lol. Babyboomers and Gen X invented and built the internet. We programmed VCR's and could navigate dial-up settings for v90modems. Maybe write a guide for gen Z, as anything more complex than a swipe is too much technology for them XD
I feel there's more nuance to this and this is an inaccurate and disingenuous generalisation.
A very small portion of baby boomers and gen x were involved in this compared to the masses who simply exist as sheep.
The "enlightened" ones are a minority in every generation from what I can see.
I also feel this whole my generation > your generation is just another mechanism of segregation. Instead let us bring forth our collective knowledge of setting VCR times and laugh about getting to the last floppy/stiffy disk in a set and finding corruption because... magnets.
Some of us VCR clock-setters are on Lemmy already due to the combination of us loving playing with tech and the attitude of "fuck you I won't do what you tell me". I've seen the fall of the original BBSs, Prodigy, Compuserve, AOL, Geocities, MySpace, Yahoo, Digg, Facebook, and here I sit watching Reddit's behavior with a bag of popcorn. If they don't backpedal, they'll get their IPO, Spez will get his money, and the shell of what Reddit was will continue to exist like MySpace and Facebook. It will strive to stay relevant while slowly becoming more and more irrelevant over time as the newcomer gains steam. Will Lemmy be that newcomer taking over? I'm not sure but it sure is fun to watch the world burn sometimes.
Hell, I know a couple of guys, a boomer alcoholic and a zoomer that ages backwards, that work at a VCR repair shop, one of the three remaining in the United States. Although I don't know how good are they at actually fixing VCRs, all I see is them scamming some elderly person off of his life savings while all he wants is to watch a Night Court video cassette.
It really is just Gen Z. Millenials were programming shit and bashing everything together with hardware and software adaptors as kids. Gen Z grew up in the world of the slick interface that just works.
Boomers and certainly gen X/older milenials are probably more into tinkering and getting it working....it guides for zoomers with their point and click tablet/ipad interface or SaaS that need guides.
As a youth of the late 80s I know bbs, forums, etc
This exactly. I navigated setting up BBSs and using them before commercial Internet. Then when Internet came to my city, you had to dial into your slip account first. Reddit's ancestors were usenet groups. You login to your news service (usually your ISP) and then browse the groups that interested you. Each group is like a subreddit, it would be discussion on a specific topic. If you wanted to see a video, you had to download it in parts (often only getting SOME of the parts, then having to post requests for files by their part number and then wait a few days) and then use another program to recombine them into one file. Then you needed to download an app that would play that particular file type (avi, mpg, etc). You would also need to download and install the correct video codecs.
My experiences with the Fediverse so far remind me of those late 80s early 90s years, when the Internet didn't have a corporate polish. I am a GenXer, and I welcome growth of the Fediverse. I don't need Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, etc to die or fail. I am just thrilled to feel like I can come here and SEE what is here to be seen. I don't want my social experiences tailored by an algorithm designed to keep me engaged and eyes on ads.
This, to me, is how the Internet flourishes. Not controlled by corps.
I would not include boomers but I get what your saying. Gen z isn't a monolith though and neither is Gen x. Some people are techies and won't have a problem figuring out the fediverse. Non techie "normies" will probably get confused and write it off unless it becomes more accessible. Good thing apps are coming!
Boomer here. I'm enjoying having to figure out how the Fediverse works, it's refreshing. It's the difference between putting a ready meal in the microwave, and cooking a delicious casserole from scratch. Yes it takes longer and you might have to look stuff up, but it's totally worth it. (My first computer was extra fancy, it had two floppy disk drives, so you could save a file without having to take the program disk out. Also the screen was amber, not green. So cool.)