Yesterday I came across an interesting op-ed piece by Adam Nicolson of The Daily Telegraph in which he bemoans the decline of the art of conversation.
It has started happening to me all the time. I say something, probably going on too long, never happy to use one word where a hundred would do, but trying to persuade someone to see it all in a different way, to see it, let’s be honest, my way, and at the end of this long spiely speech that I give them, they say, “Yeah, whatever,” and turn off on to the thing that, as far as they’re concerned, really counts.
And then he really lays in to “whatever”:
“Whatever” wafts a contemptuous and disdainful hand in the direction of everything he has had to say. As a saying, and an attitude, it goes beyond the confrontational. A few years ago, more aggressively but at least more engagedly, someone who felt equally sceptical might have replied “So what?” in the same circumstances.
He tracks down the culprit – the origin of this degenerate phenomenon lies with modern marketing:
What is the source of this new, casual, bypassing contempt and impatience? At least one of its origins, I think, is the appallingly degenerate language of modern marketing. We are swimming in a soup of the near-meaningless. On a plane the other day, I was given a box full of unguents called “Origins In Flight Comfort Kit”. “For those who don’t know about Origins,” the leaflet began, “it’s all about caring for yourself in different ways. Choices. Alternatives. New Experiences. Finding unusual answers to every-day problems.” Among which were lip-grease, skin-cream, a water spray for your face and then “brush your teeth with Rembrandt Whitening Toothpaste for a healthy, brighter smile”.
The sentimentality and cynicism, inflated into a puffball of what hopes to pass for charm, that make up the modern language of salesmanship has made us all impatient with blather. It has created “whatever” as a reaction to the over-elaborated or overstated, because ingrained in us now is a recognition that the marketing surface is not to be trusted.
[…]
If the “whatever” phenomenon signals the approaching death of the marketing culture, it is likely to bring other things down in its train. “Whatever” loves only the minimal. It will have no time for the enriched or the inherently complex. “Whatever” thinks that everything should be reduced to essentials, which is a recipe for crudity and philistinism…Poetry, for one, can’t really survive in a whateverised world. To be or not to be, that is the question. Whatever. Is this a dagger I see before me? Whatever. The rest is silence. Whatever.
Bravo! I agree wholeheartedly. I agree so much that I have quoted the piece almost in its entirety. The language of marketing is ludicrous and preposterous at best, crude and insulting to its audience at worst. My impression is that many companies are now stuck with costly marketing techniques, simply of out fear that if they do not spend a fortune on glossy brochures, flash animated websites, extortionately priced logo designs and re-designs, expensive advertising etc, they will not be taken seriously. Marketing as we know it may still be around not because people actually believe that such marketing works but because everyone does it as a token sign of a Serious Business.
One thing I always hated about Big Companies was their increasingly disconnected and uniform marketing. When The Cluetrain Manifesto come along a few years ago, I breathed a sigh of relief. A breeze of fresh air, a tornado of common sense, it unveiled the Emperor’s naked and bloated body underneath the threadbare designer clothes.
I am not holding my breath waiting for the end of marketing but I do hope that more and more businesses will see it for what it is and stop throwing money at the advertising industry and insulting their customers and employees with its meaningless marketingspeak.
Uh-huh. Sounds like Nicolson might just possibly be a long-winded ass. “Whatever” is a perfectly valid response to blovation. What he’s really saying is that increasing disregard for the meaningless blather of advertising is bleeding over into increasing disregard for his own brand of meaningless blather.
Possible, but the first bit of his analysis remains correct.
…which, of course, makes his blather not so meaningless… 🙂
I resisted the temptation to be the first in with the one-word comment, “whatever”. I can’t possibly resist the temptation to link to the video of the United States of Whatever.
We all pick our temptations.
I can’t recall the title, but I remember watching the last third of a movie eight or so years ago and IRCC, the movie had something to do with mental patients conducting marketing campaigns for businesses. The businesses turned to them after one of them accidentally struck marketing gold with a shockingly un-marketing-PC idea for selling cars. The campaigns were bluntly honest and straightforward, saying things like:
*fade in to negative smoking images*
Sure, X-Brand cigarettes are bad for your health, make your teeth go brown, and annoy your non-smoking friends.
*pause*
But they sure do taste good!
*fade out with a blissful smoker
I wish I could remember the name of the movie or the actors in it. I get the distinct impression it was of a Dudley Moore-quality and very 80’s-ish. Ever since then I’ve wanted to stage a raid on Madison Avenue and replace all their superficial flashy crap with material that, at the very least, has integrity and respects the advertisee.
Whatever.
Certainly we have really seen “Death” brand cigarettes, marketed with the message that they will kill you.
Charles: must be 1990’s “Crazy People.” It was indeed a Dudley Moore film. Not very good movie with some pretty funny ad copy, like
“Metamucil — it makes you go to the toilet.”
It’s fairly obvious that Mr. Nicolson doesn’t know the difference between a diatribe and a conversation. By using 100 words when one would do lets you know that Nicolson is the type who loves the sound of his own voice. “Yeah, whatever” is certainly a politer way of saying what his unfortunate victim is really thinking, “ah, just stuff a sock in it ya f*****g wind-bag”.
David Crawford: I think Nicolson was engaging in a bit of self-irone there… 🙂
I agree with everything you and Adam Nicolson say about the significance of “whatever” as an expression of casual, bypassing contempt and impatience. And I agree that the modern language of salesmanship has made us all more impatient with blather than we would otherwise be. If I thought that was really stopping people from appreciating poetry, I’d agree that it was a Bad Thing.
But I think Mitch made a fair point above: the gravamen of Nicolson’s complaint seems to be that people’s justified contempt and impatience toward salesmen of products and services is being directed toward salesmen of ideas and opinions. Implicit is the claim that the latter sort of salesmen are not deserving of such contempt and impatience because they are less prone to using sales techniques involving “sentimentality and cynicism, inflated into a puffball of what hopes to pass for charm.” (This from a guy who makes a point about being dissed in conversation by invoking a tender concern for Poetry.)
It seems to me that the goods-and-services sellers probably caught the blather bug from the idea-and-opinion sellers rather than the other way around. But in any case I regard growing contempt and impatience toward blather in both contexts as a positive rather than a negative development.
David Crawford writes:
“..”ah, just stuff a sock in it ya f*****g wind-bag”.”
Which I consider to be a mature, fully-formed, and entirely appropriate response to the latest ‘let’s see if we can really upset the readers’ columnist appointed by the increasingly weird Telegraph editor.
Nicholson was the imbecile who recently opined that the Atkins diet couldn’t work because it was too easy.
‘Whatever’ is giving him far too much attention.
Great video, too. My single of the year…
The popularisation of “Whatever!” must be blamed on the Alicia Silverstone film ‘Clueless’. It made me angry then, and it makes me angry now. But I suppose having small children respond to you with a “Whatever!” is better than having them respond with a “F*** off!” although I feel that is reversed for teenagers (I infinitely prefer a simple profanity from a teenager).
Everyone here seems pretty keen (even nervously anxious!) to ally themselves with the blase “whatever”-sneerers.
I have never met anyone who says “whatever” as a way of closing a discussion who had anything of any interest to say. Yet noticeably, they never shut up. Seems to me the whateverisers are even more pompous and boring than the people they think they rise above.
Gabriel and Adam are partly right saying it’s a reaction to marketing, but I think closer to the truth is that whateverisers are lulled by glib marketing promises rather than reject them. (Though of course whateverisers all see themselves as tough-minded sceptics, poor dears.) They want things to be quick, easy, and immediately appealing. They’re like children.
They want things to be quick, easy, and immediately appealing.
Good heavens! Don’t you?
I’ve never understood the notion that slow, difficult and immediately unappealing was an intrinsically more intellectual ambition. It seem to me to spring from an equally childish notion that, if your mom can’t figure out why you like it, it must be good.
S. Weasel writes:
“I’ve never understood the notion that slow, difficult and immediately unappealing was an intrinsically more intellectual ambition”
Let me guess. You don’t lecture on post-modernism at a French university?
You may not like advertising, but it certainly works. I have been closely associated with many people in the industry. There are hundreds of case studies proving the efficiency of advertising. Why it should be linked to the decline in conversation is beyond me. The reason for the decline in conversation and the use of “whatever” is the decline in literacy…period.
I absolutely don’t think things have to be difficult to be good. But the opposite belief is false too.
Maths is an example of something that needs explaining, a lot of talent from the explainer, but also some patience from the learner.
Difficult isn’t automatically good. Easy isn’t automatically good either.
Some things are important, interesting, beautiful independently of whether they’re easy or difficult to understand at first.
“Whatever” pompously denies that, without even deigning to justify.
Mark writes:
“”Whatever” pompously denies that, without even deigning to justify.”
No. ‘Whatever’ is just a fashion trend. As a way of dismissing tedious bores, it is no different from saying ‘Sure’ with the right inflection.
Getting so exercised about it is a sign of Nicholson’s age. Little else.
Eh. The difference between “whatever” and “good day to you, sir!” is two hundred years and a pair of velvet knee breeches.
I prefer a laconic “Yeah. Right.”
“Whatever” is a reaction to a pompous bore. Whether that bore is boring on in a commercial, a political screed or literature (even poetry) doesn’t matter.
“Whatever” is, as S Weasel said, simply a modern “good day to you, sir (or madam)”.
I don’t sense “whatever” (or “yeah, right”) sayers wishing anyone a good anything, never mind a good day.
If there is a long tradition of refusing to listen, does that make it better?
And “Good day to you, sir/madam” implies “Our opinions differ, I’m busy, and I have to go now”. It’s clearly different from implying “I can’t even be bothered to say goodbye in a civil way, and I don’t have to even say why I think you’re a bore.”
In my experience of seeing people brushed off like this, “whatever” is not just a new way to dismiss a bore – it’s more a kind of oneupmanship from one bore to another.
Surely there’s some difference?
“Whatever” suggests the discussion is irrelevant and/or boring (at least to the speaker). (=”whatever you say I’m not about to pursue the point”) “Yeah, right” implies what’s just been said is transparent idiocy. (by sarcastic inversion=”so utterly wrong, it’s not worth the effort of making a counterargument”).
Language evolves. What’s so bad about that?
And “Good day to you, sir/madam” implies “Our opinions differ, I’m busy, and I have to go now”.
Or it could mean “O, fuck off and cavort about under the carriage wheels, you insignificant scrofulous flatus-bag.”
It’s all in the inflection.
Theodopoulos notes that “advertising works” and I simply have to pounce. Yes advertising IS effective; in the sense that bashing someone over the head with a brick also “works”. Advertising is about distorting the truth – as brilliantly, memorably and slyly as possible and stunning the consumer into a state of nescience. Yes, Nicolson is of the doddery old school of columnists, i.e. “is it just me, or has everyone started noticing”…and then kebabing an irritation the world logged a decade earlier. Nevertheless, my advice to him, next time some oaf does the languid “whatever” routine is to say brightly “oh – surely you mean “however” -please do continue your thought!” while gazing at the speaker in a blazing pantomime of interest.
Theodopoulos wrote: “You may not like advertising, but it certainly works.”
There are two types of advertising in the world – response(mail order, direct mail etc) and concept(“The new improved Whatzis: It means success, sex and happiness”, or even “Soylent Green is People!”)
The first kind can be proven to work, when it does work, by actual purchases. But how does one really prove the results of polishing a phoney image. How many dollars does it make the company? The direct mail advertisers work in the basements of the agencies while the concept people tend to be under 30 and work in the airy upper reaches. They are certainly selling somebody something, but I’m not sure that their ultimate target is the Whatzis consumer.
One hopeful demographic change that may cause a cultural change is the aging of the population. Most television programs are aimed at an 18-49 year old age group because the advertisers believe that this is the group that responds most strongly to their blandishments. Perhaps cynicism, like immunity, results from a continued exposure to a pathogen.