PositiveMode

You People are Great

It just occurred to me (or, more properly, occurred to me twenty-five minutes ago) that people are somewhat inordinately offended when someone refers to them as part of a group by using the phrase "you people" - way more offended than if they were just insulted as an individual. They get really upset at that phrase.

Example:

"You're a jerk." "what?!"

"You people are all jerks." "WHAT?!!"

The first one should actually be more insulting, as it is a direct personal insult. The second actually offers some sort of "justification" for the insultee's jerkdom (jerkery?) but for some reason the person responds more indignantly, I suppose out of some sort of kinship for the rest of their group; also, he may be shocked at grossness of the speaker's generalization. Admittedly, this may be justified in many circumstances, but it doesn't always make logical sense to get more angry.

We dislike the phrase even when it's used positively. Another example:

"You're funny." "Thanks!"

"You people are funny." "WHAT?!!"

We've been well-trained to quite negatively "notice" the phrase "you people." I encourage readers to question their adherence to this cultural Rule.

I was concerned before publishing this post that someone had blogged on this topic before. According to Google, no one has to any significant degree. However, I did find an indignant, defensive Harry Potter fan who thinks that "you people" is "one of the worst insults in the world". (you'll have to "Find" the phrase on the page; I thought it was more important to get this post out there rather than spend time finding out how to link directly to the point on the page where the phrase comes up, if that is even possible).

I was glad to find that seemingly no one had blogged on this topic, but the inquiry raises an important concept to be followed by the successful blogger and understood by the critical blog-reader: there is a blogging balance you have to carefully strike in practicing this fine art - coming up with your own ideas (or at least seeming to do so) while informing people of what's already out there, but not informing of sources so much that it looks like you didn't come up with the idea. But how much of a duty is there to investigate the existence of similar ideas before posting them as your own? No such duty exists, I suspect, but it will add to the cultural relevance of a Blog to better understand what else is in the blogosphere.

posted by PositiveMode @ 7:45 PM