Monday, July 12, 2010

XOXO and jejeje: Twitter and social networks


It has been sometime that the Internet age started creeping to our society.

With great technologies being made or discovered every year, our society seems to look like the science fiction movies we use to watch during Friday night. One new thing is the rise of Internet language. 

The Internet is not limited to the geeks alone. Even some not so highly technological people have also invaded the cyberspace and created a world of their own. It started with YM lingo like LOLZ, ASL, GTG, and the one that I got curious with because I only knew the meaning which means Kiss and Hugs, XOXO.

The same Internet language was also in a way uploaded to our daily living specially due to the use of cellular phone and text messaging. The need to express yourself with only 140 characters forced us to innovate. Also the use of special characters to create images are some of the most ingenious creations the people of this Internet age, the youth, has contributed to the new era. While the debate is going on if such way of expression will be a good or a bad one due to the degrading effects on grammar and proper communications another wave of culture brought about by such came to being. Welcome to the rise of the Jejemons.

Jejemons are not only the persons that use the famous Jejebet, the alphabet of the Jejejmons, but also are the ones with that kind of culture of which makes them different from the normal. It has become a culture. You can see it in their Facebook and Friendster mesages. In Yahoo Messenger or Myspace and other social networks. It breed a new tribe at the same time it created factions like the Jejebuster, person who use the Jejebet to intimidate Jejemons. 

It seems that our future is backwards. Before we express ourselves with lengthy sentences. Now with Twitter, we have become more expressive only using 140 characters. Philippines was said to be the texting capital of the world and now Indonesia is the Twitter capital of the world. New words or abbreviations and symbols has new meanings because of the need to evolve and express oneself in a new medium. Social networks has connected people with different culture and language. Virtually we are very near and yet no physical connections exist. Barriers are torn down but at the same time problems of privacy arose.

What is the latest new term have you learned lately? Share some here in the comment.

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