It's Friday, and I have a pet peeve to bitch about. Twice in the last week I've read articles in high-quality publications that began by stating that "it is a cliché to say" such-and-such a thing. And then went on to say that very thing.
Exhibit A:
Sentence 1: "It's a cliché to talk about how easy it is to make a movie in this digital age."
Sentence 2: "The low cost of filming in digital, editing on a laptop, and wrangling some musician friends into whipping up a soundtrack ... ..."
By acknowledging the cliché, you have not purged yourself of the guilt associated with using that cliché.
Just because you have shown yourself to be aware of your own lack of originality, you have gained nothing in the eyes of your readers. There are no hipster points for self-aware use of clichés; overused phrases are not the written-word equivalent of the hideous grandpa-glasses and ill-fitting pants you kids seem to think you can get away with just because you admit they look stupid. (Exhibits B and C.) [ETA: these photos have since been removed, either for copyright infringement or for general hideousness.]
You are not reclaiming the phrase, giving it a new meaning for the twenty-first century. You cannot use a cliché ironically, because by its very repetition, the use of a cliché is itself clichéd.
In short: cliché is not the new black.
Here's a thought: whether you're writing for the New York Times or a glossy fashion magazine (both of which are guilty parties in this case), take the time to think up your own metaphors. And if something is clichéd, perhaps it's not worth writing about. There's nothing worse than reading a piece and being able to tell that the writer was stuck for a good lede and decided to trick the reader into thinking we were getting something brilliant.
We were not fooled. And we are not amused.
For further Exhibits and Appendices, please review http://www.latfh.com/.
