Baby boomers outraged by satirical post about buying a home
A group of older Australians have fallen for a satirical news article about rising interest rates and home ownership, with baby boomers everywhere expressing their disapproval.
A post from Australian satire news site The Shovel has gone viral, after they riled up the older demographic who likely bought their homes for a very reasonable price, while still urging millennials to try harder to get into the impossible property market.
The headline of the joke post reads, “'But interest rates were 17 per cent in my day!' complains man who bought house for $67,000".
The satirical article goes on to state John Bradly, a fictional 63-year-old man from Melbourne who bought his house in the 1980s, thinks young people concerned about interest rate rises “don’t know how good they have it”.
Bradley is quoted as saying he had to save up “for weeks” for a house deposit and that he only had his salary to rely on which was “only about one-fifth of the value of the average home back then”.
“It took me more than seven years to pay off my first house. Seven years! I was practically in my thirties by the time I was debt free. Can you imagine? Being beholden to a bank for your entire twenties! I’m pretty sure no-one in their twenties these days has to go through that,” the joke article stated.
The article finishes with another jab at older Australians who are making it even harder for first home buyers by owning multiple properties.
“Try managing tenants across 11 investment properties scattered around Melbourne and Sydney during a global pandemic. That’s what hard work is,” Bradley was quoted as saying.
Despite the almost palpable satirical tone, dozens of Aussies were convinced the article was legitimate, flocking to comment that the article made them feel personally attacked.
Even general manager of the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, Phil Gould, got caught up in discourse, urging the "news" site to do more research before publishing their articles.
“Average full-time wage in 1990 was $566.80. Try to do just a little research,” he wrote, sharing a link to the satire article on Twitter.
His followers were quick to point out that he had been duped by a fake news post, while others chose to highlight how he was only proving the point the article was making.
Gould was not the only one who took the post seriously, with angry baby boomers sharing their stories of hardship when it came to buying their first home.
“When my wife and I bought a 2 bed duplex in 90/91?, it cost us $108,000. Interest rates were 17 per cent. $108,000 was a LOT of $$ back then,” one person wrote.
“We sacrificed a LOT. We started modestly as well.”
Another person claimed that, while they bought their first house in the late 1980s for just over $71,000, but added they didn’t get things like paid parental leave and subsidised child care.
“And yes interest rates at 17-18 per cent scared us,” the commenter said.
Despite the outrage over the post, many people pointed out that despite the article being of a satirical nature, there could be an element of truth behind the sarcasm.
One person said, "It’s getting harder and harder to tell the actual “news” content now", while another wrote, "I thought this was supposed to be a satirical publication".
Image credits: The Shovel / Getty Images