Wiktionary

doomer

See also: DOOMer and Doomer

English

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Etymology

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From Middle English domere, from Old English dōmere (“judge”), equivalent to doom +‎ -er. The more recent sense was popularized via a meme, “30 Year-Old Boomer” (first posted in April 2018), the derivations of which are other words that end in -oomer, describing various personality types.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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doomer (plural doomers)

  1. A doom-and-gloomer; a pessimist.
    • 2004, Barbara Anderson, Change of Heart, Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 132:
      I am not normally a pessimist, not by nature one of the doomers of this world whereas Cashem seems to be getting worse and worse. What did he mean by ‘attempt’?
    • 2015 January 31, Dylan Evans, “I quit my job to set up a post-apocalyptic commune”, in The Guardian‎[1], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC:
      I soon found out it was a common belief among doomers, or people who believe a global catastrophe will happen within the next few years.
      (Can we archive this URL?)
    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."
      • 2011 December 18, Andy Beckett, “The news is terrible. Is the world really doomed?”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian‎[2], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC:
        There is an ever louder babble of apocalypse-predicting subcultures, amplified and partly sustained by the internet: peak-oil doomers, who believe the world's energy supplies will collapse and mass famine will follow; […] .
        (Can we archive this URL?)
      • 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.
      • 2020 February 3, Kaitlyn Tiffany, “The Misogynistic Joke that Became a Goth-meme Fairy Tale”, in Jeffrey Goldberg, editor, The Atlantic‎[3], Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC:
        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.
        (Can we archive this URL?)
      • 2020 September 21, Alexandra Villarreal, “Meet the doomers: why some young US voters have given up hope on climate”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian‎[4], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC:
        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.
        (Can we archive this URL?)
    3. A techno-pessimist, in particular concerning artificial intelligence.
      Antonym: boomer
      • 2024 March 18, Andrew Marantz, “О.К., Doomer”, in The New Yorker, New York, N.Y.: Condé Nast Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 47:
        To this day, some doomers work on the inside, nudging the big A.I. labs toward caution, and some work on the outside, arguing that the big A.I. labs should not exist.
      • 2025 March 5, J. Oliver Conroy, “They wanted to save us from a dark AI future. Then six people were killed”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian‎[5], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC:
        Today [Eliezer] Yudkowsky is regarded as a leader of the “doomers”, a faction whose members believe that superintelligent AI will be unambiguously bad for humanity and perhaps even cause our extinction.
        (Can we archive this URL?)
      • 2025, Karen Hao, Empire of AI, New York, N.Y.: Penguin Press, →ISBN:
        It was a rare issue in which the interests of Doomers, Boomers, and profit-motivated corporates aligned: Keeping frontier models front and center in government regulatory discussions was ideologically imperative to Doomers and convenient to Boomers and corporates for shifting attention away from regulating existing AI models and their problems.
      • 2026 May 9, Dara Kerr, “What I saw at the Musk-OpenAI trial: petty billionaires, protests and a stern judge”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian‎[6], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC:
        She added, perhaps to the chagrin of the AI doomers in the crowd: "This is not a trial on the safety risks of artificial intelligence."
        (Can we archive this URL?)
  2. (rare, archaic) One who, or that which, dooms, or pronounces a sentence; a judge.
    • 1590, T[homas] L[odge], “Saladyne”, in Rosalynde. Euphues Golden Legacie: […], London: […] Thomas Orwin for T. G[ubbin] and John Busbie, →OCLC, folio 26, recto:
      Are not the heauens doomers of mens 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

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See also

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Further reading

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Anagrams

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