Talk:List of age-related terms with negative connotations

Many issues with the info on this page
While reading this page I noticed a number of factual errors, assumptions, and references that do not support the text they accompany.

To highlight the "Zoomer" section as it currently stands: "Zoomer:[74][75] Antonym of "boomer"; refers to younger people who went through school or their career using Zoom to communicate in the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as young people zooming through life, addicted to digital devices such as smartphones or working in technologically-integrated environments"

"Zoomer" is not an antonym of "Boomer" but rather a similar category used to generalize a group of people born within a specific time span. Reference 75 is a paper about how the term "Zoomer" is used in a context entirely unrelated to young people (and is actually applied to older people), yet the section only mentions the term in reference to young people. The section also states without source that the term "Zoomer" is related to the video conferencing platform Zoom, yet "Zoomer" is a portmanteau of "Boomer" and "Gen Z" and has nothing to do with Zoom. General consensus is that "zoomers" are proficient with technology and this section claiming that the term holds an implication of technology "addiction" is somewhat disingenuous.

There are several other implications of the term when used specifically as an insult within the context of online spaces (immaturity, ignorance, "edgy" behavior, connection to certain trends) that are not mentioned as well. The mention of COVID-19 is unnecessary here as the term has been in common circulation since 2017, and to that point every reference to COVID-19 on this page seems to illustrate a POV from someone who either was not aware of these terms until the era of COVID-19 or their research was limited to questionable sources published only within this era.

Overall a significant amount of this page seems to be written from the bias of someone in a very specific online space, and that coupled with factual errors and bad sources means that this page requires significant edits. I will try to correct what I can sometime soon, but I need to read a bit about wiki etiquette first (I literally just made my account before posting this and don't know how this stuff works).

Pancakeke (talk) 16:40, 3 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Newbie here, too! My main problem with this list is that it looks like somebody got at it with a bias and has slipped in all these sex-related comments in regards to older men. The definition for the term "dirty old man" I noticed someone had used biased language such as "the clearly false belief [that old men are sexual and still attractive to young women]" and "naturally sexually-attracted to younger women". I tried to clean up some of this - I mean, some of it is simply redundant; I think we can all agree that older men can still be sexual beings but that doesn't require multiple statements of that fact in a definition. I think the problem with a definition-based article like this is that different cultures will perceive these terms differently. Where I'm from, "dirty old man" would refer to a pedophile or a sexual predator, whereas in the U.S. it would refer to someone who still has consensual relationships but who has an unnatural lust for much younger women. And by the time one starts getting into these nuances, it becomes too complicated to have a concise, objective definition at all. Ditto with any definition that mentions racism or sexism, which doesn't always apply in certain contexts. For example, the term "alligator bait" isn't always used in a racist sense. The Jerry Reed song "Amos Moses", which never hints at or specifies the race of its subject matter, uses the term but never implies anything racist in nature. Not saying the term isn't racist but the more one starts getting into the variances of how the term is used, the more complicated things get. TradingSpousesWelsch (talk) 14:03, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
 * thank you for your edits. The bit about "alligator bait" however is original research. You would need a citation that discusses the phrase and mentions it is not always racist. You are welcome to rephrase the item descriptions removing statements like "this term is racist" and only mention that the term usually targets a particular race or ethnic. The reader can decide for themselves if that makes it racist. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 04:39, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Someone must fix that Zoomer definition
I am dead serious. That's gotta be amended. 49.186.117.14 (talk) 06:44, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I rewrote it. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 06:25, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * thank you do much, Richard. You are a real hero 159.196.168.199 (talk) 02:32, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Removed second paragraph
I removed the second paragraph related to media figures "defying" ageism. It is not directly related to the topic of age-related terms with negative connotations. I also removed that dumb meme because using memes as evidence of ableism is unprofessional and unencyclopedic. -1ctinus📝 🗨  13:43, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Problems w/ the Introduction @ @
IP editors have been edit warring with me to continuously revert the introduction paragraph to an older version. I am not completely innocent of edit warring, so I am bringing this to the talk page. I believe the version that IP editors keep adding back is too long and not a good summary of the content of the page, and only focuses on seniors instead of other forms of age discrimination. It also repeats information TWICE in the same paragraph, such as "Consideration of such terms as offensive or harmful may depend on the context in which they are used; for example, the slang term "boomer" can have both neutral and negative connotations depending on the usage." and "Many terms may not be pejorative in certain contexts".

Furthermore, the last few sentences on the rise of "ageism" after the pandemic are extremely Ameri-centric and comes off as WP:RECENTISM.

I apoligize for edit warring, but this article needs fixing. -1ctinus📝 🗨  18:31, 21 April 2024 (UTC)