The Year In Words
2012 proved that this year flew by as fast as lightning, with trends in and out of its wake with each passing month. However, as we look back on what was hot and what was not, I can rattle off topics one, two, and three. To name a few pop culture references there was The Hunger Games, Flo Rida, Sh*t__ Say Videos, Twitter, “Let’s take a selfie and put it up on Instagram,” iPhone5, and the never-ending Rihanna and Chris Brown saga. And to the ironic generation, cheers to the humble brag.
The biggest fashion trend of 2012 was probably the peplum, following by color blocking, neon bags, and green mint anything. I must admit though, I still hate pink.
As far as music goes, the hardest song of the year of the year to escape is certainly Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe.” It played all over the Internet and the radio and is “now playing” down below. It was and still is a very catchy tune, and includes lyrics that are very 2012 casual. Psy’s “Gangnam Style” on the other hand, is just plain irritating. Sorry Psy.
If there is one thing that is a constant in our daily lives, it’s the trends of words, the lexicon of today. I sling them around like a wordsmith. Half the time, I honestly don’t know what these words mean, and I might as well be speaking reindeer. But I like the way these words sound.
And since I don’t believe the hype that we are “fast approaching the end of the world as we know it,” even if the Mayan calendar says December 21st, we can continue to study word trends in their rawest forms. This year was filled with uncertainly, economical, political, and meteorological, but even in the shakiest of times, we seek solace in the productivity of words. So here’s a mental nod to the magic of wordplay as we know it.
What’s Doxxing you ask? I dart over to Wikipedia to find out or in the case of the above lingo,”that’s so gucci,” its dirty cousin, Urban Dictionary. The true meaning of Doxxing is Personally identifiable information (PII) which is information used to identify a single individual. It has to do with Privacy Law and Personal Safety, but perhaps in this case, ignorance is for the best. So many perfectly good words (like the ones referenced above) are ruined by looking them up.
What words from this list will persist in years to come? Will we worry about like how much swag we got at that gucci party? I can make only one hypothesis here. Just as we saw the rise and fall of Macarena’s popularity over a decade ago, in 2013 we will stop dancing Gangnam Style. But I might not stop singing “Call Me Maybe.” Hashtag totes amaze.
