"I just passed my neighbor in the street and he gave me the New England salute: a "moue."He gets more in-depth about what is being communicated with the 'moue'. "...the moue feels stingy. It feels like a withholding." He writes. He goes on to point out that a cheery hello is a better thing than the moue.
He might have waved his hand, nodded, smiled, flashed his eyebrows, or even stopped to chat. But, no, what he had for me was a moue.
This is a small gesture of the mouth. Lips are pulled back and compressed, as if someone were about to play the trumpet. it happens very quickly. If you are not watching very closely, you'll miss it. (In the image to the right, President Bush is making what might be a moue.)
Me though, I'm less interested in exactly what is being communicated in a moue, or a nod, or a smile. I'll agree that a hello is better, but I'm more interested in our need to feel a connection with the person we're passing on the street. Even more so, why do we ask people how they are when we really have no interest in how they are?
I wrote a lengthy post once about the guy nod. I even guy nodded once with Ryan Miller, on my street. My argument was then, and is now, that there are things going on with us humans that transcends language. Duh, you might say. But as a marketer, there are things we communicate without words. There are gestures that say more than all the words in this post. And that's neat. And I'm glad to read others are thinking about this. It makes me feel connected.
And for the record, I have no idea what relevance this has to anything.
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