In a society propelled by ever expanding information technologies, one would hope that the average intelligence of our population would be at an all time high. After all, history has taught us that new developments in information technology usually leads to an increasingly literate, and therefore increasingly intelligent, population. For instance, during Europe's printing revolution the literacy rates skyrocketed. In spite of that, our modern day "at your fingertips" information and fast paced lifestyle has instead led to a shortcut taking culture trapped in a conversational downward spiral that makes the plot of Idiocracy seem increasingly feasible. While the technology we use on a day to day basis is complex in it's design, it has in turn simplified our lives so that we now communicate on the fly with our peers in shortened iterations of already short words. Meanwhile, popular music reuses the same themes, melodies, and sesame street-esque lyrics, recycling effectively the same song sold over and over to an unsuspecting public with short attention spans. If Americans continue to short change our speech, then I'm afraid our language will eventually be nothing more than a series of grunts and moans; and our music nothing more than low bass, high snares and one syllable rhyme schemes. As a result of the text message revolution, the once coherent phrases that used to have hints of subtlety and cleverness have become simplified abbreviations such as "LOL", or the more adult "LMFAO". All creativity in prose has gone out the window, replaced by a shadow of it's former self. Furthermore, these simplifications of the humor response are becoming so overused that their meanings are becoming more skewed than a shish kabob. This hypothetical text excerpt should serve to illuminate this point.
"Wut up?"
"Nt sht chilaxin u?"
"lol oic"
Now, in real life if one was to "laugh out loud" in response to such a mundane statement you would probably start sniffing for the scent of Mary Jane on your easily amused buddy. Although, this shortening of our phrases can be justified by it simply being a quick exchange of words with no need for grammatic correctness all the time. There's nothing wrong with a "lol" or a "brb" here an there. Especially when your driving and just don't have the luxury of being grammatically correct (ahem, don't text and drive kids). But once it borders on the edge of incoherent you have to draw the line somewhere.
An actual Facebook status update that I just read while typing this goes as such: "sleeping got court in da am wee cnt wait not fuk this bs !!" And this, ladies and gentlemen, is where it is appropriate to drop the "Wtf?" abbreviation. But it's not just our phones and Facebooks that are being assaulted with conversational delinquency; but even as we leave our digital worlds we are still stuck in the grasp of this pseudo cyber language! It's like the black death of the modern age - but it's a plague of communication. Witnessing this first hand, I had the privilege of eavesdropping on an overly exclamatory conversation peppered with "OMG"s, "LOL"s, and "FTW"s. To the non-hip ear, this "conversation" could have been mistaken as a mass group stroke. It was hard to believe that we had really reduced our conversational vocabulary to abbreviations of descriptive emotions. Have our lives become so fast paced that we insist on getting rid of all creativity and emotion when we engage in our face to face dialog? The music we listen to the most as a society is also suffering from oversimplification. Just as we went from the printing revolution and the age of enlightenment to the internet revolution and the age of bewilderment; we have gone from Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata and the Romantic era, to Trey Songz's "LOL Smiley Face" and the Radio era. Exclaiming in the beginning of the song, "I looove Fisher Price", "LOL Smiley Face" solidifies its regressive simplicity. Reusing the same bass hits, drums, and basic rhymes, mainstream rap is another antagonist of communication. However, before the internet revolution and the oversimplification of langauge, Hip Hop was dominated by powerful lyricists such as Nas, and The Roots. It begs to the egg and chicken dilemma, which influenced which? Though to be fair, some great lyricists have arrived on the post-internet Hip Hop scene, such as Lupe Fiasco. Regardless, our entire language is quickly becoming chewed up, digested, and, err, well you get the picture. If something isn't done to remedy this decay of conversation then, well, we may all slwly begin to evolve with smaller left temporal lobes n shorta tounges wit faster twitch muscles dat, like, allow 4 quicka convos n junk. LOL ;)
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