I’m someone who loves words. I think etymology—which is the study of words, is a severely underrated method to better  understand ourselves and the world around us. My love of words and my obsession with their potential impact has led me to keeping several archives.  One is a collection filled with phrases and words that I love like “sketch more scroll less” and “you’re not weird you’re wired” and “spark.”

To balance things out I have also recently started an archive of words I think I actually hate. The words that fill this list are so vague or intentionally misleading that I refuse to interact with them. And it was only after compiling this incomplete yet growing list that I realized what they had in common; they’re all  words used by Silicon Valley tech-bro-CEOs pilfering whatever good their venture backed companies are offering. Since these words all shared a common theme it only seemed right to give them a common name. After considering their shared ancestry, and and how stupid these words can sound and how ludicrous their meanings can be  I landed on the term “Silispeak” and I couldn’t be more excited to inform you of my discovery.

Silicon-Speak—which I have shortened to Silispeak, pronounced “silly speak.” Is a portmanteau of the words silicon, and speak and describes the sort of insidious, misleading, pharisaical language that springs forth from the technocratic hotbed of Silicon Valley. Those who speak sili hope to intentionally obfuscate plans, thoughts, and deeds through rhetoric that is either—or both— filled with so much gobbledygook the average listener cannot  understand what is actually being communicated or is intentionally misleading so as to come off as positive or at the very least non-consequential.

In the case of Silispeak, offering up a meager definition will not be enough to truly understand the new form of intentionally misleading rhetoric. So to paint the picture in a more illuminating fashion, here is my most up-to-date collection of Silispeak words:

Asynchronous. Democratization. Efficiency. Elites. Engagement. Luxe. Monetize. Optimize. Radical. Retention. Shareholder. Unprecedented. User. Workflow.

Here’s a paragraph using these nothing words in on shot: Through an asynchronous workflow the elites seek to offer unprecedented democratized access to a luxe platform that will incentivize engagement and maximize user retention. Under the surface they’ll  optimize their efficiency in monetizing attention, to radically increase shareholder value.

Even though, I am to my own knowledge the only person who has written these words in this exact order, their flow, their impact feels eerily familiar. That’s because most users of silispeak dress the same goal in the same obfuscate language. The tech-leaders of today are no different than the oligarchs they usurped, they just have a sillier way of hiding their intentions.