In Defence of Second Person Voice: Why You Should Say 'You'

Source: Wikipedia Commons

Word count: 909          Estimated reading time: 4:32 mins

This was written in response to brunotreves's article titled, Why We Need YOU to Stop Saying YOU.  

One day, brunotreves, a blogger here on Steemit, was watching a video that involved a guy trying to learn how to backflip in six hours. The four minute video outlines Justin's (backflipper guy) many failures up until the end where he finally succeeds. In summary, Justin states that:

 "Your mind is the only thing that is stopping you from doing whatever you want to do."

Brunotreves took issue with this phrase. It wasn't the message. It was the way it was said. Brunotreves didn't believe that this way of preaching from the second person was healthy for either party. And he had two main reasons to support his conclusion. 

First, phrasing in this way can be confusing. Who exactly is the backflipper talking about? Second, brunotreves finds this sort of language disempowering. He claims that by disassociating one's self from their own experience, they are removing their own power as a speaker and belittling the listener. 

To quote: 

"The issue here is that, again, he [Justin, the backflipper] is disempowering himself and the viewer. First of all, he is not giving him the credit he deserves from his discovery...On the other side, I, the audience, suddenly find myself feeling the pressure of this guys supposed discovery being put on me."

After reading his article I had myself a think. I felt differently on the matter. I thought that using the second person in this way was more fascinating than incorrect. I didn't see anything wrong with what Justin (Back flipper guy) was communicating.  

However, Brunotreves argues that Justin could have simply phrased it as:

My mind is the only thing that is stopping me from doing whatever you want to do.

But it isn't the same is it? Using 'you' has a flavour of its own. Second person 'you'  in this form is a way of trying to relate, to build common ground -- an activity I believe is very important. Authors writing first person novels may even have their protagonist use it. A popular example would be Chuck Palahnuik's Fight Club.  

Source: Wikipedia Commons

An excerpt: 

"A thud, and the second wheel hits the tarmac. The staccato of a hundred seatbelt buckles snapping open, and the single-use friend you almost died sitting next to says: I hope you make your connection. Yeah, me too. And this is how long your moment lasted. And life goes on. And somehow, by accident, Tyler and I met."

Note the effect Palahnuik's usage of the second person has. It puts you there. Palahnuik's narrator continually rattles off passages in the second person because the narrator wants you to know how it feels. It's almost the same as using the pronoun 'we', but it's a more influential way of talking -- which is the opposite of disempowering. 

Here's a more positive example:

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi 

Granted, this example extrapolates a bit, but he is really is talking about a form of leadership that he follows and wants others to follow as well. Gandhi could have simply said  'I must be the change...' , but I believe that it wouldn't have had the same effect. It wasn't a conversation about how he was going to do his thing and it was fine if you went on doing yours. It was about something he felt everyone should do. 

Source: Wikipedia Commons

But what effect does this have on the listener? Does it subordinate them? Does it subconsciously inoculate them with the writer's ideas? Not really. It's a tool for language, and all language carries with it its risks and rewards. The second person can be influential, but it is not magic. In that case of Fight Club, the narrator expose a sort of meaninglessness brought about by consumer culture. In the case of Gandhi, he was explaining his own leadership style, something that resonated with the people at the time. In both cases the desire to be influenced was already there, it just needed a primer.  

Where I agree with brunotreves is that this way of talking risks being confusing because you are switching the pronoun 'You' for what should really be 'I" or 'we'. For people who are ESL, this can be infuriating. Other times people fail at using this form because they are asking someone to relate to something they haven't experienced, such as brunotreves's wine-selling grandma example. 

In the case of Justin (backflip guy), he wanted to use his experience to inspire others and change their beliefs about what they are limited to doing. He definitely tells the listener what to think, but I'm not about to run outside and start backflipping, especially if I didn't feel the urge to do so before. 

I'm sure this doesn't come as much of a surprise, but language is about as effective as our use of it. On one hand the second person can be very intense and influential, inviting the listener to see through the world their way. On the other, it is bold and very potent, and very easy to mess up its use. It's up to the communicator to decide if it is worth the risk.

So let's consider what we are communicating and to whom, and then limit the style accordingly. Components of language are not inherently good or bad, it's how you use them. 

To Brunotreves, thanks again for writing your article and bringing up a very interesting subject.