Eggyhead

I blame social media algorithms. Delete your YouTube history and see how fast it suddenly tries to radicalize you.

They’re throwing it everywhere faster than they can figure out what it’s actually good for.

They’re all about saying as little as possible using a slightly altered version of a scripted scene.

More like using as few words as possible while relying on the scene for the context.

If I tell you:

I get off the computer, go to bed, then look at my phone.

It sounds pretty normal. Am I happy? Sad? Apathetic? Communicating without expressions or gestures often leads to misunderstanding. Have you ever got into an argument with someone online because they misunderstood the intent of something you said? Maybe you forgot your sarcasm marker? Well, if I had opted to send you instead, I would have also told you that I more or less feel disgusted about myself without actually adding any more words, or even typing anything at all because it’s already in the image.

Now I won’t agree or disagree either way whether it’s a cancer, I don’t really care. It’s just another way I observe people communicating. I’ve heard people tell me the way African Americans speak is "destroying the language.” It’s not. It’s just a dialect that manifested where a void was left to be filled. Memes do something the regular alphabet does not.

Unrelated, but look at gen alpha slang. Kids too young to know correct English learn their words through games and memes, often outside of direct parental supervision. So if they need to express something more abstract, they do so using words that seem close enough and sound nice, referencing ideas that others in their circle can quickly and easily comprehend. Suddenly some popular tiktokker uses it and then that word is codified in the vernacular. Most of it will fade away as they get older, but some of it might stick around and get absorbed into the greater language.

If I show you what is message do you receive?

I just see memes as an extension of language. When we read English, we can sound out the words if we want, but we really just recognize the words as a whole and understand their meaning. Kind of like a kanji or a glyph. I think of memes as really powerful evolutions of this. People can communicate really complicated or nuanced emotions very simply and clearly with a meme. It’s like a kanji using actual art and imagery rather than strokes. Not saying we’ll be communicating strictly through memes or anything, just that it’s a way we are communicating, and you can’t really control the way people talk.

If the kid is below 21, what is such a circumstance defined as?

If a kid calls his teacher a bitch and get sent to the principal, is that censorship?

People will probably think Mario was some kind of god from one of many bizarre pantheons. We worshipped him on our TV sets and movie theaters.

“Ah, see-through masks are okay though.”

And then masks become illegal.

Imagine never having to go through “the effort” of just knowing someone.

I’m starting to get a feel for the “society is fucked” crowd.

Edit: I’m leaving this up because y’all are making good points.

Come on over to the fediverse, please, Christian.

they have a monopoly on video game distribution

Last I heard you could buy games from GOG or Epic and install them on a Steam deck produced and subsidized by Valve.

I am inclined to agree, but I wonder if it would be even better pieced back together.

I want to see battery comparisons before and after each new Apple intelligence update. Extra battery life was a big emphasis of the 16 line up, but is that because AI is expected to just negate those gains eventually?

Then why don’t we start writing “threee” or “foooour”?

Maybe seventeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen?

Can’t let people have free thinking! That’s dangerous!

Welcome to the wonderful world of phrasal verbs, idioms, and collocations.

(Just as a side reference, the “iMac” is that all-in-one computer that just looks like a big monitor on your desk that connects to a keyboard and mouse.)

There are so many reasons to be glad not to have kids. Live it up, friend.