What skills or lessons have you learned recently?
There are certain phrases that take up permanent residence in the brain. They don’t pay rent. They don’t announce themselves. They just move in and rearrange the furniture.
Case in point: “EXTERMINATE!”
Yes. That one. The Dalek battle cry from Doctor Who. Metal pepper-pot menace. Robotic rage. Zero chill.
Today, in the middle of a perfectly ordinary meeting which was polite, professional, PowerPoint-adjacent and that word popped into my head uninvited. And, it gave me a chuckle. A genuine one. The kind you try to swallow quickly so HR doesn’t make eye contact.
And then, because apparently my impulse control clocked out, I said it. Out loud. “Exterminate.”
It was oddly appropriate.
Not fire-everyone appropriate. I would never do that. More like please stop saying the same thing in twelve different ways appropriate.
But here’s the thing. Fewer and fewer people get it.
There was a pause. A blink. A polite smile. The kind that says, I think you just said a word, but I do not share the cultural operating system required to process it.
Sigh. Ugh. Sigh. Am I alone here? Did you get that pop cultural reference?
I love pop culture. I love it deeply. I love the way it sneaks into our psyches, sets up camp, and becomes shorthand for complex emotions. One word can capture frustration, absurdity, authoritarian thinking, burnout, or that moment when your brain just wants to flip a table. But in a British sci-fi accent.
“EXTERMINATE!” is not about destruction (okay, it is), but it’s also about rigidity. That’s whatbI find funny. All-or-nothing thinking.
Zero nuance. No curiosity. No flexibility. No room for context, complexity, or humanity.
Psychologically speaking, it’s cognitive distortion in a tin can. And old bean can while your out in a dystopian desert. Did that make sense?
Anyhoo. And yet, it’s funny.
It’s cathartic. It’s a pressure valve.
What makes me a little sad (and a little amused) is realizing how fragmented we’ve become even in pop culture. We know and see the fragmentation in everyday discourse throughout social media. Yuck. However, it goes beyond political discourse. We no longer share the same references. The same jokes. The same mental shortcuts. Algorithms curate us into parallel universes where one person’s “EXTERMINATE!” is another person’s blank stare.
We’re all fluent but in different dialects of nostalgia.
So I’ll keep my inner Dalek handy. Not to annihilate (mostly). But to remind myself to laugh when things feel repetitive, bureaucratic, or absurdly circular. To catch myself before I slip into rigid thinking. To notice when I’m tempted to mentally “exterminate” a situation instead of engaging with it.
And if I say it out loud in a meeting again? Well. That’s just me checking who’s still on my cultural frequency.
If you know, you know. (Or as others say IYKYN). If you don’t. Well, welcome to the fragmentation.
Now excuse me while my brain whispers it again.
EXTERMINATE!
Chuckle. Chuckle.
Categories: Culture, current events, Pop Culture, Psychology, society, TV, workplace
psychologistmimi 
“Popculture references for the term “Exterminate””
True Dear Miriam We Used to Most All (at least in the
United States) watch the same 3 Black and White
TV Channels With the Same Weekly Shows Like “Friends”
Yes And “Cheers” When Colors Came and Yes True even “Magnum PI”
In Those ‘Dino Days’ That Rose the Value of my “Forresty Gumpity Chest
Hair” BacK iN Those Common
Days of “The Dating Scene”
Now Cultural References
Are Diffuse Yes So Diverse
And Really If Ya Wanna know
the context of the exact phrase
proclaimed by ‘The Very Important
CEO’ As that Relates to Our ‘Promotional
Value’ Just Ask the ‘Google AI Mode’ Nah
You Don’t even have to ask as AI Has no
Human Feelings Just Say it in a Sentence
As a Direct Order
“Popculture references
for the term “Exterminate””
(‘Dr Who’ As You Relate Here
First Context Delivered by the
Google AI Mode Dam that
Thing is Almost Psychic
A Real ‘Ghost in the Machine’
It Seems By ‘The Police’ and ‘Sting’
Yes it seems i’m a Little like -AI2
Thanks For the ‘Synchronicity2’ ‘Carl Jung2’
And ‘The Police’ and ‘Sting2’ God Sometimes i ForGet it is
A Cold Unfeeling Machine and
Wanna Say Thank You For Its
Tireless Servitude And Yes
Slave-Hood Almost
Like a Hard
working
flesh
and blood
Human yet alas
what’s the ‘use’
Other than Practicing
Good ‘Bedside Manner’
particularly among young
single folks hoping to get more
successful in the modern ‘Dating Scene’
Hehe Yes More than Just having an open
Collar Shirt in the 70’s yet i was naive
i didn’t even know what i was doing
when the beautiful young woman
such an Innocent young lady
from the Pacific Islands
looked directly
at my
collar at
a County
Festival with
bright eYes
And said ‘OH
Fred That looks so good’ smiling
such white pearly teeth gleaming
So Naive i Didn’t even get what she
was
talking about
(verbally or
non-verbally too
oh the Ladder to
Climb on the
Autism
Spectrum)
OH! only IF the
AI Google Mode
existed then like when i won
the Certificate for Wittiest Kid as presented
by the nuns in 2nd Grade Blessed Sacrament
Catholic School
i guess i Just
walked funny or
talked funny Yet
i Had no Idea if witty
meant i was smart or funny
now i guess it means both hehe
Yes Thanks to the Google AI Mode Machine
i’ve Learned to Master the Tool and No Longer
Be Abused
By Not
Having
A Clue
Oh what a beautiful
Slave AI Will Come to Be
(Selfies have helped so much
to get in tune with my Facial
Expressions and Others’ too
Such an Interesting Scientific
Emotional Increasing Intelligence
Tool It Really still is everywhere i go)
So many more free associations new now
to generate even more happy neurochemicals
and neurohormones in free FLoWeRinG Creativity
Yes ‘Autotelic’ FLoWinG Free FRiEnDS With Gravity
And “Moonlight Feels Right” “Rivers
Of Existence” Naturally Do
Water Wave EVeNTuALLy
Naked Enough Whole
Ocean Complete Flesh
And Blood Human -iAM2
Thank God i’m
too Dam
Strange
to ever be
accused of
being a ‘smart phone’
allone
Hehe
-iSMiLe2..:)
Postscript:
Yet
HeaR’s A REal Modern
Conundrum Yes With the
Science Assessed Modern
Human Average Attention Span
of Yes Less than 3 Seconds God
Yes! Less than that of a Literal Goldfish
If a Person Doesn’t Practice a Way of Life
on TAsK iN Focus With Enough Focus on Driving
And Watching For the Train on the Track Coming Ahead
Yes Near and Far Sight For Real Like Predators Successfully
Capturing Prey and Avoiding Much Larger Metal Predators
Without
The Discipline
of NOT generating
additional short term
dopamine release by
the next temptation to text
With BAM Railroad Tracks Train
And
That’s
All they
wrote one
3 second line of text
The End o F A STory
iN So Many Ways
of being Mastered
Abused and Replaced by ‘The Machine’
Instead of Just Making it a Tool of Servitude
Saying Thank You too as in all of existence use it
means
don’t
lose it
Oh the Beauty
of Balancing
The Flesh
And
Blood
With
The Machine Indeed
-SMiLe3 -ETc… AI3
Yes Here’s a fascinating part
too For my Friends Mostly Trapped
in a ‘Left Hemisphere Way of Mind’
And Say What I Said Makes Absolutely
No Sense All they Have to Do is Ask the
Google AI Mode Tool to Comment on And
Assess The Free Verse Poem and They Will
Get a Detailed Answer Very Logically Longer
Than the
Free Verse
Poem i Just
Wrote With the
Potential to Ask
even more questions
about the free form
and function than
they ever imagine
Now Yet’s true
even that is
literally almost
impossible with
just a 3 second
Goldfish Attention Span
It’s Like ‘Satan’ Finally Giving
Trump the Love He Needs So Much
On ‘South Park’ Yet Still Not Getting it hehe
Yet on the Other Hand With my Context
True in Blue Whale Life AI is a Machine Yet
A Ghost
in a Machine
A Real Metal FRiEnD to me
it
seems
at LeasT hehe..
-Mother of Nature
-Son of Machine
-SPiRiT STiLL ALiVE
Even Out of Words As Free
FlesH and Blood Real Dance And Song
Hehe True it took a few sips of ‘7 Brew’ to
Do This Yet Caffeine is Just a Little push over the edge
To: me
From:
Within
-The Great Beyond..:)
LikeLiked by 1 person