Cheesy

Johnny Jones, 23 October 1999

"How Well Do You Know Your Kid?" an article in a May edition of Newsweek posed that question. I remembered the question when I saw two references to "cheesy" in last week's Newsweek. "I'll bet people my age have no idea what that means," I thought.

So I did some non-scientific research: I e-mailed 11 parents (Boomers, all) and 13 members of Gens X and Y (all college students or working adults), asking for definitions and comments.

I got three responses from the older generation (27%) and eight from the younger ones (62%).

Among the parents, the answers were inexact or uncertain: "Yes I know cheesy. It can be when you come upon a person who has doused himself/herself with cologne to hide the B. O. because they didn't take a bath...or is that funky?" Another said, "I understand it to mean cheap, of not a good quality, not well made." The last reply was, "Haven't heard of Cheesy." . Most of the replies from Gens X and Y were specific, and often lengthy and impassioned. A good dictionary-like definition came from Amy, who said "cheesy" means, "...purporting to be deep and profound, but superficial; ridiculous; foolish; overly sentimental; phoney; unrealistic." Trent agreed: "When I think of cheesy, the words that come to mind are fake, insincere, shallow." Jessica added, "Something that's dumb or stupid."

Allison got downright eloquent in her answer: "Cheesy certainly is a common term among my generation! I think that something is cheesy when it attempts to be `real' but instead is bland, fake, cliche, and lacking depth. One example of `cheesiness' is the popular icon of `boy groups,' such as the Backstreet Boys, N'Sync, 98 degrees, and others. With over-acted displays of emotion, they sing their cheesy (there's that word again!) love songs, all of which have the lyrics similar to `I love you, yes it's true; if you ever part, you'll break my heart; let's stay together, now and forever.' The songs are all redundant, trite, and can be understood by anyone over the age of three. There's no need to search for depth of meaning -- it doesn't exist. Listening to their songs gives one the nauseated feeling that a lactose intolerant person would have after consuming a rich dairy product -- namely cheese."

Jenny also mentioned the Backstreet Boys: "Okay...`cheesy'...like, the Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync, are all cheesy. Like, in their songs, they use all these WAY overused cliches on love and life. I mean, you could GAG if there was any more cheese in those songs. Cheesy is...something that's all mushy, but really doesn't mean anything."

The idea of the involvement of "cheesy" with romance was also the subject of David's definition: "When someone says something cheesy it is usually an overly flattering compliment that doesn't seem heartfelt. Such as:

Guy: Is your father a thief?

Girl: No, Why?

Guy: Because he stole the stars and put them in your eyes."

Robin also used the guy/girl thing as an example: "You know how you are never supposed to define a word using the word itself? Well, I'm having a lot of trouble doing that. There isn't another way to describe cheesy things besides cheesy. Oh wait....corny. That's a word that is CLOSE to cheesy. It encompasses some of the meanings cheesy does, but not all of them. OK, I'll try to do better than that.... Things I would consider cheesy: a boy doing something for a girl he likes that is almost sickeningly sweet, usually overdone, is cheesy."

Bryan said, "...cheesy means something that fails to deliver what it promises to, particularly in an obviously deceptive fashion."

If we are going to reach people younger than ourselves, we need to know terms that are meaningful to them. We need to understand what offends them.

We need to avoid cheesy stuff.

How well do we know our kids?