Notice that none of these commercials make fun of actual Senior Citizens, I suspect because that would not sit well with the audience. Fortunately for Progressive, making fun of middle-aged people- especially middle-aged white men- is perfectly fine because I guess it's seen as a form of punching up. And the viewer is just supposed to ignore the fact that values usually associated with The Greatest Generation are constantly being assigned to Boomers.
For example, we see several of these ads featuring Funny Stupid Fifty-somethings incapable of using a Smart Phone properly- never mind that middle class fifty-somethings have owned Smart Phones since they were in their thirties. Were they clueless about the tech then? Is there some reason why they were unable to adapt to updated tech along with their younger fellow Smart Phone owners? Give me a break.
We also see a lot of other behavior typical of people who grew up in small towns in the 1930s and 40s being attributed to people born in the 1960s and 1970s- introducing yourself to the waiter, or saving butter containers for leftovers, etc. etc. etc. I'm sixty years old- I don't save plastic containers for leftovers and I've never introduced myself to my waiter. Then again, I know how to take a selfie, so I guess I'm an outlier....?
And here's another thing- all those clueless middle aged people Progressive is talking about seem to have nice homes, obtained through decades of hard work and savings- but instead of being admired for their hard work, diligence and frugality, they are being subjected to what looks for all the world like Re-Education Processing because they "don't understand" how the world of their grandchildren - who, again, are using the same tech they have been using since they were in their thirties- are using.
In short, Progressive, maybe you could stop pretending that people around my age are stumbling around a world they don't understand clinging to silly values that have no relevance in today's Superior Younger Culture and just admit that you want to make fun of people who have been on Social Security for at least a decade. Consumer Cellular does it all the time; I don't know why you are being so reticent.
It's like they do their research reading the comics. Zits and Curtis age like milk in a heat wave but we get the same "I'll die of death before I admit that the parents should know what an iPad or an app is" from Thing One, Thing Two and Affirmative Action Thing.
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