Meme Me Up, Scotty
The internet has literally changed the way we think.
We all know that we go about our daily business differently: bank online, pay bills, shop, contact friends, share pictures (when is the last time you printed your photos?), listen to music - the list goes on and on.
But it's bigger than that. I've probably related a couple of stories in this column before: I work in a company that produces websites, CDs, and other electronic/interactive media. There are six of us on one floor of our building, all in a big, open room. We've all gotten used to people laughing to themselves (over something funny they were sent via email); if I look up I'm likely to see everyone in the room with a headset on, staring at their screen, and tapping madly away at the keyboard. But what made me truly laugh was realizing that we don't just look up and talk to one another: we instant message. It's easier to get the attention of my co-workers with an IM than by talking to them (they're as likely as not to be in "cyberspace," after all!).
And one day, I was listening to a co-worker typing furiously, then hitting the enter key with great force. After a few such entries, I realized he was conducting an IM argument. I was actually interpreting the rhythm of his typing to identify a non-verbal cue about his emotional state. In a way, it was a bit like being in a foreign country where you know a few words of the language, and learn to use every single cue to help you get the gist of what's going on around you.
But it's more than that: when I was studying French, I got good enough with it that I could "think" in French - I no longer needed to translate to understand a sentence. And I had dreams in French. What I found was that this also influenced my thought patterns; when I was in "French" mode, I was thinking slightly differently.
Actually, that's not a novel idea; linguists have long fooled around with ideas of "deep structure," and the ways in which language and culture, language and thought patterns, interact. We are clearly programmed to understand language. I was holding a three month old baby the other day, and talking to him. I noticed that he was riveted on my mouth as I spoke, and he already understood the give and take of conversation: I would say something, and then he would "say" something, obviously trying to imitate my speech and tone.
So we slowly develop more and more sophisticated means of communicating: non-verbal (crying, laughing, cooing, eye contact); verbal; written; and now we are using technology to expand and enhance all that.
And if, as noted before, the language in which we communicate actually influences what and how we think, then where are we headed given all these new methods of communicating?
I would posit that a whole "new" language (or set of languages) is developing around IMs, emails, and texting. Texting in particular, because it's annoying to be trying to "type" on a tiny "keyboard" with your thumbs, has developed a whole set of shorthand expressions: "probly" or "prolly" for "probably;" "u" for "you;" "yup" for "yep" though I have no idea why, unless it's that the three letters are in a row and use only the right hand; "r" for "are," and so on. Because I text a lot, I find myself shorthanding my emails and IMs, and in fact thinking "probly" rather than "probably."
The obvious first victim of these modes of conversing will be precision of expression and spelling. As a writer, this dismays me. But there are already writers who are seeing what happens when they try to use technology to create new approaches to fiction: like "twitfic, " for example. Twitter, of course, is the online application that lets users share short statements about themselves, their interests and their actions with their "followers," the folks who have signed up to receive these messages. Each tweet can be no more than 140 characters long - approximately 30 words - so writers have said, "why not tell a story via tweets?" Some such stories span tweets - that is, each "sentence" comprises one tweet, but the story itself takes place over several tweets.
Other writers have said, I want to tell a whole story in a single tweet - kind of along the lines of the introductory sentences we used to have to write as an exercise in English class. How can you pull your reader into your story? So a Twitfic story might read, "'One more step, you're going down,' he snarled. I took the step, and down I went when my two-year-old hurled his truck at my head.'" 131 characters, and you get a beginning, a middle, and end; characters; plot; and you can't help pondering the whole premise.
Another phenomenon of the Internet is the passing of "memes," or so-called "viral" content. There are a couple of interesting things about these: one is the rapidity with which they move from place to place; another is the total lack of boundaries (except, perhaps, in places like China, where there are restrictions on certain Internet sites, for example).
A meme is basically an idea. As Wikiepedia (that great font of collected wisdom) tell us, "A meme (pronounced /ˈmiːm/, rhyming with "cream") is a postulated unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena."
Why the Internet is significant here relates to the "viral" thing: sheer speed and ease of transmission of these memes. I learn something, or "get" something, and I can pass it along to you in Illinois with a simple "forward." You can pass it to Bangladesh the same way. So, with things like "rickrolling," and "lolcats," we have added to our cultural storehouse, and it has happened with unprecedented speed because of the Internet. (Rickrolling is the "bait and switch" game that spread across the Internet, in which a link was offered to some juicy content, like "Michele Obama stabs her mother! See the video!" only to send you to a video of singer Rick Astley performing. If you clicked such a link, you were said to have been "rickrolled." And a lolcat is a picture of a cat doing something odd, silly, or funny, with an appropriately funny caption - all done in a form of lolcat speech, that has its own rules and grammar.)
And it has happened with no boundaries.
Think about it: 100 years ago, before television, before even radio, it might take years for an idea to spread from one place to another - and certain physical, cultural, and linguistic boundaries were likely to keep that "meme" confined to a country, or a region.
In a way, it's a pity that this is changing, because one of the great attractions of travel was to experience a new and different culture, new ideas, a different language - and as I pointed out early in this article, a different way of thinking based on that language and those cultural norms.
Now, the whole world has access to the lolcat meme, for example. Granted that's kind of trivial and silly, but the point is, there are no boundaries (other than access to technology, and that's rapidly changing) to stop anyone and everyone from accessing that idea. And the speed with which it can move is astonishing.
(Just as an aide, I had the notion way back in the day of video games, that if there was not a deliberate plot to get computers in our homes via games, then it was the world's greatest coincidence. That is to say, people like fun and entertainment, and are much more likely to bring a happy, friendly game playing computer into their homes than a scary, code-spewing device that you have to learn to operate... So with ideas, we're most likely to spread funny stuff first.)
So, if language and culture and our thought processes are all tied up in some neurological package, then clearly we are headed toward some unfathomable brave new world, in which cultural boundaries blur, languages merge, and we begin to "grok*" other people the world around.
*Grok is a notion from the Robert Heinlein book, Stranger in a Strange Land, which means to fully comprehend something on a very deep, and even unspoken level. You "get" it.
We all know that we go about our daily business differently: bank online, pay bills, shop, contact friends, share pictures (when is the last time you printed your photos?), listen to music - the list goes on and on.
But it's bigger than that. I've probably related a couple of stories in this column before: I work in a company that produces websites, CDs, and other electronic/interactive media. There are six of us on one floor of our building, all in a big, open room. We've all gotten used to people laughing to themselves (over something funny they were sent via email); if I look up I'm likely to see everyone in the room with a headset on, staring at their screen, and tapping madly away at the keyboard. But what made me truly laugh was realizing that we don't just look up and talk to one another: we instant message. It's easier to get the attention of my co-workers with an IM than by talking to them (they're as likely as not to be in "cyberspace," after all!).
And one day, I was listening to a co-worker typing furiously, then hitting the enter key with great force. After a few such entries, I realized he was conducting an IM argument. I was actually interpreting the rhythm of his typing to identify a non-verbal cue about his emotional state. In a way, it was a bit like being in a foreign country where you know a few words of the language, and learn to use every single cue to help you get the gist of what's going on around you.
But it's more than that: when I was studying French, I got good enough with it that I could "think" in French - I no longer needed to translate to understand a sentence. And I had dreams in French. What I found was that this also influenced my thought patterns; when I was in "French" mode, I was thinking slightly differently.
Actually, that's not a novel idea; linguists have long fooled around with ideas of "deep structure," and the ways in which language and culture, language and thought patterns, interact. We are clearly programmed to understand language. I was holding a three month old baby the other day, and talking to him. I noticed that he was riveted on my mouth as I spoke, and he already understood the give and take of conversation: I would say something, and then he would "say" something, obviously trying to imitate my speech and tone.
So we slowly develop more and more sophisticated means of communicating: non-verbal (crying, laughing, cooing, eye contact); verbal; written; and now we are using technology to expand and enhance all that.
And if, as noted before, the language in which we communicate actually influences what and how we think, then where are we headed given all these new methods of communicating?
I would posit that a whole "new" language (or set of languages) is developing around IMs, emails, and texting. Texting in particular, because it's annoying to be trying to "type" on a tiny "keyboard" with your thumbs, has developed a whole set of shorthand expressions: "probly" or "prolly" for "probably;" "u" for "you;" "yup" for "yep" though I have no idea why, unless it's that the three letters are in a row and use only the right hand; "r" for "are," and so on. Because I text a lot, I find myself shorthanding my emails and IMs, and in fact thinking "probly" rather than "probably."
The obvious first victim of these modes of conversing will be precision of expression and spelling. As a writer, this dismays me. But there are already writers who are seeing what happens when they try to use technology to create new approaches to fiction: like "twitfic, " for example. Twitter, of course, is the online application that lets users share short statements about themselves, their interests and their actions with their "followers," the folks who have signed up to receive these messages. Each tweet can be no more than 140 characters long - approximately 30 words - so writers have said, "why not tell a story via tweets?" Some such stories span tweets - that is, each "sentence" comprises one tweet, but the story itself takes place over several tweets.
Other writers have said, I want to tell a whole story in a single tweet - kind of along the lines of the introductory sentences we used to have to write as an exercise in English class. How can you pull your reader into your story? So a Twitfic story might read, "'One more step, you're going down,' he snarled. I took the step, and down I went when my two-year-old hurled his truck at my head.'" 131 characters, and you get a beginning, a middle, and end; characters; plot; and you can't help pondering the whole premise.
Another phenomenon of the Internet is the passing of "memes," or so-called "viral" content. There are a couple of interesting things about these: one is the rapidity with which they move from place to place; another is the total lack of boundaries (except, perhaps, in places like China, where there are restrictions on certain Internet sites, for example).
A meme is basically an idea. As Wikiepedia (that great font of collected wisdom) tell us, "A meme (pronounced /ˈmiːm/, rhyming with "cream") is a postulated unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena."
Why the Internet is significant here relates to the "viral" thing: sheer speed and ease of transmission of these memes. I learn something, or "get" something, and I can pass it along to you in Illinois with a simple "forward." You can pass it to Bangladesh the same way. So, with things like "rickrolling," and "lolcats," we have added to our cultural storehouse, and it has happened with unprecedented speed because of the Internet. (Rickrolling is the "bait and switch" game that spread across the Internet, in which a link was offered to some juicy content, like "Michele Obama stabs her mother! See the video!" only to send you to a video of singer Rick Astley performing. If you clicked such a link, you were said to have been "rickrolled." And a lolcat is a picture of a cat doing something odd, silly, or funny, with an appropriately funny caption - all done in a form of lolcat speech, that has its own rules and grammar.)
And it has happened with no boundaries.
Think about it: 100 years ago, before television, before even radio, it might take years for an idea to spread from one place to another - and certain physical, cultural, and linguistic boundaries were likely to keep that "meme" confined to a country, or a region.
In a way, it's a pity that this is changing, because one of the great attractions of travel was to experience a new and different culture, new ideas, a different language - and as I pointed out early in this article, a different way of thinking based on that language and those cultural norms.
Now, the whole world has access to the lolcat meme, for example. Granted that's kind of trivial and silly, but the point is, there are no boundaries (other than access to technology, and that's rapidly changing) to stop anyone and everyone from accessing that idea. And the speed with which it can move is astonishing.
(Just as an aide, I had the notion way back in the day of video games, that if there was not a deliberate plot to get computers in our homes via games, then it was the world's greatest coincidence. That is to say, people like fun and entertainment, and are much more likely to bring a happy, friendly game playing computer into their homes than a scary, code-spewing device that you have to learn to operate... So with ideas, we're most likely to spread funny stuff first.)
So, if language and culture and our thought processes are all tied up in some neurological package, then clearly we are headed toward some unfathomable brave new world, in which cultural boundaries blur, languages merge, and we begin to "grok*" other people the world around.
*Grok is a notion from the Robert Heinlein book, Stranger in a Strange Land, which means to fully comprehend something on a very deep, and even unspoken level. You "get" it.
Comments