Strangers, Snowflakes, and Candyasses

“You’re a keen observer of stuff.”

It was 19 ninety-something when that odd sentiment fell from the face hole of a dear friend. It was a lovely observation of his own, I thought — until I thought about it. I’m good at observing? That’s where it ends? I just watch, shrug, blink myself outta the moment, and move on to the next distraction? Thanks…man.

Yeah, calling out my deliberate and obvious social detachment was some good-natured ballbustery, but from a longtime bro, it meant respect. I like to think that he saw what I have always felt — an instinct to look at people and events with a healthy bit of skepticism and an ability to see around the hype and identify the bullshit. Stranger danger, I suppose, in adult form.

That’s me. I’m just always on defense. Not that I’m fearful of anyone or anything in particular, just that I don’t trust anyone or anything in particular. Everyone — me included — is self-interested. So, I watch out for me and mine. As everyone should. That means not just observing people’s actions, or hearing the things they say, but listening to the words they use; specifically, when they use words they would never have thought to use absent trends and incessant, popular blather. It’s the crap hammered home into the grey matter across social media and by advertisers and newsreaders.

That’s what I’m raving about: how words have been deliberately and professionally manipulated beyond their real, base meanings — and why. And how big, niche words get dusted off and shared far and wide by lemmings looking to sound hip and smart.

Here's the thing. None of us know anything just by knowing. We don’t have instincts like the animals beneath us on the food chain. We absorb information. That’s what learning is, taking in external information and processing it. The smartest minds you can think of do it. And the dumbest ones.

Yes, learning goes beyond hearing words. Grab a hot cast iron pan with a damp towel once and you won’t do it again. Still, language and the spoken word are our primary teachers.

But we have allowed the molesters of meaning to take control. You know who they are. They’re those punchable faces all over our stupid social media feeds. They’re the twits and twats hosting late-night “comedy” shows and daytime therapy sessions. They’re the enlightened thinkers at the quarter pole of the newest millennium; the newsreaders looking down their rhinoplastic, bespectacled noses, self-sure of their moral superiority. They’ve got rizz, or think they do. Whatever rizz is. They’re the folks who wake up looking to be offended by something before their feet hit the floor in the morning — and then get ready to tell you all about it. Folks who say, “We need to have a conversation about that,” but have no intention — or capacity — to ever do so. People for whom memes are gospel. It’s zero-investment, thought-free opinion formation and sharing. Copy + Paste to socials and add a lazy “This”. It’s everywhere. It’s boring. It’s predictable.

But here’s the headline: More than anything, it’s penance.

The “This” people are so wracked by gratuitous guilt that they over-index on their noble indignation. They are not lashing out as much as they are self-flagellating for show. They know what they have said in the past — the off-color jokes they’ve told, the movies they (still) quote, the comedians they’ve laughed along with and imitated. With friends and family and co-workers, I’ve witnessed it. But, since that shit doesn’t fly today in certain circles, they preach against it. They are ashamed of what they were when they were young and free, and take great pleasure in separating themselves from that reality so long as they can take the unwashed down with them.

Then there are those who feel such righteous remorse for their own good fortune — wealth, possessions, access, security (some would call it privilege) — that they simply must be down with the downtrodden. Not live among them, mind you. You know, hashtag activism. Think of it like voting. Opposing votes effectively cancel one another. Similarly, by preaching virtue, they feel, like the first group, they’re atoning — at the expense of their opponent. It ain’t complicated.

Thing is, they’re full of donkey dust. Yet somehow, we find ourselves repeating and regurgitating their verbal vomit. Monkey hear, monkey do. Sure, language always “evolves”, dialects emerge, and figures of speech, jargon, and slang ride the trend train in and out of favor. A lot are simply innocent turns of phrase and rhetorical flourishes that are the basis of some terrific advertising slogans, song titles, poetry, and on and on. But a lot more form the foundation for our division and demise.

We have annual Words of the Year lists for words and non-words alike. I’m convinced they’re created just to annoy me. I get it, though. It’s pop culture and I ain’t the market. All languages are derivative and blended. Regional dialects are malleable and sometimes even understandable. But this ain’t about that. This is about the organized, professional assault on our vocabulary and our common sense. This is about the arbitrary whims of some of the most unremarkable people to ever drag knuckles. And for some reason, we’re helping do their dirty work.

It’s a calculated, insidious creep from actual, traditional meaning through a twisted lexicon of linguistic gymnastics to some righteous, blind enlightenment — like the Eloi; H.G. Wells’ robotic, neo-human drones in The Time Machine, wiling the days away in monolithic numbness, indifferent to the danger of the Morlocks. It was not a playbook, dummies. It was a warning. And our evil betters are playing the long game to that end goal, just continually changing enough to keep the ball rolling and little enough that most of the silly proletariat won’t notice we’re being had.

Changing the meanings changes the discourse and creates shades of grey where there should be none. It creates openings for idiots to appear smart. Other idiots follow. And the beat goes on.

It allows kids raised without consequences for awful actions to glory in their obnoxiousness, enabled by the parents of that first generation of special snowflakes. There’s one for you. The snowflake pejorative began very differently and more limited in reach than its repurposed meaning today. It’s been co-opted into a blanket insult for anyone who’s perceived as fragile. It’s being misused to chirp guys who act weak or effeminate. Modern-day Mean Girls use it as you’d expect Mean Girls would. But snowflake does not mean weak, effeminate, or fragile. A special snowflake in the early 2000s was simply a child — any child, every child — who was so coddled and protected and praised and told from Day 1 that, like how no two snowflakes are alike, “There is no one like you, Chase.”

Chase has never felt real, emotional pain. He was part of the inaugural “everyone gets a trophy” generation. I coached Chases. I taught Chases. We were lying to them, and they knew it. So, I was honest. There is not a single kid on my teams who did not know the score of the game in which the other “grown-ups” said there’s no scorekeeping. The good team knew they were undefeated. The lousy team knew they sucked. I made sure of it. The league does no child any good by shielding him from disappointment. Or, from celebrating success. But now they have neither. Because to today’s sophisticated breeders, coerced feelings mean the most.

Awful adults unilaterally insisted everyone was as special as a snowflake — that no matter who you are or what your abilities, you are to be commended. It’s insane. When everyone is special, no one is. When everyone is a winner, everyone loses. Give a 9-year-old a medal after a winless season, and you set him up for failure and a life of unwarranted and unachievable expectations. And we end up where we are now where anyone can be whatever they say they are because they say so. Those same awful parents are paralyzed by fear of confronting their narcissistic nitwits with reality, so they go along with every fantasy. They indulge every tantrum. The beast is fed, and the truth loses. Kids — yes, they’re kids — on college campuses turn against free speech based on their perceived entitlement to not be challenged. Males are weakened to a point of actually embracing and celebrating their own emasculation. But that doesn’t make him a snowflake. It makes him flaccid. In these situations, I recommend cupcake or candyass. What are some of your favorites? Comment belo- — never mind.

I was a solid baseball player growing up. I made All-Star teams. I kicked ass in Major League Baseball’s Pitch, Hit, and Run Competition at age 11. Yet one my most cherished memories from those glory days of the very late 1970s is getting crushed in a regional bracket that was the path to Williamsport PA and the Little League World Series. I remember the handshake line and “2-4-6-8, who do we appreciate…” cutting me down second by second and breaking my spirit like a splintered Louisville Slugger, and then going home and lying on the couch in my filthy uniform, staring out the window, pouting, and basking in anger and self-pity. There’s a picture somewhere. I’ve never forgotten the feeling. I lost. It stung. But you keep playing. You grow up, you win some and you lose some more, and at some point, you remove your jockstrap, remember you’re a man, and you move on. I’m grateful in that moment on the loser couch that no one called me a winner.