SPARE ONE

I recall a marvelous book in the early 2000s that explained upper middle-class white people to the masses. The veil was pulled back on such mysteries as queuing hours for a lacklustre weekend brunch of runny eggs and bragging about not owning a television. As someone from a very working-class background, I found it to be an hilarious read. I used to employ ‘a hilarious’ before reading the book, but now use the delightfully pretentious ‘an hilarious’.

So, it turns out alcoholism and smugness were at the heart of the matter. One could order the bottomless prosecco (bonus points for even having this word in one’s vocabulary at the turn of the millennium) before midday and not be asked if one had a drinking problem… and the television of the day was simply no substitute for the beautiful, outrageously expensive screens of oversized MacBooks, which enabled one to be much more efficient at work and claim a massive tax write-off the following year.

The yuppie – a young professional who once hoped to put off children until surrogacy was adopted by their insurance plan but eventually morphed into the hipster who embraced natural pain – would pop down to a Blockbuster video store, where they would peruse the French language section for half an hour before snatching up the CD box set of a soft porn vampire series on their way out the door. I should explain that at the beginning of the 21st Century, the personal computers one clicked away on at coffee shop tables for hours at a time in order to take advantage of free wi-fi, came with a built-in CD slot. The MacBook was not just the main tool of aspiring DJs building their playlist, but it did, in fact, replace the old, bulky, cathode-tube television sets for consumption of… well… television. But then the flatscreen came along, and the temptation to own something that resembled a work of art hanging on the wall of a European gallery proved too great. Soon after the ‘smart tv’ innovation, the CD slot on MacBooks disappeared. I am old enough to recall the Prius of televisions… boob tubes with a flat pane of tempered glass that obscured the antiquated curvature beneath.

Now that I am officially middle-aged, and ‘yuppie’ (or the vulgar ‘yuppy’) has left the vocabulary of civilised people, I thought it would help many from my generation if I devised a dictionary with the purpose of explaining woke terms to the uninitiated.

The first term that comes to mind is ‘woke’ itself. As all linguists instinctually understand, one-syllable words have greater authority than multi-syllable words. Their very succinctness says, ‘Don’t challenge me, or I will take you down!’ There is a Maoist purity to this particular word. ‘Woke’ has come to imply a cultural re-education… voluntary or involuntary. On the surface, it asks one to be sensitive to the ingrained prejudices all of humanity is burdened with and which prevent us from moving forward into a safer, more loving space for the entire community. No one could argue that is anything but a positive thing. In fact, I must say I tend to fall on the side of the woke over the non-woke. But delve deeper, and one finds a concealed weapon social media influencers brandish in order to eliminate their competition. The Bridget Jones line about liking someone exactly as they are is replaced with, ‘I will like you when you stop being a c**t.’ In all fairness, the object of the influencer’s derision may very well be a preferable-to-avoid individual, as it usually takes one to know one.

‘Sitting in authenticity’ implies there is a space you have claimed first… like Columbus claiming the Caribbean. And even though the truth was technically already owned by others before you, you have brought along angry soldiers carrying chests of gold, so you are clearly the true owner of the truth. This phrase is directly related to the ‘speak your truth’ salvo. A bit like Columbus giving smallpox to all the once perfectly healthy, unenlightened natives… ‘yes, you may have thought you owned the truth, but you didn’t plant a flag, so I think you will find I actually own it.’ It’s a bit like in the childhood game, King of the Castle, in which he or she who clamoured to the top of the sandpile first wins. You can be pushed off the top, but it is more likely the rest of the players simply grow bored and forget you are even sitting on the hill. Or they all die of smallpox. Of course, one can stand and walk in authenticity… but sitting is so much more practical for those who work from home.

‘I feel seen’ is an easy one… once you understand the meanings of ‘woke’, ‘sitting in authenticity’, and ‘speak your truth’. This phrase merely communicates to a famous individual that you feel they are enlightened because they do not challenge your version of the truth… sorry, ‘version’ has actually been banned from contemporary vocabulary. This word challenges how the course of events are perceived by the majority of people, thus leaving truth open to interpretation and making one feel very much unseen.

There are other phrases to explore, but I’m afraid that if I were to succumb to the seduction of this new vocabulary, it would surely leave me open to the terrible consequence of being seen.

Remember, as we enter 2023… humour is the enemy! Please bring awareness to the danger by sharing this article.