Life Between Lines

 Any time anyone creates a classification system for... literally anything, there will be people who fall awkwardly into the cracks; McCulloch acknowledges this herself when setting up her 5-6 kinds of "internet people." 

Old Internet People

By strictly yearly numbers, I should fall into this category. My family first got a personal computer in 1996, a cast-off from my dad's work as they brought in new machines. It primarily functioned as a toy for us kids; we used it to play MSDOS games and slid in one floppy disk after another. We got our first dial-up connection in 1999; later that year an older neighbor would introduce my brother and I to a fun, brand-new website called Neopets. I remember IRC and MUDs. I was, however, eight. There is a limit to the sorts of thing an eight year old is interested in doing online, and a very significant limit to how many people are happy to interact with an eight year old online. So despite fitting in by a technicality and identifying with a lot of the terms, I'm not really Old Internet, am I? My brother, four years older, was the one who was good at HTML, I could barely slap together text and didn't learn how to code my first website until 2002. I don't talk like them. I only think like them a little. I don't fit. 

Full Internet People

This one would be me. It still fit my age category: I got online in 1999. Except, that's where it falls apart immediately. This was a category for people who got online to talk with people they already knew. I didn't know anyone online! I don't know anyone period! I lived on a farm in rural Alabama and wouldn't have a friend my age until the summer of 2001. Yes, sure, I used AIM and MSN, a lot. To talk to people I'd met on forums or through online games. It wouldn't be for years later that I would use the internet as a tool to talk to my real life friends, because it wouldn't be for years that I had real life friends, let alone ones who had access to AIM. I was ahead of the technological curve, especially for my area. How many farms do you imagine had dial-up in 1999? My experience--the iconic Neopets experience mentioned on page 79--is something of an afterthought. Whereas the book indicates how Full Internet People began to embrace Facebook, I fell in with my Old Internet friends, unnerved by the break in the internet "laws" of never, ever revealing your personal details. 

The Inbetween

I am, perhaps, a very young old internet person. There weren't a lot of tech-savvy, extremely bored 8 year olds wandering around on the internet in 1999. There were a lot more a few years later, as the growth of Neopets and other similar pet sites would argue, but that demographic is covered later, in the Full group, which feels a bit odd and uncomfortable to the me who took pride in my HTML websites, carefully put together minimalist links and images to load fast on a shitty dial-up connection, filled with links to let you navigate the obtuse Neopets user interface quickly and without having to load a dozen image-filled pages. I never had MySpace. I never had Facebook. I got Twitter for work three years ago. Who are these social butterflies? 

To make things worse, my job is online now. My friends and colleagues are online. Most of my closest friends to this day are pulled from the pool of utter strangers I met on forums when we were all kids. And, at first because of reasons of rural isolation, and later for reasons of disability, it behooved me to stay on top of what "the kids" were doing, adapting to every new technology as it came along, from MSN to Skype to Discord to LINE, picking up a Tumblr as a way of meeting other young queers as early as 2008. The social importance of the internet discussed in "Post Internet People" feels strikingly important. And now I'm also interacting with teenagers every day. Let's just say that my internet accent is... broad and difficult to categorize. I have used all the lols. My lols have evolved over time. What am I.

I thought for sure there was a flaw in the reasoning, and that more people would fall into McCulloch's gaps, so I interviewed friends and family of a variety of ages. Nope! I was totally wrong! Almost all of them fit extremely neatly into one of her categories. Her methodology wasn't flawed; I was just weird. I was an outlier and should not have been counted. But I do wonder just how common this is in people with my very specific demographic. A father in a tech-related field allowed me to get online uncommonly early for a child. Extreme isolation left me with an early internet for a socialization hunting ground. But moreover, I was queer in Alabama in the 00s. Not a good time or place to be queer! My chances of meeting like-minded individuals even after I began attending real school--a private and extremely controlling Christian school--were essentially nil. That left the internet. And what of disability? After increasing illness left me unable to attend school normally or go out with my peers, what did that leave but the internet? I wouldn't be surprised if other people with even ONE of these demographics, let alone all four, found themselves falling awkwardly into the gaps of two or more categories. 

Social Media's Language

     In my response paper, I argued that social media, specifically Twitter, serves as a platform for people to use “internet language” to their advantage, rather than focus on grammar and spelling differences, to spread important messages worldwide. This argument stems from McCulloch's statement, "from a linguistic perspective, all varieties are equally worthy: every language and dialect is just as much a manifestation of the incredible human language ability that is our birthright as a species" (49), while also saying she wonders what it would be like in a world where grammar and spelling mistakes do not matter. I used Bindi Irwin as an example to show that the use of internet language does not mean that the message is not impactful, in fact that would be far from the truth. However, an aspect that I did not look into in my paper was the fact that this is also common in those who are not well known or celebrities. Social media gives people who may not have the educational opportunities others have had, or just struggle with writing a chance to have their message heard without it being edited, revised, ridiculed or criticized. There are so many examples of this all over the internet of ordinary people's tweets going "viral" or videos, Facebook posts, etc.. I think those who say that "internet language" is simple and lazy, just want to undermine the message and arguments that every day people want to share with the world. On social media, for the most part if your argument and message is clear and beneficial, not many people will focus on minor grammar and spelling errors. I focused more on the not blatantly obvious "internet language" (basic, gucci, ect.) and more on abbreviations, run-on sentences, short, incomplete sentences and emojis.

I am unsure if including random individuals' tweets and videos from the internet would be appropriate, so I included the tweets I used for Bindi Irwin, so that it can explain what I am talking about by saying not blatantly obvious "internet language." Two of these are retweets and one is her tweet.

The way she writes and the way the people who she retweeted write may not be 100% grammatically correct, however, this is the normal way of writing on social media. She is just one of so many examples in celebrities and regular people worldwide. Ultimately, social media truly does have its own language that only those who use it would understand.

 

Crowe, Russell [@russellcrowe]. “Turtle. Strong. #turtle”, Twitter, 24 May, 2021. 

Irwin, Bindi [@BindiIrwin]. “6 months ago. I took a leap & shared a project I’d been working on

for over 5 years. This book means so much to me & I’m incredibly proud to share it with you. Thank you for your kindness & encouragement. Supporting conservation & shipping worldwide.”, Twitter, 21 May, 2021. 

McCulloch, Gretchen. Because Internet: Understanding how language is changing.

             Harvill Secker, 2019, pp. 17-63. 

Wildlife Warriors [@wildwarriors]. “The Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve acts as a haven for so

many rare and endangered species. This #EndangeredSpeciesDay, we are celebrating the 330,000 acres of untouched Australian wilderness with abundant wildlife and plant species across 35 thriving ecosystems.”, Twitter, 21 May, 2021.

Celebrity Tweets

Link to Tweet

The quote I will be focusing on: “Every speaker is learning how to write exquisite layers of social nuance that we once reserved for speech, whether we mark them by switching alphabets, switching languages, or respelling words,” (McCulloch, 57).

In the spirit of McCulloch, who has spent a majority of the second chapter of her book, Because Internet: Understanding how language is changing, talking about how tweeting changes the game for linguists, I will be talking about a Twitter conversation between two actors I follow. Both of them starred on the popular Netflix show, Umbrella Academy, and they are close in real life as well as on the show. In the last half of her second chapter, McCulloch talks about how a study conducted by Jacob Eisenstein and Umashanthi Pavalanathan suggests that in order to address a group of people (such as all of one's followers), people use hashtags. Whereas, if they are addressing specific people (@), they use less formal language. I propose that though this hypothesis may be true on a small scale, like for instance with an ordinary individual, on a larger scale, there is a third option of using direct tagging as a way of making a point to the whole group as opposed to the individual. This third option is mainly seen in tweets or posts by celebrities or famous people with a major following, such as the actors I have chosen to analyze. 

The original tweet sent out by Justin H. Min contained a mixture of a short message (“it’s 9am,”), a tag (@DavidCastanedaJ), and a picture of a text message (pictured below). On the surface, you can see the informal language choices Justin chose with the lower-case letters and the actual number nine in the tweet instead of the number spelled out. This informality directly correlates to Eisenstein and Pavalanathan’s hypothesis, even going as for bringing in the tagged user making the message more personalized. The tag both telling his audience who he is talking about and who he is responding to.

However, despite the seemingly personal theme of the message, the picture that is posted with the tweeted message is of a text message. Thus resides the implication that Justin is in possession of David’s phone number. Therefore, logically, if Justin wanted this to truly be a more personal and direct message, he could have texted the message back to David, or even used the direct messaging feature on Twitter itself. Justin purposefully created the message and picture proof to share with his followers. In this situation, Justin was not tweeting for the purpose of answering David back. Instead, he was tweeting this message with the purpose of directing it to his followers. In response, David also directed the picture response to the followers. One can only assume the reason for this interaction was to try to expose each other in a teasing way. The use of the pictures combined with the tweeted message created a very nuanced experience for those to who the message was directed and the ones who created the posts.

Works Cited:

McCulloch, Gretchen. "Chapter 2: Language and Society." Because Internet: Understanding 

    how language is changing. Harvill Secker, 2019, pp. 17-62.

H. Min, Jusitn. (@justinhmin). "it's 9am,." 14 May 2021, 9:29 am. Tweet.

Konglish

I wanted to try and bring something new but related to the table for my blog post, so I thought I'd latch on to something McCulloch said about English as "linguistically cool" in other languages, and talk about Konglish and the spread of English into South Korea. 

First off, let's define Konglish. Konglish is a slang term referring to English loan words that have been reformatted into a Korean word. Sometimes they mean the same thing they would mean in English, sometimes not. Here's some examples! 

Some, maybe even most, can be somewhat unintuitive to native English speakers. For example, 아이쇼핑, pronounced ai-sho-ping, or "eye shopping," refers to window shopping. 노트북, or "notebook," is referring not to a paper notebook, but to a laptop. One that's becoming more well known is 셀카, or "sel-ka," a mashup of "self" and "camera" that we would call a selfie. 

Konglish is especially interesting because it's "borrowed" English in a sense, but used to create Korean words that are, well, Korean, not just spelled with the Korean alphabet, but words that really only have a certain meaning in Korean. Expats and other multilingual Korean+English speakers often laugh and joke amongst themselves about accidentally saying a Konglish word "in English" and baffling their English-speaking friends and family, such as referring to window a laptop as a notebook or a cell phone as a hand phone in the middle of an English conversation. 

Konglish is a somewhat divisive subject with in Korea, as you might imagine, with people penning articles both praising and criticizing the phenomenon, not unlike how changes to our own language can spark an explosion of opposing opinions. I find the whole thing to be very interesting, and I think it ties in to our ongoing conversation about the ways language is changing, especially since a lot of this has happened because of technology. Koreans are a lot more exposed to the English language thanks to social media (or "SNS" as one would say in Korea!), and loan words are bound to slide in and out. Yes, out as well: the popular term "mukbang," which means, at its broadest, a video in which someone is eating food, is in fact a Korean word, anglicized/romanized for our convenience. I think this also ties in nicely to McCulloch's discussion about other languages on social media, such as Arabic, as well as Harris's ideas about writing—and perhaps to an extent, one could expand that to language?—being a linguistic interplay between multiple conversationalists. 

Hey, there!

Hello, there! I’m Julie and I live in Harpers Ferry with my husband, twin daughters, a sweet chocolate Labrador (the golden child), one badly behaved Australian Shepherd puppy and a flock of chickens. I enjoy reading, writing, cooking and baking in the kitchen with my girls, taking photos of my kids and the world around us, working in my garden and enjoying the many trails in our area when I have time. Here are some snippets of our life together...

Oh, and quiet time. I treasure my quiet time and a decent conclusion to a good day would consist of me, in my canoe, by myself, with a cold drink and a good read. Those moments are few and far between, making them all the more special, of course.

I’m taking this class because, for one, I need it, but also because Dr. H. is teaching it and I just really enjoy her classes. I’m also taking it because I took a class similar to this one a while back and it really left an impression on me that I wasn’t expecting. And, I just really like learning about new things and I guess I’m realizing, as I get older, how much I actually take part in these newer forms of “text” or rewriting that Harris and McCulloch talk about in their books and how it’s not only important to integrate these ideas into my future, but also to understand and appreciate them in the present. 

As for current "internet texts," I'm having a hard time sticking to or finishing much these days between writing and life, but I've recently gotten pretty wrapped up in The Handmaids Tale on Hulu and find myself catching up on an episode or two when I can.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to reading your work and getting to know each one of you!

Introducing Hannah..

 1) Introduce yourself. Tell us a bit about who you are.

Hello! My name is Hannah and I am 22 years old. I am a Political Science-Legal Studies major with a minor in English. I went to Hagerstown Community College for two years prior to Shepherd and received an Associate degree in Paralegal Studies. Although I know a lot about it, am not extremely interested in Politics, rather I am more interested in law. I am good at classes regarding law and eventually want to go on to law school in the future. I am previously from Maryland, but bought a house about two years ago in West Virginia. 

I am engaged to be married and have a wedding planned for this July. I have two daughters, a five year old and a one year old. As corny as it sounds, I truly believe I was born to be a mom. My kids give me my purpose and so much happiness and my goal is to give them the best possible childhood. Before my kids I was very career oriented, but as much as I love my major and the field I am in, now my kids come first in every situation and they are my main priority and nothing makes me more proud! 

I love to be outside and most days when I am not busy we spend all day out. I also love to read for fun and watch movies, but my time to do that is very limited. I don't think I have read for fun in years, but once my schedule clears up again, I want to!

2) Why are you taking this class? What do you hope to learn or gain from it, specifically in terms of your writing? (Even if you are just taking it because you need the credits, you should still push yourself to write about some thoughtful goals.)

I am taking this class to gain writing skills in areas that I lack. I have always struggled with writing because it is difficult for me to correctly and adequately write down all of my thoughts. Ultimately, I will proofread a paper over and over and still not see certain mistakes. Also, I struggle with making my writing sound intelligent and formal, especially when I have so much to say about a topic because it is difficult to organize. Classes that teach writing skills truly do interest me because writing is a skill that I very badly want to be good at and want it to come with ease to me. I am always eager to learn more about writing because it will benefit me in my career field. 

3) Talk about some memorable internet “texts” you have interacted with—even if that just means they’ve made you laugh or think a lot. They don’t have to be your favorites—just talk about whatever comes to your mind. 

This made me laugh because it is my every day life. My oldest grew out of the toddler stage just in time for my youngest to start. All for fun though, although tough sometimes, I do love how strong willed she is.

    

Before COVID, a huge pet peeve of mine was people that stand too close to you in line. I never understood that because standing a couple inches from the person in front of you won't make the line move any faster. I like the dots on the floor that tell people where to stand, a lot need them!

I shared the above post on Facebook the other day because it made me laugh. I always make my kids look very put together, clean and neat in the morning and by the end of the day they look like they haven't bathed in days. I posted a picture under of them getting into the water when we went on a walk. I love how relatable this one is. 

    

This is another post I shared on Facebook at the end of the last semester. The post is extremely relatable because the feeling of being done for the semester mentally and drained, but still having so much work to do. I shared in right before my Capstone presentation and by that point I most certainly was drained and "done."

Getting to Know Ally

Hello, fellow classmates! I am super excited to be getting to know you all throughout this class and look forward to your feedback.

1) Introduce yourself. Tell us a bit about who you are.

My name is Allyson Masterson, but often people just call me by the nickname, Ally. I will probably sign off on these blogs as Ally, but I honestly have no preference which version of my name you use to refer to me. I am an upcoming senior and working towards a Secondary Education degree with a concentration in English 🎒. I am very excited for the next Spring semester so I can start my student teaching and am eagerly awaiting my graduation 🎓. 

My extra-curricular activities consist mostly of being the Vice President of the Delta Psi chapter of the educational honors society, Kappa Delta Pi (KDP). I was also lucky enough to be initiated into the English honors society, Sigma Tau Delta, this past Spring. As you could probably tell, I am very dedicated to my studies and my fields of interest; however, on my off times, I highly enjoy watching movies 🎥, listening to the latest bops on the radio 🎧, and trying to widdle down my 'To Be Read' list 📚. This last hobby is a never-ending battle of reading books as much as I add them to the list 😅, but after this Summer session, I expect to see the list shrink significantly. 

2) Why are you taking this class? What do you hope to learn or gain from it, specifically in terms of your writing? (Even if you are just taking it because you need the credits, you should still push yourself to write about some thoughtful goals.)

I am taking this class as a way of practicing and expanding upon the writing skills I had learned in my English 377 tutoring class last Spring (Hello, Lee 😁!). Even though this class is a requirement for my degree, I thought that this would be a perfect opportunity to actively continue to use the skills I gained from that class over the break between semesters. I heard in my 101 and 102 classes that the best way to get better at writing was to practice, practice, practice. 

My goal for this class is to learn how to actively practice writing, and to accept criticism better. I tend to get too close to my writing sometimes, so when people give me feedback it feels super personal. My goal is to get better at accepting criticism and use those suggestions to build better end products :). 

3) Talk about some memorable internet “texts” you have interacted with—even if that just means they’ve made you laugh or think a lot. They don’t have to be your favorites—just talk about whatever comes to your mind. 

Lately, since I have been trucking through my "To Be Read' list and catching up with shows on Netflix, I have wasted many an hour on Pinterest finding funny memes or pictures that relate to the books I have read and shows I've watched. Here is a couple of my favorites:

These pertain to a show that recently came out on Netflix that is based on the Shadow and Bone and Six of Crows book series, called Shadow and Bone. Since I loved the books so much, I couldn't resist looking at what people came up with about the show.

This one was inspired by my recent dalliance with rewatching the Naruto series. I can't really explain why I chose to rewatch it-- possibly due to nostalgia, maybe to connect with my younger brother, or just because I was vibing with it at the time. In any case, I love the wording of this one ;).

So as some of you may already know, I am a fan of the Kpop group BTS. Recently they have released a new single called "Butter." It has been doing fairly well in the charts and is remarkable because of its lyrics being sung in all English much like their previous hit "Dynamite." I am constantly impressed by how much simply a picture can convey a whole story. For this reason, I will forever be fascinated by memes and posts like this.

Thank you all for reading through to the end of the post. I have never done a blog like this before, so I am excited to navigate the many formatting options and improving on my tech skills.

-Ally

Getting to Know You (Lee Edition)

 1) Introduce yourself. Tell us a bit about who you are. 

I'm Lee DiFante; I think I've had classes with probably all of you at one point or another? I'm an English education major, planning on teaching English in Korea after I graduate and maybe even eventually trying to get into Seoul University, who knows. I'm turning 30 in a few months here and trying very hard not to think about the fact I'm turning 30 in a few months here. 

Last January I adopted two cats. It's my first time owning cats ever, so it's been a lot of confusion and a lot of litter. My cats are named Cole and Emma. Emma's a longhaired calico, Cole's a dusty red himbo. I got them both from the cat cafe nearby, Give Purrs A Chance. 

2) Why are you taking this class? What do you hope to learn or gain from it, specifically in terms of your writing? 

So, funny story, in ENGL 377 last semester (hi Ally lol) I did my big project on the idea that there are dialects of English that are strictly written. I did a lot of networking for that project, and Dr. Scott Warnock was of the opinion that I was sitting on a good subject for research. I was already planning on doing a bunch of research for a paper on the subject this summer when I saw the flier for this class and couldn't believe my luck. I literally already had a copy of Because Internet because I used it as research for that first project! I'm hoping to learn more about my topic of choice (and other related topics!) while taking this class, and ultimately use it to boost me into a hopefully-good paper by the end. 

3) Talk about some memorable internet “texts” you have interacted with—even if that just means they’ve made you laugh or think a lot. They don’t have to be your favorites—just talk about whatever comes to your mind. 

There's an essay on The New Inquiry called "Hot Allostatic Load." I think about it a lot. One might say "it lives in my head rent free." I suppose hitting this question and immediately thinking of an essay isn't very internet of me, but it was the first thing that came to mind. It's about the kind of social damages that exist unique to the internet, and how ostracization is still ostracization and damages are still damages. I think about it a lot, especially when someone argues that something is "just online" at therefore shouldn't bother someone else--normally, after all, someone is saying this to a victim of cyberbullying or death threats or some other form of online mobbing. 

I suppose I could have picked a lighter topic for this! Uh, on a lighter note, I've had a bunch of tumblr posts--one in particular--of mine go viral, like PROPER viral, and I still see them constantly online and get people DMing me like "omg your post showed up in my hockey facebook group." That one is an internet text that has definitely been, unfortunately, deeply memorable. 

No, I won't show it to you. Even if I edited out the username, the risk that one of you will find my Tumblr is far too high. I can't live with that fear. 

Getting to know you...

For your first blog post, write an entry in which you do/answer the following:

1) Introduce yourself. Tell us a bit about who you are.

2) Why are you taking this class? What do you hope to learn or gain from it, specifically in terms of your writing? (Even if you are just taking it because you need the credits, you should still push yourself to write about some thoughtful goals.)

3) Talk about some memorable internet “texts” you have interacted with—even if that just means they’ve made you laugh or think a lot. They don’t have to be your favorites—just talk about whatever comes to your mind. 

I encourage you to use an image or two, embed some links, and just do what you can to make your post interesting and engaging. You don’t need to write too much, but do make sure (like all writing for this class) you are thoughtful and careful, thinking about organization, clarity, focus, and proofreading. 

*****************************

I'll go first...

1) Introduce yourself. Tell us a bit about who you are.

I grew up on Long Island, went to college in Salem, VA, and graduate school in Greensboro, NC. I moved to WV and started teaching at Shepherd in 2007. I live in Shepherdstown with my three cats (they are a lot, but cute and fun). I like literature, TV, games, baseball, and teaching. 

Teaching my ENGL 204 class on the last day of the Spring 2021 semester. Teaching in-person this year was certainly an...experience. But I absolutely preferred it to teaching online!

My pack o' cats, each letting me know that it was treat time and reminding me where the treats live (in the drawer of that table). 

2) Why are you taking this class? What do you hope to learn or gain from it, specifically in terms of your writing?

Well, I'm not taking this class, but as its teacher, I have lots of goals. I have taught versions of this class before, but not around this theme, so I have a goal of making this theme successful. Teaching is a kind of writing, so I am hoping that my own writing skills continue to grow in this new environment. I am also hoping to read some great writing (from you all!) and have terrific conversations about some of my favorite topics: writing, rhetoric, and language.

3) Talk about some memorable internet “texts” you have interacted with—even if that just means they’ve made you laugh or think a lot. They don’t have to be your favorites—just talk about whatever comes to your mind.

I have a feeling this answer indicates my age a bit, but I am going to talk about animated gifs, which my friends and I often use in texts. I find the good ones almost poetic and it fascinates me how much they can convey.

Some examples: 

When something baffles me or involves math...

When I am feeling really nosy or celebrating/encouraging someone else’s nosy sleuthing...

When my good friend and I echo each other in overlapping texts...

(This is also one of those for which I sometimes just type “spider twins!” and she knows what I mean. I am fascinated by that dynamic—an image takes the place of words and then the words come back in to signify the image!) 

Okay: your turn!