I was introduced to this video in an English literature class in 2009. Taylor Mali's words have resounded in my thinking from that time forward.

Rings even truer today. I love this.

What Melissa Lozada Olivia said

I love this poet.

I am forced to see this.

Whenever I catch myself saying "like" every other word, I come back to this video.

One of the single greatest pieces of spoken word of the 21st century…and I don’t care if you agree or not. Speak with conviction 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Yes!

I'm a teacher at Vandegrift High School, and today the principal told me "from now on you need to say yes ma'am and just do what you're told" - it made me think of this video that I showed to my debate students. We loved your speech.

I get very very vexed when otherwise intelligent people make the massive massive mistake of doubling many many adjectives/adverbs. It really really ticks me off so so much. Inanywayshapeorform, does it kindalike annoy anyone else, or am I basically the Lone Ranger on this one?

ew he's bri'ish

I am a corporate executive chef and I often cater meetings and listen in. People in the corporate world now, sound like frat boys and sorority girls instead of professionals. "So..." is how these people begin almost every sentence and the word "like" shows up everywhere. This dude is right.

Art.

I think this needs a another spotlight right now in 2020

Me and the English class boys are chilling on this video

It's 2020. And it's still relevant

Отлично. Прекрасно.

Transcription: In case you hadn’t realized, it has somehow become uncool to sound like you know what you’re talking about... Or believe strongly in what you’re, like, saying... Invisible question marks and paranthetical “y’knows” and “you-know-what-I’m-sayings” have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences, even when hose sentences aren’t, like, questions... Declarative sentences, so-called because they used to, like, you know, declare things to be true, as opposed to other things that are like totally, yknow, not. They’ve been infected by this tragically cool and totally hip interrogative tone. As if I’m saying “don’t think I’m a nerd just because I’ve, like, noticed this ok, I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions, I’m just, like, inviting you to join me on the bandwagon of my own uncertainty.” What has happened to our conviction? Where are the limbs out on which we once walked, Have they been, like, chopped down with the rest of the rainforest, y’know? Or do we have, like, nothing to say? Has society just become so filled with these conflicting feelings of “Nyuhuhuh”, that we’ve just gotten to the point where we’re the most aggressively inarticulate generation to come along since, like, y’know, a long time ago? So I implore you, I entreat you and I challenge you to speak with conviction. To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks the determination with which you believe it. Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper-sticker, it is not enough these days to simply question authority. You gotta speak with it too.

I thought all Californians talked like this

Real shit....

Sociology sent me here. I'm from the year 2019. meep beep beep meep

2019?

This dude is way ahead of his time, the sing song cadence of authority people speak in nowadays is absurd despite the majority who do this being young and majority never having read an actual book in their lives. I find it hard to talk to anyone thats gone through the college education system today. They are intelligent people, and they treat modern science as a religion, but what they do not realize is, intelligence doesnt matter at all, and modern science is more of a bullshit cult than religion is. Intelligence is knowing all the facts. Wisdom is gradually understanding which facts matter more than other facts(Wisdom > Intel). High Consciousness is immediate understanding of which facts matter more than other facts(HC > Wisdom). Will is the ability to act in reality on those facts that matter (Will > HC). I got in an argument wit a freshly graduated comp sci student about how I thought Minecraft creator Notch is a genius. He said, 'I hate when people say that, hes not a genius, you can go on youtube and watch people make a minecraft clone from scratch in only 10 hours of coding', I said 'So what? You can ask any decent guitarist alive today to play a Jimi Hendrix song and they'll do it with ease, but it dont make them a genius like jimi hendrix, why is that?' Its the education systems intelligence/iq based definition of 'genius', in reality a genius is someone who tweaks a field of interest to create a knew field of interest, a genius is someone who is insanely productive, a genius is someone who understands how something works immediately (high consciousness) and immediately can act on it in reality (will). Shitposter in chief(djt), Elon Musk, Notch, Scott Adams, Mike Cerno..., Kanye, Alex Gay Frog Jones, Eric Dollard, Ken Wheeler, Owen Benjamin, David Goggins, noagenda podcast guys, Leonard Spooner, Vox day, Farakhan, Kissinger etc all are wrong about things. All of them are wrong...But they also all have little nuggets of truth sprinkled throughout their videos/actions, they have SPELLS OF TRUTH sprinkled into their videos/actions. The key and fun part is finding the spell...

This has some good points but some not so good points as well

can i get a transcript of this?

Sad to see the comments where so many people didn't get it. Speaking in a declarative tone about beliefs or ideas you have is good. It doesn't mean that you will never question those beliefs, or have a closed mind, it just means that you currently believe them. It is ok to use a questioning tone when you are genuinely uncertain. The trend has been to use a questioning tone even when making declarative statements which communicated that you don't actually believe what you are saying. It would be the equivalent of putting question marks at the end of every sentence. It will communicate to people that you have no true ideas beliefs or convictions and nothing to offer. Speaking in a questioning tone constantly doesn't indicate open mindedness, but empty mindedness.

kzbin.info/www/bejne/o5aXkIStosaBpbM

There's my wake up call.

thanks Ms Conesa😊

I was so frustrated when trying to listen to a training video on Lynda.com in which the presenter had question inflections inserted throughout her spoken presentation. Casual speech, I can understand. Slang, sure. The upward inflection of questions scattered everywhere was distracting from the material.

Tom Hanks meets "The Dead Poets Society".

I think this was funny but to quote Charles Bukowski: “The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” Having authority and confidence doesn't make you right but it does create a lot of dogma, fundamentalism and conflict.

this smirking sanctimoniousness about fucking linguistics evolving is really unnecessary jmo

This is not only descriptive, but in many ways, prescriptive.

because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker is not enough thees days to simply question authority you have to speak with it to.

My teacher Kimberly Lillington says that this is 'Prescriptive!'.

fuck this sexist shit :)

speak with more conviction!

This is, like, you know poetry, .but like, funnier, you know, like cool, you know what i'm saying?

lol scrabble shirt.

Glad that this is in my English III class! Because I would have, like, never found it otherwise.

This is very true and i love this poem :)

This is like a good video, you know?

Yes.

my language arts teacher sent me here.... & i love her for it! this is funny af

Dat last line doe

And when you point it out, people look at you with an aporia in their face. They don't notice it, or even worse acknowledge it.

This is , like, you know -- really good.

Very funny, but so true. Why are we inarticulately aggressive? wow!

Mali is my favourite poet because of this poem.