Me: Hey, Steve, how’s it going? Nice hat.
Epic Steve: Yeah, isn’t it epic?
Me: What?
Epic Steve: Isn’t it epic?
Me: This is 2012. Stop saying that.
Epic Steve: Whatever, man! My hat is winning!
Me: Stop this now.
Epic Steve: Whatever, dawg. You’re just a fail.
Me: I don’t even…
There is only one thing worse than a 13-year-old, and that is a 19-year-old speaking like a 13-year-old.
For some reason, there are those out there unable to process the social cue demanding them to stop talking like this. Nobody else does it, but will that stop Steve from yelling “Fail!” at the falling longboarder? Never. Steve, of course, will never get those precious laughs he so longs for in his underdeveloped heart, but often this is not enough to quell my rage at the drivel wasted upon my ears. I decide that perhaps things are not as they seem, that perhaps Steve has earned my respect in a way.
Perhaps Steve is not, in fact, as pathetically mired in 2004 verbal trends as it appears, but instead is *fearlessly* *spearheading* a *classic* term which he finds still endearing and funny despite nearly a decade of aging, the entire rest of society be damned (replace italicized words with the following synonyms: shamelessly, clinging to, outdated). And then I realize he is precisely what it means to be mired in 2004 verbal trends, and my thirst for punching is immediately reignited.
No opportunity in any syntax, context or capitalization makes “beast” a cool verb. There is no way to express how much more unattractive women become upon utterance of the noun “fail.” I can say, however, it ranks similarly to septum piercings and having ants spawn out of your belly button.
I despise these lesser peers. They are the dregs of society, rolling with laughter in their own preteen vomit of comedy. OK, maybe that was harsh. I might have exaggerated. But your humor still grinds on me. And not the good kind of grinding, but the bad, unsexy kind. You see, there was probably a time when “epic” was a cool new word. But the Internet has the unstoppable power to lift high some of the cooler words in the English language and then slam them repeatedly into the ground until all that remains is blood and scattered bone meal. People who use the Internet are able to take that blood and bone meal and continue, unrelentingly, to use them in my scowling presence until I wish there were never such things as cool words to begin with.
Maybe we can reclaim these words, I thought. Maybe we could “take them back” as various small groups have boldly attempted with some especially derogatory and taboo remarks. We can unite a collection of terrible words into an absurd pile of ironic comedy, I thought. “Epic beast fail” could be the next big thing, if we laugh hard enough at it.
It is only as I repeat the phrase back to myself that I realize that, when combined, these terms only lend themselves to the potential of becoming three times as annoying. Were I required to choose one demographic to make vanish, any kind of demographic, I would choose people like you, Steve. I hate you. Your unforgivable slaughter of my native language brings into question both theories of human design, from an unsuccessful Darwinism for allowing your birth to a god whose image you apparently and unsettlingly represent. Seriously, quit saying “fail.” It’s bugging me.
