Digital Douches! 10 Twisted Words Every Frustrated Marketer Relates To

I love making up and sharing words

I’ve been doing it since I was a kid and began speaking.

Today I do them for more than just laughs. They improve my communication skills, productivity, emotional intelligence, working memory, social relationships, and get me outside my own comfort zone and into a growth mindset.

By doing this, I’ve learned to flip anxiety into creativity, boredom into a brain game, distractions into directions, and icebreakers into warm relationships.

GRANTASMS are the names I give to my comic and meaningful word creations for social connections.

I create them for laughs, personal growth, creative inspiration, and professional success working in digital marketing and virtual events.  

I like to say my Grantasms are “word fungasms” or “wordgasms."

Because they’re mine or the stories are mine, I use my first name given to me by my parents, “Grant,” to share my connection to the words with others. They help me express myself better when existing words in our standard dictionaries fail me. They’re my form of creative communication.

“Aren’t those just made up words? Non-words?” That’s something I hear a lot.

To me, they’re all real words, just with a “twist” — i.e., a different take on something familiar that brings mystery, creativity, joy, and an invitation to a conversation. Grantasms are inspired by my own true stories, and they help me better connect and converse with people everywhere. They also playfully encourage others to do the same.

“I see these and I think, why didn't I think of that?” —Douglas Burdett, host of The Marketing Book Podcast

Grantasms teach me to turn my frustrations and struggles into creative empathy and playful mindfulness. Through Grantasms, I’ve learned to flip anxiety into creativity, boredom into a brain game, distractions into directions, and icebreakers into warm relationships.

As somebody who had so many of these words for the work I did and a lot in when I worked for, on the agency side, on the brand side, I would do for all types of industries, e-commerce, nonprofits, government, military. And I thought the one thing I was always doing and was coming up with my own words.

But I never realized I would do this for many, many years. It was only recently I realized how you can build a connection or have an icebreaker with someone. And that is what I found was always the struggle is sometimes people feel awkward talking face to face like what we call "breaking the ice," but a lot of times people also make a faux pas, or what I call "digital douches" from miscommunicating online, as I would do very often.

Making up and sharing your own twisted words are more than just for laughs; they’re a great way to improve your social life. some people like to use terms like social-emotional wellness, emotional intelligence What I like to say is it's a good way to develop a focused and creative mindset. it's a good way to improve your competence and charisma like it has with mine.

The important thing about using these Grantasms is people don't do a lot of things that they want to change about the behavior and here's what I learned, why? Because now they've associated that behavior with something they want to feel ashamed about. When I call it a whiteout, I have a laugh when it happens again. And when I have a laugh that happens again, I'm in a better position to deal with it.

Want some more laughs and tips for improving your marketing communication skills?

Listen to The Marketing Book Podcast's Douglas Burdett talk with me about playful mindfulness, why you should laugh at the situations and behaviors you want to fix, and fun twisted words for all kinds of funny, frustrating, and highly-relatable marketing situations.

Check out my book, Grantasms: Twisted Creative Words for Cool People! Now available on Amazon in paperback and ebook! It's my own memoir of how I learned to build better memory and work connections, told in a quirky bent, with hundreds of creative twisted words for all-true work situations you can laugh and learn from today.

What do you think about twisted words to improve your marketing communication?

Please share your thoughts with me in the comments below! If you have a favorite made-up word or phrase with a personal story behind it, I’d love to hear that as well!

Word creations for social connections — let's make communication fun again, shall we?

About the author

Grant Allen Crowell is a learning facilitator for Dell Technologies’ Digital Events Team. He is a former social media manager on both the agency and brand side, a past YouTube channel manager for Fortune 100 companies, a former professional editorial cartoonist and talk radio host, comedy club staffer, and documentary film producer. when he's not making up silly words, Grant is a guest speaker on being confident on camera and on the unique relationship between social media and ADHD. He also volunteers as a co-foster parent for an animal rescue organization. And for fun, he enjoys running in thousand-acre forest preserves and looking for the best craft beer deals across state lines.

Born and raised in Honolulu, Hawai’i, with a long adult-ing in the Chicago burbs, Grant now lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his “spousish” partner, Karen. By day (and sometimes nights), he works as a learning facilitator of virtual events for Dell Technologies. His first solo book, GRANTASMS!, is the culmination of many years of word creations from his big ideas, small wonders, and unfinished business.