Chlöe Swarbrick, a 25-year-old member of New Zealand’s parliament, was interrupted by another politician while giving a speech about climate change on Tuesday. And rather than stop everything to address the heckles, she did what anyone of her generation has learned to do when confronted with climate deniers. She said “OK Boomer” and moved on.
“How many world leaders, for how many decades have seen and known what is coming, but have decided that it is more politically expedient to keep it behind closed doors. My generation and the generations after me do not have that luxury,” Swarbrick said while discussing a new bill to reach zero carbon emissions in New Zealand by 2050.
“In the year 2050 I will be 56 years old. Yet right now the average age of this 52nd Parliament is 49 years old,” Swarbrick said as some heckling can be heard.
“OK Boomer,” said Swarbrick before moving on with her speech about the ways in which short term thinking dominates politics and threatens the planet.
Swarbrick told New Zealand’s Stuff news outlet that she’s sick of Baby Boomers saying her generation ruined everything and that Millennials need to “pull our socks up, or something.” She went on to say that when it comes to climate change “facts don’t matter” with Boomers and that a quick rejoinder does the trick.
“It’s better to acknowledge that perhaps energy is better spent elsewhere,” Swarbrick told Stuff. “That rallying cry is the relatively innocuous ‘ok boomer’.”
The clip, which has been uploaded to YouTube, shows a portion of Swarbrick’s speech, though it’s not clear what the hecklers were saying.
Swarbrick explained in a post on Facebook that some people have taken great offence to her “OK Boomer” comment, but she correctly points out that Baby Boomers whine about young people all the time.
“Today I have learnt that responding succinctly and in perfect jest to somebody heckling you about *your age* as you speak about the impact of climate change on *your generation* with the literal title of their generation makes some people very mad,” Swarbrick wrote.
“So I guess millennials ruined humour. That, or we just need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and abstain from avocados. That’s the joke.”
Needless to say, the Baby Boomers are pissed. Some Boomers took to Facebook to whine that Swarbrick was being ageist, with one person writing, “You and your ilk use Boomer as a pejorative. I think you lost all credibility with that one two-word response. Pathetic and childish.”
But plenty of other people thought her comment was perfect. Amusingly, the closed captioning of her video read “OK Berma,” which has led to some Facebook commenters taunting Boomers with a new version of the OK Boomer meme. “OK Berma” and “Bloody Bermas” appears to be the new “OK Boomer.”
You can watch Swarbrick’s entire speech at her Facebook page. And you can listen to the unofficial “OK Boomer” song on Soundcloud.