Sifting Friends from Enemies

This is all the fault of Fox.  While most TV shows post to the internet within a day of airing, Fox waits an entire week.  And Cookie simply cannot wait a week.  And so it was that I was staring at the edges of the laptop screen while Cookie-of-the-IT-Degree flipped rapid-fire through websites trying to find a passable download.

And I saw an ad.

“In Survivor World, will you have friends or frenemies?”

First, I refuse to google Survivor World even to confirm that it is an online game or some such nonsense.  Second, I had two amusing thoughts.  Amusing to me, that is.

Why the current obsession with word melding?  In an era where most teenagers have miniscule vocabularies to begin with, wouldn’t it be better to simply learn some real words?  To bring back evocative, exciting terminology?  Never, when we could have a smashing good time calling couples Brangelina and Bennifer.  I secretly think that when people stop using specific words with specific connotations, their thinking may also lack nuance and sophistication.  But I won’t say that, lest I make some frenemies.

Which brings me to thought #2: is it sad that the two options here are Friend or Frenemy (read: tricksy person who feigns kindness with intent to back-stab)?  Where are the straight-up bad guys?  It would be refreshing if a person who hated me could say so without compunction.  But I’m afraid the social implication of the Survivor World ad is probably spot-on.  We’re a duplicitous people.