Word of the Day

Hi readers,

You know that super-satisfying feeling you get when you learn a new word or phrase that helps to describe a situation in life?  For example:

FOMO 
"I hate "The Bachelor", but I get FOMO when I don't go to girls night"

Food Baby
"I can't fit in my new dress because I'm pregnant with my food baby"

First World Problems
"Friend 1: Waiting for the cable guy sucks!
Friend 2: Genocide sucks.  Waiting for the cable guy is a total first world problem"

I love discovering these words that help me to explain my life.  My feelings get lonely when I can't describe them.  Today I learned an important one:

Listicle
"I hate listicles!"

I feel the same way I felt when I discovered Twitter! Where has this word been all my life?! (Note: I discovered Twitter in 2012, so it is quite possible "listicle" has been swimming around in popular culture nomenclature since the dawn of the internet, or at least the dawn of BuzzFeed, but whatever)

Sometimes when I write I just want to remark on something or conduct a short, public discussion with myself.  Topics may include my favorite time of day or the smell of the beach or the way I smile when the NYC subway announcements can't be understood. The prevalence of listicles makes these observations feel invalid.  I don't want to invent 5 points of validation for every emotion.  Is this really how we want to utilize the Internet? No! We want to talk about our feelings and have deep observations about current events and look at cat pictures.  The realization that others also find this prevalence of list-writing annoying created a great sense of legitimacy in my day and it made me happy.

Thats it.  No list of reasons why.  I don't want to write in lists.  I want to write in sentences. And cat pictures (see below).