Why I Stopped Farting at Work
We’ve all been there. It could be in a meeting, during a car ride, or in the elevator. You’re standing (or sitting), minding your own business, and suddenly, somebody farts. Your heart begins beating fast, and you start to sweat, glancing in every direction, looking for an exit, but to no avail. The need to escape is palpable, but the farter, more often than not, has no idea about the predicament they just put you in.
Farting has become an epidemic, so common in the workplace that even if you’re remote, you can still smell the stench.
Of course, by farting, I mean
F. Failing to
A. Articulate
R. Real
T. Things
FART for short.
You’ve been farted on before, often by people trying to prove that they know more than you, but rarely do. You’ve farted on other people, trying to impress your boss or the board.
Everybody is farting, and it’s getting harder and harder to breathe.
What Is a FART?
Failing to Articulate Real Things (FART) is a (mostly) unnecessary speech and marketing tactic used to confuse and intrigue a target audience/customer/client. This is done by using large or sesquipedalian words (sesquipedalian is also a fart word) to make simple concepts seem complex.
Here’s an example of what I mean.
Let Me FART on You
Have you ever gone on to a website that says things like:
“Harnessing the synergy of advanced intelligence and contextual awareness, we deliver seamless, dynamic support interactions with unparalleled adaptability and sophistication.”
Or…
“Leveraging predictive analytics and behavioral intelligence, seamlessly re-engage lost opportunities with precision, timing, and impact.”
Both of the above sentences are prime examples of farts. They mean nothing, describe nothing, and only serve to make you believe the company offers a complex product or service.
What was I describing in the above examples?
An AI chatbot
An abandoned cart recovery app
Neither of these products is complex, but I could easily convince you otherwise using fart language.
So why do companies fart?
Why Companies FART on You
Farting is a persuasive (and sometimes manipulative) way to make a customer/client think your product is more complex than it actually is—so they trust your expertise more.
This has probably happened to you before in these situations:
Financial advisors will convince you how complex it is to “carefully balance” your retirement portfolio while they dump 80% of your assets into the S&P 500.
Your car mechanic will convince you that your oil change actually costs $500 because you know nothing about cars.
Your lender/loan officer will use complex words about your home loan in hopes that you don’t look into better options.
I’m not saying these professions are outright liars, but there are MANY farters in every industry that will happily make you feel stupid to rip you off.
But farting isn’t always a bad thing.
To FART or Not to FART
Farting is people, industry, and scenario specific. Many companies thrive off of farting on their clients/customers and getting farted on.
Marketing agencies are great at farting because they’re great at writing. They know that an overly simplistic strategy will not convince CMOs to move forward because it’s just too easy to understand.
It’s worth stopping and noting here that simplicity ≠ lack of depth. The problem is so many people you work with believe the opposite, so you need to fart out your idea to give you a chance.
Back to the marketing example.
Let’s say you’re in YouTube marketing; I’ll use this example because I do this to some extent. YouTube marketers have a few levers to pull to increase views: change the title, change the thumbnail, change the intro, and, most importantly, change the content.
You have a new client who produces boring, slow, unengaging YouTube videos and wants to grow their channel. You can’t tell them their videos suck and that you need to entirely change the way they’re produced because if you do that, they’ll hit back with, “Our videos are great, we just can’t get people to watch them!” That’s antithetical but besides the point. How do you convince them to move forward with what will be a success for them?
Fart (a little).
“We’re going to optimize the video pacing and take inspiration from notable channels while still siloing ourselves as industry leaders. This will allow us to reach broader audiences by systematically testing individual data points, seeing which help us meet our KPIs and which don’t. From there, we’ll do a brand-first redesign on all image assets to increase our digital footprint.”
De-farted: Make better, faster intros, take topics from other channels that work and do them too, A/B test thumbnails and titles, and add a logo to the thumbnail.
You’re still doing your job, but you just needed to fart a bit to get people to understand, and that’s okay.
Not all farting is bad. Sometimes, simplifying a complex idea too much makes it sound trivial or unconvincing. In industries like tech or financial services, certain terms exist for a reason. The trick is knowing when to explain things clearly and when a little “strategic farting” helps establish credibility. If jargon helps clarify—great. But if it’s there to confuse or impress, you might just be farting.
Who’s The Worst FARTer?
As mentioned before, the biggest farters in human existence are marketers. Marketers, by trade, are trying to make money off of you, and they know that convincing you that you DON’T know what you’re doing and that they do is the easiest way to do that.
Let’s take a weight-loss meal prep program as an example. Here’s some type of fart you’ll hear:
This detoxifying drink will boost longevity using powerful superfoods and ancient medicinal herbs to promote balance between your body and mind, clearing your digestive tract and flooding your system with powerful, antioxidant-packed nutrients.
What did I just describe? Mint tea.
Often, companies will bombard you with the most salacious-sounding advertising, verbiage, and BS jargon to convince you that their product/service is something it’s not.
Which is why you need to be good at separating the wheat from the fart.
The Most Common FART (Words)
Synergistic – Working well together to produce better results.
Holistic – Considering the whole picture rather than just parts.
Dynamic – Always changing, flexible.
Actionable – Something you can actually use or act on.
Scalable – Able to grow or handle more work without problems.
Efficiency – Getting the best results with the least effort or waste.
Hyper-personalized – Extremely customized for each person.
Functionality – What something can do or how it works.
Disruptive – Introducing a big change that shakes up an industry.
Alignment – Making sure different things work well together.
Paradigm – A way of thinking or doing things.
Convergence – Different things coming together or merging.
Enablement – Giving people or tools what they need to succeed.
Interoperability – The ability of different systems to work together.
Note: Corporate jargon and FART can cross over but are not exactly the same. Jargon, while often annoying to hear, is used to simplify a more complex idea (while also making those who use it feel elite). Farting, on the other hand, does the opposite, making simple ideas complex.
Why I Stopped FARTing at Work
At one time, I felt it crucial to fart at work in order to gain the respect of my peers. I began my career surrounded by extremely competent marketers. While they were (and still are) at the top of their fields, this made them susceptible to fart-speaking since that’s what clients loved to hear.
When given tasks or instructions, they came word-jumbled in so much fart that I could barely breathe. It would often take me literal days to decode what they were asking me to do, what the client wanted, and how I could do it. Because of that, as I grew my skills from complete novice to content marketer, I, too, began to fart in casual conversation or on client-facing documentation.
It wasn’t until I began managing others that, seeing their frustrations and having to force myself to become a better communicator, I realized how much pure fart was coming out of my mouth.
Why say, “We’re going to segment these cohorts by key events so we can delineate which are leading to the most conversions.” when I could just say, “Which of these groups led to the most sales for the client? If we know which, we can focus on creating that content that leads to more sales.”
One makes novice marketers feel like they’re stupid, and the other empowers them to understand what I’m even asking.
So, I stopped farting at work, even though sometimes my words sadly do TOOT (totally oblivious of tone).
Audit Your FARTs
My departing words to you would be this: realize that your farts, while they may make you feel better, make those around you often feel uncomfortable, ignorant, or just annoyed. There’s a place to fart and a place to hold your farts.
Find the right opportunity to fart because, when used wisely, even a little fart can make a big impact.
