There’s a phrase creeping around modern speech like a well-moisturized spider of vague sincerity, and that phrase is: “I appreciate you.”
“I Appreciate You” Is the Verbal Equivalent of a Participation Trophy
People are saying this all the time now. You help someone move a couch up three flights of stairs, risking a hernia and sacrificing your Saturday, and they look you in the eye and say, “I appreciate you.” Then they hand you a slice of lukewarm pizza as if that somehow heals your ruptured lumbar disc.
Now, I’m not against appreciation. I think appreciation is great! I appreciate pizza. I appreciate indoor plumbing. I appreciate the fact that no one wears powdered wigs anymore (unless they’re in a community theater production of 1776). But “I appreciate you” isn’t appreciation—it’s linguistic laziness. It’s a way to avoid the heavy lifting of actual gratitude, like saying “good job” to someone who just performed CPR on a porcupine.
Let’s look at this grammatically for a second, just to keep our 7th-grade English teachers from flipping tables in the afterlife. “Appreciate” is a transitive verb. That means it needs an object—something to appreciate. You can appreciate a thing: “I appreciate your honesty.” “I appreciate your help.” “I appreciate that you didn’t throw me under the bus in the meeting even though I accidentally forwarded that email chain where I called my publisher a ‘beige tornado of despair.’”
But when you say “I appreciate you,” it’s like writing “TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN” on a Post-it Note and sticking it on someone’s forehead. It’s non-specific. What do you appreciate? My punctuality? My ability to quote The Princess Bride at inappropriate moments? My entire existence as a human carbon-based lifeform?
Let me put it this way: if someone rescues you from a burning building, you don’t say, “I appreciate you.” You say, “Thank you for heroically pulling me from the flames even though I was screaming and holding a cat and a slow-cooker full of chili.” That’s specific. That’s real. That shows effort.
The rise of “I appreciate you” reflects a broader cultural epidemic I call Emotional Fast Foodism. It’s the trend of serving up warm-sounding, empty expressions instead of taking the time to express meaningful emotion. It’s the “McThankYou” of language. It looks like gratitude, but it’s made from emotional filler and synthetic empathy.
You’ll hear this phrase a lot in corporate America, often delivered by managers who haven’t made eye contact since 2017. “Hey team, just wanted to say I appreciate you.” Translation: “Please keep doing 60 hours of work for 40 hours of pay while I attend a webinar called Leading with Authenticity.”
Or on a author club zoom, where the host says “I appreciate you” after you’ve given hours of your time to prepare and present a program about how to be politically correct and still sell some books. No. What you mean is “I appreciate that you gave so much of your time and talent to a group of people who are scrolling Instagram while you gave your heart and sould to the club… for free.”
We need to bring back specific appreciation. The kind that says, “I appreciate how you helped me format my book for the knuckleheads at KDP,” or “I appreciate that you didn’t comment on my bad breath after we ate at that spicy Mexican place I love… and you hate.” Even better: skip “appreciate” altogether and go with something radical like “thank you,” or—brace yourself—“I’m grateful.”
Because real appreciation takes effort. It requires observation. It demands that you pay attention to another human being, not just phone in a vague hug of a sentence and move on to your almond milk latte.
So please: let’s retire “I appreciate you” as a catch-all, one-size-fits-nobody phrase. Let’s get weirdly, wonderfully specific about our gratitude. If someone bakes you cookies, say, “Thank you for the cookies. They were delicious, and I think one of them made me briefly transcend time and space.” That person will feel seen. Understood. Appreciated.
And if you read this whole column, I want to say something to you, sincerely and with grammatical integrity:
Thank you for your attention, your sense of humor, and your willingness to stick with me through a rant about a three-word phrase that is slowly turning the English language into a mushy oatmeal of sentiment.
I don’t just appreciate you.
I appreciate your time.
See what I did there? You’re welcome.
