adjective · first recorded 2021 · status: canon
Bullish
1.The all-purpose SF compliment: optimistic about something and, implicitly, positioned to benefit from it. Fully detached from markets; you can be bullish on a person, a neighborhood, a diet, or a vibe.
She quit Google to sell peptides to founders. Bullish.
01Origin
A finance term for expecting prices to rise, flattened by crypto Twitter into a general affect during the 2020-2021 bull run, then completed by SF tech X: replying "bullish" to a friend's launch post is congratulation, endorsement, and portfolio-marking in a single word. The one-word reply is the canonical form; "extremely bullish" is reserved for people you are about to invest in or date.
Its power is the implied position. To be bullish on someone is not just to believe in them but to suggest you got in early, that your association with them is an appreciating asset. San Francisco does not have friendships; it has holdings.
The opposite, "bearish," survives mostly as irony or as the polite form of NGMI. Nobody in this city has ever been sincerely, publicly bearish on anything they were still in the room with.
02Notable sightings
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