Charlie Brooker: A guide to the buzzwords of 2011. 2011 was a hectic year – so hectic it required its own language.
Phrases such as "Lulzsec", "phone hacking" and "Wendi Deng" suddenly became common currency. But why hasn't anyone printed a handy cut-out-and-keep handbook explaining what all this stuff means? Well, actually, they have. And you're already reading it. Shut up and keep going as we start our guide to the Buzzwords of 2011. Sock puppet Stop thinking about actual sock puppets with buttons for eyes and so on. Structured reality Once upon a time we had docusoaps. Christ. But it isn't your life. Merkozy Throughout the latter part of the year, every economist was debating one issue: would the eurozone collapse?
Ever since Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were rechristened "Bennifer" (100 years ago, in 1982), any two proximate individuals appearing in a newspaper must have their names combined by law. What did "Merkozy" actually mean? Bond yields Planking Arab spring Higgs Boson. I'm all for sharing, but why the online obsession with revealing every detail of your life?
Sharing.
Now there's a basic social concept that has somehow got all out of whack. The idea behind sharing is simple. Let's say I'm a caveman. I hunt and slaughter a bison, but I can't eat it all myself, so I share the carcass with others, many of whom really appreciate it, such as my infirm 86-year-old neighbour who hasn't had a proper meal in weeks because he is incapable of killing anything larger than a woodlouse.
Have you tried grilling a woodlouse? But it's not all bison meat. All this sharing served a purpose. The huge salaries and bonuses, we are told, are essential if we are to prevent this tiny percentage of selfish, hoarding arseholes from moving overseas. I don't want to panic you, but that's the reality. Sharing is for the rest of us. Increasingly, I stumble across apps and services that expect me to automatically share my every waking action on Facebook and Twitter. The love affair was doomed. Don't get me wrong. It'll only get worse. Yes, sharing. This year's Christmas adverts aren't adverts, they're 'events'. Ghastly events.
Nothing merely "happens" any more: every occurrence is now an "event", which leaps up and down pointing excitedly at itself.
Once, the end of a school term would be marked with a shabby disco down the village hall; you'd turn up wearing the one pair of jeans you owned and circumnavigate the dancefloor nodding your head to the sound of Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go. Now, in 2011, teenagers don outfits chosen by their personal stylist weeks in advance and arrive at their school "prom" in a stretch Hummer. Come, friendly asteroids, and fall on Earth. Christmas adverts are the retail industry's end-of-term disco, and they have undergone a similar transformation. Not so long ago they were bald sales pitches with a bit of tinsel Sellotaped to the edges. Take the John Lewis commercial. Failing to cry at an advert for a shop does not make me cold, incidentally. An advert for a shop. Fortunately Kaye recovered. The rest of the lyrics are worse still.