Making the rounds on TikTok (@jasonkpargin, 2½ minutes) and Bluesky (repost by Brian Hughes) is an insightful short video about a boomer meme, "Just coffee, black," that explains why some older folks get upset at innocent things.

The original image has been identified by Know Your Meme, a comic by Jeff Bacon in 2012, and has since been deleted, although it’s been copied and spread far and wide. You can’t see it well in the video, but the punchline at the bottom is a customer behind the marine complaining, "For cryin’ out loud, make up your mind and order!"

Here is a full transcript of Pargin’s words:

"The key to understanding the world today is that this comic right here, this boomer comic that has been making the rounds on Facebook for at least a decade, and it portrays a brave older marine in a coffee shop where the barista says, ‘Can I interest you in a soy latte?’ He says no, ‘Just coffee, black.’ ‘Caramel macchiato’ ‘Just coffee, black.’ ‘Iced peppermint mocha?’ ‘Just coffee, black.’ ‘Frappe?’

"Now the first thing you’ll notice is that this scenario has never occurred once, anywhere, in the history of the world. And if you say ‘Well yeah, but it’s just a joke,’ I’m saying that the thing that it’s exaggerating has never occurred.

"But the perception of a world that caused the artist to create this, and motivated people to share this millions of times, is incredibly important. Because in reality, no one ever took his black coffee from him. Every shop like this has black coffee! He can also get it at any gas station, or any McDonald’s drive-thru, or from home.

"All that happened is the range of options for other people expanded and he perceived that as persecution, as his choice having been taken away.

"This is not political. This is a ‘human nature’ thing.

"Most people are not satisfied to simply have the option to live their life the way the way they want. They also want to feel normal. They want to walk around and see that most other people have made the same choice they made.

"And if over time they see that their own personal preference has become less popular, and even worse, is now seen as being basic or unsophisticated, they will perceive the mere existence of those other options as a criticism of them, even if they’ve never heard anybody voice that criticism.

"This is why it’s so important for some people to imagine the archetype of the ‘Angry Vegan,’ even though 1) I have never run into one of those people in real life, not even once, and 2) meat statistically is more popular now than it has ever been in the history of the world.

"There is basic psychological comfort in knowing that you’re conforming to what the world wants, and in the reassurance that that world is not going to change. And this is why it doesn’t help to simply tell people you can keep doing the thing you were doing, no one’s stopping you, no one’s stopping you from drinking your coffee.

"Because it’s not about the coffee. It’s the fear that if everybody stops drinking coffee the way I drink it, then I will become an outcast. And that is scary to someone who suddenly is remembering how they have always treated outcasts."