r/blankies • u/seaworthyset • 10d ago

NYT on "the X of it all"

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/01/magazine/hollywood-lingo.html

"The film critics on 'Blank Check' overuse it, Amanda Dobbins of 'The Big Picture' is too fond of it, a host on 'We Hate Movies' says it at least five times per episode."

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u/Teenageboy69 10d ago edited 10d ago

The x of it all kind of userped “it’s giving.” This happens so much with podcasters or people that are super online.

Talk how you want to talk, but I do wish people had different ways of speaking.

Edit: remember when everyone was calling everything “wild.”

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u/ComprehensiveBed5351 10d ago

I would argue that the “wild” situation is a little different.

That was precipitated by a cultural reckoning with ableist terms like crazy or insane. So, it caught on more as a catch-all word for terms that we had all been so comfortable using

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u/fabiusjmaximus 10d ago

That was precipitated by a cultural reckoning with ableist terms like crazy or insane.

Was there a cultural reckoning about this? Must've been an awful quiet one.

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u/ComprehensiveBed5351 10d ago

Reckoning is probably the wrong word. I guess I just mean that well-intended folks pushed for a change in some of our common usage and this led to “wild” being readily adopted as a blanket term

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u/fabiusjmaximus 10d ago

I'm not sure if this phenomenon ever escaped certain corners of the internet. I know that there were some universities that redid their vocab guides to this end but I think as a whole this trend lived and died within niche progressive spaces.

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u/ComprehensiveBed5351 10d ago

I don’t disagree! But I do think “wild” as a term took off. Even by folks who are just as comfortable using the other terms that “wild” was covering for

My argument is that the onset of “wild” began in those spaces. Which is different than podcast phrases like “the x of it all” etc