Out of touch
“Out of touch” is an expression we use to describe someone who is disconnected from reality in some way. It can mean that a person is unaware of current trends , or it can refer to someone who doesn’t understand the reality of a situation. In both cases, the person we’re talking about is not fully in sync with what’s happening around him or with the experiences of others. To say someone is “out of touch” is not a compliment .
Not being aware of cultural trends
Let’s start with the first definition, which is to be unaware of what’s going on. We often say someone is “out of touch” when they don’t follow changes in culture, technology, or a group or an activity that they’ve been a part of in the past.
Here’s a great example: when it comes to social media , I am completely out of touch. I’m just not keeping up , I’m not following the trends, I’m not aware of what’s going on. I’m out of touch. Listen: I don’t have TikTok. That how out of touch I am! That’s how little I’m following changes in what’s popular.
Here’s another example. When I moved to Chicago in 2003, the owner of the local hockey team didn’t allow the home games to be broadcast on television . He would not put his professional North American sports team on television in the third-largest city in the country. And his reasoning was, he didn’t want to give away the product for free , when he could charge admission to the games.
Talk about out of touch! It meant nobody could feel connected to the team, so they weren’t motivated to go see them in person. This was just not being aware of how television had changed sports, and that was in 2003. After that owner’s son took over the team, the Blackhawks were back on TV and won a championship a few years later.
Unaware of the reality of a situation
So that’s not being aware of trends. Next, “out of touch” can be used describe someone who doesn’t understand the reality of what others are going through—or even if they understand it, they’re insensitive to it. This is often said about people in positions of power or privilege , like politicians, celebrities, or wealthy people , who may not fully grasp or understand the challenges faced by ordinary people .
There’s a famous example from 1992. The president at the time, George H. W. Bush, was campaigning for a second term. And he went to a trade show for grocery stores . And a newspaper report said he was amazed at a display of barcode scanners . By that point , barcode scanners had been in use at grocery stores for over a decade. They were part of the weekly routine of anyone who ever went to a grocery or convenience store .
And the article depicted the president as out of touch with ordinary Americans’ lives. The report was an exaggeration; even the newspaper later admitted that. But the myth stuck, and Bush could never shake the image of being out of touch—of being unaware of how real life is for ordinary people.
Hillary Clinton dealt with that during her 2016 campaign. She won a lot of votes—she won more votes than Donald Trump did that year—but she was widely considered to be out of touch. By that point, she had been on the national stage for over twenty years. She and her husband, the former president, had become fantastically wealthy . And people really thought she was out of touch. They thought she was just unaware of what life was like for them.
Here’s one. This is a good one. The pandemic hits . And one of the things people used to routinely say in the pandemic was “stay safe.” Do you remember that? “Stay safe.” It meant, take care of yourself, be healthy, things like that. It was a polite way to end a phone call or conversation. And one of the ways people stayed safe was by isolating , staying at home, avoiding contact with other people.
That was easier for some people than for others. The record producer David Geffen didn’t have much trouble maintaining social distance from others. He’s the owner of a yacht that has 82 rooms, a staff of over 40 people, and is worth over $500 million.
So in March 2020, when fear was spreading through the world, David Geffen posted on Instagram a picture of a sunrise in the Caribbean. He was on his mega yacht. And he said in the caption , “Isolated in the Grenadines avoiding the virus. I hope everybody is staying safe.”
Talk about out of touch! Literally people were living in fear of a mysterious deadly virus , they were afraid to leave their homes, worried about how to get food in their houses, losing their jobs—but never mind. David Geffen sends them cordial greetings from his 82-room yacht and tells them to stay safe.
Opposite of ‘in touch’
And then finally before we wrap up , “out of touch” can sometimes mean the opposite of “in touch.” So if you lose contact with a person or group, you can sometimes say you’re out of touch with them. It’s more common to say you’re “not in touch” with someone. But I did want you to know that you can, sometimes, say “out of touch” when you mean “not in contact.”
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