That’s right. Over on TechCruch is a post that reveals the temporary-message app that deletes your texts from the receiving device after a short delay (at least as far as I understand it) has been valued at $10 Billion. Whenever the word “billion” comes up, people always say “that’s billion, with a ‘B.'” So I’m going to say it too, but I’ve never understood that; is there some other kind of billion? Billion with an ‘R’ perhaps?

Anyway, I question why anyone would need to use an app that deletes sent messages from the receiving device, although I think we can all use our imaginations. And you’d better be careful – as the recent celebrity leaks show, if you can’t trust the person you’re texting with maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place, and the texts really aren’t that hard to archive. That all contributes to the fact that a valuation like this is ridiculous; it’s impossible to maintain revenue, something Snapchat has zero of, that justifies such a price for any app.

In doing an image search for a picture to put in the body of this post, this was the only appropriate one I could find (Snapchat logo)

But that’s not my problem with this, not at all. If people with tons of money want to spend it on things they want, I don’t fault them. I’d do it too! And it isn’t like there’s no precedent; remember WhatsApp? That was valued at twice as much! And honestly, if people want to send intimate pictures of themselves to their spouses, significant others, or random strangers, well that’s their prerogative – who am I to judge?

No, my issue with all of this is that in the very first paragraph, the TechCrunch author used the term ‘Grok.’

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, first of all good for you. It’s a tech-elitist way of saying ‘understand.’ So instead of saying “I’m not understanding this” you’d say “I’m not grokking this,” or instead of saying “No one understand me” you’d say “No one groks me.” In fact, it’s not even red-underlined in my web editor to indicate a misspelled word.

While I’m aware of its origination in the science fiction classic Stranger in a Strange Land by master genre author Robert Heinlein (and a great Iron Maiden song to boot) and its use through time as a representative of a kind of Zen blending with a concept, as well as its adoption by groups such as hippies and other sub-cultures including deep-tech groups, but to see it used on a respected tech site like TechCrunch is jarring.

It has been used forever in tech circles, but for reasons I’ve never quite grokked, it makes it hard to take a person seriously when I hear or see it used. I get that it’s supposed to indicate a state far beyond basic understanding, but it seems a continuation of techy people to create words for things that already have words.

And Snapchat is going to have to start making serious revenue. I, uh, I won’t ask anyone if they’ve used it.