Hipsters Have Tiny Feet,
Bikers Have Smelly Beards
Understanding and Using Today’s Clichés
For Deeper Connections
I remember sitting in Mrs. Michaels AP English class as she lectured, in a constructive yet strict manner, on the laziness of relying too much on clichés and the weakness to be found in a lack of original thought. She demanded we think deep, find unique ways to contribute to a discussion or debate. Today I wonder what she would think of things like Twitter and Facebook that are largely digital streams of regurgitated, recycled and re-used tripe masquerading as insight and connection.
Mrs. Michaels was relentless — her lessons became my guideposts. They cultivated in me an understanding the structure of my arguments and the caliber of my rhetoric are representations of my educated self. I came to believe that clichés, as Mrs. Michaels pointed out, where the refuge of the lazy mind.
Then I reached college where Dr. Rivers, my Literary Criticism and Rhetoric professor, stormed into the first day of class declaring, “Sometimes, ‘I ain’t got none’ is perfectly acceptable and appropriate.” The world had a new facet. I believe he would find the advent of Twitter and Facebook — our over-sized consumption of micro-sized digital content — rather amusing.
Fast forward through nearly 20 years of a career in marketing and large-scale enterprise sales and I find the truth to be somewhere in the middle (which I guess is the point of all the education — show you the rules so you know when and how to break them). I no longer think of clichés as simply lazy writing or quirky turns of phrase, but as a tool for better understanding people, for zeroing in quickly to have a more focused connection.
We live in a world where our natural ability to categorize, label and group information is being tested with an onslaught of images, data, videos, content and more. From Tweets to Facebook posts to Instagram images to LinkedIn blogs and beyond —many of us realize how attention spans are shrinking, time for self-reflection and deep thought evaporating and we are being left with a culture where the true human connection is less frequent and often more complicated to achieve.
Regardless of my opinion on the subject or Mrs. Michaels potential disdain, the proliferation of clichés (both written and realized) and the wild abandon with which people use them can be helpful. They can serve as signposts on complex highways of connections to increase the chance of discovering the truth of an individual.
Let me give you an example…I am a 40+ year old male, with two Rottweilers at home, working on my second marriage, passionate about my Harley-Davidsons, snowboarding and travel. I am a biker, husky with facial hair (which after a week on the road most likely smells funny), more comfortable in my jeans than my custom suits. Yet, I am also Senior Vice President of Client Services for a digital agency leading a team of 10+ people who interact daily with executives from all the companies who sponsor the Super Bowl and beyond.
All of this you can figure out based on my Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn personas. This allows people who want to talk to me to target their approach, attempt to find something that will resonate with me. Although I appreciate the arts, enjoy the theater (Book of Mormon was hysterical), you aren’t going to pique my interest with a question about the touring schedule of the Bolshoi Ballet.
However, these guideposts are never enough. People who talk to me won’t uncover, unless they’ve read my essays on Medium, that at the core I am a writer, first and foremost. They won’t know that I have a passionate addiction to star-gazer lilies, animal rescue and solitude. But they can get there, they can make that connection if they understand the digital personas are the ‘what’ of me, just not the ‘why’ of me.
See, no matter how much can be gleaned from these digital representations, hearing me speak at a conference, reading something I’ve written — most people suffer (including myself at times) from a ‘digital blindness’ and rarely invest the effort to understand what really motivates people, what inspires them and why.
For example, when I find myself talking to or working with those of the ‘hipster’ persuasion, I fight the urge to allow my casual classifications to box me in, to make me think I know the individual. Granted, I know the cliché because it is now part of our collective social fabric. Often emotional and skinny, yet still stuffing themselves in even skinner jeans, bearded and proud with the special facial hair care products to prove it; carrying the latest canvas tote over a shoulder clad in a patterned shirt, neatly tucked into said skinny jeans behind a brown belt that matches similar brown shoes (albeit small) with colorful stripped socks peaking out behind their carefully rolled jean cuffs; a penchant for all things ‘green’ and a rather expensive bicycle they pride themselves on pedaling…oh, and the latest French press, hours spent perfecting it, because Starbucks is a far too pedestrian, cup of coffee. I would not assume they would be interested in a discussion on the finer points of Jack Daniels or an air-cooled v-twin engine. But then again, I am surprised when the ‘hipsters’ I know talk about the hours spent volunteering at city charities or their plans to particpate in a cooking class.
The same can be said for the cliches about millennials or Fortune 500 execs or the sales profession in general. Guideposts but rarely the destination.
People have become far too comfortable with assumptions based on clichés and stereotypes. Many believe they are their social profiles. Even more assume the profile is the person rather than simply a nudge in the right direction. (These I would argue are too lazy to do the work necessary to truly connect with someone.)
The clichés and cliched thinking Mrs. Michaels warned me about seem to have taken center stage in our increasingly connected world. Here’s my latest selfie (oh and another where you can see my butt, abs, dress, hair or skinny jeans); or my snowpocalypse Facebook updates; or my LinkedIn update about the new job.
All of these are short form variations of verbal vomit requiring little more thought than pressing the ‘share’ button in an app or typing a few words. These media do not serve as a catalyst for more deeply examined thought not to mention a closely examined life.
Clichés and stereotypes exist for a reason. Sometimes because they are true, others because they aid in our ability to take it all in, categorize, classify. The result of living in a world that moves too fast with an underlying expectation that we should move faster, consume more or are not really present if we’re not digitally persistent.
Others might say clichés exist as an enabler for profiling, prejudice and control. A gateway to prejudice and discrimination, a tool for the ‘profiling’ so many people complain about.
Me, I find them an interesting and often amusing method of focusing my conversations to connect with someone quicker, to help guide me in understanding who they are as a person. I’ll be the first to call out the cliché, see where the real boundaries are, break it apart and see what aspects of it stick. I encourage people to own their clichés, to at least be able to articulate what it is about their chosen boundaries that appeal to them and then take it a step further, add something original to it.
Don’t get me wrong — as a writer, the word cliché is often considered an insult. In the wrong hands cliché’s can lead to stereotypes then to prejudice and even discrimination. But for those that take the time to understand their true value, take the time to dive beyond it all, they can be extremely helpful. And for those that don’t, I’d say at that point, we’re back to the lazy thinking and lack of original thought Mrs. Michaels warned me about so many years ago.
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Thank you to The Writing Cooperative for their assistance editing this piece and specific thanks to: @manfraiya and @justincox
