Slam+poetry

media type="youtube" key="pKyIw9fs8T4?fs=1" height="385" width="480" (lyrics not exactly same as video)

In case you hadn't noticed, it has somehow become uncool to sound like you know what you're talking about? Or believe strongly in what you're, like, saying? Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)'s have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences? Even when those sentences aren't, like, questions? Declarative sentences - so-called because they used to, like, DECLARE things to be true as opposed to other things which were, like, not - have been infected by a totally hip and tragically cool interrogative tone? You know? Like, don't think I'm uncool just because I've noticed this; this is just like the word on the street, you know? It's like what I've heard? I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions, okay? I'm just inviting you to join me in my uncertainty? What has happened to our conviction? Where are the limbs out on which we once walked? Have they been, like, chopped down with the rest of the rain forest? Or do we have, like, nothing to say? Has society become so, like, totally. . . I mean absolutely. . . You know? That we've just gotten to the point where it's just, like. . . whatever! And so actually our disarticulation. . . ness is just a clever sort of. . . thing to disguise the fact that we've become the most aggressively inarticulate generation to come along since. . . you know, a long, long time ago! I entreat you, I implore you, I challenge you: To speak with conviction. To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks the determination with which you believe it. Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker, it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY. You have to speak with it, too.

The title "Like, Totally Whatever,You Know?" doesn't mean anything by itself, but it sounds like how stereotypical people today would talk. The whole poem is a satire because it is complaining about how people are using language these days, while doing exactly what he says they are doing. He uses irony more than anything because of that, like when he says "it has somehow become uncool to sound like you know what you're talking about? Or believe strongly in what you're, like, saying?", because it sounds like he doesn't know what he is talking about. He uses allusion when he talks about the limbs and the rain forest being chopped down. He uses a tone that is serious but we know he is not being serious with all his ",you knows?" and ",Like,"s. He shifts from simply telling us about what is happening to telling us what we can do about it, when he starts saying "I entreat you, and I implore you". We get the feeling he really wants to change what is happening to language. Right at the end he challenges us to appose this and speak with authority so it shows that very well.