Looking for something else — whether I'd ever blogged a particular video (I had) — I found this discussion, from 2009, of the use of "Obama" as a slang term:
So much to discuss!August 22, 2009
Sorry. I don't believe it was *ever* cool/hip to call something/someone "Obama" to mean it/he was cool/hip.
But the NYT nevertheless has this style piece:LAST week, if you wanted to use the latest slang to tell a friend he was cool, you could have called him “Obama,” as in: “Dude, you’re rocking the new Pre phone? You are so Obama.”Yeesh. If you risked it before, go ahead: risk it! You seem pretty un-risk-averse. Chez Althouse, we've been thinking it's amusing to say, whenever anything's not quite right: Why did Obama let that happen? Or just — with a tone of sad disappointment: Obama.
This week? Best not to risk it.
But anyway, "Obama" as an adjective for cool/hip? The point is that it didn't last:The life of slang is now shorter than ever, say linguists, and what was once a reliable code for identifying members of an in-group or subculture is losing some of its magic.... whose slang credentials include being a founding member of the doo-wop group Sha Na Na... Ha ha. I like to think his linguistics scholarship focuses on the meaning of nonsense syllables in doo wop songs. (Because, really, WHO put the bomp?)
The Internet “is robbing slang of a lot of its sociolinguistic exclusionary power,” said Robert A. Leonard, a linguistics professor at Hofstra in Hempstead, N.Y., whose slang credentials include being a founding member of the doo-wop group Sha Na Na, formed in the late 1960s. “If you are in a real inside group, you are manufacturing slang so that you can exclude the wannabes.”
And that becomes harder, he added, as the whole world has access to your language.
Nowadays, everyone can check Urban Dictionary. The exclusionary game is up.
And what's the #1 entry over at Urban Dictionary for "Obama"? With 7468 up votes and 2099 down:No real definition for this word is possible at this time. Check back in 4 years by then a consensus by have formed. Each person projects his personal beliefs and values onto this word, and a standard meaning isn't possible at this time.Hey, did it suddenly become hip and cool to be all clear-headed and rational?!
1. What was the Pre Phone?! Here's a Reuters article from June 2009: "Small crowds gathered Saturday for the official launch of Pre, the smartphone seen as Palm Inc’s best chance to claw back market share from Apple Inc’s iPhone and Research In Motion Ltd’s Blackberry."
2. Apparently, there was a moment when not only was it cool to have a Pre Phone but it was also cool to use the word "Obama" to mean cool. You could say "You're so Obama." It's recorded in the New York Times.
3. Robert A. Leonard... is the former Sha Na Na member still a linguistics professor, after all these years? Wikipedia says yes. He does forensic linguistics and is quoted as saying "I like to say I'm one of the very few people in the world who have worked with the FBI and the Grateful Dead."
4. Was it ever "suddenly... hip and cool to be all clear-headed and rational"? Will it ever be? I like to think it is. Why don't we just start acting as if it is? A teenage a cappella group became Sha Na Na by slicking their hair back.
5. What is currently Urban Dictionary's #1 definition for "Obama"? Here's the answer. You'll have to go to the link to read it. I had it displayed for a few minutes, but I clicked on one of the internal links and found it racist, so I undisplayed it.
Posts
26 comments:
It means estrogen-based.
Classic Althouse post here. And Happy Mother’s Day to AA and all mothers. Without mothers, we have zip.
Strange,but I don't remember that at all.
I am decades away from hip.
But, Obama was never hip. He is the best live example of dilettante ever to exist.
"Uttering idle words from a reprobate mind
Clinging to strange promises, dying on the vine
Never bein’ able to separate the good from the bad"
In a just world, "Robert A. Leonard" would be slang for cool and hip.
0bambi.
And linking Obama and Rob Leonard of Hofstra is the fact that Hofstra just a couple of weeks ago held a three-day scholarly conference on the Obama presidency, the most recent in a forty-year series of conferences on all the presidencies since FDR's. There'll probably be a Trump conference in about three years--unless there's a second Trump term, in which case, we'll have to wait until about 2032.
Obama Conference, Hofstra University, April 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETDd5u_9M6o
Rob Leonard singing lead on "Teen Angel" at Woodstock, 1969:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqN9n2FbuJE
Literally no one but NYT reporters trying to start a trend for Chicago Jesus said that
Leonard correctly points out that slang is meant to be exclusionary, I.e., it’s an extension of the mean girls in junior high. I think that’s why I have never been very interested in slang.
So sorry. I can tell what's goin on - It's Hip To Be Square!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbF1g3k2mtw
"Obama" was never a slang term for being cool. (Or, if it was, it was so seldom used, in such a small cohort, and was so short-lived as a slang term that it never seeped into the society.)
Obama was square, like Wally and Beaver's dad. (I think maybe he thought he was cool, which is an indicator of a square.)
Obama Phones were the thing to have
“So you want to jump out your trick bag
And ease on into a hip bag
But you ain't just exactly sure what's hip
So you start to let your hair grow
Spend big bucks to cop you a wardrobe
But somehow you know there's much more to the trip
What is hip?
Tell me, tell me if you think you know
What is hip?
If you was really hip
The passing years would show
You into a hip trip
Maybe hipper than hip
But what is hip?
So you became part of the new breed
Been smokin' only the best weed
Been hangin' out on the so-called hippest set
Being seen at all the right places
Being seen with just the right faces
You should be satisfied
Still it ain't quite right
What is hip?
Tell me, tell me if you think you know
What is hip?
If you was really hip
The passing years would show
You into a hip trip
Maybe hipper than hip
But what is hip?
Hipness, what it is!
Hipness, what it is!
Hipness, what it is!
And sometimes hipness is
What it ain't!
You done even went and found you a guru
In your effort to find you a new you
And maybe even managed
To raise your conscious level
As you striving to find the right road
There's one thing you should know
What's hip today
Might become passe”
—- “What Is Hip” Tower of Power
Obama of the Kenyan elite Obamas represented Illinois, visited Hawaii on a billionaire's dime, lives in Martha's Vineyard that deported illegal aliens, dreams of Obamacares that sustain unaffordable medical prices as a federal single/central/monopolistic solution between government and corporations, retains the Nobel Pieces Prize for a failed withdrawal from Iraq, funding Iran through overridden claims, and segue to the second Iraq war and World War ethnic/Spring series in progress.
Without mothers, we have zip.
Without mothers we have 1/2 of the prerequisite precursors to human life and no viable womb to call home and safe sanctuary.
Here's one: "QuidProJoe is so Obama."
Nobody has ever said this. Ever.
Obama is the un-coolest 'black' guy in history.
He's Urkel with a nice crease in his pants.
"Dark Obama" never caught on either, for some reason.
I only use "You're so Obama" for people with sharp pants creases.
Only recall saying 'So over Obama.'
And HMD.
Sha Na Na is amazing. I have such a hard time- they had a goofy show after The Muppet Show and also from the few people I’ve encountered who were actually at Woodstock, extremely popular with that audience- like most popular. Any of the wanna bees ever mention that?
Cool? Hip? The guy was, is and always will be a lazy, preening, pretentious ass.
Does one still spit after saying the name, or is that no longer commonly done?
I'd guess there were a few people who worked with the Grateful Dead who were on an FBI payroll back when they were interested in finding lefty folks who had robbed banks or bombed buildings.
By definition, to be "hip" is to be a member of a closed and essentially secret society, whose members communicate among and solely for themselves, purposely excluding all others. Once the "hip" manners and language of any given time or place seeps out beyond its point of origin, becoming (in waves) known to and adopted by larger society, that set of "hip" manners and language is no longer "hip," but becomes commodified and merely fashionable, which is not the same thing as "hip" at all. The "hip" will continue to appear in each new generation in many social/cultural settings, evolving their own languages and signs to identify and understand each other, unrecognized by all others...for a while.
Post a Comment