https://voxday.net/2025/06/15/the-boomers-last-boom/I find it tremendously amusing and absolutely satisfying to watch how the Boomers are struggling to grasp that
the world is going to continue on without them. The new Stephen King movie, The Life of Chuck, may well serve as the last will and testament of that most wicked generation.
If there’s a useful rough division of King’s stories, it’s between the ones that describe a world of horrors on one hand, and the ones that consider what to do about being in a world of horrors on the other. This isn’t a clean distinction, certainly, nor does it map cleanly to downbeat versus upbeat — sometimes the straight-up horrors are told with dark humor, as in “Survivor Type,” a gnarly little short story about a doctor who gets marooned on a desert island and starts eating himself. A King story usually has an element of warning. This could happen to you, says Stephen King, as the doctor eats his foot, or as a finger comes up out of a bathroom drain, or as a haunted car or a pandemic or a vampire or a rabid dog appears. This could happen to you.
But many of his stories have a paradox at their cores. He believes in menace and evil, and in the brutality of a world that kills kids, and helpless people, and good people. He is not a horror writer who punishes the foolish above others.
At the same time, he writes with a deeply humane central thesis, which is that in light of all those monsters, you are blessed to have in your life at least your own resilience and the company of other people. The Stand is not really about the flu, after all; it is about creating a new community and choosing to make sacrifices for it. It is only superficially about the clown. Really, it’s about fear and trauma, and especially about strength in numbers. These are what you might call the “What now?” stories: You know the world is full of pain … what now? The worst has happened … what now? You are fully aware of your own mortality … what now?
An SGer posed the question:
Can you guess the “shocking” twist from boomer Stephen King’s latest movie adaptation ? Possibly the most boomer sentiment ever.That’s a pretty obvious hint. My guess: The world ends with Chuck.
And, of course, I was correct, as I confirmed when I asked Deepseek about the theme of King’s novella.
- Life as a Universe: Chuck’s existence literally sustains the world; when he dies, reality dies with him.
- Death’s Inevitability: The reverse structure mirrors how life is understood only in hindsight.
- Legacy: The billboards (“Thank You, Chuck”) suggest even ordinary lives have cosmic significance.
King blends horror, fantasy, and melancholy in this existential fable, leaving much open to interpretation. The story’s emotional core lies in Chuck’s quiet acceptance of his role—both as a man and as the “engine” of a fleeting world.
Quelle surprise. It’s not an “existential fable”, it’s a quintessential Boomer fable. I genuinely wonder who was more shocked that Jesus Christ didn’t return during their lifetime, the apostles or the average Christian Boomer? I’ve never forgotten the declaration of a female Boomer who admitted that she didn’t know when Jesus would return amidst fire and sword, but was certain it would be during her lifetime.
O say do those fading old Boomers still boom,As their sunset descends in the fullness of doom?Isn’t it fascinating to observe that regardless of what their religion or their beliefs happen to be, so many Boomers tend to believe exactly the same thing about reality ending with them?
