Green Party MP Chlöe Swarbrick during the 2017 Green Party Conference at AUT Auckland, New Zealand.
Phil Walter/Getty Images
A 25-year-old politician for the New Zealand Green party has shut down an older member of parliament who was heckling her, with the response "OK, Boomer."
Chlöe Swarbrick was speaking in the New Zealand parliament on Tuesday about the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill.
She said: "How many world leaders, for how many decades have seen and known what is coming, but have decided that it is more politically expedient to keep it behind closed doors? My generation and the generations after me do not have that luxury."
"In the year 2050, I will be 56 years old, yet right now the average age of this 52nd parliament is 49 years old," continued Swarbrick, before she was suddenly interrupted by an older MP, to which she responded by raising her hand and saying "OK, Boomer," landing a swift putdown to the heckler.
Swarbrick continued: "Current political institutions have proven themselves incompetent at thinking outside of a short political term."
"Boomer" is short for baby boomer — a term describing people born between 1946 and 1964.
Swarbrick's heckler was Todd Muller, a member of New Zealand's centre-right National Party and an opposition spokeperson for climate change.
Muller took to Twitter to defend himself and suggest that he wasn't even a baby boomer.
Origins of 'OK, Boomer'
Swarbrick, who describes herself as "another bloody millennial on the social medias" on Twitter, was referring to a phrase popularized by a video from social media platform TikTok.
In the original clip, an older man is videoed berating millennials and generation Z for being unable to grow up, or having "Peter Pan syndrome." He claims these generations possess "utopian ideals," which they wrongly believe will "translate into adulthood."
Beside him a frustrated teenager holds a up notepad, on which the phrase "OK, Boomer" is written.
The phrase then went viral, with 18-year-old US art student Shannon O'Connor even making a T-shirts and sweaters emblazoned with the words "OK, Boomer…Have a Terrible Day."
According to a BBC story, O'Connor sold 2,000 of the t-shirts and sweaters, making $25,000.
Following the incident earlier this week, Swarbrick said she thought she was "responsible for killing the meme," reported New Zealand publication Stuff.
However, when questioned as to whether Muller was actually part of Generation X she said "Boomer is a state of mind."
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