The context is important here just as much as it ever is for understanding someone else’s perspective, statements, and points. If you’re as concerned with having a meaningful conversation as you claim to be, it’s a wonder you’d ask “who cares” about context. You are actually talking about some of the context when you mention the effects the phrase has on conversation. But even if ‘OK Boomer’ doesn’t advance discourse, the people using it still have a perspective they are expressing, they are saying something that isn’t meaningless (or else you wouldn’t be this perturbed by it), and these are another part of the context.

I used the words “mock” and “dismiss” quite deliberately in what I wrote. Have you ever tried to reason with people and advance the dialogue with those who are just trolling? Who make it clear they have no intention of really hearing you out? It’s easy to talk hypothetically about shutting down heckling in a meaningful way. But that often isn’t how even the best intentions and efforts work out. It is a legitimate question as to how much time and energy should really be spent on someone who is only there to disrupt or even to lecture without listening.

Why should this have to be done in a meaningful way every time? Meaningful to whom? We in the U.S. have gone through four years of seeing people rejoice in some of the most anti-intellectual, proudly offensive, and asinine sorts of things. How have voices of reason and calls to be civil changed the landscape in the worst of these cases? I think that’s a hard question for you or anyone to answer because the truth is that it’s not so obvious they’ve made the difference we want them to have made.

And again, I want to ask why you keep dismissing the context. You almost sympathize with Swarbrick’s situation, but then resort to a hypothetical that probably isn’t as helpful as you think. Do you honestly believe the people who have used this phrase don’t wish they could come up with that magic bullet to shut down a heckler in a way that’s meaningful and intelligent in the eyes of everyone? I think they do, but they realize how unlikely that is to happen and what an unfair expectation that can be to put on someone. Why should this be the standard instead of discouraging heckling, criticizing the presumptions of older people talking down to the young, and so on?

I think ‘OK Boomer’ is a last resort from people who are tired of being told they need to do better while everyone else (usually those in older age groups) are rarely ever held to such stringent standards.