Has anyone ever told you that there was a better way to do what you’re doing than the way you’re doing it? Well yes, duh, that happens all the time, you idiot – of course they have. In fact, if no one has ever criticized the way you do things you’re probably just a complete mess. I digress.
Has anyone ever done this, however, and recommended a better way to do something and referred to their method of doing what you’re doing as being a “hack”? Unfortunately, the odds are that they have. If you’re like most people, you’ve probably just nodded your head and taken in what that person is saying. What’s worse, you may have gone on to use that grotesque term yourself. That, however, is precisely what you shouldn’t be doing.
It’s important that we don’t let the proponents of “life hacks”, “kitchen hacks”, “wellness hacks”, “meth hacks” or any other so called short cuts continue to circulate through the vernacular of our world’s population. In short, here’s why:
The idea of a “hack”, is a relatively new term. It does not, however, in any real way, offer any new meaning or information to what it represents. In other words, it’s just a new name for a centuries old concept. While it’s true that this happens quite frequently in our language and culture, it is specifically disturbing in this instance for one major, undeniable reason:
Calling something a “hack” just sounds plain…blah! gross! nasty! eww! eww! eww! .
For some, this may seem like a trivial reason not to use the term, particularly since one writer’s opinion on what sounds “bad” or “good” is all subjective, reflective, collective, or whatever those with bad taste say.
Nevertheless, I fancy myself as something of a critic (a critic of more or less every discipline and area of life, of course) and I strongly feel that I am utterly and completely correct about this whole “hack” thing. Therefore, I in turn am in fact right, and anyone who agrees with me is also right. Thus, anyone who doesn’t share this view is just a senseless fool with atrocious taste.
Unfortunately, there’s no hack for fixing bad taste.
