When did contacting someone become reaching out?

'Reaching out' is one of those naff, feely-touchy phrases that companies have started to use to show they CARE.

@HS Thank you for reaching out to us in your hour of need. As you now know, we operate an outreach program for those whom the modern vernacular has left feeling bewildered, betrayed and benighted.

@WW
"Beat you to it HS"
Indeed.
I should have performed a more diligent search.

I never heard that particular phrase during my time in the IT business, although I do agree that area of business has always been a wellspring of management speak.
The phrase in question first assaulted my ears during an episode of a TV series entitled "Crisis" where it was used in the context of FBI personnel requesting information from various parties.
However it was it's appearance in the recent emails which drove me to raise the issue on PITE.

I was hearing 'reaching out' on US TV shows such as NYPD Blue 20 years ago. The cops would use it to describe the process of contacting someone with whom they'd previously had no relationship or trying to re-establish a rapport with someone who was now more distant or estranged. It was usually used in the context of getting help or assistance.

Who ever started the expression Reach Out ( I WILL REACH OUT to you,) sbould be shot along with everyone that uses this stupid saying. I don't reach out to anyone. I call or contact you.

There are two legitimate uses of the phrase: offering help, and asking for help. I cringe when I see newscasters use it to mean "We went to the house and pounded on the door but nobody answered."

In plain English: "we want to appear as if we are better than you and could possibly help you with something but probably won't". It's an attempt at a corporate kiss-off and an attempt to feel more attractive than you and/or your organisation, and is common with arrogant small-time tech companies.

I am glad to read that I am not the only person annoyed by the current usage of this expression!

I am soooo fed up with being "reached out to" instead of being "contacted."
It is so false when an email arrives with phrases like "You reached out to us" or "I reached out to you."
First I received such phrases in emails from USA but now New Zealand seems to have cottoned-on to it too! It drives me batty!!

Saying, "reaching out" when you mean to say, "contact" or "ask" is inappropriate and irritating. It connotes that you are in trouble and need help so when companies or anyone else says to customers or to anyone else, "Thank you for reaching out" it comes off as condescending and implying you need help.
When someone with a drug problem reaches out they are doing so after a lot of indecision and are in serious need of help.
Same when a person with a mental problem "reaches out".
If one is about to fall off a cliff, and they reach out, that means they are reaching out with their hand for help. They are not contacting, they are reaching out. Conversely the same goes for when a customer is e-mailing, contacting or asking, they are "reaching out". Please stop using the phrase everywhere it is not appropriate.
Replying to below, YES the following is appropriate.
".. would use it to describe the process of contacting someone with whom they'd previously had no relationship or trying to re-establish a rapport with someone who was now more distant or estranged. It was usually used in the context of getting help or assistance."

I wanted to edit the message below but was unable to. I meant to write,
"Conversely the same goes for when a customer is e-mailing, contacting or asking, they are NOT "reaching out"!

Political correctness was probably the mother of this, one of the dumbest phrases yet. The FBI is going to "reach out" to the second alleged witness in the Kavanaugh case? Reach out? That was the official announcement. From my many years of experience the FBI doesn't reach out. It interrogates, investigates, questions, digs, intimidates, et al. It never "reaches out."

The only people who can use the phrase "Reach Out" are the Four Tops https://youtu.be/qd6XkaKmqMM

When I receive a text or email or even snail mail with this (as Skeeter Lewi calls it) naff phrase, reply with the above.

It appears to be particularly endemic in communications from HR departments.

I am glad to see that others feel this is "bad form"

par

This phrase is on the top of my list of words & phrases that have infested the English language like a cancer (right up there with the quotative 'like').

Thank you for publishing this comment page. It was sooooo
comforting to learn that I am not the only one who has become
thoroughly disgusted with the increasing over-use, not to mention
incorrect use of this phrase. A typical example was a call I received yesterday from the receptionist in a dental office who said "Nancy asked me to reach out to you to ask if they could change an appointment time." Why didn't she simply ask if it
would be possible to change the time?

I am so glad that this obnoxious phrase is annoying to other people besides myself. I think it's creepy and I have started telling businesses that use it that I do NOT wish to be reached out to, and that if they can't simply contact me then I will take my business elsewhere.

As far as I remember, this phrase comes from an American TV ad in the 70s promoting contacting loved ones via a phone call. It used the song 'Reach out and touch somebody's hand' as its theme and "reaching out" was its catchphrase.

It's bad, and getting worse. Recently, a work contact sent me a follow-up email with this phrase:"… I'm reaching back out…". As if the first "reach out" wasn't bad enough.

Whenever someone says they will reach out to me, I respond by saying: "I wish I had an arm that long."

The ubuquitous "reach out" has become annoying to the max. Why can't one use the appropriate term for an action: call, contact, distribute, request, write, direct, ask, tell ..... Oh, wait, that would involve wasting a few seconds in reviewing and selectng the proper word!

So glad to see this being discussed. I'm convinced that it's a symptom of the current attempts to re-engineer human culture.
Add others, such as "collective," "village," "social justice," "triggered" and "journey."
Next lets discuss the warping of words such as, "mountain," "certain" and many others in which a "stop T" has become inserted or inflated and then, emojis!

This phrase "reaching out" always sounds slightly, quirky, insulting, smug and superior. "Out?" Out from where? Why is it such a "reach?" Are you locked in a basement somewhere? Or are you so important you need to reach down from your lofty perch out of a sense of noblesse oblige. I should be so grateful that you "reached out" to a poor supplicant such as my lowly self. Get the picture?

I'm glad to find I'm not the only one that finds this phrase purely condescending, as a sort of "noblesse oblige," "we are so important and you're so far below our lofty perch that it requires us a real effort to "reach" you, which we almost never do but in your case we will make this one exception. You should be grateful we stooped to your level." It makes me cringe whenever someone says this to me.

Wonderful to find that I'm not alone in being annoyed by this silly use of "reach out". Like a lot of irritating Americanisms it has landed on the shores of England and unfortunately spread like Covid19. Apparently, when I contact my bank, I've "reached out" to them, as if I'm drowning. While I'm at it, another recent aberration is the pretentious use of "myself" for the simple "me". As in, "If you have any questions, please reach out to myself". That makes myself very annoyed!

This phrase has irritated me for so long that lately every time I receive an email from a coworker who is going to 'reach out' to some one else I want to give that email a nice delete and forget about it!

Yup...just like "absolutely" has replaced a simple "yes" and everything good is now "amazing".!
This is the jargon of salespeople mostly, people who have zero talent/skills.

I HATE IT! "Thank you for reaching out" is overused! It's not professional at all! It's condescending and patronizing and typically too familiar to fit the situation.

I called a business asking for an individual.
The receptionist said he was busy but she’d have him “Reach out back” to me.
If I wanted to reach Outback Steak House,
I’dda called them first.
Jeez…