What Does "Live Forward" Even Mean?

I'm starting to suspect some marketers swindled some of the Columbus' CARES Act funds.

There’s a famous clip from some show I’ve long forgotten that features David Nvarro telling a bunch of schlubs that they represent Taco Bell’s “Live Mas” lifestyle.

There may never be a better encapsulation of the moral bankruptcy of American society after business executives obliterated the middle class and profiteered on our current predicament. That was, until, my beautiful, intelligent girlfriend KGB Stacey de-boarded a plane from Philadelphia and discovered Columbus has a new slogan of “Live Forward,” a phrase meandering the wilderness in search of a non-literal meaning.

While it struck us as new, it’s not that new, having been around for a year in a sign of what an effective marketing campaign it is to begin with.

The description is your typical masterclass in marketing hobgoblin gobbledygook masquerading as lofty ideals. Given the tie-ins to the COVID pandemic on the official website, it’s easy to figure the city squandered tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in CARES Act relief money trying to convince potential tourists that Columbus is cool, actually.

Columbus is a city built on bold ideas and fueled by relentless optimism. As a community, we tend to dream big. We let nothing stop us from turning today's dreams into better tomorrows. We have proved this time and again over the past year as we embraced this Live Forward Spirit to weather a global pandemic. Now, we’re excited to reveal to a wider audience all that’s possible when you Live Forward by sharing the thrilling opportunities available to all types of travelers in Columbus.

Is Columbus the worst city in the world? No, that’s Findlay. But Dear God, we’ll never be a proper big city until we stop getting excited about a gas station like Sheetz opening within our borders or allowing marketing hobgoblins to talk about the city like they’re pitching timeshares in Boca Rotan to Dementia-riddled seniors whose weekly excitement comes from the Tuesday night Bingo action at the local Eagles Lodge.

I think the most frustrating thing about this is the whatever money was inevitably spent on this inane marketing campaign would have been better spent putting that money in the pockets of our most vulnerable citizens. This money could have been spent doing actual good things like keeping people in their homes instead of producing a marketing campaign that sounds like it was produced by a college senior typing a five-page essay on a book he never read.

Instead, we got sentences like “Columbus is a city built on bold ideas and fueled by relentless optimism.” It sounds nice as long as you don’t think about the prose for anything more than 15 seconds. Probably a good rule for considering Columbus as a whole, too.

THOSE WMDs. From 1996: Colin Powell’s media mania… Zanesville animal tragedy, 10 years later… Chasing London’s feral birds… When doctor’s are also pharmacists… The ride share bubble bursts… Unintended consequences of outing GOP lawmakers at Jan. 6.