The generational mantra "I hope I die before I get old" has never looked so ironic …

Where one side of the social spectrum believes our brilliance has beget long, fruitful lives by beating mother nature at her own game, the other realizes it may not be all that great to live into the high 70s. Things sag, our memories go berserk and likely anyone who makes it that far is systematically destined to yell at kids about pot.

Like The Who — would anyone have expected to see one of the most popular bands to come out of the hippie era ever yell at concertgoers about weed? Speechless. Shocked. And saddened we are at the very thought.

What happened: A few nights back in Long Island, The Who frontman Roger Daltrey berated a fan because his dope-fume was wafting his way and — according to other reports — Daltrey is allergic to marijuana and his voice suffers if it becomes too pungent. Fair enough. But so damn ironic it hurts our brains. 

We’ll be the first to admit, the video itself is pretty boring an unintelligible — but we get a kick (and great sadness) out of the strange existential epiphany of the whole situation.

To make the video even more ridiculous, the band rips into its smash hit “My Generation” afterwards … proclaiming the great hype of angsty youngin’s everywhere in the revolutionary period of the '60s: “I hope I die before I get old!!!!”

Because if getting old means telling dopers to get out of the stadium, then, yes, kill us first before this ever happens …