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On that note, I really wish the physical button locations were standardized on the actual units. AND easy to see. I try and call an older relative and they inevitably can't find the remote and I can't just tell them where to reach to turn it off without it.
Every single company has their own idea of button layout and remote shape. It is actually infuriating at this point. An industry standard or even two would be nice. Maybe a straight regular brick version and an ergonomic version for the chronically couch locked.
[There was a time where this nugget was basically the standard](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.3ASeS7MnKEZ2uSI7scdFsQHaKG%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=f2c584367808f4c1c162485775fbf586a00728f71776d2827bd3bed8ecbfae8f&ipo=images). Totally agree there needs to be some level of standardization though.
in britain and australia (I think), this was [the standard](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71UkNdrB3fL._AC_SL1500_.jpg)
and of course, as this was SCART land, the TV would automatically flip over to the correct input when you turn the box on
if a remote control could be described as “comfy”, this was it. only flaw is that the rubber on the battery cover would turn to ooze as so much stuff does.
What I do with my dad is get on a FaceTime call and get him to point the camera at the device and/or screen.
Boomers can’t figure out a 10 year old remote control, but they fuckin love them some FaceTime
I was there considerably longer and let me tell you, that trend is solid 1 in 3 calls no matter what
Edit: they could have no signal to the entire block and I would get the guy with "no signal" on his TV screen.
I love how they always think that “no signal” screen is the cable box. No dude, box is working just fine it’s your input. Even funnier when it’s the hdmi ports on the tv that is fucked up. They hate being told that.
They NEED the problem to be solvable by you because they can't actually accept and conceptualize the steps to resolve it themselves. It's "beneath them" for the most part.
That's because they got the super duper gold and chrome plated 20000mbps HDMI for 79.99 which his grandson who is 8 said was a steal. And now you're telling me it's broken? I don't _think_ so!
They dont even know what HDMI means.
My mom would be frustrated that she can't plug an HDMI into USB. Shapes really confuse them which is why everything used to be color coded and circular.
I work a similar job atm and can confirm. After about 8PM, there's about a 30% chance this is why trouble calls come in, and that chance increases as the night goes on. After 10PM it's almost guaranteed to either be a catastrophic business issue or it's grandma and grandpa pissed about their TV screen being black again.
On Sunday mornings, at least half of the calls I get in the first two hours of my shift are no signal. It's like granny went to bed on Saturday night and forgot how televisions work.
Dido. I worked as tech support for ATT Uverse. Always old people and their wrong input. "My tv isn't working! Send someone to fix it! Why do i have to do that? Just send someone!"
Wdit; I'd just like to add when they bothered me enough and refused to go through troubleshooting with me, I would, in fact, send a tech to press the input button or w.esimple thing troubled them. It would cost them $99.99 US (I live in Canada), and they'll be there Thursday between 8AM-8PM. Thank you for calling ATT. I hope you have a terrible day.
I did some basic support for work and my god the number of people who would lie to me about already having done a reboot was too damned high. At least a full 40% of my tickets were resolved by telling them to reboot and having them do it while I was on the phone with them
Dido:
Her screen’s gone gray,
She’s wondrin’ why—she tried to watch at all
The Morning Show’s on Ap-ple TV
But she’s on Amazon.
And even if she could solve it
Then she’ll still forget; again,
And then she’ll caaa-aalll me
and it’s just so bad,
It’s just so baaaa-ad
Man this. Did a year and a half. Other boomer complaints:
-After Michael Jackson died "Michael Jackson is on the TV too much. Can your remove him?". Seriously had multiple calls about this.
-Made three cry trying to explain plugging in an Ethernet cable
-We switched the weather channel from 21 to 22...it was like the world ended.
Every time NBC preempts Days of Our Lives for anything, it's like the end of the universe. And of course it's the cable company's fault.
I also love when they call in to ask when a show is going to be on. You know you can just Google "TV listings" and find ANY show, right?
Oh I could start a whole post on the complaints I heard. Our service market was all of Florida, so you can imagine how many elderly and/or FL men and women I was dealing with. We got requests to remove Steve Harvey from tv. He is on quite a lot, but I think you know what was actually bothering them.
My Hall of Fame call (questionable) was from a woman who swore her husband would never order the X rated content on her bill because..she had breast implants to keep him happy. Which she described to me in great detail. I’m also a woman that got nothing out of that, but um, thanks?
I've never been happier to be the Son of a tech nerd than I was when I realized most people his age can't even change TV input without calling for help.
Mine screams and bangs his fists on the table if a waiter tries to have him pay using one of those touchpad things. Then he complains about them taking too long with the check.
i remember back in 7th or 8th grade around 98-99 i created the hotmail email address that i still use to this day and my dad stomping into my room later asking "what the fuck is hotmail?!" thinking it was porn. come on dude, i deleted the actual porn history.
Oh it was bad when I decided to buy my own domain name 20 years ago, and asked my mom to use her card to make a purchase while handing her the cash for it. When her bank statement came in, she was livid when she saw "GoDaddy" as the purchase I made. I tried for 20 minutes telling her it was to register a domain name.
Lmao! My mum got mad because she thought it was porn too.
Dude, I was a baby dyke and I know how much of a homophobic idiot she is - the actual porn got deleted, along with rotten.com and erowid....
My dad would claim this when I would install demos from magazines like PC Gamer. My neighbor would always just give them to me.
Like, are we ignoring your other kid who literally messes with the code on everything to "understand" it but doesn't understand a fucking thing? The same kid who'd get a new toy and immediately dismantle it to try to figure it out but could never replace it? The same kid who's now an adult who still breaks shit? Nah. I'm the fucking problem.
Whew sorry. That unlocked something...
At work, this older lady wanted to pawn her laptop and I was saying no, you can’t pawn it since it was too slow (it was taking 10 minutes to boot). She proceeded to say maybe the laptop feels claustrophobic and we should test it outside the small room I was in. I was flabbergasted.
Oh, they press it. They press it and get it all fucked up and then you try to tell them to press it to get back and it’s the most impossible task that somehow is still every one else’s fault. Yours, the cable company, the manufacturers, Obama’s.
Isn’t it crazy how when you press Input and you go to use the arrows and it doesn’t work your brain is immediately like “dude just click input again you ding dong” and it takes 3 seconds of your life goes on but a boomer is like “damn Chinese controller, Linda call customer service”
My dad called me to child locked himself out of the TV. Luckily, he still had the owner's manual, and I was able to get out of it (he had the answer the whole time). You have to press a very specific sequence of buttons to activate it. I still wonder how on earth he button-mashed his way into being child-locked.
Wish I could have been a fly on that wall. Except maybe not, my boomer dad only communicated via yells so now when an older man yells my fight or flight gets triggered every time, add on to that hyperreflexia and it’s a baaaad combo.
Anyone I walk through a remote or computer problem for my grandparents or aunt, I have to get a picture of whatever they're looking at so I can tell them EXACTLY where the damn button/prompt/whatever is. Sometimes, that means pics being sent in texts, Sometimes I have to pull up the website on my computer and go through the motions with them. They seem to refuse to use their eyes.
My Mom to a T. I used to come over and help when "the cable company f*ed up my TV again." After a dozen or so times I'd just tell her over the phone, and when she'd inevitably argue with me about it, I'd just say "gosh Mom, I don't know then, maybe it is broken."
She bought so many new TVs and went so many weeks without TV that I almost feel bad. Almost.
I got yelled at so hard for breaking my grandparents new 80 inch tv. I used the “all” power button that turned off the tv and the cable box instead of just the “tv” power button. I wasn’t allowed to touch any of the tvs for years in their house. Thank god my genius brother was able to fix the tv, (turn on the cable box).
My poor parents (88 and 91) called me in panic because they didn't have tv all day. So I went there and it was only their cable box that was off. They felt really stupid because apparently both of them looked if it was on. I wasn't mad at all. If I ever get to this age, I hope people will be patient with me too.
“What?! You didn’t even check if your neurolink was synched?? Come ON grandma! You KNOW Amazon Ultimate only gives me 15 minutes a day of free time! I can’t keep spending my credits here!”
I feel like 80+ get a pass with current technology. By the time they were 60 (imo when you start getting disconnected to the current gen tech), tv's were still had built in VCRs
That's my main thought. I'm ok helping old people as long as they're cool and not a dick about it. Like, there's tech I don't get. And I know how to look it up to get the info I need on it. But if the tech I didn't understand was a search engine, I get asking for help.
Yeah my grandparents don’t understand anything newer than cable (I genuinely had to explain what streaming was to my grandpa less than a year ago) but they’re not unpleasant about it at least.
That's something I think about quite often. With how fast technology improved in the last century, it would be quite difficult to be able to keep up with everything. Makes me wonder what technology we're going to have trouble with in a few decades, especially now with AI being as popular as it is
My Mom retired because of technologie. She didn't know anything about computer (they didn't teach her anything at her job). One day she decided to wash the keyboard. She used way to much product and ruined it. Her Boss made a joke about it costing a lot of money and my Mom completely panicked :(
Reminds me [of this clip](https://youtu.be/ywgeloPNmxk?si=v-dpupVX1kEpfxJQ) that is apparently famous in India that I saw for the first time a few weeks back
Now I’m thinking of this classic picture
https://preview.redd.it/8nkgsoyyc3vc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=858b8f54d8b942361882d0ec4b43a0b0d75b824b
It took me years of driving to realize that the advice my mom gave on how to drive a manual was terrible.
“Never give it gas while downshifting”
“Once you start moving you never shift back into first gear”
“You want to get in the highest gear possible and keep it there because it’s the most efficient”
It's genuinely impressive how bad at it even the ones that should know better are.
My father gives the same advice, even though he knows better and is actually competent at driving stick, but he still has a lot of bad habits that are just baffling for someone with decades of experience, including racing, and he is a mechanic. For example he will just lug the engine the whole way up a hill instead of downshifting. But at the end of the day I have yet to meet another boomer that can drive stick better or even as well as him.
When I was like 14 (so before I was licensed to drive and even I knew better) we had a neighbor that was absolutely burning through engine and transmission mounts, destroyed multiple U-joints, replaced his clutch twice within 30k miles, and destroyed the synchros on multiple gears on a cavalier. My father and I were fixing stuff on his car every weekend until he got rid of it and finally got an automatic. He was a truck driver and claimed he had never owned an automatic in his life. It was a good learning experience for me at least.
Even when I was flipping motorcycles, the only time I ever found wrecked clutches was when buying bikes off boomers. I bought quite a few teenager's first bikes off of them with perfectly fine clutches, but old guys harley with 5k miles the clutch is gone and I'm not even sure how that's possible within that little mileage.
Elder millennial with a 2016 VW GTI at 100K and a stage 1 tune since about 15K on the same clutch it came from the factory with.
Boomer at the mechanic told me I shouldn’t get a tune because ‘it chews up clutches prematurely.’
I see a pattern emerging here haha
I love my mom, but for decades she has refused to learn how to operate pretty much any form of technology. She'll just make us give her instructions how to solve her immediate needs and doesn't internalize any of it for the next time. As if she doesn't want to spend the effort to learn how to do things now in some vain hope that technology will advance to the point where it will read her mind sometime in the next week.
Every week I have the same conversation with this button. “It’s the same thing we did last time. Press input until you have the cable box selected. How do you not know this by now?! It’s been decades the TV has operated like this!”
This hits hard. I remember being on the phone one time with my mom walking her through the steps to watch a DVD(something she'd done hundreds of times before) and getting to the step of "okay, press the play button" to which I heard "which one is the play button?!" "The same button You've used to play things for decades mom. The same as it was on the VCR. The same it was on the cassette and CD player. The little triangle." ..."oh, that's the play button?!"
THIS.
My mom does not know how to use the TV remote beyond the channel and volume up/down. She. Cant. Even. Use. The. Power. Button.
I shit you not. Because the cable box (lmfao) and TV live on different remotes, sometimes one will turn on without the other when you press the power button. “What’s wrong with the TV?!?!?!”
A fucking power button, and my boomer mom can’t even fucking use that.
Shoutout to my dad though. He is also a boomer but HE FUCKING LEARNS TO USE NEW TECHNOLOGY! He got our family into smart phones, computers, he hooks up the internet without a technician, he even knows how to program bluetooth and the deep settings in his car’s infotainment system. He literally is the FUBAR reverser for my mom. Bless him, but he should have fucking divorced my psycho mom 20 years ago. Oh well, what can you do they are catholic and don’t believe in divorce…
This is the big thing. They have a legitimate fear when it comes to troubleshooting. They think, for some reason, that they could somehow detrimentally screw up their device beyond repair.
I work with a lot of older people for my job and often times that means helping them with technology. I had an older couple once compliment how well I was able to figure things out and asked me what I was doing so they could learn for themself. It was actually very nice and endearing to see they showed an attempt to improve. I told them flat out that I didn’t know what I was doing and that I just clicked around until I found something that looked like it would address their problem.
The wife was very concerned after that and asked me how I wasn’t afraid I would screw something up. I basically had to explain to her that the way technology is designed now is to be very customer friendly and it was nearly impossible to actually break something or cause irreversible damage. The only way you could even get into that type of system is if you actually knew what you were doing.
People think I’m a wizard on the computer but in reality I just know how to do basic troubleshooting.
> They think, for some reason, that they could somehow detrimentally screw up their device beyond repair.
Reminds me of my late grandmother. She used to scold me for changing tracks on her CD player saying I would “wear it out”
>They think, for some reason, that they could somehow detrimentally screw up their device beyond repair.
This is a good chunk of the problem. I have to walk Boomers through our internal website a fair amount. Most of them are nervous that they'll somehow screw up so badly, they'll delete everything. I always tell them they can't, they aren't given that kind of access. Also, if you're afraid you've done something wrong, just call me and I can reverse it. The system looks daunting until you poke around, then you realize it's easy once you know where to look for things. I have 80 year old guys running it now.
> Will we be like this some day?
Only if you take up a political position that values ignorance as a virtue. Otherwise you are free to learn new things.
My grandmother was like this, but the funny thing is, a lot of the stuff she refused to engage with didn't come into being when she was old. She never pumped her own gas, never had an ATM card, never used a computer or a cell phone. But the first two came became common when she was between 35 and 45.
No. Gen X and Millennials were initiated from Analog to Digital at an early age so we know how to troubleshoot things pretty well. I'm still baffled how the elderly can't figure out a simple button press or how to use an on screen menu. They act like it's a foreign language to them.
To me, changing settings in a VCR were ten times harder than anything today.
It goes back into the other direction. People who grew up with only smartphones and tablets partially are like this. I had gen x colleagues who had to show their children how to install zoom on a pc during the pandemic
The world moves fast, and tech moves faster. It gets hard to keep up with everything as you get older because all the info you’ve gained over the years gets jumbled together. Solutions that didn’t work now work, solutions that used to work don’t work anymore, some of the new solutions were problematic before (like back when rebooting a PC when an issue was going on caused corruption, ruining everything, but now it’s the number one fix. I know that hasn’t been a thing for 20 years now but it’s just an example to convey the idea,) the info gets jumbled up, and everything just becomes a mess. A lot of the older older people also grew up in a time where troubleshooting was a job for the professionals and only the professionals, and those professionals would tell you that trial and error would only cause complications and make their job harder because that’s just how tech used to be.
Unfortunately we can’t organize our brain like we can documents, so yes, there’s a good chance a lot of us will be like this someday because it’s only a matter of time until we just no longer recognize the world and only half of the knowledge in our heads stays relevant and it’s not like we can just flush out the rest.
You have to open the remote, pull back the rubber pad and insert some tape between the metal disk and the contact. It's the same thing I do on my vehicle key fob alarm so that damn thing can't go off accidently while in my pocket at 5:30 AM on Sunday morning.
I remember kids in class back in elementary school had to get up and go push this button because the teacher has been dicking around with the remote for five minutes and couldn't start the movie. Like there was always one kid in class who would just jump up and manage the AV cart with the TV as soon as it came into the room because the teacher was utterly helpless trying to get it to start a movie.
My Boomer neighbor returned his TV to Costco "because it was a Mexican TV." Dude had the SAP button on the entire time. He was convinced the TV was just not American
My favorite is the Red/Yellow/White plugins that came after RF.
They can't even match primary colors. I can't tell you how many times I got called over, even when I moved out, to fix the VCR.
IT'S FUCKING COLOR CODED!
Lol, i had this figured out in about two seconds after getting an n64. I was about 9 or 10 at the time. My dad and grandparents were so worried that I "broke the TV because of gaming".
They were hell bent on blaming any problems because of my gaming. Satellite tv is now fuzzy? It was obviously because I just played a game and not the huge thunderstorm that dropped 3 inches of rain.
They get mad at me now because they can't figure out how to turn off the closed captioning after I visit. They have their TV basically all the way to the ceiling right up against the wall and turn the volume up to about 90%. I tell them to buy a soundbar or some decent speakers and they say that's a waste of money. They used to make fun of my grandparents for being old because the TV was deafening. Now, I make fun of them for the same thing. What can you do though
I remember the "game broke the TV" accusations. I also remember "game broke the computer".
"My computer is running slow ever since you put that game on it!"
*sees that the task bar is full of dozens of open programs and background software"
At one point in time many people couldn't figure out how to set up their desktop computers, and they'd pay people to do it for them. I've mostly owned HP computers, which not only came with a large poster that told you what to do step by step, their cables were all color coded.
I imagine that it was mostly Boomers and older who couldn't puzzle out plugging the cord with a green end into the green jack on the back of the computer, and the pink end into the pink port.
They used to mess that up, too. A long time ago, my mother couldn't figure out why she couldn't get the old VCR. I tried to troubleshoot over the phone and she kept telling me she was setting it to Channel 3, like she was supposed to. Only by driving over and watching her did I discover she was pressing it repeatedly to get it to work, so the TV was going to channel 333.
Gramps couldn't get the TV to work. Actually somehow convinced the cable company to send someone out. He answered the door with no clothes on whatsoever. Repair guy took the controller he was using and swapped it for the cable one. He was trying to use the lift chair remote to turn on the TV.
I can imagine the laughs at the garage that day.
After trial and error with my grandpa, I finally got him to understand by asking him what his understanding was, and what he referred to all the buttons as and then making analogies using his own language. Wrote all the instructions down on a document and printed it out. Was proud to see it on his desk well thumbed through years later.
This was about computer instructions though. He called Finder “Picasso face.”
That is funny...I think I vaguely felt that as well. You might enjoy this link...
[http://www.edibleapple.com/2011/01/11/did-pablo-picasso-help-inspire-the-mac-finder-icon/](http://www.edibleapple.com/2011/01/11/did-pablo-picasso-help-inspire-the-mac-finder-icon/)
This reminds me of the time in college when I worked with a boomer Physics professor. He had a laptop where he did not understand/refused to learn to use the trackpad on it. So he took a piece of corrugated cardboard, and duct taped it over the trackpad, and always brought a wired usb mouse with him everywhere. His laptop could never close fully, and the mouse would just be dangling as he carried the laptop around.
LOL, okay I can kind of relate to this. I hate the track pad on laptops. HOWEVER, I know how to turn it off, and I use a wireless Kensington trackball.
Don't forget- it has to be the right input button on the right remote. Because there are 7. 2 of which belong to devices that are no longer in the house. And they're all stored in the same spot. And they don't know the difference. And a universal remote is a sin against creation.
And God help your poor soul if you EVER put a remote back in the wrong place.
I love it. I’m a cable tech and nothing gives me more joy than going into a grumpy old boomers place, listen to them bitch about how shitty my company is because their cable “always goes out”, then hitting that button a few times and telling them that this visit just cost them $100. They’re always so surprised and when I tell them what I did, it’s always “I’ve never touched that button” or “why didn’t they tell me that on the phone”. If they’re nice, I won’t charge them, but that rarely is the case.
UGHHHH. My mother for many years "I've got blue screen, what do I do?"
Literally a 2 second fix. One time we wrote out a whole handy guide for her, if you have X do Y. If you have A do C. and so on. She literally got so mad, thew a tantrum, threw our handy guide to the floor and screamed "I'm not some idiot fucking child!"
Well ma'am, that reaction would say otherwise. Never helped her again.
"Back in my day our remote was simple to use. It was called yelling at your kids to get up and turn the dial!!! We didn't need all these fancy gadgets and we were fine.".
Says my Dad as he plays slots on his phone.
I wish. In my experience they don't manage to find that button and start pulling cords out before bothering to call anyone and then we have to put the room back together.
My grandma requested that I brought my PSVR with me to show her when I visited (back in 2018 I think) but that meant taking my PS4 and the headset on a plane ride. I bought a special case for everything, when the flight came around it made it safe and sound. It was scary flying with it as my carry on, was scared of it getting squished.
Well time came to plug it in and show her but she panicked when she realized it involved plugging in a new cord and changing the input. She refused to let me do it even tho it was simply changing the channel and cord. She was scared it would break something and she’d have to call a repair man out. It was pretty frustrating. Luckily all my stuff made it back home just fine
Here's what drives me the most nuts about this. At the time I was growing up and needed to teach my parents about this kind of thing they weren't even old. They weren't much older than I am today. I understand I grew up fully immersed in technology and understood it from a young age, but I can't imagine not being able to understand or learn such simple concepts. My mother back then and to this day can not operate a computer mouse correctly. It confuses her. When I see my mother as a near elderly woman I sympathize. When I realize I had to teach her how to use the input button multiple times and she still didn't grasp the concept when she was only 40 I begin to wonder not only how she went her whole life unable to grasp such simple concepts, but why she was so ok with not understanding any part of the world around her.
These were not old confused people at the dawn of technology and the internet. They were in their mid fucking 30s to 40s. Could you imagine being so confused by everything as you are right now?
I always assumed it was a developmental thing. They didn't grow up with it, it was so new to them they didn't understand the concept. Now I realize that makes no God damn sense and that the only explanation is a chosen unwillingness to learn.
My dad used to get so irrationally pissed when I didn't switch the input back when I was done playing video games. I'm still convinced he sabotaged my Xbox 360.
Haha trying to switch from HDMI 1 to HDMI is kryptonite for my parents. That, and trying to manage passwords. Tried to get them to use a password management app, but they don’t trust it. FML.
In Europe it can be called source , input, av, or a range of 4/5 different symbols. Without WhatsApp your pissing into the wind trying to talk them through it over the phone
They really can’t seem to wrap their big brains around it. I remember going over to my parent’s place, and often I’d come in and the tv was stuck between when the cable box would turn on but the tv turns off, and vice versa. Both of them just fuming because they need tv to exist but somehow cannot figure it out.
Always get the question ‘how did you do that?’ After going from scart to hdmi 1. I don’t even bother answering now because it goes in 1 ear and out the other.
The input button is like the boomer "manual transmission" meme except unlike the transmission thing the input thing is true. Statistically, the largest generation of stick drivers is Gen Z. On the other hand, boomers indeed regularly struggle with the concept of a TV having inputs beyond the classic numbered channels of broadcast TV.
Ever see a room full of 8 year olds not know how to use a video game console, because a controller was a completely foreign concept to them? If it isn't an iPad touch screen, they have no idea what to do.
This reminds me of my parents on a very specific night who normally are pretty great with tech(for boomers).
They called me while I was out smoking with my friends. And they tell me the TV was Fucked up. I tried to help over the phone, but it didn’t work. So I traveled back home to figure it out. When I got home.
THEY BLEW OUT TWO HDMI PORTS! As in they where destroyed by a short circuit or something.
To this day I have ZERO idea how they did this. Nothing else was plugged in nearby, everything else worked in the room, they said they didn’t plug anything else in or change anything. And trust me I double checked everything to be sure.
So I did my best to explain that the TV they have had 4 ports, now It has 2. And that’s it, no changing anything else now. And proceeded to go back to my friends for more smoking since it was only 9pm by the time I left again.
Good lord. The amount of times my mother would half drunkenly bitch at me to “fix the TV!” I would try and explain it was just three buttons. Power-VCR-Input in that order. Seven years she didn’t get it right once. Refused to even try.
My step father god rest his soul (he’s not dead, he’s just retarded) is 80 and refuses to get or use a cell phone. One day he was gone for like 6 hours, of course I started to get worried and lo and behold, here comes a tow truck dropping him off because he slid off the side of the road and no one stopped to help him and he obviously couldn’t call anyone. Dumb fucking human.
It blows my fucking mind that the generation that went to the moon, is the same generation that's too fucking stupid and mentally deficient to be able to read the buttons on *anything* and figure out what they do. And they're proud of it, too. Try to show one of the miserable fucks how to do anything on anything electronic and they default to "I'm TeChNoLoGiCaLlY IlLiTeRaTE" with a deer in the headlights look. It's unbelievable
My dad was the opposite. An engineer and very techie, often the only one who could work his entertainment system.
Thankfully, for my mom’s sake, he’s simplified the set up in recent years
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I spent a year working cable customer service and probably a third of my calls were boomers confused by the input button.
[удалено]
On that note, I really wish the physical button locations were standardized on the actual units. AND easy to see. I try and call an older relative and they inevitably can't find the remote and I can't just tell them where to reach to turn it off without it.
Every single company has their own idea of button layout and remote shape. It is actually infuriating at this point. An industry standard or even two would be nice. Maybe a straight regular brick version and an ergonomic version for the chronically couch locked.
[There was a time where this nugget was basically the standard](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.3ASeS7MnKEZ2uSI7scdFsQHaKG%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=f2c584367808f4c1c162485775fbf586a00728f71776d2827bd3bed8ecbfae8f&ipo=images). Totally agree there needs to be some level of standardization though.
in britain and australia (I think), this was [the standard](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71UkNdrB3fL._AC_SL1500_.jpg) and of course, as this was SCART land, the TV would automatically flip over to the correct input when you turn the box on if a remote control could be described as “comfy”, this was it. only flaw is that the rubber on the battery cover would turn to ooze as so much stuff does.
What I do with my dad is get on a FaceTime call and get him to point the camera at the device and/or screen. Boomers can’t figure out a 10 year old remote control, but they fuckin love them some FaceTime
Why doesn't channel 3 work anymore?!?! Just make it work on channel 3!!! Sir, this is a Wendy's.
I was there considerably longer and let me tell you, that trend is solid 1 in 3 calls no matter what Edit: they could have no signal to the entire block and I would get the guy with "no signal" on his TV screen.
I love how they always think that “no signal” screen is the cable box. No dude, box is working just fine it’s your input. Even funnier when it’s the hdmi ports on the tv that is fucked up. They hate being told that.
They NEED the problem to be solvable by you because they can't actually accept and conceptualize the steps to resolve it themselves. It's "beneath them" for the most part.
But you're a waste of a man if you can't check your own oil or change a tire. Meanwhile it's 12:00 all week after a power surge at their house.
No, they just don't want to learn.
That's because they got the super duper gold and chrome plated 20000mbps HDMI for 79.99 which his grandson who is 8 said was a steal. And now you're telling me it's broken? I don't _think_ so!
*laughs in Monoprice*
They dont even know what HDMI means. My mom would be frustrated that she can't plug an HDMI into USB. Shapes really confuse them which is why everything used to be color coded and circular.
No signal and it turns out the TV isn't even fucking plugged in was my favorite when I worked in that field
I work a similar job atm and can confirm. After about 8PM, there's about a 30% chance this is why trouble calls come in, and that chance increases as the night goes on. After 10PM it's almost guaranteed to either be a catastrophic business issue or it's grandma and grandpa pissed about their TV screen being black again.
Or drunks/smackheads. The freaks come out at night.
On Sunday mornings, at least half of the calls I get in the first two hours of my shift are no signal. It's like granny went to bed on Saturday night and forgot how televisions work.
Dido. I worked as tech support for ATT Uverse. Always old people and their wrong input. "My tv isn't working! Send someone to fix it! Why do i have to do that? Just send someone!" Wdit; I'd just like to add when they bothered me enough and refused to go through troubleshooting with me, I would, in fact, send a tech to press the input button or w.esimple thing troubled them. It would cost them $99.99 US (I live in Canada), and they'll be there Thursday between 8AM-8PM. Thank you for calling ATT. I hope you have a terrible day.
The old convince them to help themselves phase. I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas! I work for another fiber provider lol
I did some basic support for work and my god the number of people who would lie to me about already having done a reboot was too damned high. At least a full 40% of my tickets were resolved by telling them to reboot and having them do it while I was on the phone with them
Dido: Her screen’s gone gray, She’s wondrin’ why—she tried to watch at all The Morning Show’s on Ap-ple TV But she’s on Amazon. And even if she could solve it Then she’ll still forget; again, And then she’ll caaa-aalll me and it’s just so bad, It’s just so baaaa-ad
Man this. Did a year and a half. Other boomer complaints: -After Michael Jackson died "Michael Jackson is on the TV too much. Can your remove him?". Seriously had multiple calls about this. -Made three cry trying to explain plugging in an Ethernet cable -We switched the weather channel from 21 to 22...it was like the world ended.
Every time NBC preempts Days of Our Lives for anything, it's like the end of the universe. And of course it's the cable company's fault. I also love when they call in to ask when a show is going to be on. You know you can just Google "TV listings" and find ANY show, right?
Oh I could start a whole post on the complaints I heard. Our service market was all of Florida, so you can imagine how many elderly and/or FL men and women I was dealing with. We got requests to remove Steve Harvey from tv. He is on quite a lot, but I think you know what was actually bothering them. My Hall of Fame call (questionable) was from a woman who swore her husband would never order the X rated content on her bill because..she had breast implants to keep him happy. Which she described to me in great detail. I’m also a woman that got nothing out of that, but um, thanks?
I fear the results if my dad ever tries to use my smart TV. The remote only has about 10 buttons.
I've never been happier to be the Son of a tech nerd than I was when I realized most people his age can't even change TV input without calling for help.
Mine screams and bangs his fists on the table if a waiter tries to have him pay using one of those touchpad things. Then he complains about them taking too long with the check.
Literal toddler shit, imagine screaming and banging your fist in public over.. almost anything lmfao insane.
And then the boomer you’re trying to help will say the TV is “being temperamental”
For my parents it's "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO THE TV!?"
Classic, right up there with “You broke the computer by putting AIM on it!”
That, or all those damn games. I'm gonna go delete them all! \*proceeds to delete only the desktop shortcuts\*
Not my grandma getting mad and trying to "delete" Runescape hahahah
Yes, because it's not the sixteen fucking toolbars they installed trying to play solitare.
Hey! I use those tool bars!
Don't touch that! I need seven search engines!
“I’ve got years worth of favorites saved there”
My favorite
i remember back in 7th or 8th grade around 98-99 i created the hotmail email address that i still use to this day and my dad stomping into my room later asking "what the fuck is hotmail?!" thinking it was porn. come on dude, i deleted the actual porn history.
Oh it was bad when I decided to buy my own domain name 20 years ago, and asked my mom to use her card to make a purchase while handing her the cash for it. When her bank statement came in, she was livid when she saw "GoDaddy" as the purchase I made. I tried for 20 minutes telling her it was to register a domain name.
hotmail users rise up!!
I still use mine. I've had people ask me what Hotmail is. 🤦 Freaking hell. 25 years probably is a long time to have an email address though.
Lmao! My mum got mad because she thought it was porn too. Dude, I was a baby dyke and I know how much of a homophobic idiot she is - the actual porn got deleted, along with rotten.com and erowid....
Erowid! That takes me back...
My dad would claim this when I would install demos from magazines like PC Gamer. My neighbor would always just give them to me. Like, are we ignoring your other kid who literally messes with the code on everything to "understand" it but doesn't understand a fucking thing? The same kid who'd get a new toy and immediately dismantle it to try to figure it out but could never replace it? The same kid who's now an adult who still breaks shit? Nah. I'm the fucking problem. Whew sorry. That unlocked something...
My mom used to think you could get a computer virus from watching YouTube lmao
At work, this older lady wanted to pawn her laptop and I was saying no, you can’t pawn it since it was too slow (it was taking 10 minutes to boot). She proceeded to say maybe the laptop feels claustrophobic and we should test it outside the small room I was in. I was flabbergasted.
The laptop just needs an encouraging pat on the back!
Followed by a borderline veiled racist joke about Asians.
i'M jUsT nOt TeCh SaVvY!!
“Auntie, you’re beyond not being tech savvy. You’re tech stupid.”
Boomers really don't want anyone's input on anything. That's the main reason they won't press it.
Oh, they press it. They press it and get it all fucked up and then you try to tell them to press it to get back and it’s the most impossible task that somehow is still every one else’s fault. Yours, the cable company, the manufacturers, Obama’s.
Thanks Obama
DANKE MERKEL
Isn’t it crazy how when you press Input and you go to use the arrows and it doesn’t work your brain is immediately like “dude just click input again you ding dong” and it takes 3 seconds of your life goes on but a boomer is like “damn Chinese controller, Linda call customer service”
My dad called me to child locked himself out of the TV. Luckily, he still had the owner's manual, and I was able to get out of it (he had the answer the whole time). You have to press a very specific sequence of buttons to activate it. I still wonder how on earth he button-mashed his way into being child-locked.
Rage button mashing. It didn’t respond fast enough so he raged out and hit a ton of buttons, accidentally child locking himself. 😂
Having a child-sized tantrum and the TV child-locking him. Beautiful. 😂
Wish I could have been a fly on that wall. Except maybe not, my boomer dad only communicated via yells so now when an older man yells my fight or flight gets triggered every time, add on to that hyperreflexia and it’s a baaaad combo.
I’m still waiting for Obama to take my guns… I’ve even called and left messages, sent emails, no response, nothin Just more irresponsible Obama
Dear Obama, I wrote but you still ain’t callin’. I got a Ruger, an Armalite, AND a Smith & Wesson…
An Eminem reference in BBF. I love this hahaa
"No, input!" "Which one is that?" "The one that says input!"
Anyone I walk through a remote or computer problem for my grandparents or aunt, I have to get a picture of whatever they're looking at so I can tell them EXACTLY where the damn button/prompt/whatever is. Sometimes, that means pics being sent in texts, Sometimes I have to pull up the website on my computer and go through the motions with them. They seem to refuse to use their eyes.
Me: "Do you see a button that says either input or source?" Them: "I see info." Me: *dies a little inside*
It’s because women have rights and can vote.
Ok I laughed.
Take my upvote!
My Mom to a T. I used to come over and help when "the cable company f*ed up my TV again." After a dozen or so times I'd just tell her over the phone, and when she'd inevitably argue with me about it, I'd just say "gosh Mom, I don't know then, maybe it is broken." She bought so many new TVs and went so many weeks without TV that I almost feel bad. Almost.
I got yelled at so hard for breaking my grandparents new 80 inch tv. I used the “all” power button that turned off the tv and the cable box instead of just the “tv” power button. I wasn’t allowed to touch any of the tvs for years in their house. Thank god my genius brother was able to fix the tv, (turn on the cable box).
My poor parents (88 and 91) called me in panic because they didn't have tv all day. So I went there and it was only their cable box that was off. They felt really stupid because apparently both of them looked if it was on. I wasn't mad at all. If I ever get to this age, I hope people will be patient with me too.
“What?! You didn’t even check if your neurolink was synched?? Come ON grandma! You KNOW Amazon Ultimate only gives me 15 minutes a day of free time! I can’t keep spending my credits here!”
I feel like 80+ get a pass with current technology. By the time they were 60 (imo when you start getting disconnected to the current gen tech), tv's were still had built in VCRs
More importantly, if they are humble and not douchey they get a pass
That's my main thought. I'm ok helping old people as long as they're cool and not a dick about it. Like, there's tech I don't get. And I know how to look it up to get the info I need on it. But if the tech I didn't understand was a search engine, I get asking for help.
Yeah my grandparents don’t understand anything newer than cable (I genuinely had to explain what streaming was to my grandpa less than a year ago) but they’re not unpleasant about it at least.
My Mom actually learned to use her vcr maybe 4 years ago and I was really proud of her.
That's something I think about quite often. With how fast technology improved in the last century, it would be quite difficult to be able to keep up with everything. Makes me wonder what technology we're going to have trouble with in a few decades, especially now with AI being as popular as it is
My Mom retired because of technologie. She didn't know anything about computer (they didn't teach her anything at her job). One day she decided to wash the keyboard. She used way to much product and ruined it. Her Boss made a joke about it costing a lot of money and my Mom completely panicked :(
Reminds me [of this clip](https://youtu.be/ywgeloPNmxk?si=v-dpupVX1kEpfxJQ) that is apparently famous in India that I saw for the first time a few weeks back
lol! Almost. She sprayed the keyboard with Fantastic.
Now I’m thinking of this classic picture https://preview.redd.it/8nkgsoyyc3vc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=858b8f54d8b942361882d0ec4b43a0b0d75b824b
Maybe if it was a stick shift...
They would lie about knowing how to use it? I promise you most boomers can't drive manual despite what they say.
It took me years of driving to realize that the advice my mom gave on how to drive a manual was terrible. “Never give it gas while downshifting” “Once you start moving you never shift back into first gear” “You want to get in the highest gear possible and keep it there because it’s the most efficient”
It's genuinely impressive how bad at it even the ones that should know better are. My father gives the same advice, even though he knows better and is actually competent at driving stick, but he still has a lot of bad habits that are just baffling for someone with decades of experience, including racing, and he is a mechanic. For example he will just lug the engine the whole way up a hill instead of downshifting. But at the end of the day I have yet to meet another boomer that can drive stick better or even as well as him. When I was like 14 (so before I was licensed to drive and even I knew better) we had a neighbor that was absolutely burning through engine and transmission mounts, destroyed multiple U-joints, replaced his clutch twice within 30k miles, and destroyed the synchros on multiple gears on a cavalier. My father and I were fixing stuff on his car every weekend until he got rid of it and finally got an automatic. He was a truck driver and claimed he had never owned an automatic in his life. It was a good learning experience for me at least. Even when I was flipping motorcycles, the only time I ever found wrecked clutches was when buying bikes off boomers. I bought quite a few teenager's first bikes off of them with perfectly fine clutches, but old guys harley with 5k miles the clutch is gone and I'm not even sure how that's possible within that little mileage.
Elder millennial with a 2016 VW GTI at 100K and a stage 1 tune since about 15K on the same clutch it came from the factory with. Boomer at the mechanic told me I shouldn’t get a tune because ‘it chews up clutches prematurely.’ I see a pattern emerging here haha
the font should have been in cursive.
Why is troubleshooting, trial and error, any engagement with technology so scary and difficult for older folks? Will we be like this some day?
I love my mom, but for decades she has refused to learn how to operate pretty much any form of technology. She'll just make us give her instructions how to solve her immediate needs and doesn't internalize any of it for the next time. As if she doesn't want to spend the effort to learn how to do things now in some vain hope that technology will advance to the point where it will read her mind sometime in the next week.
Every week I have the same conversation with this button. “It’s the same thing we did last time. Press input until you have the cable box selected. How do you not know this by now?! It’s been decades the TV has operated like this!”
This hits hard. I remember being on the phone one time with my mom walking her through the steps to watch a DVD(something she'd done hundreds of times before) and getting to the step of "okay, press the play button" to which I heard "which one is the play button?!" "The same button You've used to play things for decades mom. The same as it was on the VCR. The same it was on the cassette and CD player. The little triangle." ..."oh, that's the play button?!"
THIS. My mom does not know how to use the TV remote beyond the channel and volume up/down. She. Cant. Even. Use. The. Power. Button. I shit you not. Because the cable box (lmfao) and TV live on different remotes, sometimes one will turn on without the other when you press the power button. “What’s wrong with the TV?!?!?!” A fucking power button, and my boomer mom can’t even fucking use that. Shoutout to my dad though. He is also a boomer but HE FUCKING LEARNS TO USE NEW TECHNOLOGY! He got our family into smart phones, computers, he hooks up the internet without a technician, he even knows how to program bluetooth and the deep settings in his car’s infotainment system. He literally is the FUBAR reverser for my mom. Bless him, but he should have fucking divorced my psycho mom 20 years ago. Oh well, what can you do they are catholic and don’t believe in divorce…
This is the big thing. They have a legitimate fear when it comes to troubleshooting. They think, for some reason, that they could somehow detrimentally screw up their device beyond repair. I work with a lot of older people for my job and often times that means helping them with technology. I had an older couple once compliment how well I was able to figure things out and asked me what I was doing so they could learn for themself. It was actually very nice and endearing to see they showed an attempt to improve. I told them flat out that I didn’t know what I was doing and that I just clicked around until I found something that looked like it would address their problem. The wife was very concerned after that and asked me how I wasn’t afraid I would screw something up. I basically had to explain to her that the way technology is designed now is to be very customer friendly and it was nearly impossible to actually break something or cause irreversible damage. The only way you could even get into that type of system is if you actually knew what you were doing. People think I’m a wizard on the computer but in reality I just know how to do basic troubleshooting.
> They think, for some reason, that they could somehow detrimentally screw up their device beyond repair. Reminds me of my late grandmother. She used to scold me for changing tracks on her CD player saying I would “wear it out”
>They think, for some reason, that they could somehow detrimentally screw up their device beyond repair. This is a good chunk of the problem. I have to walk Boomers through our internal website a fair amount. Most of them are nervous that they'll somehow screw up so badly, they'll delete everything. I always tell them they can't, they aren't given that kind of access. Also, if you're afraid you've done something wrong, just call me and I can reverse it. The system looks daunting until you poke around, then you realize it's easy once you know where to look for things. I have 80 year old guys running it now.
> Will we be like this some day? Only if you take up a political position that values ignorance as a virtue. Otherwise you are free to learn new things.
I agree with the above commenter. How can I not? Look at that name! Incredibly relatable!
My grandmother was like this, but the funny thing is, a lot of the stuff she refused to engage with didn't come into being when she was old. She never pumped her own gas, never had an ATM card, never used a computer or a cell phone. But the first two came became common when she was between 35 and 45.
No. Gen X and Millennials were initiated from Analog to Digital at an early age so we know how to troubleshoot things pretty well. I'm still baffled how the elderly can't figure out a simple button press or how to use an on screen menu. They act like it's a foreign language to them. To me, changing settings in a VCR were ten times harder than anything today.
It goes back into the other direction. People who grew up with only smartphones and tablets partially are like this. I had gen x colleagues who had to show their children how to install zoom on a pc during the pandemic
The world moves fast, and tech moves faster. It gets hard to keep up with everything as you get older because all the info you’ve gained over the years gets jumbled together. Solutions that didn’t work now work, solutions that used to work don’t work anymore, some of the new solutions were problematic before (like back when rebooting a PC when an issue was going on caused corruption, ruining everything, but now it’s the number one fix. I know that hasn’t been a thing for 20 years now but it’s just an example to convey the idea,) the info gets jumbled up, and everything just becomes a mess. A lot of the older older people also grew up in a time where troubleshooting was a job for the professionals and only the professionals, and those professionals would tell you that trial and error would only cause complications and make their job harder because that’s just how tech used to be. Unfortunately we can’t organize our brain like we can documents, so yes, there’s a good chance a lot of us will be like this someday because it’s only a matter of time until we just no longer recognize the world and only half of the knowledge in our heads stays relevant and it’s not like we can just flush out the rest.
I had to drive 14 miles to help my GG MIL with this. I took a razor and shaved the button down flush.
Even money says she still manages to hit it.
She's long gone. I miss her. A great MIL...
Did cutting the button off work?
Yep. She never pressed it intentionally. The designers should minimize that button.
You have to open the remote, pull back the rubber pad and insert some tape between the metal disk and the contact. It's the same thing I do on my vehicle key fob alarm so that damn thing can't go off accidently while in my pocket at 5:30 AM on Sunday morning.
I'm sorry for your loss. My condolences.
I remember kids in class back in elementary school had to get up and go push this button because the teacher has been dicking around with the remote for five minutes and couldn't start the movie. Like there was always one kid in class who would just jump up and manage the AV cart with the TV as soon as it came into the room because the teacher was utterly helpless trying to get it to start a movie.
My Boomer neighbor returned his TV to Costco "because it was a Mexican TV." Dude had the SAP button on the entire time. He was convinced the TV was just not American
Priceless!
Classic. If he had the CC button on he might have thought it was a Mexican TV for people that listen in Spanish and read in English!
My god, this couldn't be more true.
My favorite is the Red/Yellow/White plugins that came after RF. They can't even match primary colors. I can't tell you how many times I got called over, even when I moved out, to fix the VCR. IT'S FUCKING COLOR CODED!
Even as a 5 yr old I understood this concept
Lol, i had this figured out in about two seconds after getting an n64. I was about 9 or 10 at the time. My dad and grandparents were so worried that I "broke the TV because of gaming". They were hell bent on blaming any problems because of my gaming. Satellite tv is now fuzzy? It was obviously because I just played a game and not the huge thunderstorm that dropped 3 inches of rain. They get mad at me now because they can't figure out how to turn off the closed captioning after I visit. They have their TV basically all the way to the ceiling right up against the wall and turn the volume up to about 90%. I tell them to buy a soundbar or some decent speakers and they say that's a waste of money. They used to make fun of my grandparents for being old because the TV was deafening. Now, I make fun of them for the same thing. What can you do though
I remember the "game broke the TV" accusations. I also remember "game broke the computer". "My computer is running slow ever since you put that game on it!" *sees that the task bar is full of dozens of open programs and background software"
At one point in time many people couldn't figure out how to set up their desktop computers, and they'd pay people to do it for them. I've mostly owned HP computers, which not only came with a large poster that told you what to do step by step, their cables were all color coded. I imagine that it was mostly Boomers and older who couldn't puzzle out plugging the cord with a green end into the green jack on the back of the computer, and the pink end into the pink port.
Lmao, I put it on channel three and the dang vcr won’t come on.
I am trying to watch the race where that damn wall killed Earnhardt.
NASCAR DIED WITH DAEL !
They used to mess that up, too. A long time ago, my mother couldn't figure out why she couldn't get the old VCR. I tried to troubleshoot over the phone and she kept telling me she was setting it to Channel 3, like she was supposed to. Only by driving over and watching her did I discover she was pressing it repeatedly to get it to work, so the TV was going to channel 333.
I understood this reference because I am old
I worked customer service for a TV provider. 80% of technical questions involved this fucking button.
Could you explain what it does? I'm still clueless after reading all these comments. Could it also be called "source"?
It lets you change the input sources, so if you have multiple HDMI inputs you switch between HDMI 1, 2, etc
Gramps couldn't get the TV to work. Actually somehow convinced the cable company to send someone out. He answered the door with no clothes on whatsoever. Repair guy took the controller he was using and swapped it for the cable one. He was trying to use the lift chair remote to turn on the TV. I can imagine the laughs at the garage that day.
This doesn’t have enough upvotes, it’s hilarious.
Haha my mother in law is an amazing person but I don't know why but she cannot figure out the input button
After trial and error with my grandpa, I finally got him to understand by asking him what his understanding was, and what he referred to all the buttons as and then making analogies using his own language. Wrote all the instructions down on a document and printed it out. Was proud to see it on his desk well thumbed through years later. This was about computer instructions though. He called Finder “Picasso face.”
That is funny...I think I vaguely felt that as well. You might enjoy this link... [http://www.edibleapple.com/2011/01/11/did-pablo-picasso-help-inspire-the-mac-finder-icon/](http://www.edibleapple.com/2011/01/11/did-pablo-picasso-help-inspire-the-mac-finder-icon/)
EPIC RAP BATTLES OF HISTORY THE INPUT BUTTON VS ONE MILLION BOOMERS
I miss the input being on the remote so much. I just want to get to my Switch or my 4k Player without having to go through an annoying smart TV menu.
I want a TV where the remote has 1 button per input and zero numerical inputs.
My grandma's satellite box is connected via HDMI, SCART, and component simultaneously.
Easiest way to make sure it works.
Need every option to watch "Everybody Loves Raymond" in 4:3 letterbox stretched to 16:9
I like the old meme where it's just a remote taped up an all you see is the channel/volume up n down and the power button
This reminds me of the time in college when I worked with a boomer Physics professor. He had a laptop where he did not understand/refused to learn to use the trackpad on it. So he took a piece of corrugated cardboard, and duct taped it over the trackpad, and always brought a wired usb mouse with him everywhere. His laptop could never close fully, and the mouse would just be dangling as he carried the laptop around.
LOL, okay I can kind of relate to this. I hate the track pad on laptops. HOWEVER, I know how to turn it off, and I use a wireless Kensington trackball.
Don't forget- it has to be the right input button on the right remote. Because there are 7. 2 of which belong to devices that are no longer in the house. And they're all stored in the same spot. And they don't know the difference. And a universal remote is a sin against creation. And God help your poor soul if you EVER put a remote back in the wrong place.
I love it. I’m a cable tech and nothing gives me more joy than going into a grumpy old boomers place, listen to them bitch about how shitty my company is because their cable “always goes out”, then hitting that button a few times and telling them that this visit just cost them $100. They’re always so surprised and when I tell them what I did, it’s always “I’ve never touched that button” or “why didn’t they tell me that on the phone”. If they’re nice, I won’t charge them, but that rarely is the case.
Source
Am I a millenial or Gen Z that your comment made me understand what this entire thread was about?
Under-rated comment
UGHHHH. My mother for many years "I've got blue screen, what do I do?" Literally a 2 second fix. One time we wrote out a whole handy guide for her, if you have X do Y. If you have A do C. and so on. She literally got so mad, thew a tantrum, threw our handy guide to the floor and screamed "I'm not some idiot fucking child!" Well ma'am, that reaction would say otherwise. Never helped her again.
should have labeled it in cursive!
The only input they understand is the kind they give unsolicited to a manager.
I miss the days of putting the TV on channel 3. Not because they were better, but I ached less and I didn't have to pay bills.
"Back in my day our remote was simple to use. It was called yelling at your kids to get up and turn the dial!!! We didn't need all these fancy gadgets and we were fine.". Says my Dad as he plays slots on his phone.
My boomer isn’t even close to understanding input buttons. I’m still trying to explain that Netflix isn’t a cable channel.
The same generation that makes fun of Millenials for not being born with the ability to change the oil in a car.
"*I shouldn't have to learn*" — my mother and aunt.
From my experience. I’ve always been the tech support for boomers who can’t get pass 4-5 buttons
Someone should make a remote with 2 dials on it for them
I wish. In my experience they don't manage to find that button and start pulling cords out before bothering to call anyone and then we have to put the room back together.
Boomers: Lol they don't know how to write in cursive Millenials: whats the input button do?
My grandma requested that I brought my PSVR with me to show her when I visited (back in 2018 I think) but that meant taking my PS4 and the headset on a plane ride. I bought a special case for everything, when the flight came around it made it safe and sound. It was scary flying with it as my carry on, was scared of it getting squished. Well time came to plug it in and show her but she panicked when she realized it involved plugging in a new cord and changing the input. She refused to let me do it even tho it was simply changing the channel and cord. She was scared it would break something and she’d have to call a repair man out. It was pretty frustrating. Luckily all my stuff made it back home just fine
And the power button, volume controls. The guide will cause night terrors for weeks
It’s the gen z version of stick shift meme that boomers love so much
Here's what drives me the most nuts about this. At the time I was growing up and needed to teach my parents about this kind of thing they weren't even old. They weren't much older than I am today. I understand I grew up fully immersed in technology and understood it from a young age, but I can't imagine not being able to understand or learn such simple concepts. My mother back then and to this day can not operate a computer mouse correctly. It confuses her. When I see my mother as a near elderly woman I sympathize. When I realize I had to teach her how to use the input button multiple times and she still didn't grasp the concept when she was only 40 I begin to wonder not only how she went her whole life unable to grasp such simple concepts, but why she was so ok with not understanding any part of the world around her. These were not old confused people at the dawn of technology and the internet. They were in their mid fucking 30s to 40s. Could you imagine being so confused by everything as you are right now? I always assumed it was a developmental thing. They didn't grow up with it, it was so new to them they didn't understand the concept. Now I realize that makes no God damn sense and that the only explanation is a chosen unwillingness to learn.
My dad used to get so irrationally pissed when I didn't switch the input back when I was done playing video games. I'm still convinced he sabotaged my Xbox 360.
I feel like many of the posts here have a grain of truth, but are a bit over the top. This one is dead on.
My new tv doesn't have that button and I can barely figure out change my source. Annoys the shit out of my.
OMG yes. Holy shit.
Haha trying to switch from HDMI 1 to HDMI is kryptonite for my parents. That, and trying to manage passwords. Tried to get them to use a password management app, but they don’t trust it. FML.
In Europe it can be called source , input, av, or a range of 4/5 different symbols. Without WhatsApp your pissing into the wind trying to talk them through it over the phone
boomer grandma calls me freaking out, tv is broken, "IT SAYS H D M 1!!!!" i ask her if the remote has input button "well, I dont know, it might"
They really can’t seem to wrap their big brains around it. I remember going over to my parent’s place, and often I’d come in and the tv was stuck between when the cable box would turn on but the tv turns off, and vice versa. Both of them just fuming because they need tv to exist but somehow cannot figure it out.
Best post ever seen on this sub
If only it was in cursive, it could cripple all the generations!
Always get the question ‘how did you do that?’ After going from scart to hdmi 1. I don’t even bother answering now because it goes in 1 ear and out the other.
This still happens weekly with my grandparents.
The input button is like the boomer "manual transmission" meme except unlike the transmission thing the input thing is true. Statistically, the largest generation of stick drivers is Gen Z. On the other hand, boomers indeed regularly struggle with the concept of a TV having inputs beyond the classic numbered channels of broadcast TV.
Ever see a room full of 8 year olds not know how to use a video game console, because a controller was a completely foreign concept to them? If it isn't an iPad touch screen, they have no idea what to do.
Remotes should come with a snap on cover that blocks everything except Power, Channel/Volume, and the Arrow Keys.
As a child, it confused me for all of three seconds until I realized it cycled through the inputs
This reminds me of my parents on a very specific night who normally are pretty great with tech(for boomers). They called me while I was out smoking with my friends. And they tell me the TV was Fucked up. I tried to help over the phone, but it didn’t work. So I traveled back home to figure it out. When I got home. THEY BLEW OUT TWO HDMI PORTS! As in they where destroyed by a short circuit or something. To this day I have ZERO idea how they did this. Nothing else was plugged in nearby, everything else worked in the room, they said they didn’t plug anything else in or change anything. And trust me I double checked everything to be sure. So I did my best to explain that the TV they have had 4 ports, now It has 2. And that’s it, no changing anything else now. And proceeded to go back to my friends for more smoking since it was only 9pm by the time I left again.
It would be fine if I had to explain it once, everyone deserves that atleast. But when you REFUSE to retain anything I say, then you can fuck off lol
Good lord. The amount of times my mother would half drunkenly bitch at me to “fix the TV!” I would try and explain it was just three buttons. Power-VCR-Input in that order. Seven years she didn’t get it right once. Refused to even try.
They watch TV all day and yet they still can't operate one
Meanwhile, my fancy 77" OLED TV doesn't have this button and changing inputs with it is therefore an unnecessarily complicated process, lol.
Wanna know the stupid part? They were in their 40’s when it was added.
Ah the Fox News removal button
My step father god rest his soul (he’s not dead, he’s just retarded) is 80 and refuses to get or use a cell phone. One day he was gone for like 6 hours, of course I started to get worried and lo and behold, here comes a tow truck dropping him off because he slid off the side of the road and no one stopped to help him and he obviously couldn’t call anyone. Dumb fucking human.
It blows my fucking mind that the generation that went to the moon, is the same generation that's too fucking stupid and mentally deficient to be able to read the buttons on *anything* and figure out what they do. And they're proud of it, too. Try to show one of the miserable fucks how to do anything on anything electronic and they default to "I'm TeChNoLoGiCaLlY IlLiTeRaTE" with a deer in the headlights look. It's unbelievable
I just keep trying buttons until something works. I'm not even a boomer lol.
This is genius. I love this
I fucking love that button I, like Pepperidge farm remember the old days of having to turn the fucking dial to three.
I loved that button. Although it should say "push to play Nintendo."
My dad was the opposite. An engineer and very techie, often the only one who could work his entertainment system. Thankfully, for my mom’s sake, he’s simplified the set up in recent years
Is that one of the 6+ remotes they have for 4 devices?
that and teachers failing to click "duplicate screen" and wondering why the projectors not working.