The ‘Boomer remover’: Intergenerational discounting, the coronavirus and climate change

Abstract

Based on an analysis of Twitter data, this article examines the appearance of generational ideas in the ways that people have defined the experience and significance of the coronavirus and climate change, as well as related them to each other. I characterize the narrative frame as one of intergenerational discounting: a description of breakdown in reciprocal obligations of care, giving rise to accusations of hypocrisy, expressions of resentment and rage, and the description of the virus as the ‘Boomer remover’. This frame normatively licenses withdrawal from intergenerational action in pursuit of collective objectives, as well as erases the disproportionate negative effects of crisis conditions on those facing intersecting intragenerational disadvantages. In addition to analysing a strategic but thus far unexplored data source for social problems theory and the sociology of generations – tweets – the article contributes to this scholarship by demonstrating how generational ideas work to morally link different conditions to each other.