Grandiose sepia-haired billionaires & other pretensions that make me seethe

What started me off on this article was a quote from GoPro CEO Nick Woodman. Until I read it, I was under the impression GoPro made action cameras. Pfttt, shows what I know!

“I’d prefer … we would all prefer that we think of it more as – GoPro as – the world’s leading activity capture company.”

Says the billionaire with the “permanently tousled sepia hair” (a fine example from Forbes). I’d prefer not to see my LinkedIn feed full of this pretentious twaddle, but we don’t always get what we want.

Below I have included a few examples of pretentious twaddle I’ve come across recently.

• Snapchat Leaps From Social Media Hype To Messaging Life Companion
• How We Built Intentionality into Conference Planning
• The Aftermath of the Buttonization of Our Emotions

I’m not trying to embarrass anyone, which is why I haven’t linked to them. But Google them if you like, and note that I have carefully replicated the capitalisation. And the invented words. You might think they all come from the US, where business lingo is more…extravagant than in the UK. Nope. I see phrases like passion points, high trust culture, corporate values (how?) all the time here. The video below gloriously skewers many overused, achingly hip but ultimately meaningless phrases.

I joined the phenomenon that is Mumsnet more than 13 years ago when I was pregnant with my first child. One of the things I’ve always liked about Mumsnet is that it’s full of women who can spot even minor pretension three sub-forums away. In 2007 I came across a thread titled ‘Heuristic play’ where entertaining babies and toddlers with ‘treasure baskets’ was discussed. Wicket baskets filled with curtain rings, measuring spoons, ribbons – that kind of thing. If I gave my baby a set of measuring spoons, it was to buy five minutes peace so I could peruse Mumsnet — why else? Some droll wit immediately coined these collections ‘wnacky baskets’ and the phrase is still used on Mumsnet more than a decade later – it’s up there with ‘naice ham’.

There is clearly a nationwide anti-wankery clarion call or We Want Plates would not have 100,000 Twitter followers. Restaurant menus are so ridden with grandiose descriptions that a Great British Bake Off finalist created ‘Simpler Menus’, a tool to translate them into everyday language. Unfortunately it’s no longer around, but we are left with the brilliant conversion of ‘cooked three ways’ to the plain-speaking ‘dithered over’.

I will leave you with The Poke’s eloquent take on the matter.