There are a lot of new cliche’s. They are the new corporate buzzwords or things that simply creep into language. There is a whole lot of this going on. Some of the meaningless things are said are simply there to make you feel bad, to stifle your ideas or just to make you feel shitty. This list may go off the deep end and it may not be perfectly concise but with my best George Carlin hat on, I’m going to try and tackle the language that used to mean something that now doesn’t:
“Like”
– as it saying after every word when you are talking, or click “like” on a site
“Do you know what I mean?”
– as in saying after every statement you use. I’m listening, you don’t need to ask if I am.
“N-word”
– I know what the word is, it exists, dismissing it at a non-word, does’t make it less offensive. Just say it! Or are do you feel so guilty about it that you can’t.
“Do you have the data?”
– People do this to shut you down. Its a method to stifle ideas and make a process harder. No I don’t have the data! I’m trying to be creative numbnuts.
“Planning meeting”
– Isn’t that redundant? Isn’t a meeting happening so you can plan? Also why do planning meetings end up taking three days.
“Let’s take this off line”
– another shut down maneuver to quiet people. Sure, I talk to much but maybe if their was an agenda for our meeting I wouldn’t bring stuff up. By the way, things that are taken off line, are never brought up again.
“Innovation and disruption”
Oh these two! They’ve really been getting thrown around a lot! Too much. The thing is? It’s the corporations that are throwing them around because they are the two scariest things to big companies. Here is the thing: innovation and more specifically disruption are disruptive and innovative for the simply fact that corporations NEVER SEE THEM COMING or they simply dismiss them as small potatoes.
“We’ll put it in the backlog/buglist”
– for something like me who craves immediacy, these two translate to me as “Shut up, Laurent” It’s just me. By the time the thing I found was fixed, I forget what it is I was on about. Destroys my creative flow.
“Content Farm”
– its not a farm. Its work. Someone, whether you agree with the quality of the work or not, had to make it. The dismissiveness of the folks whose lunch are getting eaten by this new style of information generation pisses me of. Just because you don’t like the content they are creating or the fact that they thought of something that you didn’t or couldn’t think of doing doesn’t mean its a content farm or spam generator or whatever. The fact is, we’ve all ceded Google a lot of our power and these companies have simply found a way to harness that. It’s your job as a so called “real journalism” site to do better so you don’t get stomped by the “content farms” Do better and stop whining.
“What’s the voice of our site?”
I only know one way to write, with spelling and grammar mistakes and as me. When I have to write in a stilted AP style, I lose steam and desire. I feel the same why about finding “voice” What does it even mean? Should the site have a MP3 running when we get to site? Should Vincent Price play and be scary? Or should I write things like a little girl? The voice thing drives me nuts. All people want is authenticity. If it’s you and people know it’s you, then what hell go with it! I know, I know, its not professional to say things like this, but what is the voice of Coca-cola? I don’t know, do you?
There are tons more… what do you got?
Originally appeared http://laurent-courtines.com/im-over-it-things-that-are-said-that-mean-not from http://laurent-courtines.com
