Ok, so here’s my first rant for a long time. It may be my first rant ever on this site… Anyways, todays topic is immaturity on the internet.

I’ve recently taken a long hard dive into the world of Xanga, because I have several friends who have sites there, and use it to keep in touch. But in browsing around on Xanga, I’ve learned that there are a lot of people that either just don’t get it, or just don’t care. You may already know what I’m talking about. In case you don’t, let me give you some examples.

Example 1:

hey chickys and boyys!!@! sry i havent updated in like 4ever like since this morning. i was at skool and the teachers were really boring. but theres this really h0tt guy that sits behind me in math and today he said hi and i wuz like OMG!!! i cant believe he noticed me lol!!! i really hope he asks me to the dance on fri. ok ttyl. luv ya.

~jess

Notice the lack of capitolization and punctuation. Also a lot of slang and abbreviations that serve to disrupt the reading and cause an overall aire of unintelligence. Also, the use of phrases like “luv ya” which presume that the author loves every reader, when in reality, anyone who attempts to contact them is met with short and/or rude remarks. It’s not just girls that write like this either. I’ve seen many boys use this style of writing as well.

Example 2:
Xanga users, to see this example correctly, go to stevish.com/archives/121.

Hello. I like to write on my Xanga. I don’t care about what I write because nobody can read it anyways. I write a lot of information that nobody will ever see because my text color matches my background color, making it impossible to read.

Basketball is really awesome and cool and whatever. I type and type and nobody cares. Stuff happens, people leave. Nobody ever comes to my site anymore and I can’t figure out why. I’m pretty much just some kid who likes basketball and that’s all anyone will ever know about me unless they feel like highlighting any text they actually want to read. What a dumb site I’ve created.

Enough said.

I wonder if these children (at least I hope it’s children that write like that) realize that people are judging them before they even get to know them. They might try saying stuff like “u dont no me! so dont judge me!” but it’s already too late. Whether you’re a judgemental person or not, your first impression of someone is hard to get over. And if you only know someone by their Xanga, you’re bound to make certain judgements about them from how they write and how they design their sites.

I usually attribute example 2 to immature and inexperienced web-writers, but I have seen example 1 being used (to an extent) by older and more mature people. What is our world coming to?

So here’s to spelling, punctuation and readability… may the art of effective communication never be lost.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 11th, 2005 at 5:12 pm and is filed under Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.