Lunch - Logan's Roadhouse fried chicken, mac & cheese, and mashed potatoes w/ gravy
Dinner - 2 cookie butter rolls
Slang
I love words. They're fun. Even the weird, bizarre ones. Like people seem to unanimously hate the word "moist" and that to me is fun. It's fun to say "moist" and watch people cringe.
One thing I was thinking about the other day is how words become relevant. Like, how certain words or phrases are infused into everyday dialogue through pop-culture.
"Epic Fail!"
"I can't even…"
"YOLO"
"Turn down for what"
These aren't new words, they're just strung together in a way that makes them current and fresh. Often times syllable emphasis and tone play a big role as well. It's the silliest thing.
I always wanted to be the guy that created the phrases or words. I wanted to be the trend setter. So I would go for it. And naturally they all mostly failed. But what I realized is that slang exists in microcosms.
I remember when the youth group would go on summer camp trips and we would encounter other youth groups from different parts of the country. We would exchange slang like fashion; what's in and what's not. Like, I remember the summer we picked up "pitiful." Teenage humor was always rooted in negativity, unfortunately, so "pitiful" was a pretty memorable summer.
Despite the harshness of the pitiful-summer, I still recall this time of life with a smile on my face. What I realized the other day is that we were all just trying to be cool. So we would take that "in" phrase and apply it to everything. Whatever that phrase was, was cool. So we just wanted to say it as much as possible to be cool. And the joy always came from saying it so much out of context, that it eventually came into context.
Example: "Bro-core"
What the heck is bro-core!? To this day I'm still not sure. But for us, it apparently was some kind of hat. Yes, a hat. An oversized flat bill skater hat that we all wore approximately 3 times before realizing how stupid it was. A "bro-core" hat. Mine was black plush velvet (so bro-core).
Eventually everything else became bro-core too. Like, instead of hardcore, if something had a more "bro" nature to it, it became bro-core. "We're going to the beach Friday after school. Are the babes coming? Nah, keeping it bro-core." Or, "Did you see the movie Old School, dude?! Totally, so bro-core." If you went to high school you know exactly what I'm talking about.
But without fail, the circle-of-slang would eventually kick in.
Much like the circle of life, slang runs it's course through pop-culture relevancy. There comes a very distinct moment when slang and cool phrases die out. How does one calculate this exact moment? Easy.
The second an uncool kid starts saying the phrase it becomes uncool. Cause eventually the uncool kids start saying the phrases in efforts to up their coolness, which of course never actually works. Same situation for parents who are trying to be hip or "with it." I remember my dad using the word "epic." Nails on a chalk board. No. Just no. So the phrase dies out one eye roll at a time, and this is the circle of slang. It's inevitable. Sigh…
But it's all part of it. And we all have our roles to play in it as well. Cause...
"It's the circle, the circle of slang" #EltonJohn
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