Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language

in the first place, while the strong ties spread them once they’re introduced.

The true influence of Post Internet People on general internet socialization was both more subtle and more important than simply a shiny new social networking site. By joining the social internet after their parents were already there, they faced an especially dire version of “context collapse.” This is danah boyd’s term for when people from all yo

One type of writing hasn’t replaced the other: the “Happy Birthday” text message hasn’t killed the diplomatic treaty. What’s changed is that writing now comes in both formal and informal versions, just as speaking has for so long.

In the plain text of late 1990s and early 2000s instant messenger status messages, sparkle punctuation would range from ~ just one ~ of each all the way up to ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~so many sparkles~~~~~~ ~~~~~~; ~ ~ ~ ~alternating~ ~ ~ ~ or ~ ~~ ~~in combination~~ ~~ ~~; mixed with wOrDs iN mIxEd cAPiTaLiZaTiOn, e x t r a s p a c e s, and ✧･ﾟ: ☆ ✧･ﾟ: ★ extr

sparkle sarcasm

At first glance, this kind of repurposing might seem like a purely internet invention, and it is, insofar as people weren’t peppering their speech with code snippets or hashtags before we had any such thing. But English has a long history of verbalizing punctuation: think of “that’s the facts, period” or “these quote-unquote experts.”

A more common typographical tool is asterisks and underscores as a way of emphasizing in environments that don’t support proper bold or italic. But asterisks also look like tiny stars, and early internet denizens seized on their decorative potential as well, especially when combined with the fanciful swoop

One study of natural conversations found that only 10 to 20 percent of laughter was actually in response to humor.

The difference between how people communicate in the internet era boils down to a fundamental question of attitude: Is your informal writing oriented towards the set of norms belonging to the online world or the offline one?