Open Thread: Buckeyes vs. Michigan Wolverines
November 22, 2008Cavs Beat Hawks, LeBron and Delonte Shine
November 23, 2008What is that? What was I saying? Oh yeah. I wasn’t saying anything at all. I am just screaming something akin to gibberish because I am excited and I have heard other people yell it before.
This doesn’t have anything to do with Cleveland sports, specifically. While watching college football yesterday, I think I counted at least seven times when TV cameras and field mics picked up various players screaming “That’s what I’m talking about!” after a big defensive stop, a touchdown, or a special teams play.
I know that I can be a bit of a pop culture nit picker. Ask my wife. She will tell you. As soon as the third person says a catch-phrase, I am the first to call it out as officially over. And it isn’t that I think I am cooler than anybody else. I don’t have an arsenal of phrases that can outwit and outmatch all the “gems” that rappers and other celebrities popularize on a weekly basis. Quite the contrary.
The fact is when other people start “raising the roof,” “get jiggy with it,” or start to put various “izzle”s on the end of phrases, I can’t get away with any of it. I have absolutely no “cred” when it comes to the hot phrases. Let’s just say that I never called money “Cheddah,” or “Benjamins,” despite Diddy telling us that everything was about them. Despite my many trips to the club, I have never been capable of ordering a “bottle full of bubs” if you know what I mean.
Look. I. Am. Not. Cool. I know this. Still, this doesn’t preclude me from knowing when a phrase has crossed line into pure and utter trite over-use.
So now, I am calling out all the people who yell “That’s what I’m talking about!” at various points of sporting events. It doesn’t mean anything. You probably weren’t talking about it. Even if you were talking about it, you are kind of bragging in an “I told you so” kind of way. And nobody likes a know-it-all the last time I checked. So let’s all work together to rid the pop culture lexicon of this meaningless, overused phrase. Much like Cuba Gooding Jr.’s career, it should go the way of “Show me the money!”
P.S. These types of posts could continue if I don’t see a rapid disappearance of “It is what it is” in interviews with athletes talking about prior games and performances, and/or contract talks.
5 Comments
You could have just wrote about the Cavs.
It is what it is
/Romeo
One game at a time
/Wedge
It be what it be.
Ya know what I’m sayin?
That’s what I’m talking about.
No really, I get sick of these popular catch-phrases before I even have the chance to think about using them. Fo shizzle.
meh, whatev