Slow The Fuck Down
- theoseeds
- Dec 4, 2024
- 2 min read
In Boulder, Colorado, somebody’s been putting up fake road signs that say:
“SPEED LIMIT — SLOW THE FUCK DOWN”
The Boulder government put out a statement saying that they would never actually say "fuck" in a real road sign.
That got me thinking: maybe Boulder should put up road signs that say “slow the fuck down!”
Why? Let’s say you were in a car with your friend, he was driving 130 miles per hour, he had already clipped the sides of 2 passing cars, and he just narrowly missed driving the car into a lake.
In that case, would you say to him, politely, “umm, excuse me, would you please slow down?”
Probably not. You would probably scream something at him like “SLOW THE FUCK DOWN!”
When you say a word like “fuck”, it makes your message hit harder. “Fuck” means urgency.
So maybe the town of Boulder, Colorado should figure out what its busiest, most dangerous intersections are. Then they should put road signs up there that say “SLOW THE FUCK DOWN!”
The same principle goes for marketing copy. Some people try to make their copy sound polite. They write with the goal of not offending anybody.
The problem with that is that when you use PR-speak, your message doesn’t sink in. Saying something controversial can help you stand out.
You don’t need to say “fuck”, if that’s not your brand. But you should probably say something beyond just PR-speak.
You might feel squeamish about saying it. That’s a good sign. Your messaging should be controversial enough to make you uncomfortable.
(I felt squeamish about writing this email saying “fuck” so many times. But I did it anyways.)
-Theo