Sunday, November 7, 2010

Move 25: Swear Like a Sailor

Dropping a few timely f-bombs, regardless of the audience, lets everyone within earshot that you really don't care what people think about you -- because you don't need to care about how other people think about you.

You should absolutely be able to carry on a civilized conversation using the Queen's proper English, but that isn't a Move -- everyone should be able to do that. The Move is to use timely profanity and completely inappropriate swear words and other language, especially in situations where such language would never occur to the normal public.  Weddings, funerals, interviews, negotiations, meetings, etc., are all great opportunities to throw down with some profanity that would make Captain Haddock blush.

For example, when meeting the CEO of GE for the first time, it would be a good idea to drop in a simple, "Are you planning to get this f*ucking stock out of the sh*tter some time before the sun engulfs the Earth in a big ball of fire?

There have been a number of psychological studies done about group norms, and the shock value when someone deviates from those norms. F*ck that; we're not trying to deviate for shock value -- we're making a Move to show that we're different and above the social norms of the group. In fact, we're not part of "the group", we're in our own realm reserved for the upper echelon of the power elite.  In a situation where there are lots of wealthy and powerful people, the person who swears first is silently acclaimed as the top dog. Think of they way Gordon Gekko talks in Wall Street.

Presidents swear, Five-Star Generals swear, CEOs swear, and you need to f*ucking swear too.