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Image from: Irish Tech News

I’d be willing to argue, even if it’s a rather unpopular opinion, that the virality of memes is not always a good thing. There are some unsettling messages and trends buried within certain memetic images, video, phrases, etc. This isn’t surprising, as our own vastly flawed culture is the entity producing memes in the first place, but the problem arises when memes are protected from criticism due to their informal and humorous nature. It’s “just a joke,” and any modicum of deep thought is mocked and disregarded. This allows for dangerous ideas, like racism and misogyny, to be perpetuated without judgement.

Take, for example, a meme only really well-known within gaming circles — “Deus Vult.” This meme pulls the phrase from a video game called Crusader Kings and was popularized by the /pol/ (politically incorrect) board of 4chan. This meme was used from its very beginning as a tool for White Supremacists to condemn the religion of Islam and to propagate racist ideals; it’s been used to harass and threaten people of color. This connotation is understood by almost everyone who uses it, rarely will you find someone parroting this phrase with absolutely no idea what its origins are. This “meme” is steeped in bigotry, but pointing that out and demonstrating a justified distrust of those who repeat it often will only be met with apathy and derision. It’s a symbol that is used by the Alt-Right with the agenda to radicalize others and create more White Supremacists, and yet its status as an “Internet Meme,” as a “joke” makes it impenetrable to critique.

Image from: The Hill

One of the infamous forms of this phenomenon was Pepe the Frog, a meme-related controversy so large that it landed itself in the papers. What was once an innocuous and rather innocent meme evolved into an Alt-Right dog whistle seemingly over night. This was caused by, yet again, the communities of 4chan, pairing the image of this frog (pulled from a web-comic illustrated many years ago) with messages of Antisemitism, White Supremacy, and Neo-Nazism. People re-drew this character to be extremely offensive caricatures of Jewish or Islamic people, drew him in a Nazi uniform, all while accompanied with text advocating segregation and genocide. It got so severe, so wide-spread that this meme, what started out as a simple humorous drawing of a frog, has been classified as an official hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation Leauge.

This is a form of propaganda, plain and simple. These symbols and phrases are being employed right now as I type this to recruit more and more disillusioned, vulnerable young people into falling down a rabbit hole of bigotry and hatred. We as a society, as a community of people need to do better in calling these trends out, because our country is becoming more and more divided as “memes” are used to drive a wedge between oppressor and oppressed.

But unfortunately, that will prove to be very difficult, I’m sure. Memes really are (or at least can be) extremely “catchy,” passing between people like a sickness — viral, like the flu.

Image from: New York Times

It would’ve been unthinkable hundreds of years ago that certain forms of punctuation (or the lack thereof) could hold so much emotion, could make such an obvious non-verbal statement, and yet, here we are. With one period or specific use of capital letters, the entire perceived meaning of a text, Tweet, post, etc. can change, taking on a tone that could be entirely unintentional.

With the spoken word, one can rather easily assume (in most cases, at least) the intended implication of their words  when you take in their body language, expression, etc. like I said in my previous post. But there are ways of conveying what was once said impossible through text without emojis and that is with Internet-specific punctuation rules. We’ve already covered the period and how it could signal anger or aggression in the New Republic article, The Period Is Pissed, but what about other forms of hidden meaning found in punctuation?

Looking at Penn Live’s A guide to punctuation on the Internet article, we can see a few unique uses of punctuation online.

An ellipses (…) can be used to be passive-aggressive, to extend a similar tone to the period without having too sharp an edge or fully ending a conversation. More than three periods in a row would typically be considered playful or sarcastic. I’ve even seen people use commas as ellipses (,,,) which I assume serves to soften the aggression even more, while still simulating the act of trailing off when speaking.

Using multiple question marks (???) to mark exaggerated confusion, and it’s one I happen to use a lot. The more question marks used, the more mocking the expression of confusion becomes. Receiving “????????” to a sincere message is meant to be a bit biting, as in “Are you serious?” or “What the f**k are you even talking about?” Something related would be the use of multiple exclamation points (!!!!), used to get across excitement and or surprise.

To express emphasis (without capitalizing entire words as if you’re shouting them),  you can use slashes (/) around the word/phrase you want to put attention on, written as if you were speaking and stressed a particular word. Like, “Do /this/ thing not /that/.”

It’s really amazing to me that this is only scratching the surface of Internet-specific punctuation rules. But, these rules are necessary. To those who primarily communicate via text, getting across your exact intent, message, tone, emotion, etc. can be near impossible without this pseudo-slang.

Image from: The New Republic

Lots of people seem to consider this form of writing very juvenile and evidence of ignorance, but I think this form of communication is quite clever. To properly get across such subtle non-verbal concepts such as sarcasm or irony without the use of body language or facial expressions is really quite difficult. An entire generation took pre-existing punctuation marks and repurposed them in a way that they can still exist coinciding their original meanings, while maintaining a new meaning that conveys not just logic or organization, but emotion. That’s amazing!

In fact, I think this trend is creating more thoughtful writers over all. Utilizing these unique forms of punctuation, in my opinion, forces one to consider the exact tone and idea that’s being communicated. Using the wrong kind of emphasis can twist the way your words are interpreted in a way that you don’t want. To avoid that, analyzing your own words and intent, and in turn choosing the “proper” form of punctuation (whether Internet-specific or not) becomes a habit. Not only this, but as the saying goes: “What happens on the Internet, stays on the Internet.”

With the spoken word, what you say will be carried away by the wind within seconds of saying it. Your words will only be kept by the memories of those who heard you. Your written threads on a public forum, posts on your social media account, comment on a YouTube video are preserved. Even if the forum, post, thread, etc. are deleted, online Internet archives and screenshots can be accessed with little difficulty. This means that, by nature of how the Internet works, you have to take great care with what exactly it is you’re saying and what people will pull from it. That’s another reason why this new form of punctuation is actually important. It gives clarity to your readers to exactly what point you’re making, saving them confusion and yourself a damaged reputation if your words are misinterpreted (which is just so damn easy in text).

We’re witnessing English morphing and evolving to fit into the technological era, and it’s immensely fascinating.

Image from: Schwartz Media

Language is always changing. It can’t, by its very nature, stay completely stagnant and universal. Words change their meaning over time, grammar rules shift, and even new forms of a given language develop as technology and how humanity uses it becomes more complex. But, the specific way English is evolving in the current era is as unique and fascinating as it is controversial.

People are learning to communicate with emojis — with images — as an integral part of their text conversations. Often they’re used to reveal the true intention of their message, whether it be sincere, loving, sarcastic, satirical, etc. These things can be next to impossible to get across in just text on a page or screen. Understanding the complexities of body language and facial expressions are an absolutely essential part of communicating with people properly. You cannot merely talk at someone with a totally blank face, body entirely stiff, and intonation monotone and expect them to fully comprehend what you’re trying to say. These visual/audio cues are so seamlessly incorporated into the way we speak that we don’t even realize it’s there. That is, until we attempt to correspond with one another in a medium that is just as intimate but without these signals.

Writing formal letters tend to not really require these emotional nuances, but typing/writing exactly as you would if you were talking with a friend or family member, informal and personal, absolutely does. This is why this issue hadn’t come up until the modern decade. You don’t really have a need to accurately portray your sarcasm in a letter or essay written to a colleague or authority figure. You do, however, need to when writing a text message or Tweet to a friend.

Image from: Thrillist

As noted in Stockton’s Emoji—Trendy Slang or a Whole New Language?, emojis allow for nuance and much-desired context in a medium which sorely lacks them. Texting a sarcastic quip can often come across as rude, because the satirical tone is missed and the remark is taken at face value. An emoji or emoticon can turn what would be read as an aggressive insult into pleasant banter, and that’s precisely why they’re used so regularly. This has happened to myself personally more times than I can count. I’ve had conversations over text go from friendly chats to arguments due to misinterpretations of jokes or playful teasing.

Just like with subconsciously reading facial cues and body language signs, we’ve come to inherently understand the meaning of text/email/Tweet by their emojis, without stopping to think about it for a second. All forms of evolution happen for a reason. The technological era requires everyone within the workforce or those who long to have a social life be able to navigate text-based communication effectively. This has become a necessity, so English has grown to accommodate this form of correspondence, and it will continue to mature and expand as technology shifts the manner in which we convey meaning to one another.

Image from: University of Louisville

The differing forms of English that we use to communicate isn’t really something that we spend a lot of time considering. We speak vastly contrasting than how we write, speak differently to our friend compared to our boss, filter or censor they way we phrase sentences or on which syllable we put emphasis. Each unique type of communication is complex and has many subtly divergent elements, depending on the exact context of the situation you’re in.

This gap in the way various ways we correspond with one another becomes rather obvious when you analyze the difference in say, the language used in a college essay versus the conversation you have with the professor after class. Both situations could be considered semi-formal, both taking place in a professional academic setting, yet there are still vast distinctions in word usage, sentence length/complexity, etc. In a formal essay, one would avoid using personal pronouns, use large words, write complex structure for their sentences and paragraphs, and overall attempt to convey an air of sophistication. When talking with a professor, you’re much more likely to refer to yourself in the first person, use filler words (such as: uh, um, or like), and use lingo or common vernacular. As noted in McWhorter’s Ted Talk, we don’t speak the way that we write, even if the situations or settings are nearly identical.

Image from: Harvard Graduate School of Education

This phenomenon could be considered a form of code-switching, which the habit of changing the particular way we communicate depending on the person we’re talking with and the context of the conversation. Though this idea is normally used to describe differing examples of the spoken word, it definitely fits this situation that I’ve laid out. To use an abbreviation such as “can’t” in a paper would cost you points, and referring yourself in the third person during a meeting with an instructor would feel extremely awkward and disrupt the flow of conversation. The shift in the type of speech is essential to properly get your point across, even if we don’t realize we’re changing anything at all.

Additionally, while this practice is subconscious in most circumstances, it’s often used as a form of protection by those with stigmatized dialects. As mentioned in Wolfram and Schilling’s American English: Dialects and Variation, there are certain modes of speaking that, due to racist and classist ideas that permeate every part of our culture, will bring immediate judgment and limitations onto those who use them. AAVE (or African-American Vernacular English) is especially targeted with the notion that those who communicate with it are uneducated. Those who speak with this dialect are often forced to intentionally and consciously code-switch when in job interviews, conversing with a person of authority, giving a speech, etc.

Image from: The Conversation

This more than anything highlights exactly how arbitrary language really is. There is no tangible, mechanical reason why the word “ain’t” is paired with the ideas of ignorance and stupidity. It’s borne from the socially constructed beliefs about the people who utilized this word that has bleed onto “ain’t” by proxy. Prescriptivist linguists tend to get hung up on the narrow definitions of words and technical grammatical rules when even when there is no formally agreed-upon, standard form of our language. This harsh judgment has a ripple effect on the way many academics and authority figures view what is considered “improper” English. All of those closed doors and missed opportunities, that social isolation and judgement, for something that is entirely arbitrary.

Image from: Marketing Nutz 

A key point brought up early on in chapter 2 of Writing for Digital Media that I found so fascinating is the topic of credibility within the exchange of information online. In many ways, I think now more than ever “credibility” means something rather different (which definitely speaks to the ambiguity of language) than it did prior to the Internet’s explosion of popularity. An essential part of credibility was always objectivity, as noted in the reading, and keeping one’s personal biases as far away from your writing as you could. While impossible to do so completely, this method at least somewhat kept the information and the way it was being presented pure and impartial. But this philosophy has come to be considered cold and dispassionate, going out of style in favor of a more individual approach. In some ways this can be a good thing, like giving journalists personal identity that would’ve otherwise been smothered by their company or breathing a certain “humanity” into the writing itself. Yet, it comes at a cost.

Image from: The Nicholls Worth

Much of the writing online currently, delivered in impassioned Twitter threads of 20 tweets or Medium articles typed and uploaded by someone with zero qualifications, are taken at total face value; they’re treated just as, if not more credible than a piece written by a professional hired by a large, genuinely reputable organization, because it comes from a friendly face. Dangerous ideas are being spread across the Internet like a virus, using misinformation and the outrage that it generates as its method of infection. Users see a sensationalist editorial, complete with an eye-catching, “click-bait” title manufactured specifically to get a reaction, and believe it with full confidence. People do this because these pieces confirm their preconceived notions, regardless of whether they’re true or not. The culture of the Internet has evolved to place much more stock into emotions and assumptions than into truth, and each immediate (yet error-filled) political piece that streams from every Average Joe with a social media account perpetuates and encourages it.