PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Local man Mick Lovell attempted to weave the phrase “late-stage capitalism” into casual conversation, hoping it would make his friends respect his intelligence, sources confirmed.
“I recently learned the phrase while listening to NPR in the back of an Uber. But I’ll be honest, it was a 25-minute car ride so I fell asleep a few times and I didn’t really understand what the conversation was about, I just knew it seemed really smart,” said Lovell. “I finally found the perfect time to bust it out to wow everyone when I was out to dinner with a few friends, and they were talking about how the abandoned mall in our hometown burned down because teenagers lit fireworks inside there. That’s when I hit them with ‘That’s late-stage capitalism for you.’ The table went quiet, they all looked at me in awe. It was so impressive that the waiter even came over and asked me if my food was tasting ok because he probably thought I was some big shot food critic with an IQ of 210.”
Lovell’s longtime friend Danny Haywood was at the table that night.
“We were all having a great time laughing and catching up on old times when Mick chimed in with the capitalism nonsense. After he said it he leaned back in his chair and put his arms behind his head with this smug expression on his face that confused all of us,” said Haywood. “My wife asked him to explain what he meant and that just made things way worse. He started mumbling about gender roles and then faked like he was choking and ran to the bathroom. The secondhand embarrassment was so overwhelming I nearly passed out.”
Sociologist Anna Duncan says there is more evidence that people are trying to inject buzzwords into conversations to appear more intelligent.
“I don’t want to blame everything on Joe Rogan, but fucking hell, almost everything can be blamed on that meatball. There was a time when men were proud to be dumb, they made up for it by being tough, but now they want to be smart guys who can kick your ass,” said Duncan. “Unfortunately for society, these men are only able to regurgitate half-formed thoughts presented by discredited ‘experts’ and we have an entirely new breed of men who punch through drywall while talking about microbiomes.”
At press time, Lovell’s Google history was littered with the search ‘What can I say to make people respect me?”