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With all that's going on with EA and Star Wars Battlefront II right now, I've been trying to think of a word... For the last decade gamers have been complaining about lack of originality and microtransactions and day 1 DLC, and yet they still buy these games anyway. There's a picture of a Steam group for boycotting Modern Warfare, and almost everyone in the group is actively playing Modern Warfare.

So what what would be a good word to describe these people who complain about games with day 1 DLC, and then they buy the game and the DLC the day it comes out? People who say they want to boycott a game, and then immediately buy it and can't put it down? People who are all talk and no action.

I was thinking of the word hypocrite, that's close but I don't think that is quite what I'm looking for.

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  • Just observe consumer behavior, add it to what else you know, and don't sweat it. It's a strategy for selling stuff; it may or may not be good; live and learn.
    – Xanne
    Commented Nov 25, 2017 at 21:26
  • Very closely related question: Another idiom that has the same meaning as “mere ink on paper” or “words without actions”.
    – Sven Yargs
    Commented Nov 26, 2017 at 0:39
  • These people are good sheep. These people don't put their money where their mouth is. Yes, they are hypocrites. You might try looking up hypocrite in a thesaurus to see if something there feels like a better fit.
    – aparente001
    Commented Nov 26, 2017 at 4:27
  • I can think of any number of insults.
    – Lambie
    Commented Aug 29, 2018 at 14:28

2 Answers 2

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The phrase that fits your description is all hat and no cattle

informal

tend to talk boastfully without acting on one's words.

in my view, the Senators are all mouth and no action or, as we say in my part of the country, all hat and no cattle

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A very colloquial and rather odd BrE expression is 'all mouth and trousers', used to refer to someone who is all talk but no substance.

The actual mentality of the idiom is disputed, but Wiktionary has a go at explaining what it means.

Strangely, the opposite expression, 'all mouth and no trousers' has exactly the same meaning - all talk, no action.

I use the 'with trousers' saying myself, colloquially, despite that I have no idea where it came from or what, exactly, it's root idea is supposed to be conveying. But it is a useful, throw-away comment (dismissive but not insulting) that says of a colleague in whom I have no confidence, that they are just hot air.

USAGE

The Ngram for 'English' shows a large preference for the 'no trouser' choice, but jiggling about with AmE, BrE and dates shows that the origin appears to be the 'trouser' version' and we Brits are the originators (BrE in the late 1960s.)

BBC America - Fraser's Phrases

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