New Brunswick — With the prevalence of social media, it’s inevitable that at least a few of the stupid sayings from Tumblr or BuzzFeed or wherever have started to seep into everyday usage. A few of these words and phrases, though, should have been killed the second they reared their annoying, irritating heads.
Here are The Manatee’s top 15 phrases from 2017 (or earlier but that have somehow continued into this year) that need to die immediately.
- Adulting: If you’re in your 30s and you’re talking about “adulting,” it probably means you’re an immature, generally useless person who can’t get their shit together. You excuse your ineptitude with cutesy memes about how hard “adulting” (or other nouns-as-verbs) truly is.
- All of the: “OMG I am going to drink all of the wine! Eat all of the cupcakes!!” No you’re not, and if you did you’d probably give yourself diabetes.
- The feels: As in, “That movie hit me right in the feels!” The word is “feelings,” and you’re not an adorable 7-year-old who can get away with saying crap like that.
- Derp: This is the equivalent to someone shrugging their shoulders and letting out a sigh. Or maybe it’s something different altogether. We don’t really know what it means, we just know that the internet likes saying it and that it sounds stupid. Derp.
- Tho: “That hair tho!” Usually this is used as a compliment…someone posts a selfie and their fans come out in droves to say, “Dem cheekbones, tho!” Puke emoji. Just say “You look nice in this photo” and be done with it.
- So much this: If someone really agrees with what you posted or your stance on a political event, they’ll comment, “So much this!” Or if they want to add extra emphasis (and make it even less grammatically correct) they’ll put a period between each word: So. Much. This.
- That feel when: Sentence fragments have long been passable as complete thoughts online, but this one is particularly obnoxious. “Unngh, that feel when you get home from work and bae already got dinner ready. <3” Well, what is “that feel”?? What the fuck are you trying to say?
- Slay: Knights used to slay mythical dragons. Now, grown-ass women say they’re “slaying” when they do pretty much anything. We don’t know where this originated but now it seems to be associated with feminism for some reason. “Slay, girl!!” No, thank you.
- Woke: If someone spends all their time protesting injustices from behind their computer screen and they read the news a few times a week, we call them “woke.” Bonus points if they studied political science. No, this is not the past tense of “wake” anymore; it’s its own stupid fucking phrase. “That guy organized an online diversity rally. He’s woke af.” (Editor’s note: If you don’t already know what “af” means, you must be over 40 and it’ll depress you too much to find out. Be thankful for that fact and go on with your day.)
- A thing: As in, “Is this a thing?” “I didn’t know (insert commonplace noun or verb) was a thing.” We wish this phrase was not a thing. Similar: when people humble-brag by posting something they’re actually very proud of, and say in an offhand manner, “So, I did a thing…” “I wrote a thing!” “I made a thing…”
- Nom: Every time someone posted a food picture this year, they captioned it with: *nom nom nom*. It’s supposed to mimic the sound of greedily eating, Cookie Monster style. “So, I made steak tonight. Can’t wait to eat it! Om nom nom nom!!” Just shut up and eat your steak, then.
- I feel like: This phrase is usually said as a question even though the speaker intends it as a statement. “I dunno, I just feel like the earth is probably flat?” “I just feel like Trump isn’t fit to lead the States?” In 2017, feelings matter more than facts or reality, and that is reflected in our language. We dunno, we guess we just feel like that needs to fucking die?
- Actual footage of me: In the past couple of months you’ve probably seen friends sharing memes or videos of, for example, a sloth falling out of a tree, with a caption reading, “Actual footage of me getting out of bed in the morning.” Or a GIF of a fat cat lying under covers will be captioned with, “Actual footage of my Friday night.” It’s sort of like the “adulting” phenomenon where people think being incompetent is cute. We hope this dies along with 2017.
- Welp: Are you a Bugs Bunny character or something? You can’t say things like “adulting” and “welp” without having people think you’re a tool. Here’s a New Year’s resolution for you: try having your own personality instead of posting statuses like: “Welp! gave hot yoga a try — def not my jam!”
- No words: When you say “words can’t express” something, the idea is to stop there — not continue on into an attention-seeking rant that really only proves you need to be included in the tragedy du jour. And it seems that when people preface their tedious 10-paragraph post about the world’s latest atrocity with “No words,” their friends always have to chime in saying, “Wow. Just Wow” or “This!” If you truly have no words, then do us all a favour and say nothing.