Millennial New Zealand MP uses ‘OK, boomer’ put-down in parliament

An MP in New Zealand has sparked conversation on social media by responding to an apparent heckle with the phrase “OK, boomer”.

Chloe Swarbrick, 25, is an MP for the Green Party in New Zealand, and appeared to be interrupted during a speech on climate at the New Zealand parliament.

Without missing a beat, Ms Swarbrick raised a hand and retorted, “OK, boomer” before continuing to talk about climate.

The phrase has become popular on social media in 2019, while meme website knowyourmeme.com said the earliest instances of its use on Twitter are traceable to April 2018.

Ms Swarbrick’s utterance of the saying was widely reacted to on social media, with one Twitter user writing: “Chloe Swarbrick said ‘ok boomer’ in Parliament sometimes true love hits you from Parliament TV.”

But not everybody was amused, as Ms Swarbrick noted on Facebook afterwards.

“Today I have learnt that responding succinctly and in perfect jest to somebody heckling you about *your age* as you speak about the impact of climate change on *your generation* with the literal title of their generation makes some people very mad,” she wrote.

“So I guess millennials ruined humour. That, or we just need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and abstain from avocados. That’s the joke.”

While it is unclear whether or not the phrase has been used in New Zealand’s parliament before now, Parliament TV was certainly caught off-guard, initially captioning the utterance as “OK, Berma.”

“We apologise for the error, and have updated the captions accordingly,” @NZParliament tweeted.

“Clearly we need to start doing all-office meme briefings.”