Phrase Round Up
Everything Everyone is Talking About and How They're Talking About It
As we go into the rest of the calendar year, I thought we should check in with what the hell everyone is talking about. What phrases has everyone has picked up from the internet? Are they fun or lame? Is everyone being silly together or are some people being really annoying?
-Mogging and -Maxxing
Clavicular is the guy of the year, more proof that the internet is evil and rotting our brains, which we know because we’re on the internet 24/7. I’m a big believer in “when it hits, it hits”. I’m not going to deny that something is fun to say or fills a gap in the language. We’re drawn to phrases that are new and communicate what we’ve been saying but differently and maybe even better. Clavicular may be evidence of our moral depravity, but -mogging and -maxxing give everything a little flair. To be fair, -mogging and -maxxing have been in the online lexicon for a little bit; Clavicular just brought it to the attention of people who previously didn’t know about it, which is separate from my group, which is people who knew about it but thought it was too nerdy to say out loud. I love -maxxing because it’s a quick way to say one is trying to optimize something but being ridiculous about it. I say “mogged” in my head whenever I walk faster than someone on the street. They have their utilities.
Slop
The “valuable insights to be gained from calling things slop” window has passed. We know. We all know. The number 1 lesson we need to learn in regards to the endless churn of content is that we will not convince the people who like the AI fruit videos to stop watching them if we begin our argument by insulting their taste. A sales pitch doesn’t begin with an insult. In the same way, endlessly bitching about something doesn’t change it, except in the malleable minds of people who read amateur cultural criticism all day. Stop commenting on how everything sucks now in vague terms that cast off everything in all categories. It’s not enough to call it slop. We need better words and probably more of them.
First Principles
