GET YOUR OWN ENTRY IN AN ENCYCLOPEDIA. In the media age, everybody was famous for 15 minutes. In the Wikipedia age, everybody can be an expert in five minutes. Special bonus: You can edit your own entry to make yourself seem even smarter.
USE THE WORD ZEITGEIST AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE. Ideally, you want to find words that sound familiar but people don’t really know their definitions: zeitgeist, bildungsroman, doppelgänger – better yet, anything Latin. But avoid paradigm. It’s so 1994. If you say the word paradigm, everybody knows you’re a poser.
BE SURE TO USE LOTS OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS. Someone who says the words operations security may be educated, but the person who uses the military abbreviation Opsec is clearly an expert. If I use the term Gitmo, that means I’ve actually been there. If you say, “We’re going to Defcon 1,†it means you probably have the launch codes. Real experts don’t have time for extra syllables.
— Wired; August 2006
