Miffed News Network On the Trite Movement
Jul. 16th, 2003 11:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mishalakOkay, I'm about to rant. This won't make any sense so I'm putting it behind a nice livejournal cut.
"Tonight we have a very special guest, Deputy Minister of Invective, Snarky D. Cepright.
"Good evening."
"Deputy Minister, what do you think is behind this new movement calling themselves 'The Brights'?"
"Two things, first it is simply a rebranding, an attempt to give a new image to the people that have previously called themselves Atheists, Agnostics, Freethinkers, or Humanists. For that reason alone they would have been selected them for the attention of the Ministry. We think it is right and proper to mock the misuse of words and slick marketing campaigns. It makes no difference to us if it is by a corporation trying to make itself seem 'new and improved' by changing their name to a hundred-thousand dollar word invented in a focus group or religious movements.
"The second is an attempt to create a organized Atheist religion. Look on their website is says right there that people should get in on 'the ground floor' of this. If this is supposed to be a movement of individuals why should it matter if someone gets in on the ground floor? This sort of prevarication is the meat and potatoes of what we do at the Ministry of Invective. It's our job to shine in the sanity by heaping scorn upon those that deserve it."
"But there are questions as to why this group and not other attempts to give new meanings to words or the coining of new words like gay and nonhuman companion respectively."
"Well we did at one time campaign against the use of 'gay' since its use to mean homosexual has effectively eliminated the use of gay in other way by a majority of English speakers. And we still keep up the fight against nonhuman companion and the other dippy terms for pets whenever we see them, but it doesn't show up that regularly. It seems to have been a passing fad in some college towns.
"But beyond all the logical reasons this 'Bright' thing is just begging to be make fun of. That's the best they could come up with? It sounds like a Saturday morning cartoon invented by a marketing droid to sell toys. 'Here come the brights with their starlight powered computers to save the Earth.' Haw Haw! The name is just totally ridiculous. They could have come up with something noble, like 'the Prometheans'. Even if they had gone the meaningless syllables strung into a word route it would have stood a good chance of sounding better than 'the Brights'. Even Luxmarian is better.
"Further, do they really think religious people are just going to roll over saying, 'Oh yes, you're bright and we're dull. Good one.'? More likely they'll be mocked as the slights, or the trites, or dulls themselves. Hurm... Trite, that's not too bad, we'll have to think about using that one.
"Lastly this won't do anything about the image problem the Atheists have. The reason all those other people call themselves something other than Atheist is because that word is associated with the anti-religion zealots, who'll sign up in droves for this new movement giving the same taint of wingnuttery to the whole thing. Unless they have an organized hierarchy to exclude those people then it's going to be the same old story. Like the Baptists changing their name and the same benighted idiots who give the poor bastards the bad reputation in the first place joining up under the new brand. And if they do exclude them they'll be like every other religion, spending more time fighting the heretics than actually getting much of anything done."
"Thank you very much for your time Deputy Minister. This is the Miffed News Network."
We now return you to the usual insanity. Though as always, "Questions? Comments?"
"Tonight we have a very special guest, Deputy Minister of Invective, Snarky D. Cepright.
"Good evening."
"Deputy Minister, what do you think is behind this new movement calling themselves 'The Brights'?"
"Two things, first it is simply a rebranding, an attempt to give a new image to the people that have previously called themselves Atheists, Agnostics, Freethinkers, or Humanists. For that reason alone they would have been selected them for the attention of the Ministry. We think it is right and proper to mock the misuse of words and slick marketing campaigns. It makes no difference to us if it is by a corporation trying to make itself seem 'new and improved' by changing their name to a hundred-thousand dollar word invented in a focus group or religious movements.
"The second is an attempt to create a organized Atheist religion. Look on their website is says right there that people should get in on 'the ground floor' of this. If this is supposed to be a movement of individuals why should it matter if someone gets in on the ground floor? This sort of prevarication is the meat and potatoes of what we do at the Ministry of Invective. It's our job to shine in the sanity by heaping scorn upon those that deserve it."
"But there are questions as to why this group and not other attempts to give new meanings to words or the coining of new words like gay and nonhuman companion respectively."
"Well we did at one time campaign against the use of 'gay' since its use to mean homosexual has effectively eliminated the use of gay in other way by a majority of English speakers. And we still keep up the fight against nonhuman companion and the other dippy terms for pets whenever we see them, but it doesn't show up that regularly. It seems to have been a passing fad in some college towns.
"But beyond all the logical reasons this 'Bright' thing is just begging to be make fun of. That's the best they could come up with? It sounds like a Saturday morning cartoon invented by a marketing droid to sell toys. 'Here come the brights with their starlight powered computers to save the Earth.' Haw Haw! The name is just totally ridiculous. They could have come up with something noble, like 'the Prometheans'. Even if they had gone the meaningless syllables strung into a word route it would have stood a good chance of sounding better than 'the Brights'. Even Luxmarian is better.
"Further, do they really think religious people are just going to roll over saying, 'Oh yes, you're bright and we're dull. Good one.'? More likely they'll be mocked as the slights, or the trites, or dulls themselves. Hurm... Trite, that's not too bad, we'll have to think about using that one.
"Lastly this won't do anything about the image problem the Atheists have. The reason all those other people call themselves something other than Atheist is because that word is associated with the anti-religion zealots, who'll sign up in droves for this new movement giving the same taint of wingnuttery to the whole thing. Unless they have an organized hierarchy to exclude those people then it's going to be the same old story. Like the Baptists changing their name and the same benighted idiots who give the poor bastards the bad reputation in the first place joining up under the new brand. And if they do exclude them they'll be like every other religion, spending more time fighting the heretics than actually getting much of anything done."
"Thank you very much for your time Deputy Minister. This is the Miffed News Network."
We now return you to the usual insanity. Though as always, "Questions? Comments?"
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-16 11:45 am (UTC)*snicker*
"The Brights?" Goodness. Now why didn't I think of picking that as a name for people who agree with me?
No, really - they're being sarcastic, right? They can't possibly mean it straight-facedly. Please.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-16 12:47 pm (UTC)