Ranking Marketing Buzzwords by How Much I Want to Yeet Them Into the Sun

by Ken Hollow, marketing burnout survivor and professional buzzword assassin

Look, I love marketing as much as the next exhausted digital marketer who can’t tell if they’re doing content strategy or performing an interpretive dance for the algorithm. But there’s one thing that’s been chipping away at my sanity since approximately my third Zoom call of 2020: marketing buzzwords.

They’re everywhere. They’re relentless. They sneak into pitch decks, blog posts, and worst of all, casual conversation—turning otherwise intelligent professionals into jargon-spewing NPCs.

So today, in the spirit of cleansing my professional aura (and also because my SEO plugin insists I post daily), I present:

The Definitive Ranking of Marketing Buzzwords by How Much I Want to Yeet Them Into the Sun

1️⃣0️⃣ “Value-Add”

The phrase: “This initiative really brings a value-add to our customers.”

Translation: “We’re charging extra for something that should have been included in the first place.”

Yeet Factor: 🌡️ Mild annoyance. This one gets launched gently into low Earth orbit. Maybe it bumps into some old satellites.

9️⃣ “Content is King”

No it’s not. Not anymore.

Content is now just a tired old monarch, propped up Weekend at Bernie’s style, while algorithms sort through piles of AI-generated sludge looking for the next clickbait headline.

Yeet Factor: ☀️ Direct toss into the corona of the sun. And let’s send all the gurus who still preach this mantra along with it.

8️⃣ “Synergy”

We all know synergy is just corporate-speak for “work together and pretend to like it.”

It’s also what people say when they have no actual plan but want to sound like they do.

Yeet Factor: 🔥 Spinning it like a frisbee straight into a solar flare.

7️⃣ “Growth Hacking”

Ah yes, “growth hacking“—the art of making up random experiments and praying one of them goes viral while calling it strategy.

It sounds edgy. It sounds cool. It mostly sounds like a fast track to burnout.

Yeet Factor: 🚀 High-velocity launch straight into a sunspot.

6️⃣ “Authenticity”

In a perfect world, this would be a nice word. But marketing ruined it. “Authenticity” now means painstakingly curating the illusion of being relatable and spontaneous, complete with filtered latte art and hashtags like #Grateful.

Yeet Factor: 🔥🔥🔥 Triple yeet into the hottest part of the sun.

5️⃣ “Disruptor”

If I hear one more startup call itself a “disruptor” while reinventing the subscription box model for artisanal bottled water, I will disrupt my own career by screaming into the nearest potted plant.

Yeet Factor: 💥 Shot out of a solar cannon directly into the sun’s core.

4️⃣ “Pivot”

Ah, the classic excuse for changing your entire business model because your original plan tanked. “We’re pivoting.” Sure. Into irrelevance.

Yeet Factor: 🎯 Precision yeet into a sunspot, with extra spin for flair.

3️⃣ “Brand Storytelling”

Look, I’m a writer. I love stories. But when marketing people say “brand storytelling,” they usually mean “let’s invent a fake narrative about how this granola bar changed the founder’s life.”

Yeet Factor: 🔥🔥🔥🔥 Four-alarm yeet into a solar prominence.

2️⃣ “Elevate”

“We’re going to elevate the conversation.”

This is just a fancy way of saying “talk about the same thing but with mood lighting and maybe an infographic.”

Yeet Factor: 🌞 Catapulted with maximum force into the sun’s blazing corona.

1️⃣ “Thought Leader”

The crown jewel of marketing nonsense.

“Thought leader” is what people call themselves when they have no actual leadership experience but once gave a LinkedIn talk about “building your personal brand while working from an AirBnB in Tulum.”

And yes, I’ve called myself a thought leader before. I regret it deeply.

Yeet Factor: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 Atomic yeet. Straight to the center of the sun. Do not pass go. Do not collect followers.

Honorable Mentions (Too Petty to Rank But Still Infuriating):

• “Low-hanging fruit” 🍌
• “Bandwidth” (as in “I don’t have the bandwidth”)
• “Circle back” (never circles back)
• “Leverage synergies” (double buzzword bonus!)

Final Thoughts (Before I Synergistically Pivot Into a Burnout Nap)

Buzzwords aren’t inherently evil. They’re shortcuts, placeholders, little linguistic crutches we lean on when we don’t know what else to say—or when we’re too tired to say it clearly.

But good grief, can we retire a few of them? Can we stop pretending “growth hacking” is a plan? Can we acknowledge that calling yourself a “thought leader” doesn’t automatically grant wisdom?

In the end, all I ask is this: if we must speak in marketing jargon, let’s at least be self-aware about it. And maybe—just maybe—let’s yeet a few of these tired phrases straight into the sun where they belong.

Until then, I’ll be here. Authentic, disruptive, synergistic. Pivotal.

And very, very tired.

Ken Hollow, recovering thought leader, brand storyteller, and unpaid intern to the algorithm.