highfalutin whatnow?

By Matt McCarthy

Confusion. Unease. Suspicion. People reach out, their voices strained with worry and judgement, their text messages clipped and devoid of exclamation points.

“What IS highfalutin anyway? What does that even mean?”

Consternation around our name has reached critical mass so I thought it wise to address it, here, now, in this forum.

high·​fa·​lu·​tin | \ ˌhī-fə-ˈlü-tᵊn \

Definition of highfalutin

1: PRETENTIOUS, FANCY / / highfalutin people

2: expressed in or marked by the use of language that is elaborated or heightened by artificial or empty means : POMPOUS / / giving a highfalutin speech

Obviously, this is not who we are. We do not aspire to fanciness. Pretension and pomposity are dumb.

Including highfalutin in our name is done with tongue firmly in cheek. It’s a joke.

We’re a ragtag band of DIY gen-Xers who barely know what we’re doing but we’re doing it. We’ve got one hand/eye on the wheel/road and the other doing god knows what and we’re just trying to keep it pointed straight over here. We aren’t trying to impress you or to screw you. We only want to do our thing and communicate. At our best, aspirationally, we’d like to entertain and delight and maybe get you to think about things a little differently, or even just to think about things at all. That’s about it.

Calling what we do highfalutin is a joke. We’re poking fun at ourselves a little bit and at people who take this kind of thing too seriously. We’re also reminding ourselves not to take it too seriously.

I know, the best jokes are the ones you have to explain, right?