me-tooism

See also: metooism, me-too-ism, me tooism, and me too-ism

English

WOTD – 19 December 2020

Etymology

From me too +‎ -ism (suffix forming names of tendencies of action, behaviour, condition, opinion, or state belonging to groups of persons).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /miːˈtuːɪz(ə)m/

• Audio (Received Pronunciation):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /miˈtuˌɪzəm/
• Hyphenation: me-too‧i‧sm

Noun

me-tooism (countable and uncountable, plural me-tooisms) (originally US, derogatory, informal)

1. (politics) The act of following or taking on a policy of another (especially competing) person or political party. [from late 19th c.]
   • 1883 August 23, Harold Van Santvoord, “Philosophy at Pompoonik”, in Life, volume II, number 34, New York, N.Y.: Published at the Life Office, […], →OCLC, page 96, column 1:

     Next week's programme is one of peculiar interest. The following questions are announced for debate: The origin of "Me-tooism" in politics and "Too-tooism" in æsthetics, with reference to the study of modern history.

   • 1949 December 21, “Vandenberg Backs Continued Europe Aid, on Reduced Basis”, in Department of State Wireless Bulletin, number 299, [Washington, D.C.]: International Press and Publications Division, Office of International Information, Department of State, →OCLC, page 11:

     Senator [Arthur] Vandenberg answered critics who say the bipartisan foreign policy has produced mere Republican “me tooism” with the assertion that unity is vital if any policy is to get results. He declared: “If that's ‘me tooism’, then any unity is me tooism.”

   • 1955, George S. Benson, NERBA, volume 34, part 5, Boston, Mass.: New England Road Builders Association, →OCLC, page 12-2, column 2:

     For some elections past the Republican party has appeared to be acting on the fatuous theory that it could lure the labor leaders away from their Democratic alliance. Of all the "metooisms" that the Republicans have committed this one was the most transparent and the least effective.

   • 1964 April 9, Wayne Morse, “McNamara’s War in Vietnam”, in Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 88th Congress, Second Session (United States Senate), volume 110, part 6, Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 7431, column 1:

     I believe [Dean] Rusk has abdicated. Rusk merely follows [Robert] McNamara. It is McNamara who is calling the shots in South Vietnam. [...] The South Vietnamese program is McNamara's program. I am not interested in Rusk's "me-too-isms" in regard to it.

   • 1972, Herbert S. Parmet, “Holding the Center”, in Eisenhower & the American Crusades (American Presidents Series), New Brunswick, N.J., London: Transaction Publishers, published 1999, →ISBN, page 134:

     Having [Richard] Nixon woo the hard-shell Republicans and ardent anti-Communists and pleasing [Robert Alphonso] Taft and [Joseph] McCarthy, however useful for expunging "me-tooism" from the campaign, constantly threatened to jeopardize the greatest potential source of [Dwight David] Eisenhower's political strength: that fickle, uncommitted, apolitical, independent vote.

   • 2001, Susan Sontag, “A Few Weeks After”, in Paolo Dilonardo, Anne Jump, editors, At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches, New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, published 2007, →ISBN, page 116:

     For some time there has ceased to be any significant difference between the Democrats and the Republicans; they are best thought of as two branches of the same party. [...] The depoliticization of most of the American intelligensia merely reflects the conformism and convergence—the "me-tooism"—of political life in general.

   • 2004, James Allen Stimson, “What the Public Wants from Government”, in Tides of Consent: How Public Opinion Shapes American Politics, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 25:

     Republican domestic stands of the time were called "me-tooism," saying about each of the popular domestic innovations of FDR [Franklin Delano Roosevelt] and the Democrats, "we support that too."

2. (by extension) The tendency to do or say the same as somebody else; the tendency to follow something that is trendy.

   Synonym: bandwagonism

   • 1972, Romesh Thapar, “A Disciplining Philosophy of Living”, in Anil Bordia, J[ames] R[obbins] Kidd, J[ames] A. Draper, editors, Adult Education in India: A Book of Readings, Bombay, Maharashtra: Nachiketa Publications, published 1973, →OCLC, section III, page 104:

     In socialist societies, there is a ‘me tooism’, a complex which startles the sensitive observer. Here despite social controls, the cities rise like jungles, the traffic jams are consciously sought, and so are the wasteful standards. No genuine alternative is posed. The choice before man remains what it has always been—conform or perish.

   • 1981, Chipper Snacker: International Voice of the Potato Chip and Snack Industry, volume 38, Hanover, Pa.: Potato Chip/Snack Food Association, →OCLC, page 67, column 1:

     One of the things that characterizes the snack food industry in the United States is the sense of “metooism” that generally pervades the product mix. Though there might be slight variations in flavors, there is a sameness in virtually every snack company's line, starting with potato chips and ending with popped pork rinds.

   • 1986, Jon P. Alston, “The Individual and the Work Group in Japan”, in The American Samurai: Blending American and Japanese Managerial Practices (De Gruyter Studies in Organization; 6), Berlin, New York, N.Y.: Walter de Gruyter, →ISBN, section 5.2 (Group Consensus Encourages Trust), page 155:

     Workers may be so concerned with reading the boss's mind and supporting group consensus that ideas become conservative and timid. The Japanese work hard in general, of course, but the same group atmosphere which encourages this type of enthusiasm can also encourage conformity; a form of "me tooism" develops.

   • 1988 September 27, W. Mitchell (witness), Americans with Disabilities Act of 1988: Joint Hearing before the Subcommittee on the Handicapped of the Committee on Labor and Human Resources, United States Senate, and the Subcommittee on Select Education of the Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives, One Hundredth Congress, Second Session, on S. 2345 to Establish a Clear and Comprehensive Prohibition of Discrimination on the Basis of Handicap […] (Serial No. 104), Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Publishing Office, published 1989, →OCLC, page 83:

     But I would like to say to you that, while the 1970’s were very much the age of the me-too-ism, of I’ve got mine, of all of the conflicts in this country, and while the 1980’s are very much an era of great change in our society, with new technologies and new opportunities, the 1990’s will be the era of creativity.

   • 1991, Jean E[lizabeth] Howard, “Towards a Postmodern, Politically Committed, Historical Practice”, in Francis Barker, Peter Hulme, Margaret Iversen, editors, Uses of History: Marxism, Postmodernism and the Renaissance (Literature, Politics, Theory), Manchester, New York, N.Y.: Manchester University Press, →ISBN, page 101:

     [S]uch gestures smack of the politics of ‘me-tooism’; don’t leave me (i.e., women) out. While it is absolutely right that feminist concerns should not be disregarded, begging for space at the pluralist table misrepresents the value of feminist thought in addressing the central concerns of the workshop.

   • 1995, Victor Newman, “Generate Solutions”, in Made-to-measure Problem-solving, paperback edition, Aldershot, Hampshire, Brookfield, Vt.: Gower Publishing, published 1997, →ISBN, part III (The Problem-solving Process), page 83:

     [T]he solutions were almost exclusively the product of half-understood ‘me-too-isms’ based upon what they felt the competition were doing.

   • 1998, Richard C. Maddock, Richard L. Fulton, “The Origins of Motives and Emotions”, in Motivation, Emotions, and Leadership: The Silent Side of Management, Westport, Conn.: Quorum Books, Greenwood Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 61:

     [A]dvertising is replete with testimonials and "me-tooisms" that reflect the power of the Adaptation Motive in the real world. Most people select a physician, dentist or attorney on the basis of someone else's recommendation because very few of use have the proper credential to decide who is or is not a good doctor or surgeon.

   • 2001, Shurlee Swain, “Child Rescue: The Emigration of an Idea”, in Jon Lawrence, Pat Starkey, editors, Child Welfare and Social Action in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: International Perspectives, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, →ISBN, page 101:

     [C]ampaigns launched by adult survivors of child welfare systems of the past [...] can produce a second level of hurt as the now elderly carers are forced to re-examine their carefully constructed pasts in the face of angry accusations from the media, often retaliating with counter-accusations [...] that campaigners are victims of a ‘me-tooism’ seeking to piggy-back on the success of others whose sense of hurt they do not dispute.

   • 2006, Oleg Grabar, “On the Universality of the History of Art”, in Islamic Art and Beyond (Constructing the Study of Islamic Art; III; Variorum Collected Studies; CS809), Aldershot, Hampshire, Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate Publishing, →ISBN, part 1 (Theory of Art), page 33:

     On the other hand, the growth of national consciousness, the awareness of a specific cultural and aesthetic past, a new sensitivity to the individual’s own visual experience, and, in many years, an active contemporary artistic creativity have created a world that can no longer be satisfied with aesthetic or critical me-too-ism.

   • 2006, Wilberne Haldane Persaud, “Explaining Jamaica’s Financial Sector Crash: Uniqueness and Similarities to Crises in General”, in Jamaica Meltdown: Indigenous Financial Sector Crash 1996, Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse, →ISBN, pages 7–8:

     [H]uman beings demonstrate the herd instinct: or "me-tooism." Whereas he who cuts a fresh path does so in loneliness, perhaps even in the face of ridicule, success, or the appearance of success, brings everyone rushing in.

   • 2008, Sze-kar Wan, “Signification as Scripturalization: Communal Memories among the Miao and in Ancient Jewish Allegorization”, in Vincent L. Wimbush, editor, Theorizing Scriptures: New Critical Orientations to a Cultural Phenomenon, Rutgers University Press, →DOI, →ISBN, page 107:

     The Miao myth of origins ostensibly tries to prove that they had books just like the Chinese, that they had a writing system just like the Chinese, and that they come from north of the Yangzi River, an area traditionally claimed by the Chinese as the birthplace of their civilization. [...] Far more than just simple “metooism,” the Miao legend is at heart a lament, a lament for the disappearance of their writing and their culture at the hands of the advancing Chinese civilization.

   • 2011, James W[hyte] Black, “Receptors as Pharmaceutical Targets”, in John C. Foreman, Torben Johansen, Alasdair J. Gibb, editors, Textbook of Receptor Pharmacology, 3rd edition, Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, →ISBN, section V, subsection 9.6 (Me-tooism), page 274:

     [T]he critical charge of me-tooisms was also, I believe, misplaced. To some extent, I can accept the commercial charge of me-tooism. [...] [T]he older drug has accumulated more reports of side effects on its data sheet and the newer me-too drug can be pedaled^{[sic – meaning peddled]} by marketing manipulators as "just as good but safer."

   • 2020, Louise Porter, “Listening to Children”, in Young Children’s Behaviour: Guidance Approaches for Early Childhood Educators, 4th edition, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 218:

     Distracting, diverting, trivialising, story telling, one-upping and ‘me-too’-isms make light of children’s problems and imply that if something is too hard, we should avoid it.

Alternative forms

• metooism
• me-too-ism
• me tooism
• me too-ism

Related terms

• me too
• me-tooer

Translations

act of following or taking on a policy of another (especially competing) person or political party

tendency to do or say the same as someone else; tendency to follow something that is trendy

• French: suivisme (fr) m

See also

• follow the crowd
• jump on the bandwagon
• MeToo movement (not to be confused)

Anagrams

• mitosome