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Once a year, I give myself one chance to write an article about a non-entertainment industry/business strategy article. Today’s article is that article. It’s free for all to read and share, if you’d like.)
In a day and age when it feels like people are more divided than ever, I think you’ll find that not just some people but everyone (sometimes “literally everyone”) is doing and thinking the same things. After all, did you know that everyone…
…is going on a cruise?
…wants a giant front door?
…is stealing TV?
…is reading Lonesome Dove?
…has hemorrhoids, IBS and norovirus?
…is running a marathon?
…uses steroids?
…is drinking mid-strength?
…uses AI to cheat in school?
…is wearing pimple patches in public?
…is playing Farm Simulator 25?
Again, not just some people. Everyone. And when it comes to opinions, everyone…
…hates Gwyneth Paltrow, Merrick Garland, Katy Perry, and 1970s Fender Stratocasters.
…loves Pedro Pascal, Japan and proxy advisors.
…is obsessed with Swedish candy, suntanning and Pedro Pascal. (Again.)
…is mad that Destiny cancelled craftable seasonal weapons. (I mean, I know I am, and I totally know what everyone one of these words means.)
Ironically, the one writing pet peeve/usage mistake that “literally everyone” should know is that “literally” doesn’t mean “figuratively”. And yet, because so many people use the word incorrectly, eventually, the original meaning of “literally” will be entirely lost, and “literally” will come to mean “figuratively”.
The same thing is happening to the word “everyone” right now. While “everyone” is supposed to mean all people or everyone in a group—I even checked the dictionary to confirm that, yes, it means “everybody”—semantic creep is overtaking it. Nowadays, “everyone” merely means “a lot of people” or, in many cases, it (somehow) refers to just a small minority of people, if not a micro-niche of people.
I don’t think that this is a fad or a trend that’s going away anytime soon. Though I begrudgingly understand why it’s happening, I absolutely hate it.
Everyone is Misusing “Everyone”
I first noticed this problem over a year ago. Each week, as I collected viewership data on streaming TV shows to write my Streaming Ratings Report, I’d notice headlines about TV shows and movies that “everyone” was watching that I knew weren’t actually that popular. Think films almost no one had even heard of, like The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, Luckiest Girl Alive, and My Fault: London or unpopular TV shows like Overcompensating, The Survivors, and Maxton Hall – The World Between Us…none of which set the viewership charts on fire. Honestly, I write about these shows for a living and even I couldn’t remember what The Remarkable Life of Ibelin was!
So a year and a half ago, I started searching Google News for examples of headlines with the word “everyone” in them. Every week or so, I found a new crop of bad headlines using “everyone” to indicate some group of people that was, decidedly, much smaller than “everyone”, if not much, much smaller.
I have sixteen pages of examples. Literally tens of thousands of words. Literally (not figuratively in this case) hundreds of examples about how “everyone” is taking magnesium and getting veneers and eating cucumber salads and dating pathological liars and addicted to Balatro and making eye contact during toasts.
It isn’t even a complete list. I only collect the worst examples and I mainly focused on news articles; obviously, you can find thousands more on YouTube and social media.
Your first response might be, “Well, yeah, a bunch of scammy websites and clickbait farms on social media are writing bad headlines. Who cares?” But it’s not just low-effort, low-quality, possibly AI-generated headlines; it’s respectable outlets, too. It’s the New York Times here, here, here.) Or take this hyperbole:
It’s the New Yorker. It’s Bloomberg saying “everyone wants a Bitcoin Treasury.” (I don’t.) It’s The Atlantic. It’s New York Magazine. It’s Vox here, here and here.
Perhaps the most egregious examples are headlines touting “literally everyone” or “absolutely everyone”. Like this article on a Costco item literally everyone struggles to open or how literally everyone had the same reaction to Trump’s portrait. Or the FT writing that “absolutely everyone is peddling an AI application” and The Guardian writing “Keir Starmer has a unique talent – to alienate absolutely everyone” Really? “absolutely everyone? Or this New Republic headline, “Why Literally Everyone Can’t Stop Mocking J.D. Vance Now: Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick is having arguably the worst week of his life.” Published in the summer of 2024, this headline didn’t age well, did it?
Lest you think that I’m being a bit too judgmental, don’t worry, there’s a “Physician, heal thyself” angle to this issue. I didn’t even realize that I was doing it so much. I just used “everyone” in a headline last October, a year after I started noticing this usage error and started collecting these links!
The Same Headlines…Repeated Over and Over and Over Again
Having searched for these links week after week, I noticed the same patterns of headlines, with so many news outlets using the same headline templates over and over and over again.
Did you know that everyone is obsessed with Nerds Gummy Clusters, Internal Family Systems, gut health, Patrick the Orangutan’s double knot, a cat that looks like Groucho Marx, Chappell Roan, Colostrum, Dollar Tree cutting boards, beta blockers, divine feminine energy, sleepmaxxing, and hot pilates? The New York Times points out that gay men are obsessed with muscles and now everyone is.
We’re obsessed with protein…and obsessed with protein…and obsessed with protein…and obsessed with protein…and obsessed with protein…and obsessed with protein (from The New York Times again)! (Everyone is also talking about protein and worried about protein.)
We’re also obsessed with Labubus. And obsessed with Labubus again. And obsessed with Labubus again. And obsessed with Labubus again. We’re also crazy for Labubus and joining the cult for Labubus.
When it comes to opinions, everyone is missing something! We’re missing something on the Melania movie, the India-Pakistan skirmish, mass deportation, the Hunter Biden case, the Epstein emails, the Signal-gate scandal, and the college football playoffs. For those keeping track, three of those examples came from Slate alone.
“Everyone” is wrong about a lot of things, like RFK Jr. and cellphones and the Brooklyn museum incident and academic writing and stablecoins. Of course, this use of “everyone” doesn’t include the writer themselves, so technically it can’t be “everyone” but I guess “Everyone is wrong about this thing but me” sounds too conceited.
And the hate! Everyone hates sidewalk sheds, locked shelves, Jennifer Lopez, the Chiefs, Nintendo Game-Key cards, Mike Lombardi and Trump’s new plane. We hate the Democrats and Trump and Netanyahu and Chuck Schumer…I’m no political scientist, but I feel like if “everyone” hated a politician, they wouldn’t be in power.
Everyone is talking about something, usually about things almost assuredly very, very few people are actually talking about. Everyone is talking about Paddington 2, the color brown and will be talking about books that haven’t even come out yet; all three of those links come from the New York Times. We’re also all talking about the Duke of Westminster’s wedding, Dua Lipa’s spicy Diet Coke, strata hop, Ms. Rachel, Utah hair, sardines, the rapture, and Rerum Novarum. Pause on that…do you even know what Rerum Novarum is? How in the world could “everyone” be talking about it?
Of course, in the streaming world I follow, “everyone” is talking about and obsessed with and talking about and obsessed with and talking about and raving about and talking about Heated Rivalry. You can read my nuanced take on the show’s lackluster viewership, which shows that, no, not “everyone” is obsessed with this show.
In politics, everyone’s talking about the AI bubble, food inflation, the affordability crisis, the K-shaped economy, and Trump’s hand. And Greenland…oh, and Greenland again, literally, Reuters re-ran a slightly different piece one year apart.
To repeat, lest you think these are all headlines from scammy, low quality websites: the last two paragraphs include links from respectable outlets like The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Insider, the AP, Reuters, and more.
Some websites are repeat offenders, abusing this technique over and over again. The Fool (formerly Motley Fool), the stock market website, uses this style of headline almost every week, asking why “Why is everyone talking about X stock?” including PayPal, Microsoft, Intel, Nvidia’s stock split, Apple, Alphabet, Walmart, United Health, Apple (again), Palantir, Nike, Alphabet (again), Novo Nordisk, Sirius XM, Netflix, Broadcom, and Apple again. I actually first noticed this entire trend after I spotted multiple Cosmopolitan articles using the same headlines on TV shows like Love Island, Berlin, Blown Away and Scoop, not to mention Riley Keough’s Chanel shoot, Rihanna and A$AP Rocky, and Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s selfie.)
Worse than just talking about something, everyone has the same opinions.
- Everyone is saying the same thing about Melania Trump’s 55th birthday, Elon Musk’s Time magazine cover, resurrected dire wolves, Anne Hathaway’s Super Bowl moment, the Naked Gun reboot, McDonald’s new milkshake, and JLo and Ben Affleck. Everyone is saying the same thing about Sora, but even the article’s subheader says it’s cool, scary and a hit…those are three different things!
- Everyone had the same complaint about the McRib, Big Brother, Netflix’ The Gentleman, and the PGA Championship’s rain delay.
- Everyone had the same joke before the Predators-Oilers game. Everyone had the same reaction to a Subway Steak preparation. Everyone had the same response to Theon Von grabbing a fan.
What about “no one” or “nobody”, the inverse of “everyone”? After a year and half, I’ve collected some headlines that use those words in the headline—did you know no one has sex, wants to pay for the bus, live near TikTokers, discuss racial trauma, likes the Tate, or cares if music is real?—and maybe I missed some examples, but compared to the use of “everyone”, where I found sixteen pages worth of hundreds and hundreds of examples, clearly, “no one” doesn’t spike engagement and clickthrough with readers like “everyone” does.
It’s not just headlines, either, though those are the examples that I’ve been collecting. I’ve started seeing “everyone” getting used in prose. Almost every week, I read something and ask, in my head, “Oh really, everyone?” I’m even rewriting it in my own articles all the time.
Perhaps the most famous recent example is Helen Cox Richardson writing, after Trump’s election, “These results were a surprise to everyone.” But after reading headlines about how “everyone” was mocking Trump, can you blame her?
A Cautious Defense of “Everyone”
Before I describe why misusing “everyone” is awful, I can, sort of, steelman the use of “everyone” in headlines, or at least I’ll try.
First, some uses of “everyone” in headlines work. Should everyone watch these six James Bond films? I mean, probably not, but at least the use of “everyone” doesn’t change the definition of this word; the author really thinks that. Should everyone use sunscreen? Probably. Is “American capitalism isn’t working for everyone”? Probably not; that’s a very accurate use of “everyone”.
I’m not against ever using the word “everyone” in a headline; I’m against people using it incorrectly.
Next defense: language evolves. It changes. Words acquire different meanings and flavors as time passes, as anyone (everyone?) who studies writing can tell you. You may want to bottle up language and usage in amber so it never changes, but it’s a fruitless battle you’re going to lose. “Terrific” originally meant full “terror”. Now it means something great. But are you ready for the twist? Today, “terrific” doesn’t mean A+++, great stuff. No, because adults use it too much; to my kids, “terrific” just means something good. It’s lost its intensity through overuse. (And they don’t even know what “awesome” means.)
But I can also make a positive case for the expanding use of “everyone”.
It uses fewer words.
“Everyone” is a lot tighter writing (more concise, fewer words) than having to write “almost everyone” or “most people” or “most everyone” or “a lot of people”, which just sound awkward and odd. (Though some brave headline writers do occasionally write “Almost everyone”. Props to Bloomberg for writing “Why (Almost) Everyone Hates ESG Right Now”.)
In most cases, writers use “everyone” as shorthand for “a lot of people” because it uses fewer words and syllables with the added benefit of hyperbole. This partially explains why “everyone” is getting used in so many headlines (aside from the obvious clickbait-y-ness).
Finally, no one (really, no one?) likes a grammar nag. And I say that as someone who just wrote 3,000 words on a word usage pet peeve. In real life now, I constantly hear people refer to “everyone” in conversation, and I get the urge to correct them— like responding with a sarcastic, “Oh really, everyone?”—but I stop myself, because who want I don’t want to be that guy. I assume some people, responding to this article, will point out all the grammar, usage and punctuation mistakes I made—I don’t have a copywriter—and I’ll get annoyed, but that’s just life as a writer on the internet.
The Misuse of ‘Everyone” is Awful
But let me make it clear: I hate how people are using “everyone”. (Dare I say, “everyone” should stop misusing “everyone”?)
First off, it’s often totally, obviously wrong. Flat out, provably wrong:
- “Everyone” was mad at Blake Lively, and then her new movie, It Ends With Us, was a huge hit.
- Does “everyone hate pennies”? No, literally, YouGov ran a poll, and a bunch of people love pennies and most people don’t care.
- Is “everyone” going to book bars? Drinking is down and 40% of Americans didn’t read a book last year.
- Obviously, not everyone loves solar panels; that’s a huge political football these days!
So yeah, I absolutely hate, hate, hate articles with headlines about “everyone” that are flat out, obviously inaccurate.
There’s also a gross consumerism angle. Some headlines talk about the product that “everyone” is talking about, then sell that product on the website or are sponsored content advertising that thing. Like Steven Madden’s shoes. Or Lululemon’s dresses. Or USA Today’s sponsored content about Croatia. This article literally provides the cost of the item!
It doesn’t take an expert to see what’s going on. The word “everyone” drives clicks. Headline writers know this, so they use the word constantly, often to induce FOMO, in this case, FOMO to sell more things.
Worse, “everyone” makes in-groups and out-groups. If you don’t click on the link, you won’t know what opinion “everyone” has or what other people are “obsessed” about. It creates a false consensus. (Or it attempts to.) If “everyone” thinks something, you should too. I hesitate to say it’s “Orwellian” but it’s more Orwellian than not. At the very least, it gives people the totally wrong impression about the world. Derek Thompson listed tribalism as one of the four main drivers of internet negativity; it’s hard to see how the misuse of “everyone” doesn’t play a role in creating tribalism by standardizing opinions.
Often, headlines with the word “everyone” try to create a false consensus that doesn’t exist.
I particularly dislike the “everyone is saying” or “everyone had the same reaction” type headlines. They’re emblematic of a particularly low-effort article formula: the social media round-up. A reporter just collects a handful of social media posts responding to some news event, often with a very low threshold for how many tweets or blueskies or skeets or threads imply that “everyone” had the same reaction to something.
I feel for these writers, especially for those writing for ad-supported websites that force writers to push out five or more articles a day. To hit their quotas, writers can pop on social media, collect a handful of examples, write up a quick article, and boom, they’re that much closer to hitting their goals for the day. But there’s a darker explanation for these articles. Really, these social-media roundup articles allow some writers to launder an opinion they likely agree with through social media content, saying to themselves, “Other people said it, so it’s newsworthy”.
Social media is certainly addictive and the cause of a whole host of social ills, but one thing I think is missing from much of the conversation is how what happens on social media doesn’t stay on social media…it migrates out to the rest of media, as these articles demonstrate.
But my biggest concern is that “everyone” is representative of the media’s tendency to flatten and simplify so many topics these days. There’s so little nuance or complexity or multi-factor analysis in so much writing these days. So much analysis is simple and one dimensional, boiled down to clear aphorisms. In my little corner of the media world, I have to contend with buzzy phrases like “Everything Is Television” and “everything will be video” when the real world is far more complex and complicated than that. Or factually incorrect statements about how “everyone” is watching podcasts on YouTube right now; a lot more people are! But far, far from everyone.
One final, rather dour note: all of this feels a bit pointless. I doubt that people are going to go back to using “everyone” correctly. Perhaps writing this essay will wake people up to this problem, and we can turn the tide on it. But I doubt it.
