Words, usages, and phrases that annoy the shit out of you...

Demi Moore is 61

I like that this whole five-day tangent came out of British people saying 'Gen Zee'.

I asked a friend what he thought the Gen X version of the Big Chill was and he said High Fidelity. I think maybe the characters in it are too young, but I don't remember it very well. I half jokingly offered Fight Club as my choice.

This isn't so annoying but I've seen this kind of headline many times, announcing someone's first book:

Comic artist Rob Liefeld to publish new memoir

I understand how the implication is annoying, but the alternative, non-elided phrase would be "Comic artist Rob Liefeld to publish new book, a memoir", which seems about equally annoying to me.

I don't see a reason not to just say "Comic artist Rob Liefeld to publish memoir." If he's done one before this, then you say "Comic artist Rob Liefeld to publish second (or third, or whatever) memoir."

My guess is that it's borrowing from this sort of sentence that you usually see in articles about someone's new book:

In a new memoir, comic artist Rob Liefeld says that...

'New memoir' is informative in that context: this is a newly or recently or soon-to-be published memoir. But it sounds odd when you import that phrase into an announcement. It's redundant.

Comic artist Rob Liefeld to publish soon-to-be published memoir

Right, I get that what is intended is "new to the marketplace" and I'm just reading it differently.

I asked a friend what he thought the Gen X version of the Big Chill was and he said High Fidelity. I think maybe the characters in it are too young, but I don't remember it very well. I half jokingly offered Fight Club as my choice.

I haven't seen it but looked up the Big Chill and I think John Cusack's character in High Fidelity was probably close to their ages, the rest would've been younger though yeah

I feel there’s an Xennial cinematic window that begins with High Fidelity, peaks with Mean Girls, and ends with the first season of Girls

I think I'm a year too old to be a Xennial (obvious caveats about these generations not mapping over to the UK exactly) but I prob have more attachment to films like Pump Up The Volume, Heathers, etc than those so I guess I am Gen X

if you arent factoring in empire records then.....

yeah and Clerks and stuff, I was about 18-19 when those came out

Reality Bites?

The American Pie/Can't Hardly Wait/She's All That era seems very xennial/cusp

xp Reality Bites is what started this whole tangent iirc

Empire Records was bad in the same way Reality Bites was. Sorry.

Reality Bites needed a GWAR cameo.

I saw Empire Records towards the end of a teen movie marathon so prob not fully fit to judge but I did wonder what the fuck was up with that movie.

Ferris Bueller seems an obvious gen X landmark

Office Space

That reminds me — Clockwatchers!

I literally have never seen Reality Bites! Watching Ferris Bueller felt as antiquaited as something like Grease.

I asked a millennial last night what the beginning, summit and end of his generational media window entailed and he said “Mean Girls beginning, Easy A summit, and there hasn’t been an end moment yet but it’ll probably have something to do with TikTok”

Huh I just read the Reality Bites thread. Does it really have “Baby I Love Your Way” in it? As did High Fidelity? I want the Frampton Lobby in my side

Big Chill is very different from Reality Bites imo. The characters in the Big Chill are in their 30s, it's a "Boomers deal with growing up" movie. I can't think of a Gen X equivalent off the top of my head.

nah the characters were in their 40s in that one weren't they?

I think I found it — Before Sunset is the Gen X Big Chill.

No I don't think that's right either.

Empire Records is wonderfully terrible in the same way as reality bites lol. Yesterday was Rex Manning day! The Gwar cameo/Mark were the best and I met the rocker character guy when he was DJing in LA one night around 2000 and he gave me a CD of his which I still have somewhere.

I mean obv Before Sunset isn’t like the Big Chill in having a large group of friends, but in terms of its Gen X leads entering their 30s and wrestling with compromises made, paths taken or not taken, etc.

Anyway, I suppose the real answer is there can’t be a Gen X Big Chill because the central drama of the Big Chill is specific to a Boomer sense of identity as young idealists coming face to face with worldly failures and disappointments. Gen X was never young idealists.

^ otm. I basically made the same point in the thread below when this same topic came up (and which might be a better thread in which to continue the discussion):

Why has there been no widespread 90's revival?

whats friends

/gollum voice

lol didn't even realize ilx had the exact same conversation three years ago. tho at this point in the ilx story, that might be true of almost everything.

OK, well, to turn this thread back to its titular purpose:

I get annoyed by "lift up," as in "I want to really lift up what Tanya said ..." Or as seen in the mission statement of something called LiftUp.com: "We exist to Lift Up tangible projects with the greatest impact around the world."

I think this usage maybe has its roots in civil rights/church organizing, and I respect that heritage but it sounds dorky and try-hard in the context of your average conference panel discussion.

def makes me think of church: "lift up your hearts".

Lift it up the Lord.

shart to the Lord

Hoist a cold frosty one up to the Lord

High five the Lord

I don't think I've been to mass in 15 years and yet reading the above I was lifting my heart to the lord and giving hella thx and praise. It crazy how you just don't forget those things.

In MS Teams you can "send praise" to someone, and also view your "praise history" and we use it for comedic effect but it's a little bit triggering tbh.

More in the spirit of this thread: In a direct service-style environment where people/organizations do a lot of service provision, there's an unfortunate tendency to say that you have "serviced" someone, and I just...I respect people who don't hear this with sexual connotations but I myself can't escape it. I'll say we "served" our guests but my brain just won't engage with "servicing" them.

lol

I saw a sign on the road yesterday that read "Fines Double When Workers Present" and I kept thinking of "present" as a verb (think primates and sex) and laughing. If a highway maintenance worker presented at me like a mandrill, I might never recover.

I realize that Empire Records is terrible, but a few notes as someone who watched it every few weeks for many years:
- I still say "shock me shock me shock me with that deviant behavior"
- the music in it is actually, like, not terrible? the soundtrack has some great songs on it, including "Bright as Yellow" by the Innocence Mission, the Christian alt-folk band that I have a thing for.
- Brendan Sexton III is a fine actor

why would empire records have a higher bar set for it than any movie aimed at cool teenagers ever tbf

It suffers a lot when compared to other movies aimed at cool teenagers.

More in the spirit of this thread: In a direct service-style environment where people/organizations do a lot of service provision, there's an unfortunate tendency to say that you have "serviced" someone, and I just...I respect people who don't hear this with sexual connotations but I myself can't escape it. I'll say we "served" our guests but my brain just won't engage with "servicing" them.

I have been in many meetings where “service their unit” has been said

And then there is “service the members” …