#BoomerRemover: COVID-19, Ageism, and the Intergenerational Twitter Response

Abstract

In March 2020, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic and frequently presented as a virus primarily affecting older adults. News headlines led with statements such as, “Coronavirus deaths are so far mostly older men” (Ramzy, 2020). Although later determined inaccurate, this perspective contributed to openly ageist views and exchanges from people around the world. On the social media platform of Twitter, #BoomerRemover was used as a hashtag to express views related to older adults, and particularly baby boomers, as the primary targets of COVID-19. This study uses qualitative methods to analyze the messages of Twitter users that discuss COVID-19 with the use of the hashtag #BoomerRemover. A total of 1,875 tweets posted in English and including the hashtag “#BoomerRemover” from March 16, 2020 to March 30, 2020 were analyzed. Analytic methods employed an open coding procedure consistent with grounded theory and Numeric Content Analysis (Marks, 2015). Salient themes include: (1) COVID-19 is Politically Driven (2) There’s a Real Intergenerational Divide, (3) Young People are Dying Too, and (4) #BoomerRemover is Simply Disrespectful. Findings suggest that only about a fourth of #BoomerRemover tweets could be considered ageist, and the large majority of tweets using the hashtag were related to politics and elections. Further, several of those using the #BoomerRemover hashtag to defend older adults were inadvertently causing it to remain relevant (trend) as a Twitter topic. This study recognizes the importance of considering Twitter – primarily composed of young adults – as a place where intergenerational attitudes vis-à-vis COVID-19 may be expressed.

Ageism on Twitter during the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…Hence, while generally construed as a negative emotion, anger can be constructive insofar as it galvanizes individuals to fix perceived injustices and take collective action (Lambert et al., 2019; Renström & Bäck, 2021). This reiterates past findings on how some Twitter users implored others not to use the hashtag #BoomerRemover when pleading for intergenerational unity (Sipocz et al., 2021; Skipper & Rose, 2021).…”

“…This study analyzed discourse surrounding older adults on Twitter over a period of 11 months during the COVID‐19 crisis. In contrast to prior studies which evaluated tweets related to older adults during the pandemic (Jimenez‐Sotomayor et al., 2020; Sipocz et al., 2021; Skipper & Rose, 2021; Xiang et al., 2021), our study covered a broader time period and included search terms pertaining not just to older adults, but also to grandparents. Whereas these earlier studies discovered the presence of hostile ageism on Twitter at the start of the crisis (Jimenez‐Sotomayor et al., 2020; Sipocz et al., 2021; Skipper & Rose, 2021; Xiang et al., 2021), our findings revealed that ageism in the Twitter sphere became more nuanced as the crisis unfolded throughout 2020, with narratives centered around two main topics: the need to protect older adults (41%) as well as their vulnerability and mortality (36%).…”

“…The belief that older adults were more vulnerable led many to downplay its severity and even engendered the spread of the invidious hashtag #BoomerRemover. Two other studies dissected content accompanying the hashtag #BoomerRemover during the months of March and April 2020 (Sipocz et al., 2021; Skipper & Rose, 2021). These analyses found clear evidence of ageism and intergenerational animosity in the tweets sampled, though Sipocz et al.…”

“You are stealing our present”: Younger people's ageism towards older people predicts attitude towards age‐based COVID‐19 restriction measures

“…Albeit not directly investigated from an intergroup perspective, similarly to other forms of prejudice, ageism has been explained as the result of tension between groups (North & Fiske, 2012). When the resources are scarce, intergroup conflict might arise with perceived symbolic and realistic threat increasing hostility and disputes over the resources’ allocation among groups (Sherif et al., 1961; Stephan & Stephan, 2017). While realistic threats regard tangible harms (e.g., economic power and physical or material wellbeing), symbolic threats refer to intangible harms (e.g., differences in values, morality, and norms) to the ingroup (Stephan & Stephan, 2017).…”

Age Discrimination as a Threat to the Anthropological Absolute of Human Being (Using the Pandemic Crisis as an Example)

“…Media studies prove such a modern trend, according to which, for example, a quarter of tweets "downplayed the importance of COVID-19 because it was more deadly among older people, and 14 % contained offensive content or jokes about older generations" (Jimenez-Sotomayor, Gomez-Moreno, & Soto-Perez-de-Celis, 2020). News headlines came from statements such as: "The elderly have died from coronavirus so far" (Skipper & Rose, 2020).…”