Never Ever Ever, Like Ever

Illustration by Tim Sheaffer (Vanity Fair).

Never Ever Ever, Like Ever: What the Billboard Charts are telling us about culture on this day

As of today, Taylor Swift’s “We are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” is the number one song on Billboard’s “Top 100”. In 2012 she became Billboard’s “Woman of the Year”.  What’s the message that makes her number one? For starters, the message is clear: grammar don’t matter. Never ever ever, like ever. 

If you have followed my blog for very long, you know I never ever ever agree with Christopher Hitchens, like ever. But, back in 2010, he wrote an article for Vanity Fair criticizing the new use of the word like. “Since, like, the 60s, and definitely since Clueless, one word has been, like, everywhere.” 

I appreciate his column on language and I don’t think it’s one where worldviews need to be concerned. It’s, like, a really good column and I’ll forever ever ever, like what he had to say, like forever. He gives some great insight on those who misuse and overuse the word. Example… what if Shakespeare was guilty of this grammatical sin? Well we might have “As You, Like, Like It” on every literature and playwright nerd’s bookshelf.  Madonna may have written “Like, Like a Virgin”. And our tongues would be worse off.

If he were still with us today he would probably drink some Russian water and rant over the awful influence pop culture has had on language, along with a few other rants that would, like, upset a lot of people forever ever ever. But, he’s not coming back like never ever ever so I’ll have to do it for him.  (Hitchens, Christopher. The Other L-Word.).

Secondly, Swift gives us some insight into the concerns of Americans today. Perhaps it’s the case that Billboard’s charts are now controlled more than ever ever by teens, but it’s also proving that our concerns aren’t at all deep. In the midst of a presidential election, our greatest concern is about Taylor Swift’s breakup with who? Yeah, that who question is garnering a lot of attention.

The concern here is not the future of our nation. The concern is not about the future of the unemployment rate, the wars raging overseas, the social eruption over same-sex marriage, or the fact that for the first time in history there isn’t a single white protestant in any of our nation’s high offices. In the 60s this kind of tune would have been a fiasco and I am sure in ten years it won’t matter much. It will be a song we all laugh at and think, “Man, the 80s were awful, but the 2000s and the 2010s were even worse to the music industry.” 

Not only does Swift prove to us that our concern for who she is never ever ever getting back together with, like ever, is greater than our concern for any issue regarding the thriving of humanity or our planet’s vitality, but she is also telling us that relationships are pretty much something that come and go... I don’t mean to sound like a lib, but even if you disagree with them on environmental health, or conservatives on the sanctity of life and marriage, at least those are legitimate concerns. It is reasonable to be concerned about the wellbeing of our planet and the thriving of humanity. According to Swift and the rest of pop culture, relationships are nefarious, temporal, and essentially just a game to be played.

Reality proves that this is not so. This is the very view on marriage and relationships that has devastated the core of the most local societal unit in America (and the world for that matter). That, my friends, is of great concern. And that is just a little teaser for what might come next around here.