The Idiot 100th Monkey to Use ‘Niche’
Stop killing words — take out illiterate monkeys instead
The hundredth monkey effect represents how a single action or idea can reach critical mass and spread like wildfire. It takes a certain number of people / monkeys to adopt a habit before it spreads like a virus and becomes commonplace.
According to the theory, the monkeys possess communication / learning skills we have yet to discover, on some other plane. A chaotic one shared with butterflies.
The monkey mob makes spontaneous changes to DNA. With human DNA so similar to the great apes, this could result in a large-scale existential crisis for humanity. Don’t laugh. They only need a hundred volunteers, not a full-scale popular election.
I communicated telepathically with an absurd orangutan named Camus to gain inside information. The chimpanzee Nietzsche was busy making amends but said he’d meet me in the ninth circle later, wherever that is.
Both Camus and Nietzsche, who claim to be influential leaders, admitted to being part of a conspiracy to change the meaning of ‘niche’.
As I get older multiple word definitions become more difficult. Once we reach 50, our brains become almost full, with engraved definitions sunk deep into our cerebellum folds. My speeding brain reacts with 1) the flash of an image, 2) a song that somehow fits, and finally, an analysis of how the word is used.
Recalling an iconic can of maybe pig / mystery meat made popular during WWI each time I receive unwanted email is enough of a burden. Getting ‘triggered’ each time someone makes a rude comment here, or over there in Twitsville conjures the Smith & Wesson my long-gone ex owned in Montana a lifetime ago, with the catchy Thompson Twins song “Lies, lies, lies, LIES!”.
Add the oft-repeated phrase “Find your niche!” here on Medium and it’s no wonder I’m communing with disturbed dead philosophers via gorillas.
Example of statues displayed in niches.
Following is a hardly believable story from Spain to help explain and illustrate the 100th Monkey concept and social problems in Spain.
Niche is one of those words reinvented, reappropriated, reimagined, and repurposed. With over a million words in the English language, I think another such as “segment” or “target audience” could be used more aptly.
Each generation interprets and ascribes new word meanings. Consider “awesome”- literally meaning to inspire awe and “literally”- now used to emphasize something figuratively or metaphorically. “Bad” became good and “literary” lost its association with literature to become a reference to anything considered intellectual or sophisticated. The “Gay 90s” recall a period of prosperity and growth in the 1890s. A century later, gay men struggled to survive AIDS.
This nullification of word meanings is a bad habit but has been in practice since the first cave baby had trouble pronouncing rabbit.
In the 60s “cool” lost its association with temperature, “groovy” stopped being about grooves, “hippie” was lost to jazz lovers and “square” became someone ignorant of cultural change.
I remember going to a small county fair in the way back where Santana was playing. Carlos Santana looked out over the crowd and said something like, “I see a lot of hippies and people who look cool, but sometimes the long hair is just to cover their red necks.” Ha! I kind of giggled. Rednecks were indeed in abundance. My dad turned to me and asked what the singer meant. I tried not to freak out while thinking, Not cool! How should I know? Why do I have to stand next to this cretin anyway? I was an aspiring child hippie and he was totally the definition of square.
Suspects for the 100th idiot monkey
The creature pictured on the right resembles my little brother — guilty, Guilty, GUILTY!!!
For those of us who have been reading for many decades, the new popular meaning of niche as a substitute term for field of expertise, segment, subspecialty," or target audience is just annoying. So not cool. It’s bad, in the literal sense. I’m not trying to be literary!
These niches were often used to present images of saints and leaders like ancient Romans, but some Gothic churches inclusion of those experiencing agony can be unsettling, at best.
In English usage, niche started showing up in 1800’s biology texts and ecological systems. It then spread to marketing and business systems.
Who could be responsible for this bastardization of linguistics?
It's time for our next round of suspects in the 100th monkey lineup.
Back in my day, Sonny, our words had meaning! We didn’t need to make up new ones.
Like “game”. We made games up, played them, and if they were good our friends joined in.
Gamification, gametization, and gamified are extraneous and sound silly.
Whether we call this process of overuse semantic bleaching, satiation, or linguistic inflation, the end result is the same.
We no longer recognize the correct meaning of some words.
The older I get, the harder it becomes.
Chimpanzee Camus says to just deal with it. Or, don’t. Nasty Nietzsche says it’s progress and to embrace it.
When my 93-year-old nonagenarian grandmother said, “You’ve found your niche!” I knew she was referencing a special place of significance where treasured art can be found. She traveled the world and shared her knowledge of cultural differences.
She was probably thinking of the Basilica of Notre-Dame in France, featuring niches and alcoves filled with statues of saints, angels, and other religious figures. Never mind the gargoyles spouting rainwater from the exterior corners.
My grandmother thought I was pretty special.
Please, dump “niche” for me. It conjures up strange iconic images of bizarre hybrid animal / vegetable / mineral beings flashing before my eyes as a very old 1920s Russian song loops ad nauseum.
The perennial sentiment of yearning for times past is older than niches.
“Those were the days, my friend / We thought they’d never end / We’d sing and dance forever and a day / We’d live the life we choose / We’d fight and never lose / For we were young and sure to have our way La-la-la-da-da-da / La-la-la-da-da-da / Da-da-da-da, la-da-da-da-da”
It’s torture. In my mind I have to go back to being a little kid listening to my mom’s favorite 60s record over and over. Add waterboarding and rendition, and I’m a POW.
Just who are these creatures making up new word meanings at the expense of us with fossilized brains?
Whodunnit? I’ve got my suspicions.
Parents need to stop teaching rugrats that made up words are fun.
Sure, as a pretentious child I started using “snarlcasm” for my witticisms conveyed while sneering, and “dingfungletuckit” was the character name used to amuse my little brother on a long trip. But that was juvenile hubris.
Just please don’t be the 100th monkey to use them no matter how much you love chaos theory. I don’t want to become part of the butterfly effect. What an ironic legacy that would be.
Camus and Nietzsche encourage me to keep trying, offering to pick bugs out of my hair for eternity. Dostoevsky says I may be a louse and not to count on returning as a primate. Existing forever with the intrusion of their thoughts sounds a lot like rolling Sisyphus’s boulder, so here’s hoping I’ve earned a place in heaven!
Thanks for reading!
Join Medium for a low $5 monthly fee, a small portion of which helps me continue this dream! @pmemphis5421/membership
