Slam poet Taylor Mali‘s “Totally Like Whatever, You Know?” has been around for a while, but here’s a creative presentation of it:
Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.
HT: Jeff Brewer
Justin Taylor, PhD
Justin Taylor is executive vice president of book publishing and book publisher for Crossway and blogs at Between Two Worlds. You can follow him on Twitter.
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Taylor Mali is, like, totally awesome.
Though, frankly, I’m surprised that some of your more rabid readers haven’t already chimed in to cite this poem as proof-text that ALL epistemological humility is wrong.
This presentation was geerate. And I am guilty as charged. I do that all the time, you know?
This was absolutely fantastic!
Thank you!!
Wonderful…I love it!
Thank-you!
OMG!!! Thank You, thank you for finally saying what I’ve been sensing, but couldn’t put into words because… you know like… you feel weird when you sound like you know what you’re talking about, right? Know what I’m saying… L.O.L.!!!! Just love this!!!!
While not as niftily presented or amusing, Mark Liberman’s article on uptalking is far more balanced, educated, and evidence-based.
Thanks for the link! Isn’t it a bit apples and oranges, though? Liberman on uptalking in general, and Mali on uptalking combined with verbal hints of epistemological skepticism disguised as humility?
I see your point. But I think that calling it “epistemological skepticism disguised as humility” is ascribing motives without evidence. Of course that might be the case in some instances, but it is also the vernacular of huge swaths of English speakers. It seems unfounded to me to attribute a motive for speaking that way without some kind of investigation.
What I see happening here is a perhaps-valid work of art being used by people to validate ungenerous biases about people different than them who they have no interest in actually understanding.
Hm. I see your point as well Abraham. There no doubt needs to be balance and grace given in conversation and speech.
Mali is brilliant. In the same vein I like his “Like Lily Like Wilson” poem about the girl who couldn’t stop saying “like”(though not all will agree with Lily’s conclusions).