Published: December 16, 2025.
(it’s fun to write overly dramatic titles for simple subjects)
I’m ideologically opposed to “Yinz” and not for the simple explanation of finding it stupid. For those (blissfully) unaware of Pittsburgh PA, the word “Yinz” is an analogue of the word “Y’all” for a dialect dubbed Pittsburghese. Despite the term appearing everywhere on T-shirts, coffee stores and billboards, it’s notably absent in the speech of pretty much all residents of western Pennsylvania. The deed I find morally questionable is not the existence of “Yinz”, but how it has faded from actual usage and is preserved only because it is a marketable aspect of the city’s culture. It’s like owning an old book that you never read because it makes for an interesting piece of antique decor, rather than for the book’s contents.
That’s it! That’s the consolidated take! It’s entirely my conjecture and I have no hard evidence of what percent of people use the Pittsburghese dialect in earnest (which includes more forgotten terms like “Slippy” and “dahntahn” ). The rest of this essay is related but weirder stuff. Enjoy.
So my REAL, real problem with “Yinz” is that it feels like a desperate plea to differentiate Pittsburgh from the homogeneity of American cities. When I went to Las Vegas last year, I felt that it was pretty much New York City but you could buy vodka in a CVS. Sure, the strip’s casinos were giant theme-park-esque bursts of character, but all the fun-looking ones were from the mid-twentieth century, and slowly getting replaced by flat skyscrapers filled with digital slot machines. There’s quite a few reasons for this one could assign, but a big culprit for me is that the interconnectedness of the modern world means each city is no longer an isolated bubble of culture. This isn’t inherently bad, but the homogenization of cultures is certainly a lamentable loss.
With this in mind, perhaps the western PA cultural warriors are fighting the good fight by celebrating Yinzerpalooza (yes, this is real). While I see the commodification of the city’s industrial past as a ghoulish attempt to sell people a heritage which no longer exists, I’ve no doubt that many cling to the iconography of the bridges made with Pittsburgh Steel(ers) with pride. It’s naturally subjective whether one thinks the stores selling “Jagoff” keychains is a communal fight against the aforementioned cultural uniformity, or a snake oil cure which only deepens the root problem; my cynicism and recent arrival to the region obviously push me towards the former. Perhaps more mercy will be shown to those with stickers of yellow bridges than those with idols of golden calves.
Hypothesis: It’s Over. Because Pittsburgh has stagnated as an industrial center and bed of unique cultural activity, all that’s left is to mine the old iconography for all that it’s worth. I’ve felt this more broadly, seeing media from the 90’s and 00’s remain popular for new audiences, but fail to pinpoint anything from the last decade with enough “cultural impact” that children born today will feel inclined to pick up in a few years. Yes I’m oblivious to much and yes it’s hard to see what people will be nostalgic for in the future, but I feel that the Harry Potter franchise, Disney’s 90’s renaissance, the Pirates of the Caribbean films and Warrior Cats books (to name a few examples) have been and will continue to be enjoyed by audiences who were too young/not born for the initial release. And that’s something I can’t see for a Stranger Things or a Squid Game.
Again I feel that the speed of modernity is a culprit, rushing things out the door before they’ve had time to linger and set down roots, but our good friend Capitalism is not blameless in this either. People much smarter than I have explained how the inflation of film budgets de-incentivizes risk-taking and promotes sequels, remakes and reboots, since it’s safer to cash in on a beloved IP when a film needs to make $1 Billion to break even.
Steering this essay back in the direction of Anti-Yinzer sentiments, there’s a strong relationship between marketability and iconography that concerns, dare I say displeases, me. In short, it seems that the requirements for mass appeal and popularity are to be familiar IPs and to be easily turned into Funko Pops. Looking at the Wiki page for highest-grossing films (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films) gives me a hard-to-describe sensation. Suffice to say, it does not make me optimistic about the human race.
I’m not against recognizable character design, or even fun, I just think it’s a shame that the profit-orientated nature of media production means that what cannot be flattened into slogan or toy is discarded. Stalker (1979) is one of my favorite films that I will not shut up about, and it’s weird to consider that it would be way more popular outside of film circles if the protagonists had crazy haircuts and unique guns that NERF could sell replicas of, instead of just being a gaggle of Russian dudes. [In the interests of actually saying true things, I looked up “Stalker 1979 Merchandise” just now, and am so pleased to say that all of it sucks (this is a good thing btw) and Funko Pop has not bought the rights to the film.]
And those are pretty much all my thoughts on the matter. What did you think? Do you agree or disagree, were my opinions well structured or too wordy, etc? Give me a call in real life at [Redacted] and let me know what you thought of this essay. My only aspiration on this planet is for my blog to unexpectedly gain traction so that I deeply regret just writing my personal phone number like this.