Let's stop thinking and start wanking

Enough of this. Can we all stop using the 'adjective' "wanky"? I'm all for the evolution of language and all that, and actioning things sounds like a great laugh, but there's a line between organically refining our communications, and pointless bandwagoning*. Language as I see it has a dual purpose - information, and social cohesion, these haven't changed since prehistory.

Information: "Oh no, a tiger! Look out!"

Social Cohesion: "Hey, do you remember that tiger? That was so rad, man."

Both are wholly legitimate. The species survives through awareness of the environment, and successful mating and group action. Therefore, I'd like to suggest that language 'evolves' when it a) becomes better able to describe the subject (external, internal, real or metaphysical - and one can see this is equally applicable in a creative sense), or b) better facilitates social cohesion by helping two people think in the same way, or feel some sort of empathy.

Wanky, to me, does neither of these. It has a couple of attractive qualities for the user:

- It says "I don't like this, but it's beyond my mental capacity and/or inclination to tell you why". What are you being paid to do, for fuck's sake?
- It does that whole low-level-swearing that people find edgy and cool nowadays. Good for you, Bill Hicks. You tell them.

My contention is that it's not only inefficient, but actively damaging to the discourse. Why care? First and foremost, because I'm a sentimental and pernickety young fool.

Secondly, it fucks up the way you think. George Orwell suggested that:

"...it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts"

Language is our door to understanding and empathy. Please, try not to treat it like a catflap.

...and if you must have 'foolish thoughts', make them original.



*see, I'm perfectly capable of verbifying a noun when I need to.

I care?

There's a rather heartwarming story over at Breitenbach Und Brown about a German single mother suffering from cancer. She doesn't believe anyone cares. Truly tragic. She has slipped through the cracks of society.

Marcus' response was to ask the community to say that Yes, We Do Care Actually. The responses were diverse, but overwhelmingly positive in nature... and yet, how many of the respondents walked past a homeless person that week? Most of them, I'd wager. Her conceptual problem was actually worth more than the 'real' (physical) problems around us.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not here to spoil everyone's fun. A community bonding around the concept of care can only be a good thing, and might in time lead to better places. What I'd like to investigate is the mechanics behind this ordering of priorities. Just what is going on here?

Engagement at its best - the 'activation' of a community, you might say. The spuriously attributed "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic" has been put to work. This woman's plight got the same narrative treatment that the 11/9 families got, that the tsunami victims got. That thousands of homeless people, wage-slaves (proper wage slaves, not you lot), and trafficked sex workers have been denied. Caring about them does not allow you to take part in writing the plot twist of someone's life. It's more like throwing a handful of detergent in a swamp and watching for some result.

Not only watching, but watching alone. Or at least anonymously. Giving to most charity goes unheeded by one's community - the charity will thank you, but your peers will not know. And it's just not polite to bring it up in society, since bizarrely it's given the same conspicuous consumption status as a big TV. 'I care' made the responses public, and consequently people wanted in.

But the offering is not just to be in on a community. It's a chance to stand out from it too, as witnessed by the wonderful creativity of the 'entries', which read like a charitable postsecret. People have unconsciously sensed the chance to make an impact, no matter how small, and at the same time to stand out. Many people have hosted their gestures of caring on their own blogs, to maintain an 'ownership'.

It's an advertising tour de force. Low involvement cost, community payback, individual fame, an emotional narrative to feed into... it's everything people are looking for, and the fact that it captured the attention of some very busy people is testament to the power of the movement. Let us hope that movement can be harnessed. Wonderful things may happen.

It's handraising at its best.

(Thanks Angus)

Is dissecting an honest movement with noble intentions shameful? It might be. But if it makes charities and social marketing ideas take flight... who cares?

Beating a dead meme How-To

No

Yes

In Which Your Reporter Inadvertently Creates A Mini-Meme

Happy Christmas, one and all! This is going to be very quick as there's lots to do in the Interested house.

--

You get what you deserve when you try and overstretch your social circle, don't you? I ended up at a party where I knew the grand total of one person. We all know that these situations are totally awesome, because it's equally true that nobody knows you.

Hanging on to the one person you know is utterly out of the question - they didn't bring you there for your barnacle impression. So what's a researcher to do?

Research. D'oy!

"Hey, nice to meet you. So if you could be an animal, which animal would you be?"

"Hmm, like anything?"

"Sure, I haven't made the rules for this yet"

"Okay...aaaaaaaa... lion!"

"Nice! Best answer I've heard all night! What's your name?"

A cheetah. A lemur. Then they got better: animals with reasons. Extinct animals. Fictional animals. A nice little game to play to let people open up.

The payoff came when I was in a conversation with some I'd just met, and someone I hadn't met came up and asked them The Question. It had begun to spread itself, taken on a life of its own. 

Not everybody wants to be 'on' when they're outside work, but it certainly pays to consider the power of what we're doing, and the idea that the noble art of 'stimulating conversations' can go beyond the bottom line.

What animal would you be? Probably not a turkey.

P.S: Mary's on the Twitter: "Joseph's looking at me funny today. Probably impossible to keep this one schtum any longer".