Oh God, Lyft’s CEO found out about ‘woke’

Did you know that Lyft is woke? Because Lyft is woke. At least, that’s according to John Zimmer, president of Lyft, who is using the word “woke” roughly 500 times a minute these days.

“We’re woke,” Zimmer recently proclaimed to Time magazine, presumably with a straight face. “Our community is woke, and the U.S. population is woke. There’s an awakening.”

Surely he meant “awokening?” Anyway, message received: John Zimmer recently learned what the word “woke” is.

Zimmer’s newfound Certified Woke status surely has nothing to do with the fact that his company is trying to capitalize on a series of corporate disasters from its bigger rival, Uber, which—thanks to its associations with the Trump administration, seeming exploitation of the chaos caused by the recent Muslim travel ban, and allegations of sexism—has become widely known as Not Woke. Lyft, with its ACLU donations, is positioning itself as a friendlier alternative. (Never mind that Lyft and Uber each offer essentially the exact same services as part of the largely unregulated, unaccountable gig economy, and that rapacious companies cannot, by definition, be woke).

As Zimmer put it to Time: “We’re not the nice guys. We’re a better boyfriend.”

OK.