‘It’s Not My Jam’ — Is Not My Jam. Of Course, It Isn’t. I’m 81 Years Old, for Heaven’s Sake

‘It’s not my jam.’ I heard that idiom for the first time a couple months ago, and I’ve made up my mind — it’s not my jam.

When I first heard that figure of speech, I was alarmed (for a nanosecond) because it fell, oh-so-casually, from the lips of someone I admired (make that envied) — a Bay Area writer who publishes and teaches and is privy to the innermost goings-on of the Bay Area writing world.

The setting was a sidewalk table at a jam-packed restaurant in San Francisco’s Mission District. Several of us were ordering dishes to share. For the aforementioned writer, the mushrooms — or was it the shrimp bits? — were “not my jam.”

With that, there in the high-energy bustle of Mission Street, a gloomy Fear of Missing Out settled over me. People in the know were moving on to ‘It’s not my jam’ and I was still happy with ‘It’s not my cup of tea.’

Making 21st-century Century Hay

I fretted. Was American culture leaving my 81-year-old self behind? Are the up-and-coming, youth-y people — Gen Xers, Millennials, Gen Zers — making the 21st-century cultural hay without me?

(Just so you know, the expression ‘It’s not my jam’ is a musical, not a culinary, term. It’s been around for a while but got a boost back in 2006 when a video of CheckOne2 went viral with its song “That’s My Jam.” Another boost came in 2021 with the Jimmy Fallon game show That’s My Jam.

(Exactly when the expression found its way into Bay Area literary circles I don’t know. I wasn’t there to witness its arrival.)

Not long after the writer and the shrimp bits incident, my daughter came north for Thanksgiving with her husband and a friend. There, in  my kitchen, surrounded by her millennial pals, I heard those same words fall from my daughter’s lips.

With that it became clear to me — ‘It’s not my jam’ was an up-and-coming turn of phrase on its way to becoming the next ‘awesome’ or ‘no problem.’

‘Awesome.’ ‘No problem.’

‘Awesome.’ ‘No problem.’ Both of those expressions have been around for decades, as you’ve probably noticed. When my children were reaching adulthood, I stood by as the mid-century ‘cool’ gave way to the millennial ‘awesome’ — a term that still strikes me as over the top.

Yes, the Grand Canyon is awesome — but is a pumpkin spice latte?

I decided to stick with ‘cool’ and let the younger generation have at it with ‘awesome.’

Same goes for ‘No problem,’ which seems to have replaced ‘You’re welcome’ as the expected response to a  ‘Thank you.’

‘No problem’ bothers me. It has a way of implying that the groceries I just bought are indeed a problem for the bagger at the check-out counter. He’ll bag my groceries anyway, “No problem.”

‘No problem’ feels transactional and stingy. Good old ‘you’re welcome,’ on the other hand, has — had? — a generous feel to it, a fitting bookend to a thoughtful ‘Thank you.’

As for my daughter and her jam, I can’t recall whether it was a bottle of sauvignon blanc or a TV series on Netflix that was not her jam that night.

‘It’s Not My Jam’ — My Idiom? Or Someone Else’s?

More to the point, I had now heard this new — to me — idiom twice over. Did that mean I could now claim it as my own and start tossing it around at sidewalk restaurants in the Mission District? Could I ditch ‘not my cup of tea’ and plug in ‘not my jam’ and tell myself I was keeping up with the times?

Or, would I rather stay put and carry on as a living, breathing human archive of the old timey expressions of my 20th-century youth? Do I stick to my rickety old guns and insist on tea when everyone else is opting for jam?

I’ve put in 81 years on this planet. I’m not young anymore. But it seems I still have life choices to make.

In which case, I’ll have the tea. For now.

More stories about the writing life at “Writing Tips From a Famous Author: I Put My Best Socks on to Get Them.”  Also, “A Book of Essays From Cartoonist Cathy Guisewite. Did She Write It, Or Did I?”