Writers, We Need To Talk About “We Need To Talk About” Articles

If you wanna change people’s minds, don’t chastise them!

We need to talk about articles that say “we need to talk about” some topic — articles so annoying that I can hear my ex saying it in my head as I read it, and massively ineffective for persuasion.

There’s a chastising genre of article floating around the internet where someone righteous climbs on top of a moral high horse and chastises you about there behavior.

We need to talk about those articles.

The (Made Up) History of “We Need To Talk About”

I’m speculating here, but my guess is that the very first “We need to talk about” article was written by a frustrated copywriter back in the heyday of Madison Avenue after an argument with his wife.

The guy was probably tasked with writing an ad for a product that women usually buy for men — probably some kind of cosmetic crap that easily can go down the drain like anti-dandruff shampoo.

After the forty-fifth time his wife had started an argument by saying “We need to talk,” the guy connected the dots and wrote the headline — We Need To Talk About Your Husband’s Dandruff.