“Bummer” was common slang when I was a teen—a simple, short word that referred to something we didn’t like.

A girl turning down your request to go to a movie was a bummer. So was her accepting—and then wanting more at the snack bar than you had money to buy.

Being short on cash for Milk Duds is always a bummer.

Like many of our slang terms, the meaning of “bummer” as it was used a half-century ago bears little resemblance to its original meaning.

According to Etymology Online, the earliest known use of the word dates back to 1855, when it referred to a “loafer or idle person.”

Before that, the root word goes back to the 1600s, when it was used to describe someone’s backside.

In the 1860s, a “bummer” was someone from the Northern Army who scrounged for items during the Civil War.

Also in the 1800s, there were “bum boats” that sold food supplies to other ships. Sailors used the term “bummer” to describe a bad experience with a bum boat.

The late writer Hunter S. Thompson is credited with the modern use of the word “bummer” in reference to a bad experience.

From Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971):

“Every now and then you run up on one of those days when everything’s in vain … a stone bummer from start to finish; and if you know what’s good for you, on days like these you sort of hunker down in a safe corner and watch.”

Hippies were often heard using the word “bummer,” but it easily crept into the broader American lexicon.

The stoner comedians Cheech and Chong probably did as much for the word “bummer” as they did for weed.

From Cheech and Chong’s 1976 album Sleeping Beauty:

“Oh, man, what a bummer, man. Oh, come on, judge. Gimme a break, please. Aw, judge, come on, man. Don’t take me away, I was framed.”

Clearly, the word “bummer” was embraced by a wide range of folks.

For us, growing up in the 1970s in Ashdown, Arkansas, “bummer” was a safe word we could use to express any level of displeasure without swearing outright.

There were other words in mid-century Southern America that could be substituted for “bummer.”

Things could be a drag, a downer, a bum trip, a bad trip, jive, a buzzkill. They could be lame, square, bogie, or bogus.

You can see the influence of the hippies and the Golden Age of Hollywood here. Bad trips and buzzkills referred to the drug culture (think Cheech and Chong), while bogie and bogus referenced Humphrey Bogart, who sucked down cigarettes like W.C. Fields sucked down gin.

To “Bogart” something you were smoking was to hog it for yourself. Which was a bummer.

At least, that’s what I heard.

Of course, each generation adapts language to suit its own needs and purposes—almost always in a way that adults don’t understand.

Our parents had Pig Latin. We had ’60s and ’70s slang.

Today, young people use acronyms and initialisms—letter combinations such as LOL (laugh out loud), BRB (be right back), SMH (shaking my head), and ROFL (rolling on the floor laughing). It’s their way of communicating while leaving the rest of us in the dialogue dust.

The difference, of course, is that we talked out loud and in person, while most young people today have their heads buried in electronic devices and text each other instead.

The future of communication is heading into an era that those of us born decades ago could never have imagined. Artificial intelligence is already beginning to replace talking to another human being, and neuroscience will likely soon deliver the ability for us to simply think—and have others hear what we thought.

Phone apps may soon detect our emotions and feelings, removing the need for us to even be near each other—something social media has already begun to do.

As always, we have a choice in how much we choose to participate in any of this.

Let’s hope we keep human interaction front and center.

Anything less truly would be a bummer.

 

©2025 John Moore

John’s books, Puns for Groan People and Write of Passage: A Southerner’s View of Then and Now Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, are available on his website TheCountryWriter.com, where you can also send him a message.