this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2026
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Everything can be a buzzword if it doesn't directly apply to a selfish person with low EQ
No, it can't.
Buzzwords are words that are hyped up by the media and have no substantive meaning. And will be forgotten when the next buzzword comes along.
Nobody was talking about 'emotional intelligence' 5 years ago in popular culture. Now it's ubiquitous.
5 years ago the rage was 'love languages'. everyone was talking about their 'love language'. now that's passe. they were also ranting about how they were 'empaths', which is something you dont' see much of anymore.
10 years ago it was how everything was 'toxic' or 'trauma'. those fell out of favor after the pandemic.
and in 5 years from now, nobody will talk about emotional intelligence, they will have some new vague buzzword to hide behind and to use online to feel smug and superior about.
This is so incredibly false. Just look at the google trends. In 2004 it's popularity was similar to that of 5 years ago, and even back in my teenager years I constantly heard it around and was part of studies.
I don't understand what does actual buzzwords have to do with measurement system. They pretty much never go away just like IQ.
2004 was when it was popularized in business speak. MBAs were going on all about it and it was all over business journals. it didn't pass out of business speak around that time then, because that was before social media. nobody was blogging about emotional intelligence in 2006, other than business people writing for other business people. It was popularized in a 2004 article in the Harvard Business review, specifically, wherein the article quoted the psych researcher who wrote a book about from the 90s. It was MBAs scraping around for a made up metric by which to evaluate effective managers and how to choose/promote managers, and this was the 'new metric' they put forth. It was very trendy at the time to talk about business leaders needing to be empathic, which was part of George Bush's whole 'compassionate conservatism/neoliberalism' movement that the corpos latched onto at the time (like the latch onto Trumpism today). It all was a big nothing burger and by the time Obama came around it was completely gone and corpos were back to focusing on the bottom line and freaking out about how evil Democrats were.
it didn't become common to see laypeople use it in everyday language until the past few years. now it's on literally every other dating profile and social media post where the person blathers on about how they have high emotional intelligence and it's everyone else who doesn't and they only want to associate with other high emotionally intelligence people... it's a bullshit status marker.
lest us not forget, before 'emotional intelligence' it was emotionally quotient (EQ) in the 2010s. everyone was blathering about 'I have high EQ' 10 years ago. because again, another buzzword trying to sound legitimate by equating itself to IQ. Nobody uses that term anymore because it became passe, emotional intelligence is the replacement for it.
EQ/emotional intelligent/butthole empathy was never anything measurable or standarized. It's nothing more than a buzzword that is hyped up as the 'answer' to everything, when it is in fact, a meaningless empty term that allows people to project anything they want.
in 5 years nobody will use this term anymore. there will be a new one, or maybe they will revive EQ. it's all marketing in the end, about conning folks into believing something is real and selling them the idea of it so they buy your book, view your channel, or subscribe to your stream. etc
I genuinely don't understand your argument. Are you saying it's not a valid measurement system because humans came up with it? Just like everything else? What is your actual argument against emotional Intelligence as a metric besides that it was created by someone you don't like?
I said it was not a valid measurement system. It never was a measurement system at all. It's bullshit on top of bullshit that believe believe in and it becomes a brief collective delusion.
In corpo land it was nothing more than 'feedback' questionnaires from which they derived a score used to evaluate managers.
Just like the Atkins diet and every health/food trend. This is the same thing, just in terms of psychology.
And like a lot of things in psych it's simple a product of how attractive you are and what tones of voice you use, and all that. Legit psych studies show us that people interpret people's intelligence and empathy based on their physical appearance, more than anything else, which is rooted in cultural expectations and stereotypes.
Nobody is taking EQ/emotional intelligence tests, other than random stupid quizzes on the internet, like MBTI or self-diagnosed authistic/adhd folks. Legit psychologies and therapists are not measuring anyone's 'emotional intelligence' because it's not a real thing that can be measured.
And no, I have no issue with the original researcher. He was pursuing his own theory and doing legit work, but it was bastardized when it was popularized. Which is pretty much the case of all legit science and research. Most popular interpretations of most scientific theories are vastly oversimplified to the point they are incorrect, because they aren't about doing science, they are about making a neat little meme that dumb folks can parrot to feel smart. That's what emotional intelligence is, a meme.