There is something I have been meaning to get off my chest for a while now, and, despite several opportunities to do so, I have refrained from, well, doing so. This may be owed to the fact that I am often afraid of expressing my opinion for fear of scorn from other individuals, which is quite bizarre considering I am in my fourth year of studying journalism. My yellow belly may be one of the reasons I have kept my opinion to myself, but it is also part laziness, which I am prone to on the odd occasion. But now that I am here, in front of my laptop, and incidentally, on my blog, I might as well just get it off my chest.
Since WHEN did the word "CREATIVE" become a NOUN?
This tendency amongst fellow bloggers, hipsters (I hate that word too), members of the media and those who tend to pander to the petty needs of artistically-minded people to call anybody who does anything even slightly 'creative' a CREATIVE is simply nausea-inducing and I am quite certain, slightly patronising too.
The use of the word as a noun has firmly embedded itself in the psyche of South Africans, with even my dear mother using the term the other day when she read it in a newspaper. (What, may I ask, is a paper like the Sunday Times doing lowering itself to the hipster-vernacular of a few trend-setting individuals who, by the way, are setting mindless 'trends').
"Oh don't disturb them, they're the CREATIVES"....
"So and so's coffee shop is a total haunt for the CREATIVES"
and my personal favourite, and the name of a new blog that I wandered across in Marie Claire (which is what actually spurred me on to write this post)..
"Hello CREATIVES".
The word-as-a-noun has this conceited, pretentious air about it that makes me wish I had studied a Bachelor of Commerce and never had to mingle in circles who use said word-as-a-noun. It reminds me of the uber-cool (or wait, are they post-cool?) kids that meander across Kloof Street, miraculously avoiding passing cars as they saunter in their perfectly faded second hand, high waist denims (they make your bum look fat - Bible!), looking anybody who does not look like them (read: cares about something, wears new clothes, digs Britney on the sly) up and down with the mean yet nonchalant look of a cat that got the cream. In fact, it makes me feel as if there is perhaps a well-cooked conspiracy by people who are not CREATIVES to make CREATIVES feel special, so that they can extract from them the produce that they need (graphic posters/ indie music/ opinion pieces included).
It is, in fact, a clear case of Fattening the Pig before it loses its head on the 23rd and is a roast by the 25th of December.
So, my point is this: can we please stop torturing the English language with even more sad and mindless adaptations of its parts of speech (turning adjectives into nouns should be made illegal), and steer away from broad and generalised terms that really do not do justice to the people who actually ARE the rarities among us, the God-given Gifted, the inspired, and the talented.
In fact, there used to be a word for them.
I think it was artists.
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