I wrote the other day about using a metaphor to explain the way the world works. In that particular case, the metaphor was a “down elevator”.
Some metaphors are better than others, of course. I thought the metaphor of the down elevator was pretty darn good, considering the current state of the world.
Metaphors can be visual as well as literary. And in the same way, some can be better than others.
About the time I graduated from high school, a clever poster started appearing in places where young people congregated. Schools, churches, the YMCA, record stores, convenience stores, etc. The text of the poster:
This is your brain. (Illustration: a hand holding an egg still in the shell.)
This is drugs. (Illustration: a hot frying pan.)
This is your brain on drugs. (Illustration: the egg, frying in the frying pan.)
The poster was printed and distributed by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.
Young people could relate to this poster in a way maybe older people couldn’t, because we often used the word “fried” to describe a person (usually ourselves) who was deep into a drug trip. Basically, your brain felt all zapped and slow, sort of like food that’s been cooked to crispy perfection. Over time, the word’s meaning has expanded well beyond that, and is now often used to mean just plain wiped out, overworked, or overwhelmed, without any drug abuse needed.
It’s not unusual for the meaning of a word to expand. Maybe because the yolk got broken?
Of course, we understood that the Partnership for a Drug-Free America visual metaphor was referring to only certain types of drugs — the kind that young people and musicians and low-income people used. Illicit drugs.
The kinds of drugs that older middle-class and upper-class adults used — prescription drugs — did not make your brain look or feel like a fried egg. Instead, those drugs actually helped you get through the day. Or so we were told.
I remember a high school friend of mine coming across some prescription drugs in their parent’s medicine cabinet.
“I didn’t know what they were for, or what the dose was, so I took six of them. It didn’t really do anything.”
But that’s a good way to fry your brain.
I’m not sure who came up with the idea of applying the word “fried” to an illicit drug trip, but as I recall, it characterized that particular state of mind quite accurately. Granted, my memory of those days is a bit hazy, but that’s how I recall it.
It’s been a number of years since I felt “fried” during a drug experience, but truth be told, I get a similar sensation after an hour or two on social media.
I think the Partnership for a Drug-Free America should be replaced by the Partnership for a Social-Media Free America.
And they should start putting up posters in places where young people congregate.
Heck, they should put up these poster everywhere. It’s not just young people who are getting zapped by social media.
I’ve never heard anyone use the word “fried” to characterize how they feel during or after using social media. I’ve heard, “pissed off” and “anxious” and “depressed” and “we are no longer Friends”.
But not “fried”.
With enough posters, we could change the situation, and get people to realize what they’re doing to themselves. With enough posters.
Hopefully.
Although they never really accomplished anything with the “drug-free” version of the poster. So I’m using the word “Hopefully” as sort of a joke.
On a similar topic, I learned yesterday why eggs never tell each other jokes.
They might crack up.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.