How do you eat crackers? (Part One, dammit)

Shameless engagement farming and talking shit

Note: I spent way, way, way too much time figuring out the best way to clip and embed videos from various platforms into this post. While I have streamlined the process for myself in the future, it remains an imperfect system, and due to cropping, these videos may not look as good on phones as they do on a desktop.

Additionally, Substack says I don’t have enough room for this essay in a single post—which I’ve decided is misogyny, akin to airlines setting size-limits for carry-on luggage, but what are you gonna’ do—so I had to break it up into different posts, which took a shit ton of time, because you can’t just migrate videos blah blach blah. Part Two should go up tonight.

If this is a problem… well, tough titties, kitties.

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Recently I was talking with a friend—let’s call him “R”—about his ongoing, acrimonious legal battle with his former business partner, who we’ll call H, because it feels like a very bitchass letter. The hypothetical contract to dissolve their business and divide assets had ping-ponged between their lawyers in an endless “negotiation process,” and H’s lawyer was dragging ass whenever possible. R’s lawyer would send H’s lawyer a draft to be reviewed, edited, and yes, negotiated. Then there would be a week of radio silence from H’s lawyer, then he would send back an absurd “counter-proposal” just loaded with outlandish demands that diverged wildly from the handshake deal the two parties had agreed upon before the lawyers ever got involved.

Now, I know from more than one experience that these things take time. There are always negotiations, and the back and forth always feels like it’s taking too long; it should feel like it’s taking too long. You want everything gone over with a fine-toothed comb, and if you’re not getting at least a little impatient, one of you has a bad lawyer. And just to be realistic, both the delays and the unjustifiable demands are pretty standard strategy for someone who doesn’t really give a shit about retaining goodwill: exhaust and exasperate your opponent until they just get so sick of dealing with it that they accept a raw deal, just to get it over with. So that’s shitty, but no great shock. But considering R’s very modest terms and given his extremely clear-cut legal rights regarding his role within/ownership of the business, this was egregious. Total bullshit, even by “hardball” lawyer standards.

Meanwhile, R still rented office space on the same floor as H for a while, so they would still run into each other now and then, and without fail, H would would act out an appalling performance of chummy benevolence. He would assure R that it was the lawyer who sent out that draft, and that H had no idea. H was going to make sure this got straightened out. He valued their “friendship,” and this was all just a biiiiiiig misunderstanding.

After many months of this, R began to hate very trivial things about H, considering the cruciality of their actual dispute in play. R hated H’s laugh. He hated when he made references to contemporary pop cultural to get a laugh. He hated the way he proposed to his fiancee. He hated the way he arranged furniture. He hated the way he did his taxes. Even after totally ceasing contact, R perseverated on H’s minor but annoying idiosyncrasies, the way you inevitably do when you get jerked around by someone for long enough, unless you’re incredibly repressed or a doormat. Or a pussy.

Imagine if hatred had to be contained within a jar, meaning there was a finite amount of space for your hateful feelings before the jar overflowed into outright malevolence. My generally merciful and sympathetic friend’s hatred jar did not runneth over, but it was absolutely, positively full. The metaphorical substrate of this animosity would obviously be ranked by size and weight.

If the infuriating legal “negotiations” were the rocks in R’s jar, the betrayal was pebbles. The disingenuous friendliness was sand, and every tiny fucking habit, every little mannerism—even when it affected him in no way, even when he only heard about it second hand—was water. Liquid loathing flooded the tiniest of crevices: not one… single… bubble.

R asked me if I knew of a phrase, "bitch eating crackers." It sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it. When he explained, I remembered that it originated from a someecards meme—what synchronicity! I had mentioned someecards earlier that week in a Substack note, referencing a simpler, more earnest, and generally lamer iteration of irreverent internet humor, back when PG-13 office cut-ups ruled the posts.

In fact, I even seem to recall “bitch eating crackers” enjoying a brief stint as normie-gay slang, which is not exactly an exclusive or prestigious club, but it’s a nice consideration. Like a Daytime Emmy.

Mom-friendly water cooler “snark” aside, “bitch eating crackers” is a pretty good contribution to the lexicon. It captures a recognizable feeling—something so very petty, and so very human. And if you think you’re “above” fixating on the arbitrary behaviors or idiosyncrasies of someone trying to screw you, you’re really missing out. We’re all entitled to a little pettiness now and then. You just have to remember how to recognize it for what it is.

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A few days after this exchange with my friend, someone from the writers’ listserv I’m on sent out an irritated email. The subject line was one word: "Right?"

He had noticed a contemporary vocal tic, rampant among college professors, intellectuals, professional progressives, politicians, consultants, and general liberal PMC types. They were all quietly, but liberally, peppering their lectures, talks, panels, speeches, etc. with the word "right?"

He compared it to other “filler words,” such as “like,” and “um,” as in: “Why is she writing this? Isn’t she like, busy?” He expounded on his own use of “like” as a wee lad:

I was never so concerned about it, as “like,” if anything, signifies a certain self-conscious inexactitude in thought. It indicates self-doubt, which seems like a fine thing for verbal expression and something you try mostly to eliminate in the written form. A desire to root out “like” is also one to erase the appearance of uncertainty and possibly stupidity, but given how confidently and eloquently stupid ideas are conveyed today, I do wonder if “like” at least serves some protective function from the insipid, fast-talking internet cleverness that poses as intelligence.

It’s here that I must inform, or—god help you—remind the reader of the “like” debates, which have reared their dumb bitch heads every few years, raging off and on since at least 2008, but probably before then. A summary:

Saying “like!'“ Is it good?!? Is it bad?!?

“Are you accusing me of subconsciously dumbing down my language so as not to appear “too confident?!?”

“Are you accusing me of directing contemptuous internalized sexism towards feminine linguistic patterns?!?”

“Are you calling me a bad feminist?!?”

“Are you calling me a bad feminist?!?”

When trying to research this “debate,” I still found new prissy girlboss “tutorial” videos about how to eliminate “like” from your vocabulary, and smug, defensive articles with titles like “WHY WOMEN WHO SAY ‘LIKE’ AND ‘YOU KNOW’ ARE GENIUSES AND TO SUGGEST OTHERWISE IS MISOGYNY.”

Like, it’s simply not that serious. Remember that professor who got fired for saying what is essentially the Chinese word for “um,” which unfortunately sort of sounds like a certain racial slur? You know, the really bad one? (Though, it is with a “soft a.”)

That’s how stupid and paranoid the “like” debates are. And I’ll concede to my colleague that “right?” is a different vibe. He continued:

“Right,” by contrast, indicates some shared consensus. It’s intrusive, asking one’s audience not for critical assessment (the attitude that academics ostensibly wish to cultivate in their students) but for on-the-spot agreement. In this sense, it’s immediately contradictory and annoying, but as with all everyday compulsions, it seems to bely some underlying repression. What is the latent content of the professional-class liberal’s manifest dream consensus?

Ok, well, that does sound like something they would do.

But at first I didn’t know what he was talking about, so the list provided some examples that removed any and all doubt that, yes, “right?” is a phenomenon, and it’s a “professional class liberal” one. He called it a “compulsion,” but given the word’s pathological connotation, I would use the word “tic” or “habit.” They’re not pulling out their eyebrows, one hair at a time, or checking the door 50 times a day, just to make absolutely sure it’s locked. 50 is my record. I could have stopped at 36, but I don’t like fours, and the number has to be divisible by five, or my dogs will get cancer, or my boyfriend will get in a car wreck, etc.

That is a compulsion.

“Right?” is just annoying. In fact, I apologize in advance for pointing it out. I probably wouldn’t have ever noticed it without being shown.

Here’s some examples from a 2023 Zoom lecture and Q and A with Thea Riofrancos—”Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College, and a member of the Climate and Community Project” and author of various books and articles on climate change—hosted by the Havens Wright Center for Social Justice.

A little “right?” at the end. Also, a lot of “likes,” but I must repeat, we do not talk about “like” in this house.

And another.

This one is kind of interesting. Riofrancos says “right” during an audience member’s question (nine second mark), but without the interrogative tone. Still, I think that counts as a variation on the core concept. Then there’s a looooooong “thank you for your service,” with a “right?” around the 20 second mark, and another at the 38.

Interesting! Kind of!

At first, I considered the possibility that “right?” might just be a millennial thing, but people posted more examples to the contrary. This one only has two, but I wanted to keep them “in context,” or what passes for it these days.

Theorization is purposeful, indeed.

And someone mentioned a dude who does it, so it’s not a chick thing either.

So, I’m convinced. Although it’s not exclusive to academics—Jen Psaki and Kamala Harris were prime examples—“Right?” is pretty endemic to a particularly type of academically and/or professionally oriented class of educated liberals.

And yeah, it does feel kind of patronizing, and maybe a little pushy…

It reminded me of the parents who ignore their screaming feral kids in nice restaurants, right up until the point they break something, or hit somebody, or knock a strangers drink or food on the floor or a lap.

Maybe I’m off, but it does feel a little like “gentle parenting.” Or as we used to call it “raising children to be shitty little tyrants.”

Or maybe like that thing where you give a three year-old the illusion of having a choice While giving them all the reasons you’d prefer them to make one or the other.

Maybe if it’s academic and origin, this is sort of an extension of the infantilization of students and academia in general?

“OK, so we know when we get there we’re not gonna have time to go to the bathroom, right? So I know you say you don’t have to go now, but we know that it’s gonna be a long time before we get to the playground right? And we have to remember that from last time, right?”

But some on the thread were really looking for something—subtext, historical origin, subconscious communiqués, political, social or cultural context, psychological insight, etc. It was a classic exercise in PMC anthropology; this was something to decrypt. They were looking for meaning.

And like… it’s not really that deep? I had to add.

For the record, I also think most filler words are devoid of subtext or secret meaning.

They’re just a social check in to let people know you’re having a conversation and not giving them a speech or lecture. The audio equivalent of eye contact or informal hand gestures

But when I thought about “right?” later, I realized we weren’t even really talking about a filler word.

I believe “filler words,” i.e. “um” and “like” (and that Chinese one), are basically onomatopoeia: they are used subconsciously and instinctively to prevent dead air, thereby maintaining the flow of speech and conversation.

But“right?” is actually conversational. If you’re a linguist and you know the real name for this, don’t tell me unless you can do it without being a herb. I’m going to call “right?” an affirmational exchange.

Most importantly, I realized that pretty much everyone uses affirmational exchanges, not just the liberal PMC.

So let’s take a listen to a few, shall we?

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1. “KnowWhatImSayin'“

One of the more common working class “right?”’s in America, though I would be remiss not to point out that Plies himself had a nice middle class upbringing. But the fact that a lot of people would be surprised by that only proves the point: “know what I’m saying” is not only a working class-ism, it is often a lumpen-ism.

See J-Roc, from Trailer Park Boys, whose entourage actually has to reel him in sometimes.

MORE TO COME IN PART TWO…