Words and Phrases to Retire: OG

People need to stop calling everything “OG.” It’s one of those terms that somehow came through hip hop into mainstream culture and has come to be used so frequently and incorrectly that it’s taken on a meaning which doesn’t make any damn sense.

Originally, OG meant “old gangster” or “original gangster.” From that origin, it morphed slightly to refer to someone as an originator, who’s been around “since the beginning,” a term of respect.

The way it’s thrown around now, a lot of the time it just means old. It’s not people but things that are often referred to as OG.

I need to be very clear about something: scroll wheel iPods and first generation Xboxes are not OG. They’re just old. They’re old tech. And not even that old.

Is it easier to say OG than “original?” Or how about just “first.” Look, I saved you a syllable.

If we refer to the first Xbox as the OG Xbox, then should dusty old off-white cinderblock PC towers with chunky monitors and floppy disc readers be called “true OGs.”

No. That would be dumb.

And what are we supposed to call fountain pens, horse drawn carriages, and abaci? Surely those are hardcore OGs for real, no?

No. That’s dumb.

And the people who refer to such things as OG, many of them old and white and dumb, but some just dumb, sound all the dumber saying it. And, in doing so, they have made the term itself dumb. So dumb that at this point it would be better for the world, for the phrase itself, and for all the true OGs out there, for the phrase “OG” to be retired.

Let it go. It’s done. It’s not cool anymore. Everyone ruined it. The end. Bye.