choose violence

English

Etymology

According to Know Your Meme, first used in the idiomatic sense in a tweet posted June 21, 2019 by @mtheadnothought: "azealia banks wakes up every morning and chooses violence tbh the dedication is outstanding", itself inspired by line of dialogue in the 2016 Game of Thrones episode "No One" (see I choose violence).

Verb

choose violence (third-person singular simple present chooses violence, present participle choosing violence, simple past chose violence, past participle chosen violence)

1. (Internet slang, humorous, idiomatic) To disrespect or insult someone in a particularly audacious and unexpected manner.

   wake up and choose violence

   • 2021 July 30, Tayo Bero, “When Will Michael Che Face Consequences For Punching Down On Black Women?”, in Refinery29‎^[1], archived from the original on 13 July 2023:

     In a post on his Instagram story Thursday, the Saturday Night Live head writer [Michael Che] expressed his desire to "make fun of Simone Biles." In the next post, he wrote: "I got like 3 mins of Simone Biles jokes in my head. I'm going to the cellar tonight to say them into a microphone. As the dorky kids say, I'm choosing violence."

   • 2021 October 29, Sam Damshenas, “Exclusive: Choriza May addresses 'hurtful' RuPaul's Drag Race UK twist”, in Gay Times‎^[2], London: Gay Times Ltd, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-01-20:

     RuPaul Charles chose violence on this week's episode of Drag Race UK when he chose to eliminate, not one, but two fan-favourite contestants from the competition.

   • 2022 April 24, Jake Lambourne, “'They chose violence' – Sky Sports F1 'troll' Hamilton as Brit is lapped by Verstappen in Emilia Romagna horror show”, in The US Sun‎^[3], archived from the original on 2022-05-24:

     Still, the broadcast decided to show that Verstappen was leading him by more than 77 seconds. Sharing a snap of the visual, one Twitter user posted: "F1 CHOSE VIOLENCE WITH THIS GRAPHIC."

   • 2022 June 1, Jon Blistein, “Liam Payne Unfortunately Chose Violence While Talking One Direction on Logan Paul's Podcast”, in Rolling Stone‎^[4], New York, N.Y.: Penske Media Corporation, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-02-08:

     For Payne's sake, we hope he figures out who he wants to be soon — and that it's not the same man who woke up and chose violence on Logan Paul's podcast.

   • 2023 January 20, Erin Keane, “A tiny gingerbread house got listed on Zillow for 31 days, and the price felt all too real”, in Salon.com‎^[5], archived from the original on 2023-05-28:

     I have read enough online listing BS — and watched enough terrible HGTV to make my own realtor's head hurt — that the line between parody and straight-faced is probably permanently blurred for me. The internal adjustments you learn to make to the manic cheerleading for basic structural details—sorry, "charming historical elements"—are a reflex at this point, to say nothing of the eye strain from listings that considered proper capitalization and punctuation and chose violence instead.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see choose,‎ violence.

References

• “Wake Up And Choose Violence”, in Know Your Meme, launched 2007