The Name Game Part 1: Swagger

"dumb shit, by any other name..."

We have a lot of dumb shit in our culture. Fortunately for those who produce and profit from dumb shit, we have an abundance of dickheads and morons that come in many different varieties that are more than happy to absorb the dumb shit and nonsense into their lives. But in order for the dumb shit and nonsense to achieve optimal absorption in the minds of your common dickhead, it must have a name. Preferably simple, and containing as few syllables as possible for the memory-challenged. Sometimes, those in the dumb shit and nonsense industry can even get away with putting a new name on an old dumb shit concept.
Swagger. If you look it up, the noun swagger is defined as an ostentatious display of arrogance or conceit. In its verb form, it is to boast, or brag noisily. All very desirable characteristics, no doubt. But my beef with this word comes from its common employment among the young pop crowd. If questioned as to the meaning of this word in its everyday sense, the common dickhead will offer a variety of definitions. A few samples: "It's like a attitude."; "Confidence."; "It's kinda like sexiness with a thug appeal." I've heard Lebron has it, I've heard Obama has it, I've heard Denzel Washington has it, I've even heard Tyler Hansbrough has it. So, aside from success, what the fuck is it?
Urbandictionary.com, (which I can't even believe is real), says swagger is a person's style, the way they walk, talk, dress. But it seems to me we already had plenty of words for all of this shit, words that were much more clear, much more sensible, and much less irresponsibly thrown about as if we're all gonna go through swagger withdrawal if we can't use the word at least 7 times a day. The word and all of it's equally obnoxious permutations are omnipresent in popular media: swag, swagnificent, first-team all swag, swaggalacity. I find it even funnier that as I'm writing this, the little squiggly line that shows up when the computer doesn't recognize a word isn't showing up under notta one swag derivative. This shit is retarded. People measure themselves against this concept. A word with an at best ambiguous meaning, that is almost exclusively used by people who should be anything but arrogant, conceited, or modeled after. A while ago I asked a girl I know from the corniest county in Maryland just exactly how she defines that word, and she responded, "You don't know cause you ain't got it." Maybe, but I feel quite comfortable not needing to have made up definitions of words that are easier for rappers to rhyme with to describe myself. That shits childish. My man Mike might have put it best, "...maybe you're right, I don't have swagger. I guess I'm stuck with manhood."