Walking and Word Swag
What is “swag”? Being a commonly used word in the 21st century, “swag” has arisen from song lyrics and populated through postages on popular online websites such as “Facebook”, “Twitter”, and “Tumblr”. It has stemmed from the word “swagger”, which is a noun that means a very confident and typically arrogant or aggressive manner. This manifestation of the word “swag” has caused most teenagers to use this term to define themselves. Swag is utilized as a noun to describe a person’s mannerisms as “cool” when compared to the ordinary layperson.
In the contemporary society, a key judgment of one’s character is whether their actions contain swag or not. Swag can be defined either negatively or positively through judgment of everyday actions such as walking, talking, and self-appearance. 2. As aforementioned, the way a person walks or talks may show whether they have swag or not. Someone who would be considered to have swag would walk in a confident and self-assured manner. Key characteristics of such a person’s walking habits are having a straight posture, meticulous foot placing, and a subtle arm sway.
In addition to walking habits, smooth-talking teenagers are believed to show swag by the way they speak. For example, a guy can smooth-talk and flirt with a girl to persuade her on a date with him. On the other hand, a girl can talk with swag by conveying a more confident tone. She can assertively talk about her unique qualities (e. g. her curvy body) as a sign of swag. Aside from being able to “walk the walk” and “talk the talk”, having a unique fashion sense also differentiates the layperson from one who has swag. 3. The appearance, grooming, and outfits of people may or may not indicate that they have swag.
Regarding clothes, swag is gauged by one’s sense of style. The median used for this gauge is the dressing habits of many celebrities in the music industry. For instance, outfits like adjustable snapback hats, Jordan sneakers, varsity leather jackets, or sweatshirts by the label Obey are types of swag clothing. Celebrities such as rappers, Soulja Boy, Tyga, and as well as singer, Justin Bieber, wear swag type of clothing. The iconic status of celebrities influences people to dress like them. Conversely, there are many people who see the style swag in a negative manner.
People such as myself do not like to dress that certain style and would rather dress in a more formal style. For example, my style of clothes would be considered GQ or Gentlemen Quality-like, which comes from a fashion magazine style regarding formal clothes. My GQ style is different from the swag style because it consists of classy clothes such as polo shirts, button downs, ties, and suits. The style dichotomy between GQ and swag shows how different types of people can have opposing opinions on the use of the word swag. 4. My opinion of the word is in a negative connotation but others use the word as a compliment.
Teenagers use swag in their everyday lives to describe their activities. For examples some teenagers consider swag as sexual activity, buying the newest swag style clothes or doing what they believe is “cool”. Everyone has different opinions of what action is considered “cool” or not. As a result, many people have the opinion that swag is an unprofessional word with unnecessary and meaningless content. The different views of the word show two different opinions. 5. A personal story involving the word swag involved one of my achievements on the dance floor of a party.
My friend George and I were always partying on the weekends and were invited to a private high school party. On the night of the party, I got the chance to dance with one of the best looking girls there. As I was dancing, I saw George point at me and heard him say, “Now that is swag” to another girl standing next to him. George was indicating that I had swag because I was dancing with a beautiful girl. After my dance, I told him to not label anything I do as swag. The reason why I said this stems from my non-conforming personality. I told him that I view swag has a negative description and would prefer not to change my opinions about it. . The slang word swag is common in this new generation. Therefore, the use of the word is more popular among teenagers. Having swag or what is considered to be swag is simply a word for people to describe what they believe to be as “cool”. As portrayed in the narrative, telling a person they have swag may even be taken offensively; especially if that individual does not believe in the society – defined definition of the word. Conclusively, the different aspects of walking, talking, and style can be gauged as a negative or positive outlook on swag based on one’s personal opinions.
