When Good Words Go Bad
October 13, 2018·2 comments·In Brief
The same four tech companies can be described identically with the same acronym, yet receive drastically different treatment depending on which publications use that term and which avoid it. Between 2017 and mid-2018, articles mentioning these companies without using the acronym remained overwhelmingly positive. Articles using the acronym flipped from positive to negative. Nothing about the companies changed. Something about the language shifted.
- The acronym didn't change, but its connotation did. Market-focused publishers began using it alongside discussions of valuation, privacy, and regulatory risk that had disappeared from broader tech coverage. Non-market articles stopped bothering with the acronym at all.
- The sentiment flip wasn't universal. It was localized to one type of publication. General tech coverage remained positive. Only when the acronym appeared did tone turn negative. This suggests the acronym itself absorbed the negativity rather than reporting an existing consensus.
- Media fatigue around one narrative (privacy concerns) coincided with intensified focus on another. Market publishers seemed to fill the gap by connecting concepts that other outlets had abandoned linking together. The acronym became the carrier of this new framework.
- This happened without explicit coordination or announced strategy. No publisher decided to make the acronym negative. The meaning simply migrated as usage patterns shifted, revealing how language can change its function without anyone announcing the change.
- The question becomes whether readers notice when the terminology itself becomes a signal. That signal may accurately reflect what's actually happening, or it may just reflect what certain gatekeepers have decided to emphasize.
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Comments
I think part of the answer is simply how Wall Street marketing and sales function. It starts with a trade / strategy / idea / trend that is working (and, if being sold to retail, has been working for a looooong time). Then, a bunch of products and strategies are thought up / created to sell the idea with, simultaneously, a marketing “hook” being created (if someone hits on a really good idea like a snappy acronym) and, then, let’s just say it, Wall Street sells the hell out of it.
They did it with BRIC (I believe many [many, many] structured products made it into retail 401k accounts tied to the BRIC acronym in some way) and FAANG. And they’ll continue to do it - and this might be the reason FA[A]NG is dying - until the trend fails and the story doesn’t sell. I’ve never seen Wall Street quit selling an idea that has a lot of takers, but it does quit when the idea / trade / strategy is stumbling and investors don’t want to hear the story anymore (especially when their portfolios are already bulging with several version of the strategy already).
Heck, like skinny suits, acronym investments might feel so “2010-2020” (or so) looking back from 2030 one day.
Yes and yes. Part of the coyote’s bit is absolutely a cycle of package and repackage, I think.
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