Kevin David Creative

In 1992, bands like Alice In Chains, Stone Temple Pilots and Nirvana covered the musical landscape like an oversized, frayed flannel shirt. The Seattle sound, known as grunge, was loud and abrasive like rock before it, but with a chaotic authenticity that spoke to the pain and angst of disaffected youth more than songs about girls, girls, and girls.

As with any organic movement, the mainstream corporate crowd wanted in. Rick Marin, a reporter for the New York Times, contacted the storied Sub Pop Records in hopes of cracking the newfound cool kid code.

“Every subculture has a different way of speaking and there’s got to be words and phrases and things that you folks say,” Marin said.

That might be true, but Marin was looking for the password to a club that didn’t exist. By then, even “grunge” was rarely used by the bands that played it. The secret underground dictionary had no cover, blank pages, and a foreword that only read “never mind.”

Sub Pop referred Marin to former employee Megan Jasper, then aged 25 and working for Caroline Records. Jasper was known for her sense of humor and weariness of outsiders trying to stuff her beloved, beautiful mess of music and artwork into a neat little heart-shaped box.

“And I thought ‘really?’” Jasper told KNKX in 2020. “But there really wasn’t a secret language. It seemed like a fairly bizarre request. So, I just thought, ‘Sure. You want a lexicon? I will totally give you a lexicon.’”

Sensing an opportunity to send up her own scene, Jasper began to rattle off nonsense phrases ranging from somewhat plausible to outright ridiculous. She was almost daring Marin to call her bluff, assuming they would never believe her, let alone publish the prank. It wasn’t until her mother called and said, “You’re in the friggin’ New York Times. Good job,” that Jasper realized her coffee-fueled fun had exposed an industry ironically desperate for acceptance.

“It was truly unbelievable,” said Jasper in an interview with The Ringer. “Everyone in my family is a schoolteacher. For me to be in The New York Times because I f—— lied? You wouldn’t think that they’d feel proud. But they were psyched. My family was so happy. They thought it was hilarious.”

Now, do NOT to share this secret, very real list with ANYONE! Lest you want to be bound and hagged this weekend:

Jasper eventually returned to Sub Pop Records as CEO, a legend who fooled the New York lamestains (her words, not mine).