ChuddurrAt some point curiosity became inconvenient. It had follow-ups. It had people who knew things. It had the small death of being wrong in front of friends, which is a marinade we will return to.
So we replaced it. Not with better questions. With a posture. The posture is frictionless. The posture does not have to read the paper. The posture can be brave in a quote-tweet if the lighting is mean enough.
What the posture contains
- A sentence that begins with “genuine question” and ends with a verdict.
- A request for sources, followed by a refusal of the sources.
- A sudden interest in “the data,” which is a screenshot.
- A follow-up that is just the first sentence in a hat.
- A promise that you will change your mind if convinced, which is a phrase that means please do not convince me.
None of this is illegal. Some of it is even how thinking starts. The Chuddurr move is stopping at the question mark and calling it a personality anyway.
How to tell you have done it
Your questions are better than your listening. Your audience, which is you, understands the bit perfectly. A stranger can repeat your question and still not know what would count as an answer. When someone offers one, you send a second question and say the first one was just curiosity, which is a phrase that means the knife was always facing out.
A question is a beautiful thing. It can move a room. It can move a mind. It cannot hide a speech. Ask the thing you actually want to know, or admit you are in broadcasting. Broadcasting is honest work. Chuddurr is what happens when broadcasting puts on glasses and asks for a panel.
— Betty Grokr