lavenderprose:

So I’m not sure if this has been said already, but the speed with which language is evolving nowadays is genuinely something that I feel is going to be the hallmark of this century when future historical linguists are studying this timeperiod in a thousand years’ time.

The example that comes to the forefront of my mind, as ridiculous as it is, is the phrase ‘big dick energy’ which, in the weeks since which the phrase was conceived, has not only spread to become common parlance (at least within a certain demographic) but has rapidly changed from its original meaning (which was the literal energy that a person gives off when they have a literal big penis–Anthony Bourdain, to be exact) to its current meaning, which is something like, “A person, who may or may not have a penis, who is in possession of a tremendous amount of confidence and competency, which is obvious to the viewer to a point where it is palpable.”

It’s a difficult and nebulous concept to convey, and something that…honestly, we probably needed a phrase for. The term ‘big dick energy’ was a literal joke and has now filled a hole in the English vocabulary. That’s like the inside joke that your friends had in high school becoming common parlance for the entire English-speaking world. 

Something like this couldn’t have happened fifty years ago. At least, not so fast. Until very, very recently, it took things like this years, if not decades, to occur. If you look in the Oxford English Dictionary, there are countless words that have archaic meanings which no longer apply. Hell, we don’t even have to go that far back–the word ‘gay’, as we all know, used to mean happy, and then was repurposed as a derogatory euphemism for homosexuality, which was then reclaimed by the gay community and is now its most oft-used identifier. One could even postulate that the word ‘gay’ is now returning somewhat to its original meaning, considering that those in the know with queer culture sometimes use it to describe pleasant concepts such as romantic attraction and various acts of self-care and also consider it a positive aspect of their personality but that’s a different story.

This is just one example; there are many others. Thousands, probably, in the English language alone. But they took time. The evolution of the word gay took 100+ years. 

Big Dick Energy happened in seven weeks.

The internet is the steroids by which the etymology of popular phrases has increased to lightning fast speeds and I feel like we should all be afraid–or at least be taking note.