Trendy catch-phrases don’t portray sincerity

Nobody really plans on being homeless.

It’s generally considered the bitter result of terrible luck and maybe some poor life choices, and certainly not anything you’d expect to happen to the average college student.

However, due to some complex details involving a surprise medical diagnosis, a flight to Oregon and a financial jam, it happened to me this semester — all during spring break, in fact.

It sucked.

It’s also just one of the innumerable problems you might face when you’re a 20-something student in a college town. A death in the family, a bad day at work and a souring relationship will each impact your life in a unique way, but for each of these complex situations, there remains a common thread —

Pretty much everyone will want to oversimplify your real problems into a trendy catchphrase. And it is really, really annoying.

There’s a time and a place for the phrase “The struggle is real.” That time is late at night, and that place is in your kitchen while your roommate desperately tries to release an over-cooked poptart from the clutches of a stubborn toaster using a tiny plastic fork.

It’s an ironic phrase, the stepchild of “First world problems,” which in this day and age is just code for “Couldn’t find my phone charger.” It’s funny, maybe a little overused — okay, it’s a lot overused — but here’s a protip: it’s not something you ever want to say to somebody recently diagnosed with cancer.

First world problems was popular for a while, until that video of kids in third-world countries reading tweets tagged with #firstworldproblems made it around social media, effectively putting that one to sleep. In its absence, simply saying “the struggle” has become the go-to phrase for anyone wishing to express their acknowledgement of a rough situation without actually investing any thought into it.

There’s a trend right now that I can’t wait for our small college town subculture to get over, and it’s the watering down of complex problems for fear of expressing any actual emotion.

When anyone refers to strong feelings as “the feels,” it makes everyone in the room a little dumber. This is the single worst phrase since “Keep calm and … ” was a thing. Sure that’s awfully judgmental, but nobody else seems to have a problem with it, and it’s killing the way we communicate with each other.

I am by no means an individual who thinks everything’s a serious occasion — on the contrary, I take almost nothing very seriously. But communication is important. “The feels” is not a substitute for emotions, just like a kissy-face emoji is not an adequate way of saying “I love you.”

It’s not that language shouldn’t always have a sense of humor. It’s just concerning that many people seem to be voluntarily forfeiting their ability to properly voice what they’re feeling. This issue doesn’t just apply to good feelings. If you can’t put words to feelings of anger and frustration in an appropriate fashion, you’re going to have a fun time trying to hold onto a job or a significant other.

Communication doesn’t have to be your occupation or a passion of yours for it to be important. We talk and text and email and comment and “like” things every waking hour of every day. We may as well learn how to do it in a way that doesn’t make us look stupid.

Nobody really plans on sounding like an idiot — but it still happens.

— Logan Jones is a junior majoring in journalism. He’s expecting at least a few angry emails laced with “YOLO” and “Can’t even” directed toward his inbox at logantjones@aggiemail.usu.edu or on Twitter @Logantj.