THAT RED FLAG THING
Jacqueline Krim pioneered nanotribology, the study of friction on the atomic level. My hero. There’s a use of the word “thing” that functions as verbal friction:
“Oh right, I forgot, you have that book club thing tonight.”
“She drinks this plant-based milk thing.”
“What is that, a self-care thing?”
This specific flavor of thing is different from when thing is used in place of a more specific term (“Can you hand me that turny thing from the toolbox”). This thing is not instead of, it’s in addition to. It’s not needed. So what’s it doing? Not nothing.
I consider it a red flag thing, minimizing and impatient. It’s not that the speaker can’t be bothered to remember the right term for your bullshit preference thing, because they did remember it. It’s a placeholder for “bullshit” but also a way to indicate that making the effort to remember a preference is done grudgingly, with ambivalence.