The Divisions Reflected in Buzzwords

 The announcement of this year’s “Buzzword Awards” reminded me how language can reveal the gaps within society. Words that define a year also show how divided we’ve become in what we see, hear, and care about.

 

Yesterday, the thirty nominees for this year’s “Buzzword Awards” were announced and reported widely on the news.

For something called “buzzwords,” many of them were entirely new to me.
Watching the list made me wonder—have I fallen behind the times?
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with selecting popular phrases.
In fact, preserving them as a record helps capture the air and memory of a particular year.

Still, some of the words make no sense at all.
I write a blog almost every day and read plenty of online news, yet most of these words don’t resonate.
They were probably everywhere among the people who used them,
but for those of us outside those circles, neither the meaning nor the context is clear.

Even buzzwords have their own kind of divide.
And in such a diverse era, I can only imagine how hard the judges must have worked.

If I had to choose, I’d go with Prime Minister Takaichi’s “Work and—,” “Old Media,” and “Ancient Rice.”
All of them evoke memories of the Showa era.
The rest are ordinary expressions or youthful slang—none of them leave a lasting impression.

Personally, I’d add “Gaza,” “Komeito Withdrawal,” “Female Prime Minister,” and “T-reg” to the list.
Among bloggers, “The End of Goo Blog” deserves a mention, though it’s probably too niche.
It’s a pity that “Yoshinobu Yamamoto” came too late for consideration.
And lately, I’ve been noticing “young men in platform shoes,”
though that’s purely a personal observation.

After all, the Buzzword Awards can only survive if they appeal to a wide range of people.
If older generations enjoy them alone, they’ll be dismissed as “Showa relics,”
so younger voices must also be included.

Looking at the nominees, it’s clear that the line between young and old is growing sharper.
A shared sense of what defines the nation—that’s something we no longer have.

Perhaps divisions have always existed.
It’s just that now, they’ve become impossible to ignore.