Prematurely declaring the death of fail
Anil Dash has had it with “FAIL:”
FAIL is over. Fail is dead. Because it marks a lack of human empathy, and signifies an absence of intellectual curiosity, it is an unacceptable response to creative efforts in our culture. “Fail!” is the cry of someone who doesn’t create, doesn’t ship, doesn’t launch, who doesn’t make things.
[* * *]
So, fail is dead. I won’t accept it in dialogue from those I communicate with, I won’t permit those I’m connected to on social networks to use it around me, and no, you’re not the first to think you’re clever enough to use it as a comment here. The End of Fail
This is called “setting yourself up.” You cannot critique people’s use of “FAIL” because, when they use it on you, they are not interested in your critique. If you tell people not to use “FAIL” they will use it on you. If you tell them not to do it just because you told them not to do it, they will get double frission out of disobeying you twice. And if you then respond to that with something like:
Take a look at the Wikipedia page about me, which lists a series of gags I’ve done over the years [ * * * ] while I think there are many fair criticisms that could be leveled at me, “lacks a sense of humor” is just an absurd assertion. Anil’s response
Well, you … just … FAIL.
The crowds of people who like to gather around and shout “FAIL” are not interested in having a conversation. They think they are being clever. Among their peer group, they are. If they are shouting “FAIL” at you, they don’t have enough respect for you for your reasoned critique to matter to them. The only way to respond to this contempt is with contempt. Ignore them. Delete their comments. Insult them back.
Anything other than “look at my Wikipedia page.”
But please don’t attack the word. The word has been around for ages in different forms. When “FAIL” passes it will reincarnate in a different form. Even now there are roving bands of clever teenagers searching the land for the next FAIL like some infant Dalai Lama.
And when you attack words instead of behavior you weaken your argument. “You are acting like an ignorant asshole” is a moral position. “No one is allowed to use the word FAIL around me” is just whining about words.
I love when people declare things they don’t like are dead simply because they don’t like them. Remember how people were declaring irony and other stuff were dead right after 9/11?
I’m going to declare self-righteous pretension dead too.
Your points are well made, and I know enough about how language evolves that I’m not going to all of a sudden start being a prescriptivist grammarian—words evolve to fit the needs that people have in communicating.
But you say: “You are acting like an ignorant asshole” is a moral position. “No one is allowed to use the word FAIL around me” is just whining about words.
I agree! While I did take a little bit of an aggressive tact against my friends using FAIL around me (since I would only see such updates on Facebook or Twitter if the person saying it were my friend), I wasn’t saying “nobody can ever use this word”. I was saying “It’s revealing you’re a dick if you use this word”, which I think is also useful.
Does that make sense?
Anil, that position does make more sense. But when you say:
Then you’re being about as proscriptive as you can effectively be.
And I still disagree using “FAIL” is sufficient evidence of dickishness. There are other situations, contexts, and environments where FAIL is effective expression.
The real dick move is not using the word “FAIL” but shouting “FAIL” from the peanut gallery and not offering any other real criticism. It would be the same problem if someone were shouting “TOMATO” or “FOZZBOT.”
I’m saying make the behavior the issue, not the word.
I now declare that the practice of declaring unilaterally that things are “dead” is now dead.
Unless you’re a doctor with a corpse.