As a kid, I watched repeats of The Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason and Art Carney. Gleason played a bus driver, Ralph Kramden, and Carney was Ed Norton, a 'sanitation engineer' (a sewer worker). I was thinking of Art the other day when I met an "Instagram influencer."
I spent about fifteen minutes talking with them, and aside from learning that they have 'over 10,000 followers, ' I still have zero idea what it is they do or are. Sadly, I don't really have an excuse, since we conducted the entire conversation in English, a language they purport to be a master of and with which I have a more than passing familiarity.
We use language to obfuscate instead of explain. I watched a program on ViceTV (there's a depressing channel on cable, right up there with NewsMax and Bravo) on gang deaths in Chicago at some point in the past, and the producers interviewed someone they identified as a 'professional conversationalist.' He was joined at various points in the show by a person who purported to be a 'street historian.' Yosemite?
What happened to 'doctor, lawyer, mechanic, dental assistant, etc '? Do you know what an 'impressions manager' is? How about an 'improver'? Do you know anyone who is a 'change ninja'? Seriously. I feel like what I am, 'an old man yelling at the clouds in the sky.' All these made up titles telling me what the holder is should make them feel good and proud of themselves, but none of them tell me what that person does.
Growing up, I wanted to be a baseball player, an astronaut, and the President of the United States. Now, I aspire to become a reinventor, and dare anyone to figure out what I do.
-bill kenny
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