Heckled Politician Pulls Out Trendy Internet Insult

New Zealand's Chloe Swarbrick wielded an 'OK, boomer' against older Parliament member
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 7, 2019 8:47 AM CST

The war between the generations continues, this time Down Under. The "OK, boomer" phenomenon—an internet-driven trend in which millennials or members of Gen Z mock older folks they think are out of touch—took hold of a 25-year-old New Zealand politician Tuesday after she was heckled by a more wizened member of Parliament. CNN reports Green Party MP Chloe Swarbrick was speaking on how the climate crisis will affect her generation, and those after it, when she started getting jeers. "In the year 2050, I will be 56 years old," she said. "Yet, right now, the average age of this 52nd Parliament is 49 years old." That's when the heckler caught her attention, prompting a swift and merciless response. "OK, boomer," she replied, before immediately moving on to more talk on climate change.

The Washington Post reports reaction in the room was "muted," though the Guardian notes fellow Green Party MP James Shaw, of the much cooler Generation X, can be seen chuckling behind Swarbrick. She spoke about her retort later on Facebook, writing, "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. So I guess millennials ruined humor. That, or we just need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and abstain from avocados. That's the joke." What some people are now wondering is what generation NZ Parliament TV staff hail from, as the closed captioning for Swarbrick's barb read "OK, Berma." "Clearly we need to start doing all-office meme briefings," it tweeted afterward. (More New Zealand stories.)

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