this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
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Younger Hexbears, if the spirit of boomerdom visited your household, boomer is more a state of mind than a specific birth year, so feel free to share your stories too.

There are some obviously better-known movies like Wall Street, but I remember an obscure one called "Let It Ride" that was played on tape over and over and over again so many times that it was like the theme song of the household for a while. It was a Richard Dreyfuss film about a gambling addicted asshole who seeks to triumph over his gambling problems by... gambling. Until he gets vibes about winning and then wins at gambling. galaxy-brain

As a boomer bonus it portrays The Wife as a bad person because she's... upset at the protagonist's gambling addition. Oh yeah and she suspects he's eager to commit some adultery. How dare she... the way to show her is to have a much younger love interest that is totally into the protagonist because he starts to win at gambling! morshupls

For anyone that has had gambling-addicted boomer parents, the kind that thought a fun outing for the kids was going to the racetrack, or to Vegas, you may have similar stories of poverty perpetuated because your grillman also liked to "Let It Ride."

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[–] Rod_Blagojevic@hexbear.net 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

My parents were constantly watching Come and See, which isn't surprising. They were obsessed with every small victory the USSR had against reactionary forces.

Just kidding. This is probably what my kids will say about me when they're talking to their fellow conscripts in the Burger King-Papa John's war.

Edit: Thank God, my parents almost never watch the same thing twice. It's not obscure, but they're most influential media is probably the NFL. Particularly for my mom, they are firmly rooted in her brain. Which is weird, because after decades of watching football she still doesn't know the rules. Still, she refers to the NFL as "the league." I hate it.

Once she had a moment of clarity where she realized the news was bullshit. She couldn't understand why some NFL scandal was being ignored by the sports news. I tried to explain that the week of inane, breathless news between each game was just a commercial for the NFL and that the NFL itself was just a commercial for the US military, and all I accomplished was reaffirming that I'm an idiot.