Thinking in the Third Person Does Not Make You Three-Dimensional

Henson doesn’t understand why some people insist on talking about themselves in the third person. Henson feels this disrupts the natural flow of conversation when a person begins referring to themselves in the third person, because then Henson begins to wonder who is actually standing in front of him speaking? Since they’ve clearly removed themselves from the actual physical embodiment of the person they’re referring to, does this mean that the person in front of Henson is actually some kind of astral projection of the real person, or perhaps a hologram that is only meant to be representational? Henson is very confused.

Okay, enough of that nonsense. Obviously, I am trying to illustrate a point. When someone begins referring to themselves in the third person, as if speaking about a completely different entity, it makes me wonder what kind of horrible accident occurred to separate their mind from their body? Otherwise, I don’t understand why someone would insist on talking about themselves as if they’re not even there—as if the person speaking were merely an emissary sent to tell everyone what the real person thinks, says and feels.

One of the reigning offenders of this type of ridiculous self-indulgence is Suede, part of the new crop of eccentric designers on this season’s “Project Runway.” Ironically his name sounds very much like Jade, a former contestant on “America’s Next Top Model,” who also referred to herself in the third person. In fact, when she was finally eliminated from the competition, she wasn’t entirely convinced they were eliminating her, but rather the other “Jade” she constantly referred to when speaking about herself. This caused a huge altercation with the security guards, who were called in to physically remove both “Jades” from the building. Later, Jade allegedly changed her name to Pebbles, and is now touring the cruise ship circuit as a pair of Siamese Twins.

But let’s get back to Suede for a moment. He’s a thirty-something designer with a bad dye job and a propensity to boost his own ego by saying things like “Suede did really good” or “Suede rocks” or “Suede needs to go tee-tee now.” This obnoxious device is not only overused, but it seems to be in line with other designers on the show, who also wish to promote themselves through the overuse of clever verbiage. Consider the young overly-tanned Blayne, who insists on pushing his “girlicious” agenda, a blatant attempt to capitalize on last season’s “hot mess tranny” lingo from Christian. What’s sad is that it’s so obvious this kid wants America to embrace his kooky collection of catch phrases that it’s become one of the running jokes of the season. Imagine trying to get Tim Gunn to say “Holla at yo boy” every time he came in the room. It doesn’t even make sense.

So is Suede using the third person singular to make sure people remember him, or is it because he has trouble remembering himself? I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure Suede wasn’t his given name. (Velour, perhaps, but not Suede.) So maybe he overuses the term because he’s trying to convince himself that it’s a legitimate name---the more he says it, the more it becomes ingrained in his psyche. Unfortunately, that psyche doesn’t seem to have any connection with his body, which is simply a vessel with which to carry “Suede” around. Whatever the reason for the separation, it certainly gives him ample opportunity to boost his own ego, because you can’t really classify his self-congratulatory dialogue as “bragging” if he never uses the word “I”, right?

But that’s just Henson’s opinion. What do you think of people who refer to themselves in the third person? Henson wants to know.