How I hate the word "vibrant"

Doesn't vibrant refer to color? Would you describe silver metal tuning fork as vibrant?

Apparently, when people of different ethnic backgrounds or sexual orientations exist in close residential proximity to each other, they begin to vibrate.

Well, that is true for my Anglo self and my Hispanic wife, so maybe you are onto something.

Don't forget the awful use of the word Vibrant meaning, "as un-traditional liturgy as possible."

Nice:) You should write a book like Elements of Style or Eats, Shoots and Leaves, but with more cheek. You're great with language, and it'd be a best-seller. At least I'd buy a copy...

Not long ago, I, who live in a neighborhood some might describe as 'proud' working class’ (vs. un-proud and low), had the true privilege of taking a lovely young mother/wife/bright and 'vibrant' woman out on the town for a night to remember.

Sparing no thought nor expense, I began the evening by taking her for drinks in northern Oak Cliff on the West Dallas border at a bar in a newly renovated hotel that only yesterday was condemned as being in a lost-in-time part of the city recently reinvented.

I then took her on to central north Oak Cliff to the Bishop Arts District to a wonderful meal in a remarkable neighborhood gulf cuisine Mexican seafood restaurant and then, last but not least, south of downtown to a jazz club bar on South Lamar, where we were probably the sole white guests at the bar listening to the terrific funk/acid jazz trio in that African-American owned establishment.

I was proud to present that evening south of I-30 and south of the Trinity River in what has (unfortunately) come to be called ‘southern Dallas’ to this beautiful and (yes) 'vibrant' woman. And to share with her the alternative venues my city offers those who define ‘vibrant’ as an alternative (and yes diverse) concept on a bad night, the antithesis of homogenized on a good one. Neither being bad, nor either being ‘the’ right world for those embracing a good time in a fine city on a lovely night in 2008. Rather, I merely sought to offer optional memories of a good time in good places with the best of intentions.

In my heart and mind, this luminous friend saw that evening and my efforts as an escapade through ‘vibrant’ doors no better nor worse but clearly different from the norm she might otherwise would have thought to be defined as her ‘turf’. I hope she was not disappointed, nor her husband unaware of my efforts’ earnestness, and my belief in that which I so proudly shared in other (not 'the' but other) vibrant parts of my native city.

In the same category where Rod puts "vibrant" and Brett puts "thriving" and "live-work-play" I would put "smart" -- which almost always means that someone or something is not.

Rawlins is talking about the date he went on with my wife. But Rawlins, I'm not criticizing that part of the city here; I'm criticizing the journalistic deployment of meaningless jargon. Usually when I see "vibrant" attached to a description of a place, I read it as signaling not a meaningful description of a geographic locale, but rather the writer's emotions about that locale.

Do Crunchy Cons actually "crunch" when they meet? Can you hear the crunch of Birkenstoks when people meet over organic tea to discuss conservative social policy?

I also like your final observation on the way that, in such descriptions, "proud" = "poorer than me." (Kind of a running joke with some friends of mine)

UPDATE:. Whaddaya know, I just checked the Stuff White People Like website to see if "vibrant" turned up, and it does, in the comments under the Gentrification entry. Excerpt:

White people like to live in these neighborhoods because they get credibility and respect from other white people for living in a more “authentic” neighborhood where they are exposed to “true culture” every day. So whenever their friends mention their home in the suburbs or richer urban area, these people can say “oh, it’s so boring out there, so fake. In our neighborhood, things are just more real.” This superiority is important as white people jockey for position in their circle of friends.

Precisely. White people who use the word "vibrant" to describe a piece of real estate on which ethnic or tattooed people live really want to make a statement about their own broad-mindedness or social progressivism (versus the supposed fear and closed-mindedness of suburban white people). This is why I'm so fascinated by the word. It's an elite white-people social marker, a sign that one-upsmanship is being attempted.

So is it just the word? Because my experience is that oftentimes those neighborhoods *are* more fun to visit.

bd_rucker: The thing about vibrant neighborhoods is that once they are annointed as such, they become ripe for gentrification. Real estate prices go up, thus driving out the very people who made it 'vibrant' in the first place.

That may be true some places, but not so much in St. Louis. Gentrification has been positive in a lot of neighborhoods by making them actually safe enough for visiting, dining, shopping, etc. Building lofts etc. makes it possible for (childless, admittedly) people to live there close to work, close to shops and restaurants, public transit, etc. I wish there was a way to "gentrify" to the point that people with children could live there as well.

That may be true some places, but not so much in St. Louis. Gentrification has been positive in a lot of neighborhoods by making them actually safe enough for visiting, dining, shopping, etc.

Safe for whom? I never had a problem visiting, shopping, eating out in certain not-so-safe, NYC neighborhoods when they were all-black, maybe because I'm black and folks thought I belonged there. But yes you are right, had I been white and obviously middle-class looking I might have thought twice.

I agree with your last point, though, that it'd be great if nabes could gentrify without the original people being driven out by rising rents and such. But that's the marketplace I guess.

Might be hypocritical of me to complain though because my husband and I sold our apt. recently in a Brooklyn neighborhood that is quickly gentrifying, and sold it for more ten times what we'd bought it for in the early 90s. Thus enabling us to move upstate and buy our little farmhouse and plot in the country. Hopefully we are contributing to the vibrancy of our new neighborhood.

Ooh, snap!

Coming next, a deconstruction of "charming."

Here's some more stuff white people like--- just about anything talked about on this blog! :^)

The neighborhood I live in has two supermarkets within a five-minute walk, terrific restaurants in virtually every price range, six or seven pubs, two comedy clubs (including the Second City complex), a movie theater, and a lot, lot more.

Every weekend during the summer and early fall, there are street festivals all over town where you can see national music acts for $5 or often for free. I saw BB King in early June...free. I'm seeing Alejandro Escovedo on Friday...free. I took my daughter to see her favorite band (Shearwater) at an all-ages show in an old mansion last week...$12 each.

That's what vibrant means.

If you LIKE being bored, don't let me stop you. But trying to turn it into some racist/bigoted diatribe over the use of a common English word is just, um, SILLY.

Steve Sailer's blog, Sunday, June 29...Rod, he was ripping it a day ahead of you...of course, you were on vacation.

Here's an editorial from the Dallas Morning News that I swear I'm not making up:

Editorial: So much vibrancy to build on

The trick is getting diverse groups to building [sic] a community together...

Ouch.

Sailer also hit this back in 2005: http://isteve.blogspot.com/2005/05/vibrant-cant

Have you noticed that whenever some writer uses the words "vibrant" or "vibrancy" he is almost guaranteed to be yanking your chain? It's just like how for so many years the phrase "in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate" always preceded utter bilge.