Why Simple Greetings Are Now Identity Demands

Greetings, once a simple, harmless exchange—"How are you?", "Nice to meet you,"—has now been replaced by a shrill demand for immediate identity categorization: “What are your pronouns?”

Ah, yes, because in the age of hyper-individualism, nothing is more urgent than this ritualistic check-in to ensure that the fragile ego is acknowledged in its preferred grammatical format. And how dangerous it is, how deeply perilous, this new social convention. For in those four words, wrapped innocently in the guise of politeness, lies the height of narcissism and a dystopian future where we can no longer simply “be,” but must always “declare.”

Consider the pronoun, a humble linguistic tool, once content to sit unnoticed in the recesses of language’s machinery, facilitating our communication with all the subtlety of a cog in a grand clock. It was unremarkable, unassuming, the blue-collar worker of syntax.

But now, the pronoun has ascended to godhood. It is no longer a tool—it is the ultimate reflection of the self. One must not simply ask about a person’s day, nor dare inquire about their philosophical leanings—no, the weighty question at hand is how one wishes to be referred to, as if one’s very existence hinged on the utterance of “he,” “she,” or “they” like some mystical incantation of self-worth.

And yet, while we squabble over pronouns as if they were the Rosetta Stone of personal identity, we must ask ourselves: Have we not arrived at the logical conclusion of the hyper-individualist nightmare? For what is the obsession with pronouns but a symptom of the greater disease—a society so obsessed with the self that it must fragment itself into increasingly niche categories, each more self-referential and self-important than the last?

First, it was gender, then it was sexuality, and now it is the pronoun—a language unit so basic, so intrinsic to sentence construction, that its politicization would be laughable if it weren’t so grotesque.

And it is not without consequence. For in our obsession with self-definition, we have lost the ability to engage with the world outside our heads. Hyper-individualism, in its most grotesque form, transforms every human interaction into an opportunity for self-expression, rather than connection. We no longer ask how the other person is feeling, because that would require stepping outside of ourselves.

Instead, we demand acknowledgment of our unique linguistic identity. It is the ultimate narcissism dressed as sensitivity.

But what is more dangerous than the tyranny of pronouns? It is the subtle erosion of the collective spirit. Hyper-individualism, when fully unleashed, transforms society into a patchwork of solipsistic bubbles, each person an island unto themselves, their existence validated only by the constant recognition of their chosen grammar.

And in this state, empathy dies a slow and quiet death, replaced by an endless cycle of self-affirmation masquerading as dialogue.

Let us be honest: when the revolution of language becomes a war over pronouns, we have entered the absurd. And yet, the absurdity is a carefully crafted one, for it is the absurdity of a system that has made hyper-individualism its god.

It is dangerous, yes, because it leads not to liberation but to fragmentation.

It isolates rather than connects.

And so, while we may laugh at the question, "What are your pronouns?" it is a nervous laughter, for we know that beneath the surface lies the grim truth…

…that in elevating the pronoun to a symbol of ultimate individuality, we have forgotten how to speak to one another as human beings.

Credits: Jan Suing