New Forbidden Words 2.0

It’s tough to imagine one article containing a list of buzzwords so foul they require an entire blog post, but sometimes, shit just happens.

Matt Groening used to publish a list of “Forbidden Words” for the new year. Those lists included words and phrases like “win-win,” “upskirt,” “leverage,” “booty call” and “paradigm.”

Groening would have LOVED this article from AdAge. In it, I found at least eight words and/or phrases that immediately find a comfortable spot among words I think should never be used.

Brandividual
The practice of combining words and names has really gotten out of hand. I thought Brangelina was the worst, but calling someone a brandividual is really almost grounds for an ass kicking. It’s supposedly a combination of a person who works for a company (or brand), but carries his/her own personality into the promotion of that company. It’s really more like a science experiment gone horribly wrong where the person merged with the brand claims the super power of annoying the shit out of everyone by talking about social networking constantly.

Personal Brand
I have never liked the concept of a personal brand. I feel like I should sell sponsorships and just walk around with stickers from GoDaddy and Uniroyal taped to my ass and forehead – you know, the high visual traffic areas…ahthankyou!

Web 2.0 Persona
The idea of an online persona has been around as long as nerds have been able to speak Klingon to one another on the usenet, but this new 2.0 version of the persona is far more insidious than just some nerd in his mom’s basement telling a guy he’s going to bat’leth him to death on a blood soaked field of honor. This persona would seem to indicate that your “personal brand” is nothing more than schtick to better hock your wares to an unsuspecting audience. It’s used car sales, but without the porn stache and leisure suit…unless you also happen to be a hipster.

Social Media Equity
Next time you need to re-finance or just get a loan, I dare you to go into the bank and tell them you’d like to use your Social Media Equity as collateral. Maybe you could film getting dragged out of the bank by security on your cell phone and upload it to YouTube!

Mediasphere
Another hideous word combination that makes me want to call Lou Grant and Ed Bradlee to have them find the moron that came up with the word and beat him senseless with a bottle of scotch and a copy of the Sunday New York Times.

Experience Design
In the story, this is actually someone’s JOB TITLE!! VP-Experience Design!!! Are you fucking kidding me? What does he do, create the kiddie rides at Disneyland? Actually, I think that was the head of that company in Total Recall that jacked up Gov. Terminator’s memories and forced him to be married to Sharon Stone. That was awesome.

Twitter Presence
I didn’t realize Twitter was haunted. Perhaps its the ghost of self-important douchebags past. He could help a lot of people.

Personal Fame
I know a lot of you think that you are uber cool because you have 2000 followers on Twitter, 10,000 Facebook friends and a blog that gets you virtually laid, but you are NOT famous. Tiger Woods is famous. Paul McCartney is famous. Barack Obama is famous. You are just a nerd a lot of people in the nerd world know. The day you get quoted in emails sent to me from my mom, you give me a call. Until then, find another term, because you ain’t famous, Sparky.

Feel free to add any words you’d like to the list. I’m sure you can come up with some of your own.