Words, usages, and phrases that annoy the shit out of you...

"creatives" is way way way way worse than "monetize" -- though in the context of art, it makes me think ... "make it like monet" which then leads me to the relations between impressionism / modernism and contemporary capitalism, as opposed to industrial capitalism, and then I think of how many posters and totebags exist and have existed with pictures of Monet's artwork ... whereas "creatives" makes me just feel like vomiting.

Yeah, it's really unfortunate when people refer to themselves as 'creatives'... sir, you've been co-opted by yourself

Yeah, it's really unfortunate when people refer to themselves as 'creatives'... sir, you've been co-opted by yourself

― Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, September 7, 2021 12:10 PM (one minute ago)

yeahhhhhhhhh though some of them aren't very creative, or at least, they make me want to be as un-creative as possible if being creative means being like them

I always think of that one scene in Hollywood Shuffle.

lay off the creatives, they're just trying to generate some content

When people describe themselves as "creatives," it makes me think they know nothing about being creative.

i mean... literally "creative" is my job title so i feel very seen here

"Kieth"

sorry, this is "words, usages and phrases..."
think you're looking for "people..."

When Youtubers say 'let's get into it...'

“Smash that like button”

that one annoys me too because I struggle with imagining it done literally -- maybe it's just me, but I realize a lot of these terms in this thread that annoy me, the reason they annoy me has to do with the relationship between the term and their literal referents, and to some extent the connotations of the referents.

if you smash it, the button will be broken, there is no correlation with how vigorously you press the button with how subscribed you are.

exactly! why would you want people to break the like button? Then they would be unable to give you future likes? And then your influence would take a nose-dive

also sounds uncomfortably like a certain kind of man saying "I'd smash that" - now there is a truly disgusting phrase.

I blame Smashmouth

hey now!

lol

getting a bit annoyed with self-proclaimed leftists adopting Xtian/GOP moralist words like "good" and "evil" to describe people and ideas.

Don't know if this has been covered yet, but influencer and influencer-mimicking ads that begin with a person saying, "Hey guys..."

Shut the fuck up.

lol otm

"wellness" and "mindfulness"

is there a specific context that is the most annoying, or just in general? ... I agree btw, especially when you add "healing"

Also 'detox', unless it's in the context of recovering heroin addicts.

mindfulness is a perfectly simple and useful term that can be understood by nearly everyone without much effort and once it is understood it doesn't need to be talked about very much, if at all. it just means 'paying careful attention and not getting distracted by stray thoughts or shiny objects'.

I work in a community mental health agency and both words (though not "healing") get used many times a day. I understand "mindfulness" to be a very specific concept - more or less what Aimless wrote, but specifically relevant in contrast to the long Western tradition of mental health being intellectualized and cognitive, removed from the physical experience a person is having in the moment. It does have a distinct meaning that explains the use of the word. Not to justify the bazillion apps and initiatives that try to capitalize on it's trendiness. "Wellness" may not be the best term for this, but it also gets used somewhat specifically to refer to those activities that enable a person to live a healthy lifestyle but that are not especially medical, clinical, or therapeutic. So the weight loss support groups and things like that that are run by our center are part of the Wellness Program. It is admittedly a mushier category and some things they have included like painting and board game groups make it mushier. Though I fully believe having hobbies that don't explicitly make you less well is a good thing that many people in this country seem to have a hard time generating.

Beware the wellness industrial complex

kinda

one of the things that has probably become trite at this point, is corporate culture using "wellness" as a way of signaling that they care about their employees, yet conversations and practices about "wellness" don't include things like paying living wages, allowing for flexible schedules, and getting rid of workplace dynamics that foster misogyny, racism, etc.

Going WAY back to Giclee, which I found when searching for inkjet as it's something I'm dipping my toes into, just wanted to clarify a few things. Yes, the term is totally annoying and pretentious. Originally it meant "fancy inkjet" to try to differentiate but more often than not people are moving on from the phrase. Tom Ashe, who's book Color Management & Quality Output, which is the most up-to-date and well written book on the subject, has a whole chapter about this, including various options, and I think they mostly settle on "Archival Pigment Print".

Fact is, all of this printing is technically the same technology as the shitty clogged inkjet printer on your desktop. So the terminology exists to just point out various factors, half of which ideally imply the skill that goes into it, and half of which imply issues regarding the technology and paper choice, i.e. using the best quality inks and papers free of brightening chemicals. In other words, you printing some art out on your desktop canon or epson is just an "inkjet" print, printing the same art out on a 11/12 color inkjet with the best quality inks onto archival quality paper that in combination will last 100+ years, is "archival pigment printing". I've just been using the term "museum quality" when talking to people.

Also many of the cheaper printers use Dye based ink, which ironically has a larger color gamut, but is prone to fading, while the most high-end machines use pigment based ink, which isn't.

I bought some clothes online and now my timeline is being spammed with ads for things phrased like "The Morning Trouser", "The Slimline Jean" etc. This construction probably felt classy at first but is now so proliferate it reeks of posturing

Sounds like you're being served your jeans on a silver platter by a French waiter; "Monsieur, ze twill overshirt, s'il vous plait"

For some reason the singular trouser, pant, jean, chino rankles more than the highfalutin catalogese. No one says these things, in American English anyway:

That's a nice trouser you're wearing today.

Wait a sec, I'm not wearing my pant.

Where did you buy that jean?

Crap, I've spilled red wine on my favorite no-iron chino.

An instagram the other day was boasting about impeccable “shirting”

In the teal colorway?

That's a ruddy good trousering you have going on there

Thought of one the other day: the use of the word "journey" and its invasion into the most mundane aspects of marketing and everyday life. Like, sorry, switching a shampoo is not part of a "hair journey," nor do I have "hair goals." Whoever the fuck decided this language was a good idea is a monster.

Yep

"Piece" is the new one around here

Everything is the x "piece" now

xxp - oh totally! It's also kinda insidious from a critical theory / anti-capitalist philosophy perspective. In multiple ways, actually. You have the substitution of actual liberation and self-determination with consumer products that do little to change the structural factors which would impel you to go "on a journey" ... also the extension of the professional to the personal, in the sense that one must have goals for everything.

Eventually there will be some "radical" personal care product brand that will use phrases like "hair derive" and the "psychogeography of skin care" ... and it will be kinda LOL but mostly sad

oh, Aesop has already used Baudrillard in their ad copy

I think I became annoyed with it first during my cancer time, "the word 'cancer journey'" being such euphemistic bullshit for "the hardest and most painful and boring medical procedures you will ever endure"

"optionality"

"viking"

that reminds me, in season 1 of the Wire, after doing a caper to get money to buy drugs, Johnny says to Bubbles, "We're Vikings, holmes!" -- did he mean that their caper was excellent or that they are literally vikings?

or maybe I'm misremembering -- here is a clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph3ESERrdMU

it me

In this Ohio town, times have been tough. First, they shut down the steel mill. Then Amazon and the big boxes killed off the downtown. Then the opioids hit. But there's one thing that bothers residents here more than any of that: people misusing the phrase "begs the question".

— New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) September 30, 2021

"Instaworthy"

^^ Oh god yes, can't stand it

you *know* they planned it

I heard a radio spot encouraging people to come out to Modesto, one of the more dismal towns in California, to see the almond blossoms in bloom... and I think they used this term. Or at least implied it.