There must, at some point, have been some high-powered executive at some studio somewhere who actually said the words "Go for" and then their name when answering the phone. Dennis Dugan picks up the phone and says "Go for Dennis Dugan. But is this real, or is this only something that exists in the world of comedy writing? Or is it used so often in comedy writing that it's something that only exists in the world of comedy writing anymore?
It tells you this person has a blunted sense of humanity. It tells you this person is likely to be cruel to underlings. It does not, however, necessarily make the person a douchebag. It takes a particular lack of self-awareness to unironically refer to yourself by your nickname. Only idiots do it in the movies, and I assume, only idiots do it in real life.
The thing is, I don't find the bit very funny. In fact, it seems like really lazy comedy writing. First off, the whole "Go for" thing is totally played out. Let's just retire it. Let's assume that no one says that, and if they once did, they learned to stop it as soon as they saw a satirical version of themselves on screen maybe 15 years ago.
Then, calling yourself by a nickname is a bit of an easy way to indicate oblivious self-involvement. There should be better ways. Like, saying the person has a blog.
That's right -- maybe the reason I bristle over these characterizations is that I myself am an example of one of comedy writing's most prominent ways to indicate oblivious self-involvement. I attach no special value to it. Life did its thing, on and in the inanimate substrate. But I want to dwell on the existence of this cultural layer, because it is disappearing. No one picks up the phone anymore.
Even many businesses do everything they can to avoid picking up the phone. Of the 50 or so calls I received in the last month, I might have picked up four or five times. The reflex of answering—built so deeply into people who grew up in 20th-century telephonic culture—is gone. There are many reasons for the slow erosion of this commons. The most important aspect is structural: There are simply more communication options.
Text messaging and its associated multimedia variations are rich and wonderful: words mixed with emoji, Bitmoji, reaction gifs, regular old photos, video, links. Texting is fun, lightly asynchronous, and possible to do with many people simultaneously. So many little dings have begun to make the rings obsolete.
Perhaps 80 or even 90 percent of the calls coming into my phone are spam of one kind or another. At FranFunnel, we do everything we can to help businesses solve this problem.
Get a FranFunnel Demo today! What is it? Clients Blog. See it work now. Actually right now. See FranFunnel work now. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Small Business Management. By Susan Ward. She has run an IT consulting firm and designed and presented courses on how to promote small businesses.
Learn about our editorial policies. Updated on November 24,
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