doomer

See also: DOOMer and Doomer

English

Etymology

doom +‎ -er. The more recent sense was popularized via a meme, “30 Year-Old Boomer”. The derivations of which are other words that end in -oomer, describing various personality types.

Noun

doomer (plural doomers)

1. One who believes that petroleum depletion will inevitably lead to a severe recession or depression, followed by a Malthusian catastrophe.

   Hypernyms: peaknik, peakist

   • 2009, David Holmgren, Future Scenarios, Chelsea Green:

     Those who suggest the likely return of the four horsemen of the apocalypse (famine, pestilence, war, and death) are more vocal than ever before despite being labeled Malthusian or just "doomer."

   • 2015, Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, Peak Oil: Apocalyptic Environmentalism and Libertarian Political Culture, page 114:

     […] while a Minnesotan in her early thirties summed up the general influence of apocalyptic popular culture: “I think it has made me more of a doomer. […]

2. (neologism, sometimes capitalized) Someone who is apathetic or has a negative prospect towards the world, especially in relation to climate change.
   • 2020 February 3, Kaitlyn Tiffany, “The Misogynistic Joke That Became a Goth-Meme Fairy Tale”, in The Atlantic‎^[1]:

     Doomers, meanwhile, are the nihilistic cousins of “Bloomers” and “Gloomers,” all three gradients of the same 20-something. Whereas Bloomers are well adjusted and Gloomers are depressed because they are not, Doomers have simply stopped trying. They are no longer pursuing friendships or relationships, and get no joy from anything because they know that the world is coming to an end.

   • 2020 September 21, Alexandra Villarreal, “Meet the doomers: why some young US voters have given up hope on climate”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:

     Tim Joung, a 20-year-old student in New York, agrees with almost everything that so-called doomers believe: individual action makes little difference, and unscrupulous corporations are at fault for climate change.

3. (rare) One who, or that which, dooms.
   • 1590, T[homas] L[odge], Rosalynde. Euphues Golden Legacie: […], London: […] Thomas Orwin for T. G[ubbin] and John Busbie, →OCLC; republished [Glasgow]: [ […] Hunterian Club], [1876], →OCLC:

     Are not the heavens doomers of men's deedes?

   • 1869, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Prose Works:

     That fatal look of a common intelligence, of a common assent, was exchanged among the doomers of the prisoner's life and death, as the judge concluded.

Derived terms

• doomerism

Related terms

• doomist
• doomism
• gloom-and-doomer

Further reading

• doomer on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Malthusianism on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “doomer”, in Urban Dictionary, launched 1999.

Anagrams

• moored, roomed