How ‘OK, boomer’ wound up in the Supreme Court

The phrase “OK, boomer” might have originated on TikTok. But it just gained ground in the Supreme Court.

What happened: The Supreme Court is currently considering a case about what standards federal employees must meet to show that their employer is engaging in unlawful age discrimination, according to CNN.

• Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts brought “OK, boomer” into the argument.
• Roberts asked: “Let’s say in the course of the weekslong process one comment about age the hiring person is younger, says, ‘OK, boomer,’ once to the to the applicant. Now, you’re only concerned about process. You’re not concerned about but-for causation. It doesn’t have to have played a role in the actual decision. So is that actionable?”
• Lawyer Roman Martinez responded: “Well if the speech in the workplace ... calling someone ‘boomer’ or saying unflattering things about them in age, when considering them for a position, then yes of course,” he said.
• Roberts: “So calling somebody a ‘boomer’ and considering them for a position would be actionable?”
• Martinez: “If the decision-makers are sitting around the table and they say, ‘we’ve got Candidate A who’s 35’ and ‘we’ve got Candidate B who’s 55 and is a boomer’ — and is probably tired and you know, doesn’t have a lot of computer skills, I think that absolutely would be actionable. “

For the first time: Wednesday was the first time the phrase made it into the Supreme Court, according to Fox News.

Context: The phrase “OK, boomer” went viral, mostly due to reports from The New York Times’ Taylor Lorenz and NBC News’ Kalhan Rosenblatt.

• I also reported on the trend, speaking with a baby boomer — someone born between 1946 and 1964, depending on who you ask — about what the phrase means and what it could lead to.
• “It tells you that the person who’s using it is a know-nothing, is illiterate, knows no history, knows no culture,” he said.
• “It says more about the other bankruptcy of the mental capacity of the person speaking than it tells you anything about this empty category,” Friedman added.