I think I disagree with a lot of the comments here. The “trying to sound smart” feeling only really occurs when there’s a mismatch in decorum – someone is trying to appear Higher and More Logical – but that can happen with any word, especially adverbs.
Technically, your argument is fallacious.
“Technically” is a useless crutch word (techy!), and “fallacious” is hella overused outside of formal logic stuff, so here it’s a mismatch in decorum. (What’s the fallacy? Does the other just… disagree with you, or are you using a converse error like A implies B, therefore B implies A?)
Well, you don’t always have to do that, per se, but you can irregardless.
A lot of crutch words are just innocent habits, too. [email protected] mentioned something like that… though there are always people who up their jargon levels for no reason other than To Be More L33t. and_screw_irregardless
On the other hand, some words commented here are needed. For example, if a reviewer calls Grossman’s The Magicians “erudite”, it fits perfectly – the book
Tap for spoiler
uses a metaphor for an archetypal Harvard. In one word we sum up the cloistered, elite, difficult, rich, status-chasing-ness combined with sophistication the metaphor entails.
Continuing on that feeling of summed-up-in-one-word-ness – what alternatives do we really have for “whataboutism” or the “algorithm” or “milquetoast”? Those words hit hard, they sum things up.
The algorithm is an alt-right pipeline, of course he’ll have that phase.
Great, another video on the most milquetoast youtuber drama I’ve ever heard.
Those words are concise, they roll off the tongue and evoke feeling! Don’t shorten words just to sound more colloquial when you have a choice that really fits! And likewise, equally – don’t be grandiloquent just for the sake of it.
Or else you’ll face floccinaucinihilipilification :3
It’s scientifically defined (Woods, 2023).
https://doi.org/10.1080/03626784.2023.2272988
Meaninglessness/absurdity - There’s no intrinsic meaning in the content, but there is in said content’s circulation. Shitposts “mock”, “denigrate”, “construct an image of authenticity”, and “accrue social capital” (he probably means upvotes or Discord reactions)
Disruption - It can be used politically, e.g. the alt-right drowning out opponents, or just plain derailment, using “ironic references… to confound commentary or analysis” (he uses a Twitter example in the article – i.e. among the “Here’s what I did today!” there’s a Jon Arbuckle of in of out, and it disrupts your train of thought)
Internet ugly aesthetic - Kinda obvious. Motion blur on a plastic bag sort of stuff. But he diagnoses an internet-queasiness I didn’t know I had: “[shitposting] provides a critique of the overly streamlined information ecosystem of the internet… an imposition of messy humanity… on smooth gradients, blemish correcting Photoshop, and AutoCorrect”
Meta-languaging - Well, memes evolve. It’s part of their meaningless-content meaningful-use interaction. Like a meme with a random Subway sandwich on it, obviously insanely edited over repeatedly.
Actually a really interesting read. The man quotes dril and talks about how he started a small movement where “corncobbing” was an insult.