When Your Boomer is Ready to Text and Meme

Hey there, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, I’m Sarah. I’m from Virginia.

And so I have a question about texting my dad.

Okay.

So my father, he’s 75 and he’s finally retired.

And when he was working, he would refuse to use his cell phone.

He’d always keep it off and in a drawer.

And every time I wanted to talk to him, I either had to call him on a landline or had to text my mom and have my mom tell him something.

I never texted him.

Emails were few and far between.

Now, me, I am 23, and I grew up on the Internet.

A lot of my conversations were through a text-based platform like chat forums, Internet forums, do now social media and texting.

Because of that, the way I talk to people through text casually is I kind of started talking through memes.

And with my friends, it was never really a problem because a lot of my friends, we were always kept up with the latest memes.

And we could easily understand each other in where somebody who wasn’t really in the loop would have no idea.

So where can I start catching him up with the latest internet memes and lingo for somebody who has hardly communicated through a text and image-based platform?

And Sarah, how motivated is he to do this?

He seems pretty open about it.

I mean, because before he’d say, like, he’d be so afraid to use his cell phone.

But now, he said it himself. I didn’t prod him. He said it himself that after he stops working and he knows he’s not going to get a whole bunch of calls, that he’s willing to communicate through text.

And he does want to be kept in the loop, like when we send photos and such.

I mean, memes, the way you’re talking about memes probably seem to him a lot like that famous Star Trek episode, Dharmak and Jalad at Tanagra.

You know, it’s this culture where these people only speak in illusions and references to shared culture.

And they’ll never say things explicitly.

Shaka when the walls fell.

Timba with his arms wide.

And memes probably to him seem like that, you know, at the start.

So you’re going to have to go easy on him and go in gentle.

And do memes maybe from television and movies that he’s seen and knows.

Maybe stuff from The Godfather or MASH or Cheers, stuff like that.

Oh, interesting.

You might think about that because he’ll say, oh, yeah, yeah, I remember that episode.

Or, yeah, of course, isn’t that just like Sam Malone, you know?

But above all, just keep in mind that he probably comes from a business world where getting in, getting to the point, and getting out is important.

And that’s still important in social media and the text-based online world.

He probably really doesn’t think of it very much as a playground like those of us who grew up online do.

And that might be a real change in mindset for him.

Interesting.

You know, if he is motivated to, quote-unquote, learn a foreign language in retirement, as some people are, there is that website, knowyourmeme.com.

Do you know that one?

Oh, yes.

I’m very familiar.

Yeah, that’s K-N-O-W, knowyourmeme.com.

And I find myself looking up some things there from time to time.

And the other thing I’m wondering is, Sarah, have you thought about just using, I call them GIFs.

A lot of people call them gifts.

You know, I mean, my friends and I are constantly sending each other pictures that are just, I think, hilarious.

I mean, we can just go back and forth and back and forth, one picture, you know, versus another that way.

Do you do that?

Oh, yes, of course.

Yeah.

I mean, that’s a little different from memes, right?

But if you can get your dad to learn how to do that.

I mean, we’ve had entire conversations, my friends and I, just going back and forth, sending pictures.

Sarah, what application do you use with him?

What program do you use?

So, so far, we’re using either just regular SMS.

I have used WhatsApp with him before when he was traveling.

But before, the closest thing we’ve really been to, like a text and image-based platform, was email.

And even then, that just kind of has a stigma of talking formally.

And email is just not really good for quick, pleasant conversations, or at least for me, because he used his work email.

And at the end would be like a long legal blurb.

The reason I asked about the application that he’s using is you’re going to have to teach him where to get his own things to share and how to share them.

Make sure he understands how to do this.

For example, setting him up with, say, an Instagram account that is preloaded by you with some great meme follows.

Follow some good memes and good sites like National Geographic or museums on topics that he likes and stuff like that.

Places that are image heavy.

So when he finds something that he likes on Instagram, he can share that.

He knows how to do it and send it to you.

So he becomes a generator of stuff to you, and he feels like he’s holding up his end of the conversation.

So that’s a key part of it, teaching him how to generate his own stuff rather than just pulling from your stock of memes and pictures.

Does that make sense?

So it’s not going to really be meme-y, but at least you’ll say, oh, my dad thought this was a good picture.

I now know this little bit about my dad, that he likes this sort of thing.

So what I love about this, Sarah, is you are bridging this intergenerational gap.

And so help him do that by helping him share back what he likes.

I never thought about that.

That’s genius.

Well, Sarah, you have to get back in touch with us in a while and let us know how you’re doing or have him do that.

And if he follows us, we will follow him back, okay?

Okay.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Take care and be well.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, we do try to follow everyone back.

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