No, I didn’t learn this meaning of the word from grade school, or even from the ebonics primer at Dolemite Dot Com.
(Actually, I learned it from 2Pac’s Life Goes On)
Yeah.
I only recently had a modern day poseur pointed out to me. This isn’t the same as an intellectual poseur, this is the poseur of personality. The one’s who want to be quirky, eccentric, different.
At first, I didn’t notice; I was just annoyed. Then Loo’s perspicacity put a name to it. I can’t stop catching others now. I find that the one distinguishing behavior is the over-statement of character traits they wish to have, such as, “I did this funny thing because I want you to see me in a certain way, and by telling you this, I will make you believe that I am who I want you to believe”. Or “I like this song too₀ I listen to anything because I have widely varying tastes!”. Over-statement such as this may or may not be based on some kind of insecurity; some do it to hide because they’re uncomfortable with themselves, others just want to be memorable and only end up being remembered for the wrong reasons.
Sometimes it’s even worse on blogs, where people write one line posts that don’t say anything because they think they’re cool and cryptic and that people are interested in what they have to say. Or others who post conversations, and expect everyone else to understand or appreciate the humour behind them. Or even people who actually write about how they’re fucking INTELLIGENT, or GRAMMAR FREAKS, or ATTRACTIVE. Why the fuck do you need to state it? LET THE WORDS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES. The key to writing is to SAY not TELL. Telling an audience how someone is feeling is nowhere near as effective as describing direct actions/thoughts/reactions related to those emotions without actually stating the emotions themselves.
In the end, it all makes me even more zealous about being humble, unassertive. I’ve always been one to “speak softly and carry a big stick”, as Teddy once put it. There are tons of great surprises when one doesn’t present all of oneself from the start. And after all, when one is revealed as a true self that doesn’t match the false image that’s projected on others, one ends up being a phony.
And I fucking hate phoneys.
