Please stop using this phrase. ‘Kthx.’

Megan McLachlan

Several weeks ago, I was pulling my car (parallel park-style, natch!) in front of my apartment complex. When I got out of the car, I noticed that on the ground there was a note that had been left for someone else.
Passive aggressive note

I get a kick out of passive aggressive notes. There’s even a kick-ass website dedicated to the practice. But truly, passive aggressive notes are probably the most cowardly act of any human being. In a list of the ultimate traitors, it goes Benedict Arnold and then anyone who has ever written a P.A. note.

First of all, they are typically anonymous, so you can be as angry or as cruel as you want and no one will ever know. Nice. And second, if the receiver of the passive aggressive note would actually confront the author, the author would probably back down within 60 seconds, looking like a weak fool.

Sadly, passive aggressive notes are what the nation and world have been reduced to, whether it comes to leaving an angry Facebook status about work, knowing your boss will read it, or tweeting angrily about your roommate, knowing he or she is in the next room and will surely see it.

But what got to me most about this note left by my neighbor was one little thing.

“Kthx.”

“Kthx?”

Really? We’re using text speak in an angry neighbor note?

“Kthx” is for teenagers who tweet that they are “tired of Beliebers. Go away. Kthx.” “Kthx” is almost an afterthought. “Oh by the way—kthx.” It spills out of your mouth like ketchup you didn’t think could come out of the bottle. “Oops. Kthx.”

It’s also a mediocre way of mollifying a situation. “Kthx” is supposed to soften the blow, but it ends up just angering you.

It makes me think of that classic “Saturday Night Live” skit where David Spade and Helen Hunt play flight attendants who condescendingly say goodbye to their passengers: “Bub-bye!” “Kthx” has become the sarcastic outgoing salutation of the 21st century.

Why not just say, “Thanks!”? “Kthx” conjures up images of feigned smiles and forced enthusiasm. It’s inauthentic. If anything, the reader of the above note saw the message sprawled on his or her car and carelessly discarded the note on the ground BECA– USE of the “Kthx.” If the author would have written, “Hey, neighbor! There is a Fabergé egg under your car. If you move up a little bit, I bet you could get it. Those are so rare!” Surely, the P.A. note receiver would have responded to this (even if it was a lie).

On the other hand, how about not leaving a passive aggressive note. Period. Of course, then PassiveAggressiveNotes.com would no longer have anything to post. In that case, keep on avoiding interpersonal communication, America. OK? Thank you.

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4 thoughts on “Please stop using this phrase. ‘Kthx.’”

  1. I love that website (passiveaggressivenotes.com). I check it almost daily, and even post comments on it sometimes. It’s hilarious.

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