Karl Kraus and Anemic Internet Phraseology
I don’t know who needs to hear this …
Neither do I. Why don’t you just tell us what you want to say, in your own words, and then I’ll figure out if I need to hear this.
A friendly reminder ….
Thank you. What did these three words add to the communication? This is a friendly reminder that they didn’t contribute anything.
We have to talk about …
Who is that We? You and whom? Everyone? Am I included? Do you even know me, or know anything about me? I don’t have to talk about anything to you, rather I can continue reading the Karl Kraus biography on my desk.
One of my favorite cultural icons of all time, Karl Krauss, would be irritated beyond control had he witnessed this inflation of un-original internet phraseology.
Who is Karl Kraus?
A man worth reading up on. Krauss was the number one independently thinking intellectual in the Fin de siècle and WWI Austro-Hungarian empire. Kraus’ clever spite and well-formulated ire rained down on the arrogant, simultaneously self-absorbed and brainless politicians who sleep-walked into WWI; and their willing collaborators in the newspapers of the time; and the proponents of a cronyism-heavy, decadent cultural scene who, in Kraus’ opinion, set the tone for this sleep-walking and collaborating.
So, what would Karl Krauss have said about the anemic internet phraseology of the early 21st century? I think something along these lines:
If you use a phrase which has been used thousands, or maybe even then tens of thousands of times, you are using someone else’s words, not your own. This is even worse if you are using this phrase in a social media post like a tweet, which is limited to one short paragraph. Most of your words, in proportion, are then simply sadly over-used phrases.
If you are using someone else’s words, not yours, you are most likely using someone else’s thoughts, not yours. So stop re-using word combinations which have already been used multiple myriads of times; these are not your words, and these are not your thoughts. Stop, pause, think, and post something once you have thought your own thought and formulated it in your own words.
Someone who posts a friendly reminder that we need to talk about something is serving a soup that has already been digested a hundred times plus maybe a bit of their own input; akin to a warm bowl of diarrhea with a sprinkle of parsley on top (not my words, but those of the imaginary resurrected Karl Kraus!).
I probably don’t need to point out that a lot of the ideological nonsense which so often sweeps over the tundra of Twitter and the plains of Facebook is very heavily loaded with used, re-used, and over-used phrases.
Lord, forgive them, for they know what they do!
(the actual, historical) Karl Krauss