Word Of The Year? Yawn.
Yawning for the concept of Word of the Year, not as a guiding principle for 2025. Just to be clear. Read on for Actual Word Of The Year...
I am either very late to this party or not late enough… Conundrum. It’s the ‘word of the year’ party. Is Friday January 24 already too late to pick a word for the year? Also, when did having a word of the year become a thing? Also also, can you divvy up the people you know on social media into camps? Asking for a friend.
Three camps as far as I can tell: 1) Word of the Year People, 2) WTF Is Word of the Year People and C) Picked A Stupid Word of the Year People. Also, you can only be friends with 2/3 groups.
I daresay it is age related, but I like to believe that what I think about Word of the Year is what Hugh Grant would think about Word of the Year. And that is to say: he would be deeply, irrevocably, erm, displeased with it. He’s a hilariously grumpy bastard – a quality I rate very highly in him, if not anyone else with whom I have to co-habit.
According to the many YouTubers on the subject, Word of the Year is meant to behave as a guiding principle for your 12 months. I think at this point, you also need to have either a bullet journal, a Pinterest mood board and a full set of really nice pencils or all of the above. I have none of this, so perhaps I was doomed to failure early on.
Word of the Year is used against making bad decisions, so it is apparently VV NB. Here’s an example: ‘should I bonk the faux Brad Pitt that has been messaging me asking for money?’ If your Word of the Year is freedom or gratitude, the answer is quite obviously, DEFFO! If your Word of the Year is no or improve or challenge, then I guess you would have to say: ‘Soz Faux Brad but not for moi!’.
* Of course, all null and void if Real Brad Pitt, in which case should be running for boudoir before he finishes question.
I feel like good decisions make themselves and require less introspection, so not even bothering to explain how Word of the Year works on the good stuff. Suffice it to say that Words of the Year in my inexpert and very loosely interrogated opinion seems to slowly revolve around pious words like ‘gratitude’, ‘grow’, ‘free’ and ‘no.’
Urgh, when did life become so serious? And equally: am I asking this because I am in fact unaware that I am having a midlife crisis and want to behave like a teenager again? An 80s / 90s teenager, when we didn’t have words of the year, bullet journals, manifesting, affirmations and soul-centring sticky notes affixed to our bathroom mirrors to remind us 1) to breathe 2) that we are worth it 3) of our innate ferocity.
My Word of the Year is… Concerts. I know, I am very deep. Thank you for noticing.
You know how as a teenager and 20-something you went to music concerts? You were I was deep in my badly behaving-slash-having the most fun phase. And I was still young and hot enough at said concert to attempt to smoosh my way right to the front, drape over the railing, make flirty eyes with anyone on stage who would notice, hope to get invited backstage.
This never happened. I don’t know what I would have done if it ever did. Asked for a Bennies & Hennies and legged it outta there is most likely answer. But hope springs eternal and all that. It meant getting to work or carsity the next day feeling a little bleary-eyed, but totes totes totes always worth it!
Then came your 30s. Job becomes career, boyfriend becomes husband, going out dancing becomes staying home with bebes. Concerts are undertaken sparingly, sitting down and never end after midnight. You make sure you have secured a proper parking space so you can get the hell outta there as soon as it ends, you hydrate all night - with water! - and hustle when the band exits stage left. You are still being invited to a string of weddings, 30th birthdays, office parties and miscellaneous Other Opportunities For A Bit Of A Skop.
By your 40s, there’s a good chance that the wedding invites aka opportunities for said skop have dried up. And there’s still all that career-family-punks malarkey that requires you on the daily. You defs aren’t dancing much. You’re defs not screaming, cry-sweating, jumping or trying to pull your bra out of your right armhole to fling at a stage.
And then one fine day, some Social Media Seer tells you to manifest a Word of the Year and you decide it must be ‘concerts’. Mainly you decide this because of a series of related events, which in no particular order include: travelling halfway across the world to see best band ever live in concert. Depeche Mode, Madrid, March 2024. What follows this is an epiphany regarding the fact that you do not need to travel halfway across the world if you just get you arse into gear about booking tickets locally when bands roll into town.
Being a consummate commitment-phobe, this is tricky. But I persevere. From international travel to epiphany comes giant new year jollie-patrollie at Billy’s in St Francis, where you discover that now that punks are older and wiser you, ironically, no longer need to be! And you have the time of your life.
You are unfazed by swarming humanity, other sweaty humans and having sticky drinks spilled on you. All night. Also, turns out that crowds in 2025 are much much nicer than crowds in the 90s. I guess we did have Knebworth as a reference point, so not hard to figure that ours were wilder, pushier, more smoke in your facier than this lovely lot.
And thus, with all this new intel tucked into your back pocket, you book a slew of concert dates. If you know the music at all, you book. And what will happen then is that you find yourself on back-to-back dance dates at Robbie Williams, The Offspring and Green Day respectively.
And because you recently hit Billy’s and survived, you have booked front zone standing tix because you are not here to be seated and watch, but you are also not here to be jostled in the back. You are here to get stuck in, but with a smidge of oxygen and breathing room for The Menopause.
You are, of course, surrounded by people exactly your age doing the same thing. Much younger and they’re General Standing. Five Years Younger and they’re still seated. Older and they’re outside in the chip ‘n dip queue. Life-affirming. Joyful. Loud. Shouty loud. Take a Myprodol when you get home loud.
Singing lyrics from the 90s lights up a centre in your brain that hasn’t been touched in decades. Despite remembering next to nothing from varsity or – god forbid – school, your lyrical muscle memory kicks in and you know every word to every song. Do you think this would be good to stave off dementia in later years? Yes, these are things I think about in sticky drinks queue. I also spent an inordinate amount of time trying to calculate the full costs off all Robbie Williams’ chunky diamond-encrusted jewellery. And obvs one must make sure to get all the Vitality Points.
Who’s joining me in stealing ‘concerts’ as their Word of the Year and where are we going next?! Goo Goo Dolls? Soul II Soul? Both.
I don't know if I should feel seen or attacked, but the accuracy! - Sincerely, a 40-something who was seated in the stands
Hilarity. I just love your humour Dan. So on point, so relatable.