This is great! I wonder if the rise of cultural tribalism has something to do with what you describe here - ie people having to pick a side on everything as an outward marker to the world of their identify. Which leads to mad shit like ‘eating a sandwich that isn’t ham and mustard is woke’.
“You’re a centrist dad if you like green quality streets” etc. Everyone is obsessed with reducing everyone down to/being a member of one camp or the other and it’s tiresome.
I could not agree with every word more. I wrote an essay a few years ago about the infantilisation of adult discourse (“Only three sleeps till holibobs!”). It drives me crazy. Along with performative tweeness and ignorance (“Like, how am I supposed to know about history?”)
I really found this essay interesting and absolutely necessary in understanding why and how this cosy complacency has proliferated in recent times. Twee is an easy persona to adapt, essentially kindly, caring and compassionate but also a bit wibbly, silly, arty and kooky, ooh biscuits! Etc.
It's so nice when someone pinpoints something that irked you, but you couldn't really explain why. A great piece. It made me think of those (mostly radio) adverts where the premise is they're recording an advert, and they have the engineer talk to the VO artist. Is that twee? I think it might be.
Love this, right in the sweet spot of my perpetual state of annoyance. It’s much easier for people to feel than to think, to joke than to process, to dismiss than to care. We’re a shallow lot
Never thought about it this way, very good! I've recently found myself getting angry when I hear people moaning about pineapple on pizza but I couldn't articulate why.
I agree, and I'm also guilty of it sometimes. I don't like the way that people use it to express their hatred of even the slightest cultural differences, as if only their experience is valid. So many bullshit arguments about whether Brits or Americans have the worst food etc.
This is great. I think the way these things proliferate across social media is really interesting. I burlesque my own sense of powerlessness; you mirror me by engaging in pseudo-debate in shared goo goo ga ga. (This in itself is a burlesque of academic discourse, baby talk replacing jargon.)
yes, absolutely, I think it’s a social media phenomenon bc the cheap effect works so well here. Thanks for reading Andy, and for the repost (and for Backlisted!)
I really loved this piece and have issues with twee from it being a big issue in important discourse, to hobby horses like why my train announcer has to make twee announcements which just make things unclear and probably very unhelpful to any non native speakers.
I wonder if one of the things is that the faux seriousness of a lot of twee stuff both (as you observe) somehow distracts from actual seriousness and also avoids being properly, earnestly silly. There's a slight contempt for real enthusiasm (which I think silliness needs) buried in it.
(Also avoids being earnest and enthusiastic. In some bizarre way people earn more cachet via the faux seriousness of "lemon is the only acceptable topping for pancakes, debate me" than "I really like lemon on pancakes" or "I ate a really delicious pancake just now, had forgotten how good they are")
I got really angry at an Otto English post the other day where he chided people for muting posts about Trump/fascism etc. He earns a living talking about this stuff so he has a vested interest but all his supporters were sycophantically agreeing with him saying that it was 'so important'.
I asked whether he had any suggestions about what we could actually DO about the situation if it was 'so important', but he went quiet. Whether it's tweeness or smugly talking a good fight using the hashtag du jour, it strikes me as displacement activity that gives us comfort and achieves little.
Brilliantly put. It’s been an irritant of mine for a while, how vacuousness of it all but found it difficult to encapsulate (save for associating a few grifters doing this on X)….but it’s become more evident to me over the last few years.
I enjoyed reading that. For me it only really bothers me when it's commodified. I thinks it's because being silly, I mean seriously silly, has a magic power to connect. I see this with my kids. The cynical attempts to co-opt this little piece of magic for profit grinds my gears.
Great essay, Irene. I'd argue twee is a kind of "narcicissm of small differences" that flourishes in late capitalism. As you say, if profound structural change seems impossible, debates about what we can influence (scones) take on outsize significance.
I agree. Gen X's embrace of irony was the beginning of the end of taking anything seriously. In fact, I complained about this online, and a responder said she was into the "new sincerity," as though sincerity is a trendy accessory. I've been worried about this fatalism for a long time.
I think this might be slightly different. I remember there being a whole discussion about 90s literature still beholden to the classic irony-heavy postmodernists, but also realising that all this ironic detachment and scoffing is a dead end. Hence writers who did both, like David Foster Wallace
i really liked this, but i think the serious discussion about unserious things is to use the form of serious discussion while using the unserious material as an indicator that you're almost mocking the idea of seriousness. an earnestly serious discussion of pancakes may not need to be twee adjacent
I think you’ve drawn it out well, and it’s something that irks me too. Also aware I am quite silly at times, and possibly can’t change that now, but I have been finding being surrounded by the twee you talk of strangely demoralising for some time. Lately in the attempts at satire of serious topics.
Great essay and this here is the nub. Social media has really suited some of this kind of chat and taken it out of the realms of a one-off pub ramble/'wit' into something with a different character that you've really nailed.
I also like it. Although, I'm definitely pro Luigi and don't need to hide behind his hotness but it's probably legally advisable to be twee about it, in that case. I also think humour is the highest defence mechanism, and so I'm only concerned with the quality of twee, not twee itself.
I just think if you’re pro-Luigi’s actions, that’s what we should be debating. Eg I personally find murder indefensible, no matter how cruel American healthcare practces are. But that’s the real point of discussion. Never considered twee as a legal stance, that’s interesting.
Similarly, I wouldn't generally justify murder, even in war, but Luigi's action seems more justifiable than most war killings and therefore probably the murky revolutionary work one should approve of if one wants societal change. The abattoir of the meat lover. But it's easier to approve hotness.
ladies and gentlemen of the jurtwee, I invite you to retire to drink hedgerow wine from little acorn cups while you consider your verdict of not guiltwee
What I was taking from the hot luigi chat was how unmourned the insurance guy was. We could be flippant about it because, quite simply, no one will even remember the name of the insurance ceo. We do conceal a lot beneath twee chatter, but I think all that was there was a lack of regard.
An excellent piece of writing, and sums up perfectly why fake, cosy corporate mateyness, like this bollocks on a pizza box, makes me want to burn everything I own.
Oh, this is a GREAT piece - the "This is not angry or subversive. It's complacent" line made me think of the signs held by middle-class types at protests/marches. You know, the "things are so bad even the introverts are here!!!" kind of thing.
I went to the first London anti-Trump march: we were bussed in from Newcastle by the Stop The War coalition and about 7 people on the coach were doing the same Guardian crossword. Twee signs are more palatable to the middle classes than, say, cancelling Amazon Prime though.
Surprised not to see any mention of that cringeworthy transformation of a food product, kitchen appliance or computer software into some kind of sentient, English-speaking being: "I'm your new Crumpford carpet sweeper! I'm strong yet easy to handle and I.." and so on.
Interesting read, and I agree. I posted here just the other day about something which I think has a relationship with this twee style, namely the supposedly cheery nagging marketing message - short thread about it here: https://bsky.app/profile/sanguinepar.bsky.social/post/3lgdg3pzzo22b
Hmm I'm not sure twee is quite the right word , but I do see this style of discourse and behaviour everywhere. Some of it in the UK at least is natural flippancy and sang froid. Some of it is folk who replaced strong opinions ok baked beans for having a opinion. ...
Lastly I think some of it is about community building , it builds solidarity and brings humanity to the discourse particularly for marginalised groups and people .
... I hope that when I use hyperbole online that the joke is at the expense of my own intolerance. I do think the post-modern idea that there are no hierarchies in the value of culture has changed discourse mixed with the drivers of engagement online...
I also think that for instance because the populists have adopted say anything quicksilver tactics, earnestly picking apart their BS is self defeating & pointless . So the best tactics in US elections was when Dems started calling DT weird . The moment you engage with his "policies" you're lost
Yes, yes, YES..and thanks for saying this 😀 At least the next time I see such a post or video I'll know I'm not the only one pulling an unimpressed face 😆
Really liked the simplicity of: "This is simply not the stuff of debates." Constantly think this about the stuff people go on about at great length (though less so on here than constantly on Twitter). It's all so boring, I find!
Possibly the 'literary' equivalent of TikTok videos - something to occupy your brain with and make you feel engaged or involved when, really, it's fluff?
I think your (nuanced) point on cultural studies is spot on too.
Excellent piece. He’s in my mind because I’ve just watched the film, but Brian Eno strikes me as the perfect example of someone who can be both silly and earnest without ever being twee.
Brain Eno is a creep, a bullshit artist, a conspiracy theorist and a Putinist, but hey at least he never says any gauche phrases that me and my friends have deemed uncool 🙄
It absolutely is. The thrust of the article is “these are not serious people” but it cherry picks to achieve that, and the underlying theme is just aesthetic snobbery.
Whereas Brian Eno is NOT a serious person. A great artist (at times) but his politics/philosophy are consistently glib and silly.
It seems to me that the thrust of it is more like “we are all prone to using tweeness to avoid engaging properly with serious topics”. Let’s just agree to disagree on Eno.
Thanks for reading it that way, that’s what I was hoping to do - understand what we’re doing here. As I try to say, most uses of twee are just a matter of taste or style - that’s just preference. But when it’s used in conjunction with serious matters, it gives us an excuse to disengage
The pancake/scone thing bugs me too. I think it’s because it gives legitimacy to the idea that subjectivity and objectivity are interchangeable (see also “my truth”) or that subjectivity somehow trumps objectivity. It’s fine when jokingly discussing scones but, somehow, it doesn’t stay there.
Comments
Ugh.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/25/trump-executive-order-sex?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky&CMP=bsky_gu
Really liked the simplicity of: "This is simply not the stuff of debates." Constantly think this about the stuff people go on about at great length (though less so on here than constantly on Twitter). It's all so boring, I find!
I think your (nuanced) point on cultural studies is spot on too.
Whereas Brian Eno is NOT a serious person. A great artist (at times) but his politics/philosophy are consistently glib and silly.