UnnecessaryPlug

A performative act or statement where an individual emphasizes or reminds others of their alignment with a societal privilege or metric of superiority, irrespective of relevance to the situation. Unlike virtue signaling, which seeks to showcase moral or ethical alignment, an UnnecessaryPlug reinforces traditional privilege hierarchies or classic idioms of status worship without any explicit moral intent. It refers to a form of signaling where someone emphasizes an aspect of their identity or status that aligns with societal privilege or power structures, but in a way that is irrelevant to the context or conversation. This signal doesn't aim to highlight virtue but instead serves as a reminder of dominance or superiority within a specific metric upheld by traditional privilege-worship idioms. A kind of virtue signal but without necessarily pointing to virtue, rather a reminder of you are winning on one metric of classic privilege worship idioms within the gorgonmatrix. For example, we play the race card when it is not needed or remind people that you are tall: Inserting a comment about one's height in a conversation unrelated to physical attributes, as a reminder of dominance in a metric often valorized by societal norms. For gorgonwars, Zapp Brannigan would be the ultimate archetype of this idea of UnnecessaryPlug.

Host: "Welcome to the show! We're so excited to talk about your new movie. It’s been getting fantastic reviews."

Actor: "Thanks, yeah, it’s been an incredible journey. You know, being 6'4", you really get a different perspective on the world, and I think that perspective helped me bring depth to my character."

Host: "...Right, but your role is about a hacker trapped in a virtual world. How did your height come into play there?"

Actor: "It was an UnnecessaryPlug, Jimmy"

by cyberphunkisms December 28, 2024