Word of the Week: Yoot

Yoot: A member of the YouTube generation; someone under the age of 20.

In the recently published The Age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our Culture, authors Terry O'Reilly and Mike Tennant trace the history of advertising from the mid-19th century to the present day. One of their chapters is titled "Persuading Yoots." YouTube, they write, is revolutionizing marketing by enabling "democratized ad messaging."

Harry Hurt II, reviewing the book in the New York Times, writes:

A large chunk of YouTube’s audience, he [sic] notes, is under the age of 20 — the so-called Yoots, who account for $570 billion in annual buying power. The authors contend that to reach the Yoot demographic, marketers must learn to create “a whole new language” for selling products and services that taps into the Yoots’ fondness for customizing and personalizing messages.

Coincidentally (maybe), Yoot is also a variant pronunciation of "youth." It's perhaps best remembered from this exchange between Vinny, played by Joe Pesci, and the judge, played by Fred Gwynne, in My Cousin Vinny (1992). (See section 29):

Judge: “Did you say 'yoots'?”
Vinny: “Yeah, two yoots.”
Judge: “What is a 'yoot'?”
Vinny: “Oh, excuse me, your honor. Two youths.”

Comments

[Stan]

The Urban Dictionary has a few entries equating it with "young person". Since there's a semantic and phonetic overlap with "youth", it will be interesting to see whether "yoot" continues to refer to youths as the YouTube generation grows older.

I bought My Cousin Vinny in a DVD sale recently; it's an old favourite. One of Joe Pesci's least scary performances!