Adequately Reserved

The word “Awesome” January 26, 2010

I haven’t done any formal quantitative analysis, but from my own experience, this word was used when I was growing up, then used rarely at all, and now seems to have experienced a rebirth. Things people don’t necessarily mean about something when they say it’s “awesome”:

• It’s earnest and not self-conscious about it. (Schindler’s List: Awesome?)
• It’s subtle. (Hints of flavor in wine: Awesome?)
• It’s cultured. (Art house film: Awesome?)
• It excels in one area, but not in another. (“That painting is awesome! – except the lake” ?)

What do they mean, then? A few things. The most important, however, is touched on in the last of the list – what is being described works as a cohesive whole and isn’t able to be vivisected, is impervious to analysis or analysis would kill the magic spark.

The second is a sense of separateness from the quality being described, of shedding any responsibility for the manner in which it’s good. Even when someone says, “I am awesome,” there’s a sense that there’s something not self-made about them, as if they’re saying, “I just came out this way.”

The third item being communicated is their role as a delighted consumer, as an audience – they’re being presented to, not doing the presenting, and whatever is being presented is effective, it just works.

That last item’s the one that gets the most play, despite it being tertiary. There is something feminine, or infantile, about being completely wrapped up in a presentation, lacking not only negative criticism, but any criticism at all other than a thumbs-up gesture. Because of this, “awesome” is often used as a kind of preemptive shield from having to defend why something is liked when the likable aspects aren’t respectable. It’s accepting a bare minimum of vulnerability to ensure that any requests for a respectable feature will be seen as aggressive. “Awesome” is how a person prevents himself, and more importantly others, from seeing his own inconsistency – cognitive dissonance on demand. His professed taste, a cornerstone of his reputation will be spared by insisting the impugning evidence:

1. cannot be analyzed;
2. despite this, it must be good because it’s doing it for him;
3. and anyhow, he’s not defending it because he’s not responsible for it.

If Albert tells Bob “THING is awesome,” what he’s trying to do is make Bob choose between giving up belief in Albert’s good taste and Bob’s own belief THING is actually blunt, dull, gimmicky, schlocky, etc. Which will Bob choose – Albert’s judgment, or his own? Bob can’t even ask Albert to defend THING, because Albert’s implied he isn’t willing to, and because of that Albert will be agitated should Bob bring it up.

Which is why at the end of the day, using the word is a very minor implied threat and, consequently, a status play.