# a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z


101-Ism: The tendency to pick apart, often in minute detail, all aspects of life using half-understood pop psychology as a tool.

2 + 2 = 5-Ism: Caving in to a target marketing strategy aimed at oneself after holding out for a long period of time. "Oh, all right, I'll buy your stupid cola. Now leave me alone."

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Air Family: Describes the false sense of community experienced among coworkers in an office environment.

Anti-Sabbatical: A job taken with the sole intention of staying only for a limited period of time (often one year). The intention is usually to raise enough funds to partake in another, more personally meaningful activity such as watercolor sketching in Crete or designing computer knit sweaters in Hong Kong. Employers are rarely informed of intentions.

Anti-Victim Device (AVD): A small fashion accessory worn on an otherwise conservative outfit which announces to the world that one still has a spark of individuality burning inside: 1940s retro ties and earrings (on men), feminist buttons, nose rings (women), and the now almost completely extinct teeny weeny "rattail" haircut (both sexes).

Architectural Indigestion: The almost obsessive need to live in a 'cool' architectural environment. Frequently related objects of fetish include framed black-and-white art photography (Diane Arbus a favorite); simplistic pine furniture; matte black high-tech items such as TVs, stereos, and telephones; low-wattage ambient lighting; a lamp, chair, or table that alludes to the 1950s; cut flowers wit complex names.

Armanism: After Giorgio Armani: an obsession with mimicking the seamless and (more importantly) controlled ethos of Italian couture. Like Japanese Minimalism, Armanism reflects a profound inner need for control.

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Bambification: The mental conversion of flesh and blood living creatures into cartoon characters possessing bourgeois Judeo-Christian attitudes and morals.

Black Dens: Where Black Holes live; often unheated warehouses with Day-Glo spray painting, mutilated mannequins, Elvis references, dozens of overflowing ashtrays, broken mirror sculptures, and Velvet Underground music playing in background.

Black Holes: An X generation subgroup best known for their possession of almost entirely black wardrobes.

Bleeding Ponytail: An elderly sold-out baby boomer who pines for hippie or pre-sellout days.

Boomer Envy: Envy of material wealth and long-range material security accrued by older members of the baby boom generation by virtue of fortunate births.

Bradyism: A multisibling sensibility derived from having grown up in large families. A rarity in those born after approximately 1965, symptoms of Bradyism include a facility for mind games, emotional withdrawal in situations of overcrowding, and a deeply felt need for a well-defined personal space.

Brazilification: The widening gulf between the rich and the poor and the accompanying disappearance of the middle classes.

Bread And Circuits: The electronic era tendency to view party politics as corny -- no longer relevant or meaningful or useful to modern societal issues, and in many cases dangerous.

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Café Minimalism: To espouse a philosophy of minimalism without actually putting into practice any of its tenets.

Celebrity Schadenfreude: Lurid thrills derived from talking about celebrity deaths.

Clique Maintenance: The need of one generation to see the generation following it as deficient so as to bolster its own collective ego: "Kids today do nothing. They're so apathetic. We used to go out and protest. All they do is shop and complain."

Consensus Terrorism: The process that decides in-office attitudes and behavior.

Conspicuous Minimalism: A life-style tactic similar to Status Substitution. The nonownership of material goods flaunted as a token of moral and intellectual superiority.

Conversational Slumming: The self-conscious enjoyment of a given conversation precisely for its lack of intellectual rigor. A major spin-off activity of Recreational Slumming.

Cryptotechnophobia: The secret belief that technology is more of a menace than a boon.

Cult Of Aloneness: The need for autonomy at all costs, usually at the expense of long-term relationships. Often brought about by overly high expectations of others.

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Decade Blending: In clothing: the discriminate combination of two or more items from various decades to create a personal mood: Sheila = Mary Quant earrings (1960s) + cork wedgie platform shoes (1970s) + black leather jacket (1950s and 1980s).

Derision Preemption: A life-style tactic; the refusal to go out on any soft of emotional limb so as to avoid mockery from peers. Derision Preemption is the main goal of Knee-Jerk Irony.

Diseases For Kisses (Hyperkarma): A deeply rooted belief that punishment will somehow always be far greater than the crime: ozone holes for littering.

Divorce Assumption: A form of Safety Net-ism, the belief that if a marriage doesn't work out, then there is no problem because the partners can simply seek a divorce.

Dorian Graying: The unwillingness to gracefully allow one's body to show signs of aging.

Down-Nesting: The tendency of parents to move to smaller, guest-room-free houses after the children have moved away so as to avoid children aged 20 to 30 who have boomeranged home.

Dumpster Clocking: The tendency when looking at objects to guesstimate the amount of times they will take to eventually decompose: "Ski boots are the worst. Solid plastic. They'll be around till the sun goes supernova."

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Earth Tones: A youthful subgroup interested in vegetarianism, tie-dyed outfits, mild recreational drugs, and good stereo equipment. Earnest, frequently lacking in humor.

Emallgration: Migration toward lower-tech, lower-information environments containing a lessened emphasis on consumerism.

Emotional Ketchup Burst: The bottling up of opinions and emotions inside oneself so that they explosively burst forth all at once, shocking and confusing employers and friends -- most of whom thought things were fine.

Ethnomagnetism: The tendency of young people to live in emotionally demonstrative, more unrestrained ethnic neighborhoods: "You wouldn't understand it there, mother -- they hug where I live now."

Expatriate Solipsism: When arriving in a foreign travel destination one had hoped was undiscovered, only to find many people just like oneself; the peeved refusal to talk to said people because they have ruined one's elitist travel fantasy. (See Virgin Runway)

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Fame-Induced Apathy: The attitude that no activity is worth pursuing unless one can become very famous pursuing it. Fame-Induced Apathy mimics laziness, but its roots are much deeper.

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Green Division: To know the difference between envy and jealousy.

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Historical Overdosing: To live in a period of time when too much seems to happen. Major symptoms include addiction to newspapers, magazines, and TV news broadcasts.

Historical Slumming: The act of visiting locations such as diners, smokestack industrial sites, rural villages -- locations where time appears to have been frozen many years back -- so as to experience relief when one returns back to "the present."

Historical Underdosing: To live in a period of time when nothing seems to happen. Major symptoms include addiction to newspapers, magazines, and TV news broadcasts.

Homeowner Envy: Feelings of jealousy generated in the young and the disenfranchised when facing gruesome housing statistics.

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Jack-And-Jill Party: A Squire tradition; baby showers to which both men and women are invited as opposed to only women. Doubled purchasing power of bisexual attendance brings gift values up to Eisenhower-era standards.

Japanese Minimalism: The most frequently offered interior design aesthetic used by rootless career-hopping young people.

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Knee-Jerk Irony: The tendency to make flippant ironic comments as a reflexive matter of course in everyday conversations.

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Legislated Nostalgia: To force a body of people to have memories they do not actually possess: "How can I be a part of the 1960s generation when I don't even remember any of it?"

Lessness: A philosophy whereby one reconciles oneself with diminishing expectations of material wealth: "I've given up wanting to make a killing or be a big shot. I just want to find happiness and maybe open up a little roadside cafe in Idaho."

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McJob: A low-pay, low-prestige, low-dignity, low-benefit, no-future job in the service sector. Frequently considered a satisfying career choice by people who have never held one.

Me-Ism: A search by an individual, in the absence of training in traditional religious tenets, to formulate a personally tailored religion by himself. Most frequently a mishmash of reincarnation, personal dialogue with a nebulously defined god figure, naturalism, and karmic eye-for-eye attitudes.

Mental Ground Zero: The location where one visualizes oneself during the dropping of the atomic bomb; frequently, a shopping mall.

Metaphasia: An inability to perceive metaphor.

Mid-Twenties Breakdown: A period of mental collapse occurring in one's twenties, often caused by an inability to function outside of school or structured environments coupled with a realization of one's essential aloneness in the world. Often marks introduction into the ritual of pharmaceutical usage.

Musical Hairsplitting: The act of classifying music and musicians into pathologically picayune categories: "The Vienna Franks are a good example of urban white acid folk revivalism crossed with ska."

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Native Aping: Pretending to be a native when visiting a foreign destination.

Now Denial: To tell oneself that the only time worth living in is the past and that the only time that may ever be interesting again is the future.

Nutritional Slumming: Food whose enjoyment stems not from flavor but from a complex mixture of class connotations, nostalgia signals, and packaging semiotics: Katie and I bought this tub of Multi-Whip instead of real whip cream because we thought petroleum distillate whip topping seemed like the sort of food that air force wives stationed in Pensacola back in the early sixties would feed their husbands to celebrate a career promotion.

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O'Propriation: The inclusion of advertising, packaging, and entertainment jargon from earlier eras in everyday speech for ironic and/or comic effect: "Kathleen's Favorite Dead Celebrity party was tons o' fun or Dave really thinks of himself as a zany, nutty, wacky, and madcap guy, doesn't he?"

Obscurism: The practice of peppering daily life with obscure references (forgotten films, dead TV stars, unpopular books, defunct countries, etc.) as a subliminal means of showcasing both one's education and one's wish to disassociate from the world of mass culture.

Occupational Slumming: Taking a job well beneath one's skill or education level as a means of retreat from adult responsibilities and/or avoiding possible failure in one's true occupation.

Option Paralysis: The tendency, when given unlimited choices, to make none.

Overboarding: Overcompensating for fears about the future by plunging headlong into a job or life-style seemingly unrelated to one's previous life interests; i.e., Amway sales, aerobics, the Republican Party, a career in law, cults, McJobs...

Ozmosis: The inability of one's job to live up to one's self-image.

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Paper Rabies: Hypersensitivity to littering.

Personal Tabu: A small rule for living, bordering on a superstition, that allows one to cope with everyday life in the absence of cultural or religious dictums.

Personality Tithe: A price paid for becoming a couple; previously amusing beings become boring: "Thanks for inviting us, but Noreen and I are going to look at flatware catalogs tonight. Afterward, we're going to watch the shopping channel."

Platonic Shadow: A nonsexual friendship with a member of the opposite sex.

Poor Buoyancy: The realization that one was a better person when one had less money.

Poorochondra: Hypochondria derived from not having medical insurance.

Poverty Jet Set: A group of people given to chronic traveling at the expense of long-term job stability or a permanent residence. Tend to have doomed and extremely expensive phone-call relationships with people named Serge or Ilyana. Tend to discuss frequent-flyer programs at parties.

Poverty Lurks: Financial paranoia instilled in offspring by depression-era parents.

Power Mist: The tendency of hierarchies in office environments to be diffuse and preclude crisp articulation.

Pull-The-Plug, Slice-The-Pie: A fantasy in which an offspring mentally tallies up the net worth of his parents.

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QFD: Quelle fucking drag. "Jamie got stuck at Tome airport for thirty-six hours and it was, like, totally QFD."

QFM: Quelle fashion mistake. "It was really QFM. I mean, painter pants? That's 1979 beyond belief."

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Rebellion Postponement: The tendency in one's youth to avoid traditionally youthful activities and artistic experiences in order to obtain serious career experience. Sometimes results in the mourning for lost youth at about age thirty, followed by silly haircuts and expensive joke-inducing wardrobes.

Recreational Slumming: The practice of participating in recreational activities of a class one perceives lower than one's own: "Karen! Donald! Let's go bowling tonight! And don't worry about shoes...apparently you can rent them."

Recurving: Leaving one job to take another that pays less but places one back on the learning curve.

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Safety Net-Ism: The belief that there will always be a financial and emotional safety net to buffer life's hurts. Usually parents.

Sick Building Migration: The tendency of younger workers to leave or avoid jobs in unhealthy office environments or workplaces affected by the Sick Building Syndrome.

Spectacularism: A fascination with extreme situations.

Squires: The most common X generation subgroup and the only subgroup given to breeding. Squires exist almost exclusively in couples and are recognizable by their frantic attempts to recreate a semblance of Eisenhower-era plenitude in their daily lives in the face of exorbitant housing prices and two-job life-styles. Squires tend to be continually exhausted from their voraciously acquisitive pursuit of furniture and knickknacks.

Squirming: Discomfort inflicted on young people by old people who see no irony in their gestures. Karen died a thousand deaths as her father made a big show of tasting a recently manufactured bottle of wine before allowing it to be poured as the family sat in Steak Hut.

Status Substitution: Using an object with intellectual or fashionable cachet to substitute for an object that is merely pricey: "Brian, you left your copy of Camus in your brother's BMW."

Strangelove Reproduction: Having children to make up for the fact that one no longer believes in the future.

Successophobia: The fear that if one is successful, then one's personal needs will be forgotten and one will no longer have one's childish needs catered to.

Survivulousness: The tendency to visualize oneself enjoying being the last remaining person on earth. "I'd take a helicopter up and throw microwave ovens down on the Taco Bell."

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Tele-Parablizing: Morals used in everyday life that derive from TV sitcom plots: "That's just like the episode where Jan lost her glasses!"

Terminal Wanderlust: A condition common to people of transient middle-class upbringings. Unable to feel rooted in any one environment, they move continually in the hopes of finding an idealized sense of community in the next location.

The Emperor's New Mall: The popular notion that shopping malls exist on the insides only and have no exterior. The suspension of visual belief engendered by this notion allows shoppers to pretend that the large, cement blocks thrust into their environment do not, in fact, exist.

The Tens: The first decade of a new century.

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Ultra Short Term Nostalgia: Homesickness for the extremely recent past: "God, things seemed so much better in the world last week."

Underdogging: The tendency to almost invariably side with the underdog in a given situation. The consumer expression of this trait is the purchasing of less successful, "sad", or failing products: "I know these Vienna franks are heart failure on a stick, but they were so sad looking up against all the other yuppie food items that I just had to buy them."

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Vaccinated Time Travel: To fantasize about traveling backward in time, but only with proper vaccinations.

Veal-Fattening Pen: Small, cramped office workstations built of fabric-covered disassemblable wall partitions and inhabited by junior staff members. Named after the small preslaughter cubicles used by the cattle industry.

Virgin Runway: A travel destination chosen in hopes that no one else has chosen it.

Voter's Block: The attempt, however futile, to register dissent with the current political system by simply not voting.

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Yuppie Wannabe's: An X generation subgroup that believes the myth of a yuppie life-style being both satisfying and viable. Tend to be highly in debt, involved in some form of substance abuse, and show a willingness to talk about Armageddon after three drinks.

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