named for the rock-climbing technique–which blends subtly into the wall of a tiled shower. “When you say, ‘We’ve got beautiful grab bars,’ [boomers] just say, ‘Naw,’ because they don’t want to identify as needing that,” says Diana Schrage, senior interior designer at Kohler’s design center.
Perhaps rock musicians, trapped in a genre that once worshiped youthful rebellion (and now typically represent neither of those ideals) have been the hardest hit of all. Comedian Tim Hawkins has some suggestions to help them match their lyrics with their current station in life:
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(Found via Canadian blogger Binky at Free Canuckistan. For more links than anyone not named Glenn Reynolds should legally be allowed to post, click over to the Binkmeister’s site and just keep scrolling.)
Hi Ed,
I did. See http://www.boomerdeathcounter.com . It’s all about the death of our generation, with counters and statistics.
Apparently the Boomer Generation has a hard time grasping the reality that until all the advances being highlighted at Instapundit become commercially feasible, we are all destined to die at some point. Our parents’ generation seems to understand it and from what I’ve witnessed, they accept it graciously as part of the life cycle.
Which is not to say that I like it, but I do understand and accept it.
I am a Baby Boomer and I am leaning toward the notion that the world will be a better place when we are gone. We require and get too much attention.
Sad and true. However, as a GenX-er, I am happy to get the senior discount at my grocery store!
The day I turned 45 I started getting 10% off some items, and it says SENIOR DISCOUNT over and over and over again on the big screen at the checkout. Call me old any day of the week and as loudly as you wish as long as you’re saving me money!
Well, personally I have not problem at all admitting I am old. I find it less embarrassing than being a “boomer” as generally our generation screwed things up big time and it is so much better than the alternative – dead.
I was sure the Garth Brooks tune in the video was going to be “I’m Much Too Old to Sing So Damn Young.”
As an early boomer myself, I need absolutely no reminding that I’m getting older, thank you very much.
I am reminded every morning by the searing pains when I try to get out of bed.
I don’t mind the direct references at all. Its hard to keep thinking you are only sweet sixteen when you have a 27 year old daughter.
I’m in the middle of the boomer cohort, but I’ve had dual handrails on the basement steps for close to ten years. (Its easier to vault down the stairs when you have a rail on both sides.)
I love that I’m finally going gray, because I still have hair to go gray. Figuring what to do with it as it disappears is a different problem.
There are worse things that can happen.
It has always been a wonder that I have lived as long as I have given all of the stupid things I did in my youth. My body was in such crappy shape by time I reached draft age that they turned their collective nose up at me. No great surprise as I didn’t complete High School without breaking breaking an arm(bicycling), back(skiing), and totaling an auto. As a result the following 40 years have been pure gravy.
Some day in the future will bring that other thing the boomers dislike hearing (grandchildren) as that makes them grandparents. In due time they will come and I won’t mind in the least bit.
I’m 66 (in boomer territory) and I call myself old all the time. I still chase the girlz. Having trouble catching them though.
Baby Boomers have been a driver on our economy for decades, some good and some bad. However, they have been an aberration, an outlier, in regards to how things usually work. Once gone, the US economy and possibly entire social/political fabric will revert to the more conservative bent that has has been the case for most of our country’s life.
The young get all the attention for physical toughness, but I am not so sure that’s completely right… this getting old stuff isn’t for cowards, and it takes physical as well as mental and moral courage. In youth, you just have to show up and you are in the game; as we age, we have to work at it. Luckily, we’re a pretty resourceful, crafty bunch by now…
I hope Mr. Romanzi, Ocean Spray’s designated front-dolt, was speaking for his company only, and did not employ the younger-generational “we” when he blithely said, “We don’t do anything to remind boomers that they are getting older…”. I can’t speak for Ocean Spray Juices, since that hideously over-promoted and overpriced liquid doesn’t make it into this Boomer’s house. But perhaps he meant that OSJ Inc., or society in general, seeks to euphemize age out of their vocabulary. Maybe he means society in general avoids alerting the Boomers to the hard fact of age – as if Boomers can be ignorant of that brutal truth – and that NO ONE tells BBs they’re getting old. So if Romo meant advertisers and broadcasters in general aren’t letting Boomers know they’re not as young as they used to be, well, “Pardonnez-moi, au contraire.”
I guess we’re not inundated by “ED” ads, for Viagra, Cialis, Levitra – and I particularly like how we aren’t shown that women apparently go into heat like cub-less she-lions the second they hear some wormy guy has scored some Enzyte.
And for those Boomers who were proud they heard The Who a couple of dozen times (all before the Rolling Stone cover with the “Not To Be Taken Away” chair, back when Pete played without ear buds, @126 dB), there aren’t any ads today to help them hear the TV, selling cheap mini-amplifiers like Silver Sonic, Songbird, IntelliEar, Sonic Earz, Loud N Clear, Stealth Secret Sopund Amplifier, etc.
No, there aren’t ads for insurance “to cover those final expenses.” “Guaranteed life insurance – no medical questions, and you cannot be turned down!”; no reverse mortgage ads; no ads for retirement financial planning (“Remember how we used to ask ‘when’; and now we ask ‘if’?”); no ads by sleazy-looking lawyers offering to get you that Social Security disability settlement that “you worked hard for and deserve”; no borderline-greedy PBS, ASPCA, even ACLU, etc., ads asking you to change your will in their favor – “Call your local PBS station to discuss how you can make the public broadcasting you’ve loved for so long a part of your estate plan…”; no ads for “The Complete History of Rock ‘n’ Roll” by TIME-LIFE Books, a huge total of 37 songs on 11 discs, for the low, low price of $199.95…”; no ads for universal remotes “that program themselves – no more confusing set-up!”; no ads for dummy cellphones ” – no more confusing set-up!”; no ads for “email machines – no more confusing set-up!”. etc., etc., etc.
Hell, we don;t anybody to tell us anything or cover up anything: Mother Nature is taking care of all of that…damn her.
It’s calling “doing more with less,” or so I used to think. As the days go by, though, it shades over into “doing less with less.”
And high time for that, too! Love my hammock and my loafing-time.
The Oldest Baby Boomer
The really axious bunch are non-boomers. All this talk, talk, talk about boomers. If we were half as monolithic as we are credited with we would form a schoolyard line, plow everybody down while chanting We don’t stop for nobody. With walker assist, of course. Now go away and leave me be all you young, navel gazing whippersnappers. Says a 551/2 yr. old-channeling G. Carlin.