Turns Out, Boomers Had a Point And Younger Generations Are Finally Admitting It

Picture a group of twenty-somethings hunched over their phones, scrolling through a thread that makes them nod in agreement at every post except the thread sounds like their grandparents wrote it. Nobody planned for it to go this way. A single question on Reddit drew 123 million views and accidentally proved something nobody in Gen Z or millennial circles wanted to admit. Baby boomers, for all the grief they catch from younger generations, have been right about a few things all along.

What started as a casual, now-deleted post asking “What is the most boomer complaint you have?” spread across Reddit and every other corner of the internet, pulling in responses from Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z users who apparently had a lot to get off their chests. Some of those complaints were specific. Some were funnier than expected. And all of them pointed to a truth that cuts across generational lines that modern life, for all its convenience, has a long list of things that genuinely drive people crazy.

How a Single Post Broke the Internet

One deleted post on Reddit managed to do what few things do online it got people from different age groups to agree with each other. By the time the conversation spread to Reddit and beyond, it had taken on a life of its own. Users were not just complaining for the sake of it. They were making pointed observations about how daily life has changed, and not always for the better. For a generation that built its identity around rejecting boomer cynicism, the irony of finding common ground with their parents’ generation was not lost on anyone.

Tech Was Supposed to Make Life Easier

Ask anyone who has tried to watch a movie, order food, check a bank statement, or simply turn up the volume in their car lately, and you will get a version of the same complaint. Technology has added steps where it promised to remove them.

On Reddit, user neonmystery put it as plainly as anyone could: “I miss buttons.” That two-word post earned 1.3K upvotes, and the replies kept coming. User Naomeri added, “Especially in the car! Screens can get fucked,” which pulled in 440 upvotes of its own. User Sour_baboo spelled out exactly why buttons matter: “Volume knobs, tuning knob, push pull controls you could feel the position of. Tactile, position oriented information, not just looking at instruments.”

Car manufacturers spent years replacing physical controls with touchscreens in the name of cleaner design. Drivers have spent those same years poking at glass panels while trying to change the temperature or skip a song tasks that used to take a single, instinctive hand movement without looking away from the road.

Nobody Wants to Talk to an AI

If buttons are one flashpoint, AI customer service chatbots are another. Few complaints gathered as much raw emotion in the thread as the frustration of trying to reach a human being on the phone and landing instead on a bot that has no idea what you actually need.

Reddit user capngabbers captured the sentiment in all caps, with exasperated emojis to match. Another user in the thread had a workaround for mumble incoherent nonsense when the automated system asks what you need, and the system will eventually route you to a human because it cannot make sense of the request. That someone figured out how to game an AI phone tree by pretending to be incomprehensible says a great deal about where customer service has landed.

Former contact center worker alicatchrist added a dry, funny footnote to the thread: “I worked in an insurance contact center a few years ago. I definitely got ‘REPRESENTATIVE’ a few times after introducing myself. ‘…. Hi I’m the representative!’ usually got a good chuckle out of people.” Even the people who once worked those call center lines understand the frustration on both sides.

Accounts, Passwords, and the Password for Your Passwords

Close behind AI customer service on the list of modern irritants sits the account-creation industrial complex. Log in here. Create a profile there. Verify your email. Set a password. Make the password stronger. Do not use a password you have used before. Do not write it down anywhere. Manage all of them through Google.

Reddit user 4-ton-mantis laid it out with deadpan precision: “Make a password for everything. Don’t use the same password twice. Make each one so complicated there is no chance of memorizing it. Don’t write them down anywhere. Oh but it’s cool to manage all of them via Google.”

A deleted-account user framed it as a broader complaint about living in 2025 generally: “Too many apps, too many accounts, too many ads, too many notifications, too many questions, too many email lists.” Hundreds of other users piled on, clearly relieved to say out loud what had been quietly bothering them for years.

QR Codes at the Dinner Table

Few modern conveniences have generated as much eye-rolling as the QR code restaurant menu. Adopted during the pandemic out of necessity, QR codes at restaurants quietly stuck around long after the reason for them disappeared. Now, sitting down to eat often means pulling out a phone, opening the camera, scanning a code, waiting for a page to load, and then squinting at a PDF on a four-inch screen.

“Please don’t make me scan a QR code for the menu,” one Reddit user wrote. Users on Reddit backed that up, with one adding they would rather have paper menus and printed store hours than another code to decode. For a feature that was supposed to add convenience, it has managed to make a simple dinner out feel like an IT task.

Subscriptions, Streaming, and the Death of Ownership

Buy a movie once and own it forever. That used to be the deal. Pop in a DVD, press play, and watch whatever you wanted without a monthly fee, an internet connection, or the fear that a studio would one day pull the title from a streaming service you already pay for. That deal no longer exists for most people, and they are not quiet about it.

“I wanna go back to blue-rays and DVDs and actually own the content I like. Fk streaming, yes to physical media!” one user wrote. Another asked simply, “Why does everything good require a subscription.” A third put a finer point on it: “I am absolutely not paying a monthly subscription to use your shitty app.”

Streaming services have multiplied faster than most households can track. What once promised to replace cable has, for many people, simply become cable with extra steps and a longer list of passwords to remember which loops right back to the account problem.

Coffee, Chips, and the Price of Everything

Boomers famously remember when coffee cost a quarter. Nobody expects to pay quarter prices today, but spending $6 or $7 on a single cup has a way of making even younger consumers nostalgic for something they never personally lived through. “I remember when coffee wasn’t the cost of a meal,” one X user wrote.

Meanwhile, the humble potato chip has somehow also become a premium product. Hard, kettle-cooked varieties now dominate shelf space, and they come with a price tag to match. As one person put it, “$7 for a regular back of chips now? That used to be a sandwich or meal.” Fast food has followed the same path. A McDonald’s cheeseburger has nearly doubled in price over the last decade. Nobody, regardless of age, has been quiet about that either.

Tipping Has Gone Too Far

Few topics in the thread generated as much cross-generational agreement as tipping culture. What used to be a gesture of thanks for table service has become an expected transaction at every possible touchpoint coffee counters, takeout windows, and self-checkout kiosks. One user summed up the collective exhaustion: “Tipping culture has gotten out of hand.” A Reddit thread extended that sentiment into satire, with a comment that joked about prompting readers to tip 20% for reading it. It landed because it felt just close enough to reality.

Adults Dressing Like Teenagers

Not every complaint in the thread centered on technology or prices. Some users turned their frustrations toward fashion. Specifically, they aimed the trend of adults dressing head to toe in sneakers and casualwear that, a generation ago, would have belonged exclusively to children and teenagers. “Adults shouldn’t dress like children. Jordans, Yeezys, ‘slides’, etc.” drew a wave of agreement from people who apparently expected that at some point, adults would dress like adults.

Maybe Every Generation Gets Here Eventually

Boomers did not invent complaining about the world. Every generation reaches a point where enough has changed fast enough to make certain things feel worse than they used to be. Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z are already there on several fronts and they got there earlier than most would probably care to admit.

What the viral thread made clear is that the complaints people associate with older generations often come from real frustrations with real changes. Tipping fatigue, subscription overload, bad tech design, and food prices that no longer add up are none of those strictly generational grievances. They are just grievances. Boomers spotted some of them first. Younger generations are catching up, one upvoted Reddit post at a time. And at least they will be better with the technology, even if they hate it just as much.