When I was a young girl my father reprimanded me for saying “like” too much while I told a story around my grandmother’s dinner table.
“Don’t become one of those people,” he said.
Typical. He’s a Boomer. I did not heed his request.
In college, I was a writer and editor for my school’s newspaper. During an interview with an administrator, she instructed that I leave out “like” or “um” so that I wouldn’t “make her look stupid.” I complied.
Recently, I’ve been worrying that I don’t sound intelligent enough when I talk to people. I’ve been trying to limit my use of the word “f*ck,” which is hard because I’m from Brooklyn, and I’ve been trying to stop and think before saying “like,” which is hard because it is. I’m working on it.
Language forms our culture, almost more than anything. The words we use to communicate what we think and feel is how we connect with people in mutual understanding. What we say is also indicative of how we as a society feel. Certain words, phrases, or ideas may be unacceptable, and then acceptable, or vice versa. How these words come in and out of fashion is a reflection of what we deem to be acceptable behavior. Language is constantly evolving (it’s near impossible to read the text of Beowulf without a Cliffnotes page handy), but what we consider acceptable language is also constantly evolving. Let me explain.
“Like” as a word has grown far more encompassing than its original meanings, transforming even within the last century, and continuing to evolve today. The old English “lic” meant to liken something to something else (he hit me and it felt like a kiss). “Like” was also meant to express interest (I like rock music, she likes lemonade). It has further developed into an indicator of speech (he was like, she was like). And, of course, it is used as a filler word, or as a placeholder which fills the silence while a speaker thinks.
Using “like” as a filler word is a remarkably controversial part of everyday conversation. It’s seen as a marker of limited vocabulary, laziness, or unintelligence. Everyone uses these verbal fillers, whether it’s “like,” “uh,” “um,” “you know,” and it’s often argued that we should be less critical of each other for using them. Yet, though these words are used by people of any gender and any age, “like” in particular is typically the most demonized, and the most often associated with young women.
Teen girls are often the drivers of language creation, through slang and other means, but are rarely credited for it. The use of “like” is almost unanimously credited to teenage girls, overwhelmingly in a negative light, but it first emerged in true popularity with the Beat Generation of mid 20th Century America, and the male writers who influenced it.
The youth of the 1940s and ‘50s who identified with a counterculture marked by spirituality, anticonsumerism, intellectualism, and about as many other pretentious qualities as you can imagine, were called the Beat Generation, or, Beatniks. Although used as a derogatory term, Beatniks were the cutting edge members of society, who used new slang words including “hip,” “cool,” and, “like.” Old cartoons like Cool Cat made fun of the Beatniks, mocking their slang and speech, which ultimately introduced it to a wide audience. Shaggy of “Scooby-Doo” fame did the same. Originally written as a Beatnik and then later being cast as a hippie of the ‘60s and ‘70s, Shaggy uses “like” in every episode. By adopting “like” as part of their vocabulary, and their general stereotype as being radical nonconformists, the Beatniks were seen by many Americans at the time as dangerous or unrefined, despite being popularized by writers like Keuroac and Ginsberg. It may be that this general view of Beatnik culture as undesirable, and their incorporation of “like” into everyday speech, is where the negative connotation originates from.
Though the Beatniks who brought “like” to national consciousness were known to reject American consumerism and materialism, the word eventually became associated with a group who did just the opposite. As much as the Beatniks were the counterculture of the ‘50s, the cultural orthodoxy of the ‘80s were rich, white, blonde girls who went to the mall. They were known as Valley Girls.
The Valley Girl is something of a cultural icon in herself. The idea appeared as early as 1982 in the Frank Zappa song “Valley Girl” which, in Zappa fashion, satirized the consumerism of wealthy, white, blonde, teenage girls from California (more specifically, the San Fernando valley, a wealthy suburb of Los Angeles). Aided by his daughter Moon Zappa speaking in a monologue peppered with “likes” and “totally”s, we see the transition of the language ideology to a very specific type of young woman. Though the concept can be expanded to fit with any identity as a “ditzy” girl (the raven haired Kardashian/Jenner sisters certainly fit the Valley Girl archetype), the most famous Valley Girl of all time might be Cher Horowitz.
Of all of the cult-classic ‘90s rom-com / coming-of-age movies, Clueless is by far the best. Self aware, self-effacing, and overtly satirical, Clueless centers on Cher, the epitome of girliness in the traditional sense (proto-AI closet and fuzzy pink pens and all). She is immediately constructed as a Valley Girl. Within the first five minutes of the film, Cher references her father’s pay rate of $500 an hour, her ability to drive a “loqued-out Jeep” without a license, her comically bad driving skills (likely a dig at her intelligence), and her use of the word “like” after almost every word. Clueless, notably, breaks down the whiteness model of Valley Girls, casting black actress Stacey Dash in the supporting role of Cher’s best friend Dionne, another presumably wealthy girl who also overuses the word “like.” By the fourth scene, Cher gives a surprisingly radical speech on refugee law, which is ultimately disregarded for her use of “like,” uptalk, and an anecdotal story about a garden party.
Clueless at face value is a silly teen movie. But it’s also an insight into how emotional maturity and intelligence can be overlooked by a person’s speech patterns and demeanor. Although Cher uses her own made-up slang terms and “like”s, she has an excellent vocabulary nonetheless. And, while she is undoubtedly a busybody and a gossip, one could also say this is a sign of her own highly developed interpersonal skills (she observes that her teachers cross their legs towards each other as a sign of interest). Moreso, the movie makes fun of the pseudo intellectualism of people like Josh who reads Nietzsche poolside.
And so even if the movie is a satire of the Valley Girl and teenage girlhood, it still challenges our pre-conceived notion of people based on how they speak and who they are. Somehow, we still haven’t been able to make much headway in convincing people of that.
Regardless of who uses “like” and why, and what it says about them as a person, we understand it with a negative connotation in its use as a filler word. But I’ve noticed a shift recently.
We have come to a turning point, now, in which “like” has begun to take on a new meaning: it is not quite a filler word, and not quite a word with any singular meaning. Rather, “like” now conveys a set of feelings which communicates empowerment. And we owe it to Ice Spice.
Ice Spice is something of an enigma. In late 2022, the Bronx born drill rapper came on the scene seemingly out of nowhere. Her hit song “Munch (Feelin’ U)” gave way to TikTok virality, likely because of the beat and flow, but also the absurdity of its content. Ice defines the affectionately named “munch,” as an “eater” or “someone who is obsessed with you.” Urban Dictionary defines it as someone, typically male, who enjoys partaking in cunniling*s. Society at large seems to understand a munch to be anyone who holds a devoutness, or a “simp” attitude. “Munch,” like many of Ice Spice’s songs, celebrates femininity through a provactive lens that centers on female sexuality (or more closely, female pleasure), in an empowering way. Positioning men in a relatively submissive role subverts traditional expectations of heterosexual relationships, reclaiming the sexuality that is so often weaponized against women. Beyond creating a new slang term, Ice raps with an unquestionably feminine flare in an overwhelmingly male-dominated genre. She does so in her reclaiming of feminized language; she reclaims “like.”
“Like” has become a part of Ice’s persona. In addition to the onomatopiea “grrah” sound, she uses “like” as an adlib in every single song, but, she uses it differently than how Cher did.
This use of “like” might be best explained when paired up with the question “the f*ck?”. It’s hard to define, and is mainly understood by the context in which it is asked. Urban Dictionary lists it as “an expression that has left you completely baffled” which, in a sense, conveys a meaning of surprise. Ice knows she is a baddie, and she is nonplussed by anything that might imply otherwise. Like, the f*ck?
Leave off the last two words and you’re left with, simply, “like” as a leading question, in the manner of Ice’s EP, Like…? It leaves an open ended response, a question, and moreso a challenge to fill in the blanks. In this, Ice adds a new meaning to the word, but also expands upon the mark of femininity in doing so. Because of the connotation of the word as one that is associated with a ditzy young girl, Ice challenges these expectations and gives the word a new meaning to embrace womanhood and femininity rather than to mock it.
She subverts the expectations of girlhood by using language in other ways, too. Ice plays into hyperfeminine gender expression with sparkly jewelry, miniskirts, and the color pink, and then raps about (for lack of a better turn of phrase) potty humor. A woman has got to be pretty powerful to write, record, and release a song that has the word “fart” in its title. She’s gotta be even more powerful for the song to enter the Billboard Top 100 and stay there.
It’s interesting to note that the sh*t/fart complex also builds upon a culturally understood idea of someone who is the “sh*t,” why that’s a good thing, and why it’s hilarious to call someone “not even the fart.” This again illustrates the creation of language and how we alter meaning based on shared understanding.
And in this way, Ice Spice is the culture, and it’s something that I’m not sure she’s been commended for in a real or substantive way. It’s indicative of our cultural feelings as a whole that we’re not acknowledging just how much of a role this young black woman plays in the real construction of culture and language creation.
Do I truly think Ice Spice is making a conscious decision to break the way for feminine motifs to appear in rap culture, and further, to be subverted as an act of feminism? No, I don’t. And I doubt anyone else is thinking as hard about this as I am. But that’s the best part-- her not thinking and simply being herself, using the “like” adlib because that’s what she uses in her day-to-day life, and the authenticity of that, that is how she reclaims girlhood. By being herself.
By being unashamed. By being authentically girlish.
