April 6, 2010

Please Don’t Use These ClichÃ©s

We’ve all done it. Probably without thinking. There’s no shame in verbal shorthand from time to time, as long as one is aware of it and doesn’t actually believe that one is expressing one’s self using anything but the cheapest device at hand. Let’s face it, originality is overrated, and quite rare. The majority of my opinions don’t rate much better than the standard idiomatic color palette. I imagine most folks usually know what I’m about to say before I even open up my fat yap.

I read a lot of internet discussions, often “lurking” for months without adding to a comment thread because usually some more prolific jerk will eventually get around to stating my case for me, saving me the hassles of crafting a response. It’s only the internet, anyway. In the heat of virtual battle, no one expects you to be Clarence fucking Darrow.

However.

There are a few internet things that you should just stop doing. Please. These verbal tropes suck the air out of any argument. Everyone has read them before, so they have been long drained of any humor value or damaging sting. They are old as dirt, which means that exponentially, in internet terms, they actually predate the Big Bang, which is almost impossible, I think. Ask an astrophysicist. To use one of these not-at-all-funny-or-clever turns of phrase marks you as a poser, a hack, a lazy thinker… about as hip as Strom Thurmond, who has been dead for several years now. In my opinion, even ol’ Strom seems fresher at this point.

Beyond the glaringly obvious examples (we all know no one is really ROFLing or LOLing or LMFAOing, but that war on stupidity was lost long ago), the following interweb stinkers are tough and insidious. If you adopt these, I’m calling you out, motherfucker. Please feel free to hit the comment section and list other clichés you’re glad I missed.

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“That’s ___ minutes/hours of my life that I’ll never get back.”
The SNL of web clichés. This one just won’t go away, and variations seem to be employed by everyone, from cretinous YouTuber youths, to that great-grandmother who’s using her neighbor’s dialup connection to send you inspirational e-Cards. Sometimes overheard when walking out of a movie theatre.

The premise is faulty. Take it from someone who’s basically wasted his entire life – you weren’t going to use that lost time for anything constructive, anyway.

“I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.”
This unsolicited medical report is not the least bit convincing. Anyone who repeats it should be required to undergo some sort of breathalyzer test for traces of vomit. Interestingly, this expression seems to mostly be utilized by females. Now, I realize that you delicate ladies need to express your online disdain more frequently than we disgusting, brutish males do, but there’s gotta be a better way!

(Note: Lesser corollaries to this cliché will make reference to stabbing out one’s eyeballs or rinsing them with bleach.)

“(clumsily altered text) – There, fixed that for you.”
A smarmy way to use your HTML skills to modify the words of your opponent into something you wish you’d said. This was slightly clever the very first time it was used in an internet brawl. Since then, it’s been just an obnoxious method of turning a level debate into a bonfire of straw. By the way, that guy who originally invented it lost his argument anyway, so ~~fuck you~~ let that be a lesson.

“Wow. Just wow.” / “Eww. Just eww.”
A simple “gosh golly gee” or “that’s gross” would express your astonishment/nausea a lot better. This is as overplayed as yelling “whaasssup!!” like you’re starring in a ‘90s Budweiser ad.

“How’s that working out for ya?”
This is the same as saying, “I really deserve a punch in the face, but we’re on the internet, so nyaah nyaah nyaah.” Why would you want to imitate the smug cadence of Sarah Palin in your internet comments? Don’t be a douchebag.

“______ just shot out of my nose. You owe me a new keyboard/monitor.”
No, it didn’t. Clichés came out of your ass. No one owes you anything.

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Arthur Tracy – “Pennies From Heaven”

Rick at 5:15 am

Comments (12)

12 CommentsÈ

I think what I learned most from this post is that I must not spend as much time on the Web as I think I do because most of these examples don’t set off alarms for me, and in one case (“threw up in my mouth”) I actually laughed when I read it. So I’m a loser. You knew that. Thanks for proving it to me.

Comment by Reuben Ñ April 6, 2010 @ 10:32 am
Reub: Or maybe it’s just me. In the kind of discussions I frequent, every time someone posts an unflattering pic of a political enemy or some bad interior design, the vomity-mouth bon mot gets tossed in by one or more commenters as if they just thought of it. It’s a catchphrase disguised as casual spontaneity. It’s true that that cliche is funny the first time you hear it. That’s why I’ve noticed its zombie-like metamorphosis into something that’s no longer funny.

Thanks for your comment. We all should have lives outside the web.

Comment by Rick Ñ April 6, 2010 @ 11:31 am
Well, I was being flip when I called myself a loser. I actually got a lot of relief from feeling out of the loop cause I worry that I spend (and have spent) way too much time on the Internet.

But I’m busy coming to terms with a lot of age-related reality checking these days. I recently met a political activist in his late 20s who had never heard of the Grateful Dead and it kicked off feelings in me that maybe I’m very close to death. I thought, “how does this happen?” And I fucking hate the Dead.

I was looking at a job posting on Craigslist the other day and it suggested that applicants be very Internet savvy. I think to myself, “well I’ve been on the Net since about 1989 and I was there for Usenet and I’m decent at HTML and know some basic Unix and so on… But then I discover that what they really mean is you know the difference between Foursquare and Gowalla, and I hadn’t heard of either one. After 5 minutes of reading about them I’m quite sure I have no use for them either. So I feel sometimes like I’m the worst kind of old—the old dude who doesn’t know he’s out of it. The guy who doesn’t realize that that show I went to 20 years ago is ancient fucking history to anyone under the age of 35 and I am like the hippies I used to make fun of in the punk days.

Yike…and why am I here writing this comment on your blog post when I should be writing about these issues somewhere in non-cyberspace “real life” or answering that ad and pretending to know what the fuck Foursquare is and getting a job that pays 12 bucks an hour. At least I look young. At least for now I still have that.

Comment by Reuben Ñ April 6, 2010 @ 1:01 pm
“That’s something I can never unsee.” (or variations thereof)

Regarding The Kids: I always figure that when the Shit Hits The Fan, my skill set (varied and absurd as it may be) will help me survive whilst the young’uns will be clicy-clacking on their mobile slavery units, crying, and basically getting in the way. I don’t mind not thinking of them as human—it makes it easier to use them as food later.

Shit, I gotta go, my boss wants me to do something stupid, like work….

Comment by Ivan Ñ April 6, 2010 @ 1:48 pm
Hi!

I like reading the articles on this site. The articles keep me informed.

Thanks!

Comment by Richard Ñ April 6, 2010 @ 2:35 pm
Good one, Ivan. The “you’ll see things you can’t unsee” bit was a throwaway line by Joaquim Phoenix in a shitty movie (8mm, 1999) and we’ve been hearing it ever since.

Reuben, you expressed my own feelings of impending irrelevance quite well. The difference is that I know for a fact that you’ve totally mastered the musical arts. And Ivan is a working writer who’s also become an expert on flesh-eating solvents. On the other hand, the experience/skill set I’m working with is a million miles across and about two centimeters deep. Poor me. Guess it’s time to become the old dude who hangs out at the community college.

Comment by Rick Ñ April 6, 2010 @ 2:37 pm
You know what? I was one of those teen misfits who liked hearing what those creeps hanging out at the community college had to say. They were smart, had a way with words, knew about weird movies and music and, because they’d been ostracized by society (or so they felt, not realizing that their movie, music and comic book habits fed money into society), they were willing to tolerate horrible little creeps like me.
Jeez, I almost pity this one guy—a complete lookalike for the Simpson’s comic book guy, I kid you not—I must have nearly chewed his ear off after I saw “The Wild Bunch” for the first time. Of course, immediately after I exhausted myself babbling about Peckinpah’s awesome western/anti-western/mercenary movie, this dude says, “But what you really have to see is Straw Dogs….”
And the fat fuck was right!

I doubt this will make you “happy” if you’re “down,” but “I” love “quotation” marks.
And excessive quotationing is another cliche that needs to die!
And scene.
Which is another cliche that needs to die.

Jesus H. Palimino! I’ve probably written more in this reply that I have at my own site in a month. (“Jesus H. Palimino” being, not a cliche yet, but a phrase that John Milius has in nearly all his films, usually mouthed by ex-Chicago Bear and Ivanlandia Character Actor Hall of Fame member Frank McRae.)

Whew!

Comment by Ivan Ñ April 6, 2010 @ 3:35 pm
Here’s another:
“_____________ on steroids.”

Comment by Ivan Ñ April 6, 2010 @ 5:28 pm
“Your site (or fill in other noun) is AMAZING.” (Typically, but not always, in CAPS.)

This is the new overused adjective (technically not a cliche, but still…) in our society. My wife and I realized this last year while watching The Bachelor (only once, I swear) and saw the guy describe all of the women with this word right before he dumped them.

Comment by Brian Gurwitz Ñ April 8, 2010 @ 5:38 am
Brian, I’m slightly ashamed that I use “amazing” quite often, but not as much as the term “awesome,” which I’ve become resigned to no matter how self-aware I am about its overuse.

Comment by Rick Ñ April 8, 2010 @ 3:30 pm
Reuben, I loved __(fill in cool word) comment. I’d like to hear you bitch more about it on a blog. I know, I have used the ROFL once but I really was LOTCL (lying on the couch laughing)and I am definitely guilty of FIFY but some of the crap screams rewrite (feel free to screw with this). I recently commented that quoting Orwell had jumped the shark. I think I made the man cry and truthfully, if the internet is not for torturing people anonymously (only when I deem them a worthy target), then WTF am I doing here. JMO ;-)

Comment by Mary Stack Ñ April 12, 2010 @ 8:02 am
I hate the “threw up in my mouth a little” line, but I do get some smug satisfaction out of knowing that anybody who says it is unwittingly quoting the movie Dodgeball. Which is so, so hip.

Comment by Lazlo H. Ñ June 30, 2010 @ 12:36 pm