When you use it as a comma, it’s bad.

That's just, like, your opinion.

> Using the word "like" is not as bad as it seems, and it's been quite common in language for longer than we think

The word has many, many uses: filler/pause, oral punctuation, discourse marker, hedging, qualifier. It also serves an important social function, in that it can reduce perceived severity or seriousness. Young women seem to use it assure peers that they are sweet and not threatening.

I hate it. It's not uncommon to hear it more than four or five times in a single sentence.

The implied expectations are odious: eloquence is a faux pas; directness is rude; a fifth-grade vocabulary is welcoming.

you be all like, "eloquence is a faux pas; directness is rude; a fifth-grade vocabulary is welcoming". Then the internet be like, "yo, pretentious much?", and then they be like "eloquence is some rascist victorian shit-e", and then be like, "directness is privileged and oppressive", and then be like, "your educated vocabulary is, like, so rich and neurotypical"

then you be all like, "but! but! that's not what i mean", and then they be like, "ok boomer" and then they be sharing tiktoks of yo red face on red dit(!) and img2img you into Wojak memes

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Couldn't resist. I feel like you feel, and I'm saddened by the fact that there seems to be no way to hold any quality standards in modern society. Yes, standards of writing and speech and culture are arbitrary, but it's valuable to have them; meanwhile, we live in times where you can't require anything of people, because there's always someone ready to argue the expectations are unfair or malicious, and there's no culturally valid counterargument to that.