I’ve been thinking lately that it’s time we MS nerds did away with the Red Pill metaphor, or at least modify it a bit.

If you aren’t familiar with it, it’s a reference to some stupid sci-fi movie where some jack-ass who can’t act for shit wears a long coat inside a computer and avoids getting shot so that he can be part of the stupid human resistance that’s working to overthrow the dominant computer of the planet that’s growing humans the way Colonel Sanders grows chickens and BLAH BLAH BLAH.

You aren’t missing much. It’s just tacky shades and bad acting.

However, in spite of its incredible suckage, its influence has made its way even into our everyday speech. If you work in the tech industry, then it isn’t too uncommon to hear that “so and so took the red pill,” which means that “so and so” has just been hired by Microsoft. It’s meant to imply that “so and so” is about to enter the Matrix, which is the name of the really stupid computer environment in the worst movie ever made.

The metaphor actually goes back to Lewis Carroll (or “Charles Lutwidge Dodgson” if you prefer his real name) and some fairly popular fiction that he wrote for this nine year old girl for whom he had the hots (her name was “Alice Liddell”). It was a match made in heaven for modern American daytime talkshow television, but that’s neither he nor there.

Regardless of the rich history of this term, its time has come.

From here on out, I propose a slightly different version of the same phrase. We don’t have to change it all at once.

Baby steps.

Here’s a demo to help you see where I’m going with this.

“Hey, Frank. Hear the news?”

“No. What?”

“Well, do you remember Biff?”

“Oh, yeah. Biff - the fingersmelling contractor from last year. Yeah. Why?”

“He just took the red suppository!”

“No way! Good for him!”

See? Like that?

Same basic idea, but the method of delivery of said red object is just slightly different than it used to be.

Let me know what you think. Try using the phrase “Frank took the red suppository” in casual conversations (preferably with your boss) tomorrow and see how it turns out.