In the interest of your research, I’ll throw out that we don’t know what prompted Brandon’s suicide and those who knew him best unanimously believe that this was an accidental OD. (I only mention this because he’d roll his eyes so far back in his skull over the ‘cry for help’ cliche that he’d never get them back out)
I’m done hijacking now. I realize it got a little off-base, but this is where the “I told u i was hardcore” bit came from, unfortunate as that is.
I sit corrected.
Sorry for the confusion as to the nature of my behaviour on this subject. I hate the idea of popping into message boards and saying, “YOU HAVE TO SAY NICE THINGS BECAUSE HE WAS MY FRIEND AND IT HURTS!”, because that’s bullshit.
As far as the media saturation thing goes, Hell, maybe it was my personal involvement that made it seem so much more pervasive.
Anyway, I’ve never seen the phrase used before his death, and now I see it fairly regularly, especially with the SomethingAwful crowd, and their ilk, so I assumed the two observations were related.
So I take it the General Question is answered here?
Not really. I first heard it a couple years ago and it was already a cliche.
I’m a bit confused - are you guys saying that the phrase originated with him?
The phrase when used in regards to suicide probably references that incident, but people have been referring to themselves as “hardcore” for a long time.
As far as I know, SenorBeef, we’re discussing the origins of the current usage of the phrase as a whole, not just use of the term “hardcore”. I’d have to have been living under a rock the last twenty years not to hear that term used from time to time.
Yes, referring to one’s self as “hardcore” most deffinitely pre-dates the suicide incident.
While referring to yourself as “hardcore” was definately common before Brandon (hence why he used it). The particular phrase “I told you I was hardcore” is linked specifically to Brandon’s death.
Gotcha.