A simple historical fact explains why boomers are more likely to fall for misinformation

There's more to the generational divide than age.

It never fails, you're sitting there trying to get through a day in the office without freaking out over the office lunch thief when your phone screen lights up. A message from your mother or grandmother appears. There's no context to the message, it's just a link to an article about grocery stores requiring passports to enter. You don't even bother clicking on the story before quickly typing back, "it's fake, mom" then continuing on with your day.

The short response isn't because you're being flippant but because as a Millennial, you've become used to filtering false stories from your boomer relatives. Of course you know your well meaning relatives are intelligent in so many areas but you can't figure out why they don't recognize sketchy websites or obviously made up stories. There's actually a really simple reason that this may be happening, specifically when it comes to the boomer generation.

🎶 Former Miss America's impression of Julie Andrews singing is so spot-on it's spooky

People swear she's lip-syncing. She's not.

Julie Andrews, the beloved songbird and star of "The Sound of Music" and the original "Mary Poppins," arguably has no equal, but there is someone who could offer a solid attempt at duping people with her voice. Former Miss America Betty Maxwell does an impression of Andrews that is as impressively uncanny as they come. In fact, it's so good, people sometimes accuse her of lip-synching.

How Maxwell figured out that she can do celebrity singing impressions is an excellent question, but a spin through her TikTok channel leaves no doubt that she can. Watch—actually, close your eyes and listen to—her sing "Feed the Birds" as Julie Andrews.

Grown-ups deserve this kind of joy too.

Woman praises Target for taking responsibility after a pet toy killed her cat

“They don’t know if no one speaks up.”

A recent tragedy shared by Mazie Kayee on TikTok shows that good can come out of a terrible situation when people take responsibility and practice forgiveness. It all began when Kayee gave her cat, Blue, a new toy for Easter—a Fish Trio Wand cat toy that cost her under $5. The toy features a stick, resembling a fishing rod, that has fake fish dangling from it for the cat to paw at.

On the morning of Thursday, June 26, 2025, the can began throwing up and continued to vomit into the evening. The vomit was brown and had a wretched odor. After taking the cat to the vet, Kayee learned that the tassels attached to the fish had become stuck in the cat’s digestive tract. “Here was a bunch [of tassles] in his stomach and then some little strings had made their way down further, and actually somehow wrapped his intestines from the inside,” she said in a video posted to TikTok. The entanglement led to Blue developing sepsis.

🐍 Do rattlesnake rattles work like maracas? Nope. They're way cooler than that.

The rattle itself is actually hollow.

Ever found yourself face-to-face with a rattlesnake? Years ago, my husband and I were setting up camp by a lake in Eastern Washington when we saw we had a visitor. Lying in the fire pit was a brown snake that blended right into the dirt. Upon close (but not too close) inspection, we see the rattle at the end of its tail. Yikes.

We contacted campground staff, and soon a grizzly older man—face unshaven, hat pulled low, cigarette hanging from his lower lip—arrived at our campsite. He took note of the snake and with zero hesitation, in one fluid motion, he reached into the fire pit, grabbed the snake by the tail, swung it around over his head a few times, and flung it into the forest.

That core memory is the closest I've ever been to a rattlesnake in the wild (and for the record, that's not the recommended method of handling a rattlesnake) but it was close enough. Hearing a rattlesnake rattle is terrifying—venomous as they are—but it's also a relief, because at least they let you know they're there.