7 boomer habits Gen Z mocks publicly but secretly respects

There's a peculiar dissonance in how Gen Z talks about Boomers online versus what they quietly admit in private. On TikTok, they're roasting Boomers for printing out emails and using ellipses wrong in texts. But in quieter moments, away from the performative generational warfare of social media, something else emerges: a grudging, almost embarrassed respect for certain Boomer ways of being.

It's not that Gen Z is being dishonest. It's that admiring Boomer habits doesn't fit the narrative—theirs or anyone else's. They're supposed to be the digital natives who've evolved past analog limitations. But after growing up entirely online, constantly surveilled, perpetually optimized, they're starting to see certain Boomer habits not as outdated but as a form of resistance they wish they could access.

The mocking continues because it has to. But underneath the jokes lies something more complex: the recognition that maybe, just maybe, the Boomers figured out something about living that Gen Z lost in the race to be constantly connected.

1. They can sit through an entire meal without photographing it

The TikToks about Boomer parents "wasting" photogenic restaurant meals are endless. How can they just eat that perfectly plated pasta without documenting it? Don't they know that beef Wellington is supposed to be filmed being cut open? The comment sections fill with laughing emojis and disbelief.

But there's something else happening when Gen Z watches Boomers eat. The food arrives, and Boomers immediately start eating—while it's hot, imagine that. No rearranging plates for better lighting. No letting good food go cold while hunting for the perfect angle. They experience the meal rather than performing it.

To Gen Z, raised in the attention economy where every moment is potential content, this ability to just be present feels almost radical. They've grown up understanding that undocumented experiences somehow feel less real. But they're also exhausted by it—the constant pressure to curate their lives rather than live them. The joke is that Boomers don't understand social media. The secret is that Gen Z wishes they could not understand it too—just for one meal, just for one moment of actual presence.

2. They maintain friendships without constant digital contact

It's become a whole genre of content: young people discovering their parents have "best friends" they haven't texted in three months. The disbelief is performative but real. How can you call someone your close friend if you're not in constant communication? Where are the daily check-ins, the meme exchanges, the proof of connection?

But Boomers operate on different friendship physics. They can go months without talking, then pick up exactly where they left off. No guilt about unanswered texts, no anxiety about response times, no performative commenting to maintain the relationship. The friendship exists independent of digital proof.

For Gen Z, friendship has become a kind of digital labor—maintaining streaks, liking posts, responding to stories. They joke about Boomers being bad at keeping in touch while secretly wondering if maybe friendship shouldn't feel like a second job. The public line is that Boomers don't understand modern relationships. The private admission is that Boomer friendships might actually be more sustainable.

3. They can fix things instead of replacing them

Videos of dads spending entire weekends fixing twenty-dollar appliances have become comedy gold. The comment sections overflow with calculations about hourly wages versus replacement costs, with disbelief that anyone would spend four hours repairing something that costs less than a DoorDash order.

Yet there's something else in those videos—a kind of awe disguised as mockery. When something breaks, a Boomer's first instinct is to understand it, to open it up, to see if they can solve the problem. They have actual toolboxes, not just the tiny Allen wrench that came with their IKEA furniture.

Gen Z, raised in an era of planned obsolescence and instant Prime delivery, secretly finds this almost magical. The repair mentality represents something they claim to value—sustainability—but can't actually practice. They'll keep joking about Boomers wasting time on repairs while quietly admitting they wish they knew how to fix literally anything, that they weren't so helpless in the face of malfunction.

4. They read entire books without checking their phones

The memes are everywhere: Boomers reading physical books like it's still the twentieth century, sitting in chairs for hours without moving, turning actual pages like some kind of medieval monk. Gen Z films their parents reading like they're documenting an endangered species, adding captions about the "unhinged" behavior of sustained focus.

But underneath the jokes lies genuine envy. A Boomer can maintain attention on one thing for hours—no phone checks between chapters, no quick scroll through Instagram as a "reward" for reading. They reach the end of a chapter and just... keep going. To Gen Z, whose attention has been fractured by design, this looks like a cognitive superpower they'll never possess.

The public position is that physical books are aesthetic but impractical. The private reality is that Gen Z desperately wishes they could read for three hours without their brain demanding a notification check every twelve minutes. They mock what they secretly mourn—the ability to be deeply, singularly focused on one thing.

5. They commit to plans and show up

Social media is full of jokes about Boomers who will drive through blizzards to keep dinner plans, who don't understand that "maybe" means "no" and "yes" means "maybe." The rigidity of their commitment to plans becomes content—the dad who shows up to the canceled barbecue, the mom who doesn't understand why plans made two weeks ago aren't binding.

Yet Gen Z's mockery hides a deep craving for this kind of reliability. They've grown up in a culture where every plan is provisional, where commitment is allergic to itself, where you don't know if anyone's actually coming until they walk through the door. The constant renegotiation is exhausting.

There's something deeply appealing about the Boomer approach to commitment—the revolutionary idea that your word means something, that plans are real, that showing up is non-negotiable. They mock the inflexibility while secretly wishing for a world where "yes" actually means "yes."

6. They have hobbies that produce nothing

The content practically writes itself: Boomer hobbies that make no sense. Model trains in basements that no one visits. Crossword puzzles that no one grades. Gardens that aren't photographed. The punchline is always the same—what's the point if you're not monetizing it, sharing it, building a brand around it?

But Gen Z's mockery reveals their own exhaustion. They've been raised to turn every interest into a hustle, every hobby into a potential revenue stream. Nothing can just be enjoyed; everything must be optimized, marketed, scaled. They laugh at Boomers' "pointless" activities while managing their own five side gigs and personal brand.

Boomers do things purely for the process, not product, and Gen Z mocks this while secretly wishing they could do something—anything—without immediately thinking about its monetization potential. The joke is that Boomers are wasting their time. The truth is that Gen Z envies anyone who can afford to "waste" time on pure enjoyment.

7. They can navigate without GPS

The videos are hilarious: Boomers giving directions using landmarks that no longer exist, refusing to use GPS even when lost, insisting they know a "shortcut" that adds twenty minutes to the trip. Gen Z treats this like watching someone refuse to use a wheel—amusing but ultimately primitive.

But there's anxiety underneath the laughter. Boomers can look at the sun and know which way they're heading. They can find their way back to places they've been before without typing in an address. They understand their position in physical space without technological mediation.

When the phone dies, when the signal drops, when the technology fails, Gen Z is lost in the most literal sense. The jokes about Boomers refusing to use GPS hide a deeper fear: what if the Boomers are right to maintain skills that don't require batteries? What if knowing where you are without checking your phone is actually a form of freedom?

Final thoughts

The gap between what Gen Z mocks and what they secretly respect reveals something profound about modern life. These Boomer habits represent freedoms that Gen Z has never experienced: freedom from documentation, from optimization, from constant connectivity, from the exhausting performance of being young in the digital age.

The mocking continues because it has to—generational identity requires it, social media rewards it, and admitting admiration feels like betrayal. But in private moments, Gen Z recognizes that some of what they ridicule as outdated might actually be sustainable ways of living that their always-online existence lacks.

Perhaps the real tragedy isn't that Boomers don't understand technology—it's that Gen Z understands it too well. They know exactly what it's taken from them, which is why the mockery has an edge of envy. They're not really laughing at Boomers for being behind the times. They're laughing to avoid crying about what being "ahead" actually costs.